Prez's G20 invite triggers 'India' vs 'Bharat' debate on country's name

Invites for Saturday’s official G20 dinner at Bharat Mandapam from President Droupadi Murmu, which described her as “President of Bharat” instead of the customary “President of India”, have come days after Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat urged people to discard the name “India” in favour of “Bharat”.

 Official sources said “Bharat” has been used in some of the documents for G20 delegates. “Bharat is the official name of the country. It is mentioned in the Constitution as also in the discussions of 1946-48,” states a booklet titled Bharat, The Mother of Democracy. “In Bharat, that is India, taking the consent of the people in governance has been part of life since earliest recorded history,” it further says.

 After Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan posted the invite with a sentence from the national anthem, actor Amitabh Bachchan wrote “Bharat Mata ki Jai” on X; former India cricketer Virendra Sehwag demanded that the BCCI change the name on the team jerseys of Indian players to “Bharat” for the upcoming cricket World Cup.  

On August 11, the last day of the Monsoon session of Parliament, Home Minister Amit Shah introduced three Bills, including the Bharat Nyaya Sanhita Bill, to amend the colonial-era Indian Penal Code.

Congress General Secretary Jairam Ramesh, on the other hand on X, posted: “Now, Article 1 in the Constitution can read: Bharat, that was India, shall be a Union of States. But now even this Union of States is under assault.” He reminded that the Narendra Modi government had come up with Digital India, Startup India, and so on, to which the Congress' response was the Bharat Jodo Yatra, the first anniversary of the launch which is later this week.

Ramesh further said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came up with the “India Shining” campaign ahead of the 2004 Lok Sabha polls. Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Monday had said that his party, the BJP, lost the 2004 polls because of using “India Shining” as its tagline, and the same fate awaited the Opposition’s 26-party bloc INDIA (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance) in the 2024 polls. 

Chief Ministers M K Stalin (Tamil Nadu), Mamata Banerjee (West Bengal), and Arvind Kejriwal (Delhi) questioned the Union government’s move. In a post on X, on the other hand, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said: “REPUBLIC OF BHARAT — happy and proud that our civilisation is marching ahead boldly towards AMRIT KAAL.”

Former Lok Sabha Secretary General P D T Achary said “India, that is Bharat, written in Article 1 of the Constitution” is only descriptive, and the two cannot be used interchangeably. He told PTI that any change in name from the Republic of India will require several amendments. 

“They will have to amend the Constitution. Article 1 (will have to be changed), and then there will be resultant changes in all the other articles,” he said, adding that “wherever India is used will have to go. You can have only one name for the country. There cannot be two names interchangeable… that will create a lot of confusion not only in India but outside also,” he said. Achary asserted there was only one name for the country, India.

 Congress Lok Sabha member Shashi Tharoor said there couldn’t be any constitutional objection to calling India “Bharat”, but hoped the government would not be so foolish as to completely dispense with “India”, which has incalculable brand value built up over centuries. 

Social media users drew attention to the fact that the Constituent Assembly adopted Article 1 of the Constitution on September 18, 1949, and that the upcoming five-day special session of Parliament also starts on September 18. However, there is no clarity on the agenda of the session.

 The Supreme Court, while dismissing a public interest litigation in 2016, said that citizens were free to call the country India or Bharat as per their wishes. “Bharat or India? If you want to call it Bharat, go right ahead. Someone wants to call it India, let him call it India,” a Bench of Chief Justice T S Thakur and Justice U U Lalit, both now retired, had observed while trashing the PIL filed by Niranjan Bhatwal from Maharashtra. The Supreme Court had also taken strong exception to the petitioner and asked him whether he thinks it has nothing else to do, and reminded him that public interest litigations are meant for the underprivileged.

(with PTI inputs)