India and Bharat: A tale of national co-existence
An invitation from the President’s office to G20 leaders for a dinner that describes Droupadi Murmu as the “President of Bharat"—rather than of “India"—has sparked off a war of words between the ruling party and the opposition, with the latter spying in it a trial balloon to rename the country. To be sure, “Bharat" has been used in other official missives as well, even from the Prime Minister.
But today’s air of politics as general elections loom means political plots are seen to thicken easily. So intrigue over the agenda of a special session of Parliament called by the government, first thought to be about a single cycle for central and state polls, made space for speculation over a proposal to replace ‘India’ with ‘Bharat’ (at the UN, for example).
While no such move is in evidence so far, the rhetoric of politicians has echoed the nominal split of the expected electoral face-off: the Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA versus the so-called INDIA alliance looking to oust it from power. It is almost as if spin doctors on both sides want the arena to resound with chants of either ‘Bharat’ or ‘India.’ Zoom out for a less reductive view, however, and the fuss being raised would look like a maelstrom in a teacup.
The use of Bharat is in consonance with the Constitution, whose Article 1 refers to our country as “India, that is Bharat," even as its Hindi version uses ‘Bharat’ as an equivalent throughout. Both names have been valid ever since ‘We the People’ adopted them.
Even in regular use, the linguistic context has long cued the choice. Typically, Hindi and many other languages have used the name that the Centre seems to favour, while English and others—including local tongues—have gone with the one that’s more familiar to the
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