'India, that is Bharat': How Bharat is making its presence felt
When a G20 dinner invite referred to the President as «President of Bharat» last year, it triggered a controversy with many speculating that the government was going to change the name of the country from India to Bharat. However, many legal and constitutional experts said that both the names could be used and there was no illegality in the use of 'Bharat' in place of 'India' in official communication, since both the names refer to the same country.
But economically, India and Bharat could be somewhat different entities as has been seen in the past few years.
How India got the name Bharat
The name ‘Bharat’ wasn’t there in the first draft of India’s Constitution introduced by the chairman of the drafting committee, Dr. BR Ambedkar, on November 4, 1948. Although some members flagged the omission of a native name, the debate on this took place almost a year later when the work on finalising the text was coming to an end. On September 18, 1949, Ambedkar moved the following amendment to draft Article 1, which mentions the country’s name: “India, that is, Bharat shall be a Union of States.”
But Assembly member HV Kamath said this was a clumsy construction and a constitutional slip. He suggested two alternatives: “Bharat, or, in the English language, India, shall be a Union of States” or “Hind, or, in the English language, India, shall be a Union of States”. Kamath cited the example of Ireland: “The name of the State is Eire, or, in the English language, Ireland.”
Then followed an intense debate in which members Seth Govind Das, Kamalapathi Tripathi, Kallur Subba Rao, Ram Sahai and Har Govind Pant passionately argued for Bharat. Das said India was not an ancient word and was not found in the Vedas. It was only used after
