‘President of Bharat’ on G20 invite triggers row; govt. sources dismiss talk of name change in upcoming Parl. session as ‘rubbish’

Taking a jibe at Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) amid the ongoing ‘India vs Bharat’ row, Congress MP Pramod Tiwari on Tuesday said they are scared of the word ‘India’.

“PM Modi had given names like ‘Make in India’, ‘Skill India’, ‘Khelo India’...They (BJP) are scared of the word ‘India’, Article 1 of the Constitution says ‘India, that is Bharat’...How can this name (India) be removed,” Pramod Tiwari said.

- ANI

Former Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan on Tuesday said the country’s original name was “unquestionably” Bharat and changing it to “India” was the legacy of the British.

“I do not understand why there should be a dispute over the names- Bharat and India. The original name of our country was Bharat. The country is also called Hindustan,” Mahajan told PTI.

She said the Sindhu Valley civilisation was called the Indus Valley civilization by the British.

“As a result, the British started addressing Bharat as India as per their understanding. Due to the British rule over Bharat, the term remained in vogue,” the former Lok Sabha member said.

Mahajan said no person should have any objection to India being called Bharat. “We, as citizens of Bharat, call ourselves Bharatiya,” she added. - PTI

RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat said, “Our country has been known as ‘Bharat’ for ages. Whatever may be the language, the name remains the same. We don’t have to think about whether anyone outside will understand this or not. If they want to, they will, but that is not our problem.”

This was not the first time the RSS had pitched for renaming the country as ‘Bharat’. Former heads of the organisation too have called for India to be renamed as ‘Bharat’ and have said that people of the country should go back to their roots.

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‘India, that is Bharat’ written in Article 1 of the Constitution is only descriptive and the two cannot be used interchangeably, constitutional expert P D T Achary said on Tuesday and underlined that any change in name from Republic of India will require several amendments.

Asked about what it would take to bring about changes in the current position on the name of the country, former Lok Sabha secretary general Achary said, “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.” “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 told PTI.

In the UN, India’s name is Republic of India, and tomorrow if it has to be written as Republic of Bharat then the Constitution has to be amended and communication has to be sent to all the relevant countries, saying that “our name has been changed”, he said.

“That change has to be brought about by an amendment in the Constitution, otherwise India’s name is India only. India that is Bharat written in Article 1 is only descriptive, it is not that these two are interchangeable. It will be suicidal to use them interchangeably. There is only one name for one country,” Mr. Achary said. - PTI

While one CJI upheld the right of the individual to choose between the two names, his successor, four years down the line, suggested nudging the government about it.

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Reacting to the G20 summit dinner invitation being sent in the name of ‘President of Bharat’, DMK MP Kanimozhi on Tuesday asked whether the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is setting the agenda for the entire nation.

“Reading this [G20 summit dinner invitation] brings up a lot of questions. Is RSS setting the agenda for the entire nation?” Kanimozhi asked while talking to ANI.

Saying that using ‘President of Bharat’ instead of ‘President of India’ is unprecedented, she questioned the politics behind the move. “We’ve never seen invitations going out in the name of ‘President of Bharat’, it is always been ‘President of India’ or Prime Minister of India’. Why have they done this now? What is the intention behind it? What is the politics behind it?” the DMK MP questioned.

“It [Bharat] has been in the Constitution all these years but nobody used it. Recently, the RSS chief said that the name of India has to be changed,” Kanimozhi added. - ANI

Reacting over the ‘India vs Bharat’ row, Congress leader Mani Shankar Iyer on Tuesday said that the Bharatiya Janata Party is scared of the Opposition alliance INDIA so the BJP is deliberately changing the name of India to Bharat.

“They are scared of the INDIA alliance. Our Constitution says ‘India, that is Bharat’, “ Mani Shankar Iyer reacted in Bhopal to reporters’ question on Harnath Singh Yadav’s comment.

Earlier, BJP Rajya Sabha MP Harnath Singh Yadav demanded that the word ‘INDIA’ should be removed from the Constitution and only Bharat should be used as the country’s name. - ANI

Government sources told The Hindu that all talk of a formal action in the upcoming session of Parliament to change the name of India was “rubbish”. “It is clearly stated in the Constitution that ‘India, that is Bharat, is a Union of states’ so where is there any need for any change?” said a senior Union minister. “The INDIA bloc of parties have tried to reduce the identity of the country to their alliance, which is not good, and therefore the use of the name ‘Bharat’ both as a decolonising nomenclature and to bring the name of the country out of this reductive exercise was required,” added the Minister.

- Nistula Hebbar

The Congress attacked the BJP government over a G20 dinner invite referring to President Droupadi Murmu as “President of Bharat”, accusing the government of being “scared” of the INDIA bloc and diverting from issues such as price rise and “rising joblessness”.

Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh alleged, “Mr. (Narendra) Modi can continue to distort history and divide India, that is Bharat, that is a Union of States. But we will not be deterred.”

“After all, what is the objective of INDIA parties? It is BHARAT Bring Harmony, Amity, Reconciliation And Trust. Judega BHARAT Jeetega INDIA!” said Mr. Ramesh.

“Also remember that it was the BJP that came up with Digital India, Start Up India, New India, and so on to which the Congress’ response was the Bharat Jodo Yatra, the first anniversary of whose launch is day after tomorrow,” he added.

How many countries have two names, one constitutionally documented and another probably an English translation for people who cannot pronounce it?

People speaking English or any other European language often have a problem pronouncing eastern names. So in the past they would change names according to their convenience, and we blindly accept those.

Look at us: we operate with two names, the original name Bharat, and the given name, India. The invaders of Bharat who came up to the river Sindhu somehow managed to pronounce Sindhu as Hindu, and then Indus. And finally India is stuck on us for centuries now.

In 2014, a PIL was filed in the Supreme Court seeking to rename India as Bharat, but the apex court had refused to entertain and said that a representation be made before the authority concerned.

A bench comprising then Chief Justice H. L. Dattu and Justice A. K. Sikri asked petitioner Niranjan Bhatwal to first approach the authorities concerned with an appropriate representation.

As the G20 dinner invitation from President Droupadi Murmu describing her position as ‘President of Bharat’ triggered massive debate, the Ministry of External Affairs on September declined to comment on use of the term “Bharat”, saying President’s office will respond.

- Suhasini Haidar

Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan on September 5 shared on X a G20 dinner invitation from President Droupadi Murmu which described her position as ‘President of Bharat’.

The construction of her title lent credence to speculation that the government is planning to drop India and stay with just Bharat as the country’s name.

Sharing a picture of his invite, Mr. Pradhan used the hashtag ‘#PresidentOfBharat’ and said, “Jana Gana Mana Adhinayak Jaya He, Bharat Bhagya Vidhata”. Besides the first line of the national anthem, the post in Hindi also used the words “Jai Ho”.

DMK President and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. K. Stalin alleged the “BJP wants to change India for Bharat”, and said the saffron party was rattled by the term ‘INDIA’, the name of the Opposition bloc.

“After non-BJP forces united to dethrone the fascist BJP regime and aptly named their alliance #INDIA, now the BJP wants to change ‘India’ for ‘Bharat.’ BJP promised to TRANSFORM India, but all we got is a name change after 9 years!,” he said in a post on micro-blogging site X.

Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) president Sharad Pawar said no one has the right to change the country’s name, after the Congress claimed that a G20 dinner invite refers to the President as “President of Bharat”.

Mr. Pawar said there will be deliberation on the issue in a meeting convened on Wednesday by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge with chiefs of the parties which are part of the INDIA alliance, an Opposition bloc of 28 parties aiming to take on the BJP-led Centre in next year’s general elections.

“I don’t understand why the ruling party is perturbed over a name related to the country,” the NCP chief told reporters at a press conference in Maharashtra’s Jalgaon district. - PTI

PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti on September 5 said the BJP was using its majority in Parliament to treat the entire country as its “fiefdom”.

“BJPs aversion to India’s foundational principle of unity in diversity has touched a new low. By reducing India’s many names from Hindustan and India to now only Bharat shows its pettiness and intolerance,” she posted on X.

Her remarks come after the Congress alleged that the “Union of States” is under assault by the Narendra Modi government as it claimed that a G20 dinner invite refers to the President as “President of Bharat”.

Asserting that India is Bharat, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday questioned what suddenly happened that the country should be called only Bharat.

Referring to the controversy over a G20 dinner invite in the name of ‘President of Bharat’, she said the world knows the country as India.

“I heard that India’s name is being changed. The G20 invite that went out in the name of the honourable president has Bharat written on it. We call the country Bharat, what is new in this? In English, we say India... There’s nothing new to be done. The world knows us as India. What happened suddenly that the name of the country needs to be changed?” she asked, addressing a government function in Kolkata. - PTI

With a G20 dinner invite in the name of ‘President of Bharat’ going viral, former India cricketer Virender Sehwag urged the BCCI “to ensure that this World Cup our players have Bharat on our chest”.

Attacking the BJP-led Central government over G20 summit dinner invitations, senior Congress leader K.C. Venugopal alleged that the saffron party was creating a rift between Indians and Bharatiyas. “This is petty politics because they are scared of INDIA. Try what you will, Modi ji. Judega Bharat, Jeetega INDIA!,” he said.

Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor said that while there is no constitutional objection to calling India ‘Bharat’, he hopes the government will not be so foolish to completely dispense with ‘India’ which has incalculable brand value.

“We didn’t realise BJP was so weak. It has only been a few weeks that our alliance INDIA came into existence and they have already stopped sending invitations in the name of ‘India’. With such antics they will lose both India and Bharat,” said RJD MP Manoj K. Jha.

The BJP’s recent move to change the reference from ‘President of India’ to ‘President of Bharat’ on official G20 summit invitations has raised eyebrows and ignited a public debate, said AAP MP Raghav Chadha.

“How can the BJP strike down ‘INDIA’? The country doesn’t belong to a political party; it belongs to 135 crore Indians. Our national identity is not the BJP’s personal property that it can modify on whims and fancies,” he further added.

Amid controversy over using “President of Bharat” instead of the traditional “President of India”, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that he is happy and proud that the country’s civilisation is marching ahead boldly towards Amrit Kaal.

Taking to the social media platform, X, Assam Chief Minister said, “Republic of Bharat- happy and proud that our civilisation is marching ahead boldly towards Amrit Kaal.”

The Congress on September alleged that the “Union of States” is under assault in the Modi government as it claimed that a G20 dinner invite refers to the President as “President of Bharat”.

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