By Shuriah Niazi
NEW DELHI (AA) – In India, an official invitation for the delegates of the upcoming Group of 20, or G-20, summit has sparked furor over an unexpected issue: the country’s name.
An invite sent to attendees referred to President Droupadi Murmu as “President of Bharat” instead of India, fueling speculation that the government plans to rename the country.
Later, a spokesperson for the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) shared an invitation for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Indonesia that refers to him as the “Prime Minister of Bharat.”
Currently, the Indian Constitution has both India and the Sanskrit word Bharat, making them the official names of the world’s most populous country.
However, locally and around the world, India is the more commonly used one.
Observers link the potential change in nomenclature to electoral concerns for Modi and the BJP, as well as their “continuous disregard” for the law.
The move has strong backing from officials of the BJP, who contend that the word India was introduced during the British colonial era and see it as a “symbol of slavery.”
The BJP has already renamed different cities and places that were linked to the Mughal and colonial periods.
Last year, the iconic Mughal Garden at the Rashtrapati Bhavan, or presidential palace, was renamed as Amrit Udyan.
All of this, critics say, is an attempt to erase the Mughals, who were Muslims and ruled the area for almost 300 years, from Indian history.
- Modi ‘feeling the heat’
Political and electoral concerns are a key factor in the India-Bharat issue, according to Rasheed Kidwai, a visiting fellow at the Delhi-based think tank Observer Research Foundation.
In July, more than two dozen opposition parties formed the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance, or INDIA, to challenge the BJP in next year’s parliamentary elections.
Since then, the ruling party’s officials have ramped up their rhetoric over the country’s name.
Kidwai believes that proves Modi is “feeling the heat” from the opposition.
“It demonstrates the BJP’s trepidation,” he told Anadolu.
“The party has been claiming that Modi is indispensable, but for the first time, he is feeling that the threat from the opposition bloc is real, which is why his party has planned to change the country’s name to Bharat.”
The Indian government has called a special parliamentary session from Sept. 18 to 22, but has not announced any agenda, leading to speculation that it will be used to rename the country.
Some government officials, including Information Minister Arunag Thakur, have dismissed the idea as “rumors” spread by the opposition.
For Roop Rekha Verma, a professor of philosophy and former vice-chancellor of Lucknow University, the controversy is rooted in the intolerance shown by the Modi government in various aspects.
This is a “government for which neither the Constitution, nor the law, nor peace among people matter,” she told Anadolu.
“We have seen that there is continuous disregard for the Constitution and laws. If the Supreme Court gives an order and the government does not like it, then it is changed,” said Verma.
“I can’t say what will happen next, but I think that because of the alliance that the opposition has formed, they have now set out to remove the name India as well.”
- ‘Recognized around the world’
Apart from BJP officials, the possible change of India’s name has also found support among people from various walks of life.
Virender Sehwag, a retired cricketer, hailed the idea on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
“India is a name given by the British (and) it has been long overdue to get our original name ‘Bharat’ back,” he wrote.
In Jabalpur, a city in the central state of Madhya Pradesh, High Court lawyer Siddharth Gupta told Anadolu that the ruling BJP “wants to tell people the original name of the country.”
Also on X, Shashi Tharoor, a lawmaker of the opposition Congress, said “there is no constitutional objection to calling India “Bharat”, which is one of the country’s two official names.”
“I hope the government will not be so foolish as to completely dispense with “India”, which has incalculable brand value built up over centuries,” he wrote.
“We should continue to use both words rather than relinquish our claim to a name redolent of history, a name that is recognized around the world.”