New Delhi: Days after Rashtrapati Bhavan sent out an invitation to G20 dignitaries for a banquet to be hosted by President Droupadi Murmu on 9 September, leaders of the 28-member INDIA alliance of opposition parties and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) remain at odds over the purported use of the “President of Bharat” instead of “President of India” in the invite.
Commenting on the issue, Harnath Singh Yadav, the BJP Rajya Sabha MP from Uttar Pradesh, told ThePrint Tuesday that the makers of the Constitution “committed a mistake by keeping both words (India and Bharat)” in it.
“In India, there is no sentiment or emotion of Bharat or its civilisation. It should be changed, keeping the sentiments of the people in mind. The Prime Minister has already spoken about shedding our colonial legacy. This [dropping India and retaining Bharat in Article 1 of the Constitution] will be a great step. I have made this demand several times,” he said.
Though Article 1 of the Constitution reads: “India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States”, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s repeated calls to rid the country of its “colonial mindset” in his Independence Day speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort, coupled with Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat’s remarks last week urging people to use “Bharat” instead of “India”, have set off speculation about the possibility of the government introducing legislation to amend Article 1 of the Constitution.
Sources in the BJP hinted that the move, if implemented, could be aimed at “protecting the BJP’s gains and restricting the resonance of the INDIA alliance to southern India where the BJP does not seem to be gaining much traction”.
Reacting to the use of “President of Bharat” on the invite to G20 dignitaries, Congress general secretary in charge of communication Jairam Ramesh accused the BJP-led government of “distorting history and dividing India”. He termed the move as an “assault” on the definition of India as a “Union of States” and went on to add that the “objective” of the INDIA alliance is “BHARAT — Bring Harmony, Amity, Reconciliation And Trust”.
Mr. 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! https://t.co/L0gsXUEEEK
— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) September 5, 2023
Meanwhile, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma too waded into the discussion by writing in a post on X [previously Twitter] that “REPUBLIC OF BHARAT — happy and proud that our civilisation is marching ahead boldly towards AMRIT KAAL.” In a separate post, he wrote, “It appears that the name ‘I.N.D.I alliance’ was intentionally chosen with the aim of defeating BHARAT.”
"Now my apprehension has proven to be true. The Congress party seems to have a strong aversion towards Bharat. It appears that the name 'I.N.D.I alliance' was intentionally chosen with the aim of defeating BHARAT." https://t.co/fTFPz1oZk4
— Himanta Biswa Sarma (@himantabiswa) September 5, 2023
On the other hand, West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo, Mamata Banerjee, while addressing a government event in Kolkata Tuesday, said, “I heard that India’s name is being changed.”
“We call the country Bharat, what is new in this? In English, we say India…The world knows us as India,” she said, asking what prompted the need for the government to “suddenly change the name of the country”.
Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal too weighed in on the subject while addressing a press conference Tuesday, questioning whether the BJP will change the name of “Bharat” to “India” if the “INDIA alliance”, of which his AAP is a part, changes its name to “BHARAT”.
INDIA गठबंधन से ये लोग इतना बौखलाए हुए हैं कि देश का नाम तक बदल देंगे? अगर कल हमने अपने गठबंधन का नाम “भारत” रख लिया तो क्या “भारत” नाम भी बदल देंगे? pic.twitter.com/LS8ECPlNmF
— Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) September 5, 2023
RJD Rajya Sabha MP Manoj Jha, meanwhile, took to X to term the move as nothing other than an ‘act of desperation’ by the ruling BJP.
Acts of desperation….nothing else. God Bless them
Judega Bharat
Jeetega India https://t.co/vRLGWpRfZU— Manoj Kumar Jha (@manojkjhadu) September 5, 2023
Reacting to criticism of the government over the invite, BJP national president J.P. Nadda wrote on X, “It is apparent that the Congress party has no respect for the country, nor for its Constitution or its constitutional institutions.” He also asked why the organisers of the “Bharat Jodo Yatra” harbour hatred for the slogan “Bharat Mata Ki Jai”.
कांग्रेस को देश के सम्मान एवं गौरव से जुड़े हर विषय से इतनी आपत्ति क्यों है?
भारत जोड़ो के नाम पर राजनीतिक यात्रा करने वालों को “भारत माता की जय” के उद्घोष से नफरत क्यों है?
स्पष्ट है कि कांग्रेस के मन में न देश के प्रति सम्मान है, न देश के संविधान के प्रति और न ही संवैधानिक…
— Jagat Prakash Nadda (@JPNadda) September 5, 2023
Union minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar too dismissed criticism of the government, declaring, “Our country is Bharat. There should be no doubt about that. The Congress has a problem with everything.”
The issue over the use of ‘Bharat’ follows the BJP government’s announcement of a special session of Parliament this month, and the setting up of a committee to explore the idea of ‘One Nation, One Election’, with party leaders telling ThePrint that the BJP will use the September session to set its narrative for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
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‘Civilisational project’
While the discussion over whether it is more appropriate to refer to the country as India or Bharat is not new, the issue was given a fillip by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who during a meeting of the BJP parliamentary party last month asked party leaders to refer to the newly-minted alliance of Opposition parties as “Ghamandia” (arrogant) instead of “INDIA”.
To add to that, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, speaking at an event organised by the Sakal Jain Samaj in Guwahati last week, urged people to refer to the country as “Bharat” instead of “India”. The name of our country has been Bharat “since ages”, he said, adding that we will have to “stop using the word ‘India’ and start using Bharat in all practical fields”.
During the monsoon session of Parliament, which concluded last month, BJP Rajya Sabha MP from Uttarakhand, Naresh Bansal, had said that it was the British who changed the country’s name from Bharat to India.
“Bharat is the name found in ancient texts. The name India was given by the British and is a symbol of slavery. The name India should be removed from the Constitution. I propose that during Amrit Kaal, we change Article 1 of the Constitution to say only Bharat and remove India,” he had said.
While the government has been tight-lipped about the agenda of the special session of Parliament scheduled to be held later this month, sources in the BJP said the government will use it to set a “narrative” for the upcoming elections in five states and the Lok Sabha polls next year, coming as it does on the heels of the success of the Chandrayaan-3 Moon mission and the G20 Summit under India’s presidency.
The announcement of the special session of Parliament was followed by the government’s decision to set up a committee headed by former president Ram Nath Kovind to explore the proposal for ‘One Nation One Election’, or the idea of simultaneous assembly and Lok Sabha polls. Asked if this could be on the government’s legislative agenda for the special session of Parliament, Union minister Anurag Thakur told reporters last week that the parliamentary elections will be held next year according to schedule.
Commenting on the government’s moves, a senior central BJP leader told ThePrint, “The Prime Minister’s civilisational project is not limited to only making temples, whether it is the renovation of the Kashi Vishwanath Temple, the construction of the Ram Mandir or the Mahakal Lok corridor; branding this century as Amrit Kaal or renaming Rajpath; these are many aspects of fixing a civilisational target for 2047. Whether it is done in the special session or not, it figures in the government’s priorities.”
Another BJP leader, a general secretary of the party, added that retaining its turf will be the party’s main focus in the Lok Sabha elections next year. “We achieved a massive victory by maximising polarisation in northern, western, central and eastern India. We are not gaining much traction in southern India, whether it is Karnataka or Telangana, and so, to protect our gains, the focus will be to restrict the INDIA alliance (to southern India) and retain the turf where we are strong — that is the larger strategy,” the leader added.
He, however, added the caveat that the word “Bharat” is already part of the Constitution, and that the central government will explore further before making any moves in this regard since “the use of India finds resonance with most of southern India and the Northeast, and could also have global repercussions”.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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