The Central government has become mired in a dispute over the supposed “renaming” of India to Bharat just as India is preparing to welcome the G20 leaders. When a G20 dinner invitation was sent out under the name of the “President of Bharat” rather than the customary “President of India,” a rumour that India was being renamed began to circulate.
The exercise that followed saw the NDA faction applaud the use of “Bharat,” claiming that the word “India” was coined by the British, while the INDIA bloc complained about a “assault” on the Union of States.
Even though the Central government hasn’t verified it, if the renaming is happening, it didn’t appear like an overnight decision to get rid of what the Centre views as colonial-era names based on the ‘President of Bharat’ invite and ‘Prime Minister of Bharat’ bulletin.
When the Opposition faction banded together and chose the name Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (I.N.D.I.A. ), the fight on the word “India” began. Prime Minister Narendra Modi linked it for the first time to the East India Company, the Indian Mujahideen, and the Popular Front of India (PFI), claiming that they all contain the word “India” in their names.
“Indian Mujahideen, PFI, and the East India Company all use the word ‘India’ in their names. Attacking the Opposition bloc, PM Modi said, “Chehre par Chehre laga lete hai log.”
Former Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad voiced the same sentiment. “PM Modi said that a foreign national formed the Indian National Congress and the East India Company. People now call themselves the Indian Mujahideen and the Indian People’s Front, he claimed.
In his Independence Day speech, Prime Minister Modi stressed the need to reject the colonial mentality and the necessity to free oneself from a mindset of subjugation.
“There should not be any trace of slavery anywhere in our lives, not even in the most secret recesses of our thoughts or routines. It needs to be nipped right there… The hundreds of years of slavery held us chained, made us control our emotions, and caused us to develop skewed thinking. The mindset of slavery, which is evident in numerous things both inside and outside of us, must be liberated, according to PM Modi.
The most recent criticism came from Union Minister Rajnath Singh, who claimed that the word itself was “khatarnaak (dangerous)” and that utilising it would surely lead to failure. He also recalled the BJP’s campaign motto, “India Shining.”
