NEW DELHI: The Centre appears to be preparing the ground to drop the colonial name of the country, ‘India’, and going with Bharat instead. A resolution to this effect could possibly be discussed in the special session of Parliament that is scheduled to be held from September 18 to 22.
The resolution is expected to seek the sense of the House on the proposal. Article 1(1) of the Constitution states that “India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States.” The Centre does not want to flip it to say ‘Bharat, that is India’, but to drop the colonial name across the Constitution, a well informed functionary of the BJP said.
The buzz began after copies of dinner invites from Rashtrapati Bhavan sent to G20 delegates, describing the host as ‘The President of Bharat’, appeared on social media. Hours later, official function notes of the PM’s upcoming visit to Indonesia described him as Prime Minister of Bharat Narendra Modi. In other words, the government already seems to have removed the word ‘India’ from its lexicon. What it now seeks to do is to formalise the decision in Parliament.
What would happen to its flagship schemes that have the India nomenclature, like Digital India, Stand up India, Make in India, etc is anybody’s guess. It triggered a political firestorm with several opposition leaders sharing Article 1 on social media. Congress leaders accused the government of being scared of the INDIA bloc and indulging in distraction from issues such as inflation and “rising unemployment”. Just a couple of days ago, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat had strongly pitched for the use of Bharat instead of India at an event in Guwahati. But that has been the standard RSS line since ages.
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The matter is also expected to be discussed at the upcoming three-day RSS annual meet in Pune from September 14. Sources said the government started working on the proposal to drop the colonial name of the country at least two years ago. It took more than 18 months of wide consultations with legal and constitutional experts before the government made up its mind.
An internal survey was also commissioned to figure out how people in general will react to the change in the country’ name. The survey found that Bharat will have wider acceptance, sources said. “Which is the main venue of the G20 summit? It is Bharat Mandapam. We built our new Parliament first, then Bharat Mandpam, then the dinner invite to the G20 delegates on behalf of the President of Bharat. It’s part of a well thought out strategy,” said a minister.
