Introduction:
“India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States.” – Article 1(1) of The Constitution of India is in great controversy after seven decades of its coming into existence. Various Articles of The Constitution of India have been challenged from time to time, some of which have been amended also. In the present situation, the controversy is fundamental as it is regarding the foundation i.e., the nomenclature of the country. In the recent times, a petitioner urged The Honourable Supreme Court of India to strike off the name “India” from the Constitution saying that the name “India” is a “symbol of slavery” while seeking to recognise “Bharat” or “Hindustan” as the only name for the country. The Apex Court refused to entertain it saying that the Court cannot do this and the Centre should treat it as a representation. It is contended that the changing of the name may appear symbolic but it is necessary to instil a sense of pride in our own nationality as the name “India” is nothing but a colonial hangover.
A Happy Compromise?
“The question of the name of the country was discussed in the Constituent Assembly at some length. While ‘Bharat’ was the ancient name and represented the first expression of the consciousness of the unity and identity of the country, India was the modern name by which the country had since become known all over the World. As a member of the United Nations also the name was India and all international agreements were entered in that name. Both the names, therefore, had strong votaries. Finally, the name of ‘India, that is Bharat’ was adopted as a happy compromise.”[1]
The issue of the naming of this nation was discussed at length in the Constituent Assembly and many members objected to the name ‘India’. H.V. Kamath, a Constituent Assembly member from the Central Province and Berar, proposed to put Bharat or alternatively Hind as the primary name for the country and pronouncing India only as of the name in the English language. He put forward names such as “Hindustan, Hind and Bharatbhumi or Bharatvarsh” to have been suggested by people. Seth Govind Das proposed the phrase ‘Bharat known as India also in foreign countries’ to be used. He referred to the Vedas, the Mahabharata, couple of Puranas and the writings of Chinese traveller Hiuen-Tsang to say that Bharat was the original name of the country.[1] M.A. Ayyangar of Madras province suggested the names Bharat, Bharat Varsha and Hindustan as substitutes for India in Article 1. Among others who supported Bharat as the name for India included K.V. Rao from Andhra Pradesh who said, “we can now call ‘Pakistan as Hindustan because the Indus river is there and it is good and proper that we should refer to India as Bharat.” BM Gupta, Sriram Sahai, Kamalapati Tripathi and Har Govind Pant were among other constituent assembly members who supported India be named only as Bharat. In the end, when Rajendra Prasad put the amendments to vote, all fell. Article 1 remained intact as “India, that is Bharat”. However, the debate regarding the nomenclature of this peninsular country is still continuing.
A Polyonymous Country
“The politics of naming is shaped by broad socio-political conditions and can be studied from several angles.” writes social scientist Catherine Clémentin-Ojha, in her article, ‘‘India, that is Bharat’: One Country, Two Names’.[3] William Shakespeare wrote, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”, but many people would not agree with it as a name is the most prominent identity of a person, a family, a caste, a religion or a country. Every name has a history. Several nomenclatures have been applied at different times and from multiple socio-political points of view, to describe the geographical entity now known as India starting from Meluha to Hindustan. One of the oldest names used in association with the Indian subcontinent was Meluha that was mentioned in the texts of ancient Mesopotamia in the third millennium BCE; to refer to the Indus Valley Civilisation but this name lost its acceptance as it was way before modern political systems emerged in the region.
‘Bharat’, ‘Bharata’, or ‘Bharatvarsha’ are the earliest recorded names of the country. According to the Puranas, this country is known as Bharatavarsha after Bharata, the son of Rishabha. This has been mentioned in Vishnu Purana (2,1,31), Vayu Purana (33,52), Linga Purana (1,47,23), Brahmanda Purana (14,5,62), Agni Purana (107,11–12), Skanda Purana, Khanda (37,57) and Markandaya Purana (50,41), all using the designation Bharata Varsha. [4]While its roots are traced to Puranic literature, and to the Hindu epic, Mahabharata (Bharata is from the king Bharata, who was the son of Dushyanta and Shakuntala and the term varsa means a division of the earth or a continent), the name’s popularity in modern times is also due to its sustained usage during the freedom struggle in slogans such as ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’. In the Puranas, it is described as a land between the sea in the south and abode of snow in the north. “I consider the shift from the Puranic Bhārata to the colonial Bharat, when the old toponym became the ‘indigenous’ name for a budding nation exposed to the imported political and geographical conceptions of (British) India” writes Catherine Clémentin-Ojha, in her article, ‘‘India, that is Bharat’: One Country, Two Names’.[5]
Other names are Aryavarta (appears in the Manusmriti as a land occupied by the Indo-Aryans), Jambudvipa (appears in the Vedic texts) and Nabhivarsa (according to Jain literature King Nabhi was the father of Rishabhanatha and grandfather of Bharata). Hindustan is another name with geopolitical implication for the very first time. Currently, the Indus River (Sindh) is in Pakistan. Sind has become Hind: as ‘sa’ in the Sanskrit language is pronounced as ‘Ha’ in Prakrit language, and Greeks pronounce it as ‘Ind’ from which the name ‘India’ came into existence. The Britishers called the country ‘India’ due to this. ‘Bharata’ is the only name that suits the country as it is the oldest known name in the nation’s own cultural heritage.
The Price of Change
Such fundamental changes which could change the future of a nation should be well evaluated in the different dimensions before coming to a conclusion. So the main questions are, do we really need this change in the current scenario? Will it be relevant in the upcoming future?
Everything comes with a price. So does change. Changing the name of a country means everything that bears the country’s old name has to be changed. According to BBC work life, the change in name of Swaziland to eSwatini cost around $6 million and for India, it could be much more because India is almost 189 times bigger than eSwatini in area.
Among many problems, poverty has been the most challenging for India. In 2011, 268 million people were surviving on less than $1.90 a day which is World Bank measure for extreme poverty. Thanks to the pandemic, the situation of poverty is even worse than ever. The lockdown for over two months resulted in minimum economic activity, migrant labour crisis, unemployment, joblessness, etc. which have added fuel to the fire. In such a scenario a change of this altitude will add too much burden on our economy which is already going through a slowdown and likely to contract by 4% in the fiscal year 2020 due to the pandemic according to the Asian Development Bank.
The Rhetoric of Life
India’s public health hospitals have only 7,13,986 beds, including 35699 in intensive care units and 17850 ventilators, according to a recent study by the Centre for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy and Princeton University. As per the National Health Profile 2018, India’s public health spending is less than 1 % of the country’s GDP, which is lower than most of the counties, according to WHO. Currently, the pandemic is the biggest challenge for India’s healthcare system. In the current scenario, India being a welfare state the most needed change will be to revamp the health infrastructure.
It is rightly said, “change is inevitable”, but a change towards the right direction at the right time would take the nation to great height rather than a futile change which wouldn’t help the people in practical life. In the current scenario changing the name of this country will not bring the change we seek in society.
Atmanirbhar Bharat
India having a population of 1.3 billion makes it rich in human resources but also comes with a lot of different problems Population explosion, illiteracy and poor education system, corruption, poor sanitization, agricultural distress, pollution and many more. But among all these problems we cannot ignore the fact that India is a rising power and one of the largest economies of the world. But, to fight off these problems and become even better in the upcoming world India needs positive change towards defeating these problems and become truly “atmanirbhar”. In the current scenario changing the name of this country wouldn’t bring the change we seek in the society or fight off the evils we already have.
Pride or Vanity?
“Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.” writes Jane Austen in “Pride and Prejudice”. Pride comes from within and changing the name of a country cannot instil pride within our souls. It can merely ascertain our pride in the eyes of others. Therefore, it would be wise to stop concentrating merely in the nomenclature of our nation and rather concentrate on the socio-political, cultural and technical developmental goals of our tremendously capable nation.
References:
[1] Subhash C. Kashyap, “Our Constitution”, National Book Trust.
[2] Prabhash K. Dutta (2020, June 1), Should India be renamed as Bharat only? Supreme Court to hear plea tomorrow, India Today, https://www.indiatoday.in/news-analysis/story/should-india-be-renamed-only-as-bharat-petition-in-supreme-court-1684283-2020-06-01
[3] Catherine Clémentin-Ojha (2014, December), ‘India, that is Bharat…’: One Country, Two Names, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/304592860_’India_that_is_Bharat’_One_Country_Two_Names
[4] Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, Names for India, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_for_India
[5] Catherine Clémentin-Ojha (2014, December), ‘India, that is Bharat…’: One Country, Two Names, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/304592860_’India_that_is_Bharat’_One_Country_Two_Names
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