Dr Prabhudev
Former VC Bangalore University!
India that is Bharath to Bharath that was India!
Both the names Bharat and India can be traced back to ancient times. The terminology is only a question of semantics. The change from India that is Bharath to Bharath that was India is possible but is it necessary? There are certain things that should be free of controversy and the name of the country should be highest on that list! Yogi Adityanath has previously joined with the proposition that the phrase “India that is Bharat” be replaced by the new phrase “Bharat that is Hindustan.
The matter reached the Supreme Court In 2015 Chief Justice of India TS Thakur dismissed it. In 2020 again a similar case was dismissed by the court with the comment that changing the name of the country was not a subject for the court to consider.
Kamalapati Tripathi said the gods have a keen desire to be born in the sacred land of Bharat”, and then invoked the benediction of Sri Rama, Sri Krishna, Gautama Buddha and Adi Shankaracharya. Parliament reverberated with the patriotic speeches of several distinguished members. Then the ever-realistic lawyer, Baba Sahib Ambedkar, rose and asked: “Is all this necessary, Sir? There is a lot of work to be done. “Indeed!
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose. By any other name would smell as sweet- William Shakespeare.
A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold. Proverbs.
Our countries’ names instil in us a sense of pride. We use them as emotional triggers creating slogans around country names. The names of nations are often inherited, arbitrary, and absurd. Sometimes we get names we don’t want, and our efforts to correct them, don’t stick. The way countries get their names is hardly ever democratic, and very few are rooted in the national qualities we like to associate with them, like liberty, strength or justice
“Bharatvarsha” and “Bharata” are the earliest recorded names and their roots are traced to Mahabharata and the Puranic literature. Bharata Chakravarti — He is said to be the founder of the Bharata Dynasty and the ancestor of the Pandavas and Kauravas. A son of King Dushyanta of Hastinapur and Queen Shakuntala, he conquered all of Greater India, which was called Bharatvarsha. Bharata lies between the “sea in the south and the abode of the snow in the north”. Over the years, Bharata became Bhaarat. During the freedom struggle, “Bharat Mata ki Jai” was a popular slogan.
India is used extensively today — in official correspondence and documents and even in popular parlance. The name, is an exonym, a name given to the country by outsiders. The word Bharat is an endonym, a name given to us by ourselves, by our legacy!
the word India lies in the word “Sindhu”, referring to the mighty River Indus, which originates in the Himalayas and is the source of the three great northern river systems — Sindhu, Ganga, and Brahmaputra. Sindhu is mentioned in the Rig-Veda, one of the oldest sacred books of Hinduism which dates back to 1700–1100 BC. Sindhu became Hindu! It came to represent not only the river but also the land and its people who lived across the Indus. the Persian suffix, ‘stan’ was applied and the name ‘Hindustan’ was formed. Around the same time, from Persia, the word “Hindu” spread to Greece, where “H” is silent. That gave birth to the root “Ind”. The Greeks translated Hind as Indus. it became part of Latin. India, as we now call it, can be traced back to Latin and its influence on the English language. The name India resurfaced in the late phase of Early Modern English.
From the late 18th century, British maps started using the term India and it stayed on. The adoption of India suggests how colonial nomenclature signalled changes in perspectives and helped to usher in an understanding of the subcontinent as a single, bounded and British political territory,!
The Constitution of India came into effect in 1951 and it chose to omit Hindustan. Article 1 of the Constitution states, “India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States.”! The fact is that the terms Bharat and India can be used interchangeably, especially in view of the authorised Hindi version of the Indian Constitution, but the government cannot stipulate that everyone use only one name: either is permissible and usable interchangeably! An amendment would be required only if the government insisted on the use of any one term or wanted to remove another term.
Bharath that Is India — Bharat is its triumphal synonym, and Hindustan is its home name. Bharat is where we dream, and Hindustan is where we live! We are over the Moon. We are on the way to Sun! We are a trillion-dollar economy! we live facing inflation with poverty, corruption with defeat and we hassles at each step — whether it is for an electric connection, a birth certificate, a driving licence by men with the authority to delay if not deny what is due.! That is the point where it hurts. How much does it affect the realities of life whether India is named Bharat or Bharat is named India?