What is Bharat and how is it linked to India's history and name?
A political row has erupted in India over the use of the country’s Sanskrit name Bharat in the official Group of 20 (G20) dinner invite sent by the President of India. This, in turn, has renewed the debate centred on the history and context of the name of the world’s largest democracy.
Indian media reported that the controversy emerged on 5 September with sources saying that the invites sent to G20 delegates by President Droupadi Murmu’s office read “President of Bharat” instead of the customary “President of India.” The dinner is set to be held on 9 September in New Delhi.
Reports say that the name ‘Bharat’ has also been used in a G20 booklet for foreign delegates titled Bharat, The Mother Of Democracy.
“Bharat is the official name of the country. It is mentioned in the Constitution as also in the discussions of 1946-48,” the booklet reportedly says.
The official names of the country are both India and Bharat. Article 1 of the Constitution of India says “India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States.”
The political slugfest around the name
The use of “Bharat” in the official invite and the absence of the name ‘India’ raised several eyebrows in the Opposition.
According to the Indian English-language news channel Times Now, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi might bring a resolution for changing India’s official name to ‘Bharat’ during the special session of Parliament, which is scheduled from 18 to 22 September.
India Today, one of India’s major English-language magazines, said that the naming controversy comes on the heels of a demand raised by BJP Rajya Sabha MP Naresh Bansal during the recently concluded monsoon session of Parliament where he requested the removal of the name ‘India’ from the Constitution on the ground that it symbolises colonial slavery.
His call was supported by fellow BJP MP Harnath Singh Yadav, who said that a constitutional amendment should be brought to replace “India” with “Bharat.”
Meanwhile, Member of Parliament (MP) Jairam Ramesh, one of the top leaders of the Opposition Indian National Congress (INC) party, took a jibe at the ruling government with a tweet over the naming row.
“So the news is indeed true. Rashtrapati Bhawan has sent out an invite for a G20 dinner on Sept 9th in the name of ‘President of Bharat’ instead of the usual ‘President of India’. Now, Article 1 in the Constitution can read: ‘Bharat, that was India, shall be a Union of States.’ But now even this ‘Union of States’ is under assault,” he wrote.
So the news is indeed true.
Rashtrapati Bhawan has sent out an invite for a G20 dinner on Sept 9th in the name of ‘President of Bharat’ instead of the usual ‘President of India’.
Now, Article 1 in the Constitution can read: “Bharat, that was India, shall be a Union of States.”…
— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) September 5, 2023
INC MP from Thiruvananthapuram and former United Nations (UN) Under-Secretary-General Shashi Tharoor expressed his views on the controversy, reminding of the history of the name ‘India’ and its global pull.
“While there is no constitutional objection to calling India ‘Bharat’, which is one of the country’s two official names, I hope the government will not be so foolish as to completely dispense with ‘India’, which has incalculable brand value built up over centuries. We should continue to use both words rather than relinquish our claim to a name redolent of history, a name that is recognised around the world,” he tweeted.
While there is no constitutional objection to calling India “Bharat”, which is one of the country’s two official names, I hope the government will not be so foolish as to completely dispense with “India”, which has incalculable brand value built up over centuries. We should… pic.twitter.com/V6ucaIfWqj
— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) September 5, 2023
Parliamentarians from other Opposition parties, including Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), also took the opportunity to criticise the ruling government, saying that it was rattled by a united opposition bloc formed by the parties.
The AAP, the RJD, the NCU and the INC are among more than two dozen Opposition parties that came together in July to form an alliance they named I.N.D.I.A., standing for Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance.
Meanwhile, leaders of the ruling BJP showed support for the use of the name ‘Bharat.’ Among them were Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and Union Minister of State for Electronics and Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar.
“I don’t understand what is wrong in writing President of Bharat. Our country is Bharat. I don’t think there should be any problem,” Chandrasekhar said.
India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar told Indian news agency Asian News International (ANI) that ‘Bharat’ exists in the Constitution.
“India, that is Bharat – it is there in the Constitution. I would invite everybody to read it…When you say Bharat, in a sense, a meaning and an understanding and a connotation that comes with it and I think that is reflected in our Constitution as well,” he said.
#WATCH | EAM Dr S Jaishankar speaks on the row over invitation cards to the G20 Summit, mentioning ‘Bharat’, India/Bharat debate
“India, that is Bharat – it is there in the Constitution. I would invite everybody to read it…When you say Bharat, in a sense, a meaning and an… pic.twitter.com/5tg6QTK86c
— ANI (@ANI) September 6, 2023
It is interesting to note that the Supreme Court of India, the country’s apex court, had in June 2020 dismissed a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking an amendment to the Constitution to remove the name “India” and retain only “Bharat” as the official name of the country.
“India is already called Bharat in the Constitution itself,” the then Chief Justice of India S.A. Bobde said at the time.
History of India through the country’s names
The ancient origin of ‘Bharat’
The history of India’s name as Bharat (Bhārat) or Bharatvarsha (Land of the Bharatas) goes millennia back. In some historical texts, Bharat is identified as a khanda (section) of a larger landmass known as Jambudvīpa, which some believe refers to Greater India or much of Asia.
Chapter III of the Vishnu Purana says: “Uttaram yat samudrasya, Himadreschaiva dakshinam, varsham tad Bharatam nama Bharati yatra santatih.” (The country that lies north of the seas and south of the snowy mountains is called Bharatam; there dwell the descendants of Bharata.)
Of the 18 Mahapuranas, ancient literary texts about gods, legends and facets of Hinduism, Vishnu Purana is one of the oldest. There is no agreement on when Vishnu Purana may have been written, but sources suggest that it is certainly older than the Gupta dynasty (fourth century CE to late sixth century CE).
Indian economist and historian Sanjeev Sanyal, who is also a member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister of India, has traced the history of India’s geography in his book Land of The Seven Rivers.
According to the book, the name ‘Bharat’ may have first emerged in the Rig Veda, which, according to Sanyal, was “compiled no later than 2000 BC.”
The Rig Veda mentions a Battle of the Ten Kings in which a confederacy of 10 tribes fought against the tribe of Bharata. The Bharata tribe was eventually victorious and quickly became the supreme power in the then-known subcontinent. The Rig Veda is of fulsome praise of Bharata, its leader Sudasa, and its chief sage Vashishtha, who is also seen as one of the great sages in Indian history.
The rise of the Bharata tribe and its civilisational expansion is believed to have given the name Bharat to the country, as it was identified in later texts such as the Puranas.
“This is why the Bharatas remain alive in the name by which Indians have called their country since ancient times: ‘Bharat Varsha’ or the Land of the Bharatas,” writes Sanyal in his book. (Land of the Seven Rivers, Penguin Books, 2013, Pg: 64)
There is also a connection to Mahabharata. Written by Ved Vyasa, Mahabharata is one of the greatest epics in human history which tells the story of a civil war between two groups of descendants of the Kuru dynasty in India.
Bharata, as in the Mahabharata, is a king of legendary origins who was the son of King Dushyanta and Shakuntala. According to historian Dineshchandra Sircar, the “Bharata tribe is represented clearly as the descendants of Bharata Dausyanti in the Mahabharata.” (Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India, Motilal Banarsidass, 1971, Pg.3)
The name ‘Hindustan’
Hindustan is another name for the country and is widely popular in cultural contexts such as literature and cinema. But it is not an official name and is not part of Article 1 of the Constitution.
It is believed that the name originates from the Persian word ‘Hindu’ or ‘Hindush,’ which refers to the people beyond the River Indus, known in Sanskrit as Sindhu.
The word ‘Hindu’ was possibly first used by the Achaemenid Persians following their conquest of the northwestern side of the Indian sub-continent in the sixth century BC. The suffix “stan” came to be used much later and, thus, was born the name ‘Hindustan.’
The name became more widely used within what is today’s India, following the establishment of the Delhi Sultanate in the early 13th century. By the time of the Mughal Empire (16th century CE to 19th century CE), ‘Hindustan’ referred only to the regions under the direct control of the Mughals, which was mostly the Indo-Gangetic plain of northern India.
Use of ‘India’ as a name of the subcontinent
The ancient Greeks learned about the name ‘Hindu’ or ‘Hindush’ from the Achaemenids and transliterated it as ‘Indus.’
Thus, by the time Macedonian king Alexander the Great invaded India in the third century BC, the name ‘India’ was understood by the Greeks as all the land beyond the River Indus.
Over centuries, the name came to be in common usage in the European world. Thus, when the British conquered the subcontinent, they started identifying the land as India in their maps from the late 18th century.
India, Bharat and the Constitution
Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, used “India”, “Bharata” and “Hindustan” in his book The Discovery of India in 1946, referring to the monumental and timeless history of the country.
“Often, as I wandered from meeting to meeting, I spoke to my audiences of this India of ours, of Hindustan and of Bharata, the old Sanskrit name derived from the mythical founders of the race,” he wrote in Chapter 3 of the book under the sub-title ‘Bharat Mata’ (Mother India).
Referring to the “unity of a common faith and culture” in 1927, Nehru wrote: “India was Bharata, the holy land of the Hindus, and it is not without significance that the great places of Hindu pilgrimage are situated in the four corners of India — the extreme South overlooking Ceylon, the extreme West washed by the Arabian Sea, the East facing the Bay of Bengal and the North in the Himalayas.” [Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, Series 1, Vol.2 (1923-1927)]
However, not everyone was ready to accept the name ‘India’ as the name of the country when the Constituent Assembly took up the “Name and territory of the Union” for discussion on 18 September 1949. They were of the view that the name ‘India’ would be a reminder of the colonial past — which, to date, is viewed as a particularly dark chapter in the nation’s history.
It was suggested by a member of the Assembly Hari Vishnu Kamath that Article 1 should either read “Bharat, or, in the English language, India, shall be a Union of States” or “Hind, or, in the English language, India, shall be a Union of States.”
Kamath argued that India was still known as ‘Hindustan’ in many other countries at the time and its people were collectively referred to as Hindus irrespective of their religion. Kamath was supported by Seth Govind Das, Kamalapathi Tripathi, Kallur Subba Rao, Ram Sahai and Hargovind Pant, among other political leaders. Most of them were in favour of naming the country Bharat.
According to The Economic Times, Assembly president Rajendra Prasad (later the first President of India), allowed Hargovind Pant to present a case for ‘Bharat Varsha’ despite the reservations of the chairman of the Drafting Committee, the eminent jurist and social reformer Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar.
When a show of hands was held in the Constituent Assembly for the name, Pant was defeated 51-38 in favour of the wording “India, that is, Bharat shall be a Union of States.”
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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
– Why is India called Bharat?
India is also officially known as Bharat, as defined in Article 1 of the Constitution of India.
– What’s the meaning of Bharat?
The name ‘Bharat’ is believed to be connected to the ancient history of India. It comes from either the name of a tribe known as Bharat or the name of a legendary king described in Mahabharata.
– How did Bharat get the name India?
The ancient Greeks called Bharat ‘India’ based on their understanding of the Persian name ‘Hindu’ or ‘Hindush,’ referring to the land beyond the River Indus. The British colonial administration used India as the official name of the country.
The information in this article is accurate as of the date of publication.
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