Precedence to ‘Bharat’, but not doing away with ‘India’ – this seems the government stand on the latest political controversy as it has started giving priority to the word ‘Bharat’ in official parlance. This could also serve as a political counter to the opposition naming itself I.N.D.I.A.
The matter came up on Tuesday after the official invites from the President for the G20 Leaders’ Summit dinner mentioned Droupadi Murmu as the ‘President of Bharat’ and the function notes of the Prime Minister’s trip to Indonesia mentioned Narendra Modi as ‘Prime Minister of Bharat’. It has also emerged that even during Modi’s trip to South Africa last month, the protocol documents used ‘Prime Minister of Bharat’ to refer to Modi. An official G20 booklet for foreign delegates is also titled ‘Bharat, the Mother of Democracy’.
While all sorts of speculations have since been triggered by the opposition that the government wants to bring a resolution or bill in Parliament to do away with ‘India’ and use only ‘Bharat’ to refer to the country in future, the government did not confirm any such development.
Government sources, in fact, have told News18 that ‘India’ and ‘Bharat’ have always been used inter-changeably to refer to the country and as per Article 1 of the Constitution, the country is mentioned as “India, that is, Bharat”. Changing this will need a constitutional amendment.
“So far, it was ‘India’ which got precedence in usage but the view now is that it should be ‘Bharat’ which should get the precedence. Even the G20 official logo since last year mentions ‘Bharat’ ahead of ‘India’. This will also be the way in the future. This is perfectly legal to do as per the Constitution and nothing needs to be done to put it into effect,” a senior government official told News18. He said several prominent government schemes such as the Ayushman Bharat and Swachh Bharat Abhiyan feature ‘Bharat’ in their name.
Minister of State for External Affairs Meenakshi Lekhi, at CNN-News18’s Townhall event on Tuesday, said ‘India’ and ‘Bharat’ are inter-changeable words, while traditionally we called ourselves ‘Bharat’, ‘India’ is also a term which is used by the world. “But those who call themselves representing India, I have a problem with that. They don’t represent India, they represent a political coalition which is UPA-3, and they cannot usurp a country’s name for themselves,” Lekhi said.
By giving precedence to using ‘Bharat’ now, the government and the BJP are planning to check-mate the opposition alliance which adopted the word I.N.D.I.A.
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