In dinner invitations issued to delegates attending this week’s Group of 20 (G20) meeting, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration substituted the name India with a Sanskrit phrase, sparking rumors that the country’s name may legally altered from India to Bharat.
In the invitation extended to G20 guests on Tuesday, Droupadi Murmu referred to as “President of Bharat” rather than “President of India”.
On Saturday and Sunday in New Delhi, India will host the yearly G20 conference. There will be several foreign leaders there, including French President Emmanuel Macron and US President Joe Biden.
Although the country of more than 1.4 billion people has two official names—India and Bharat—the former is more often used both domestically and abroad. Another name for the country is Hindustan, which frequently used in literature and other kinds of popular culture.
Many historians think that the ancient Sanskrit word “Bharat” first appeared in early Hindu writings. The term also used to represent India in Hindi.
Right-wing members of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) support the name change. They contend that the word India is a “symbol of slavery” and invented by British colonials. Before India attained independence in 1947, the British had controlled the nation for about 200 years.
The BJP has long worked to get names connected to India’s colonial and Mughal pasts removed. The administration has charged with pursuing a nationalist agenda intended to turn a legally secular India into an ethnic Hindu state.
for objections from Modi’s party leaders, the well-known Aurangzeb Road in New Delhi—named for a Mughal emperor. Renamed Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam Road in 2015.
The government also changed the name of a colonial-era street in the center of New Delhi that used for formal military parades last year.
The name changes, according to Modi’s administration, are an effort to restore India’s Hindu history.
“Another blow to slavery mentality,” said Pushkar Singh Dhami, the state of Uttarakhand’s highest elected official, on channel X. BJP leader Dhami posted the invitation to the G20 dinner.
Since then, some Modi’s party leaders argued that Bharat should used as the nation’s name instead of India.
On Tuesday, a number of Indian media sites cited sources to claim that the administration could introduce a resolution to that effect during a special session of parliament this month.
The administration has not, however, made the session’s schedule public (18-22 September).
Also Read:- RTI states that since 2014, PMÂ Modi has not taken a single vacation