The special five-day session of the Indian Parliament is scheduled to begin on September 18 and there is much expectation around the prospect of a major decision from the government to change the country’s name from India to Bharat.
After UCC and ‘one-nation, one election’ another guess is moving around, which indicates an official modification in the South Asian country’s name from ‘India’ to ‘Bharat’ through a constitutional amendment under Article 368.
Article 1 of the Indian constitution quotes the nation as ‘India, that is Bharat’ is a ‘Union of States’. The name was chosen by the Constituent Assembly after much discussion as some members wanted India to be named and some wanted to keep it Bharat.
Narendra Modi-led government has stated many times that they tilt towards the ‘Bharat’ name. During Modi’s speech on 2022 Independence Day, the Indian PM asked the nationals to make some promises including destroying the traces of slavery. The change of the name from India to Bharat can act as a symbolic gesture towards adopting the country’s cultural identity.
But the following step came after two incidents- one is the current post by Himanta Biswa Sarma, Assam Chief Minister posted on X (formerly known as Twitter) in which she mentioned REPUBLIC OF BHARAT.
Secondly, the official dinner invitation to the G20 representatives from Rashtrapati Bhawan cites the President as ‘President of Bharat’ instead of ‘President of India.’
Jairam Ramesh, the Congress leader responded to the modifications in the dinner invite and said that the news of the name change seems to be valid.
