India, that is Bharat: Protecting originality of the Constitution

The use of Bharat instead of India in the invitation letter sent to the delegates of G20 countries for the dinner hosted by President Droupadi Murmu has sparked contested debate over the name of our country. Supporters of the government have been hailing the decision with the argument that India refers to colonial slavery whereas ‘Bharat’ refers to Indic tradition.

However, critics, including Opposition leaders, panned this move. Ever since Opposition parties named their alliance INDIA (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance) on the insistence of Rahul Gandhi, speculations have been in the air that the government might change the name of our country altogether — several Bharatiya Janata Party politicians have already demanded this.

Tracing the genesis of India, Bharat, or Hindustan, it becomes clear that there has never been consensus over the name of our country, and our Constitution’s makers adopted the name India but defined it as Bharat to link with our ancient culture. And the issues which were settled in the Constituent Assembly, such as the name of the country, cannot be reopened since it would amount to rewriting the Indian Constitution.

The historicity of India and Bharat

The term India is derived from Greek and Roman languages, and it first appeared in the works of the Greek traveller Megasthenes, who visited the subcontinent in the reign of Chandragupta Maurya (350-295 BC). He wrote “Indica”, describing the riches and territory of the Mauryan empire. The term Indica was later translated as India in the Roman language. From Megasthenes to other European travellers, India was described as the land of riches and abundance.

Unlike India, Bharat is mainly mentioned in Brahmanical texts. However, it is an old and native name, and according to Catherine Clementin-Ojha, it survived because of the tradition of recitation of the “Puranas”. Moreover, orientalist scholars discovered this name in the nineteenth century, and early nationalist leaders such as Bipin Chandra Pal widely propagated its use in the anti-colonial struggle.

Ancient debate

The ancient texts of Brahmanism, Buddhism, and Jainism reveal that our country had different names, such as Aryavarta, Bharatvarsha, and Jambudvipa. However, these names also represented different regions of the country rather than the whole country as we see today. For example, Bharat is mentioned to be situated above Jambudvipa, according to Clementin-Ojha. Moreover, the ancient travel records of a Chinese Buddhist Monk Xuanxang (Hiuen Tsang), who visited the country in the seventh century during the reign of Harshavardhan, substantiate the argument that there was confusion over the country.

According to Tansen Sen, while narrating his discussion with Harshavardhan about the name of the country, “Xuanzang begins fascicle two with a discussion of the names for Indian appearing in various Chinese records. He concludes by stating that the correct Chinese term for India should be Yindu, a name that is still in use in China.” The term Yindu could be the outcome of different styles of pronunciation, and the possibility of similar pronunciation reaching Europe through the Silk Route cannot be ruled out.

Nevertheless, with the arrival of the Mongols, the use of Hindustan also became popular. Mughal Emperor Babur extensively used Hindustan in his memoirs “Babanama”. Gradually, the use of Hindustan also became popular, until the colonisation of the subcontinent.

Constituent Assembly debate

Article 1 of the Indian constitution defines the name of our country as “India, that is Bharat shall be the union of states”. However, the original draft of the constitution introduced by Drafting Committee Chairman Dr BR Ambedkar on November 4, 1948, did not contain the word “Bharat”.

In fact, “Bharat” also does not find a mention in “States and Minorities - What are their rights and how to secure them in the Constitution of Free India”, a memorandum akin to the Constitution prepared by Ambedkar for submission to the Constituent Assembly of India on the behalf of All India Scheduled Castes Federation. He had proposed the use of “The United States of India” as the name of our country. However, the draft constitution omitted the phrase “United States”.

The draft constitution was criticised for missing native names. Therefore, Ambedkar proposed an amendment in Article 1 in the Constituent Assembly on September 17, 1949, that the name would be “India, that is, Bharat shall be a Union of States”. The next day, members proposed further amendments to Article 1. Those amendments were either to substitute “India, that is Bharat” with “Bharat, that is India” or omit India completely and exclusively using Bharat.

HV Kamath, the leader of All India Forward Bloc, proposed the first amendment to substitute “Bharat, or in the English Language, India”. His proposal was based on the Irish constitution, which has a similar name to the country. Seth Govind Das of the Indian National Congress proposed the use of “Bharat, known as India also in foreign countries”. Kamalapati Tripathi proposed the use of “Bharat, that is, India”. And Govind Ballabh Pant had proposed “‘Bharat Varsha’ and nothing else”. Kamath summed up the prominent suggestions, which were Bharat, Hindustan, Hind and Bharatbhumi aur Bharatvarsh. Still, the Constituent Assembly rejected all suggestions and only accepted “India, that is Bharat” as proposed by Ambedkar.

The Constituent Assembly seems to have not accepted the proposal of giving primacy to Bharat over India or altogether omitting India because of its exclusiveness to one religion, since the complete replacement of India with Bharat would have given the wrong signal to religious minorities. However, anticolonial slogans associated with Bharat such as ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’ forced the drafter to incorporate it into the constitution.

Contemporary politics

Although the Constituent Assembly settled the name of our country, the use of the word Hindustan remained in practice. Of late, there has been objection to this, mainly from right-wing leaders and activists of the Backward and Minority Communities Employees Federation.

However, the logic of both camps is different. Hindu right-wing leaders object to the use of India and Hindustan because both are given by foreigners. However, BAMCEF activists object because they argue that the meaning of “Hindus” is derogatory in the Persian language.

The debate on the use of Hindustan has further accentuated because of Rahul Gandhi who deliberately did not use Bharat in his speeches and only uses Hindustan. However, to diffuse the possibility of polarisation over the name of the country, his team named his cross-country rally the Bharat Jodo Yatra. However, he insisted on naming the political coalition INDIA. The demand for using Bharat instead of India has been growing among BJP leaders ever since.

Although the Constituent Assembly has settled the name of the country, the politics over it is still going on. It is high time we accepted the proposition that issues such as the name of the country which have been settled by the Constituent Assembly cannot be reopened through Parliament or the judiciary. Only this proposition would be able to save the originality of the Indian Constitution.

(Arvind Kumar is a PhD Scholar at the Department of Politics, IRs & Philosophy and visiting tutor at the Department of Law and Criminology, Royal Holloway, University of London.)