India may have many issues at hand, but the government seems to be reviving historical names with alacrity: Amritkaal, the proposed new amendments in laws as Samhitas, Rajpath as Kartavya Path, the G20 convention hall as ‘Mandapam,’ etc. However, the revival of the ancient name of our country, Bharat, takes the cake.
Bharat existed even before India was coined. The country after it was separated from the Lemuria continent millions of years ago could have been known as Jambudwip in the Vedas. The Vedas include Bharata Kanda, which came after it. The wide expanse of India, which included Gandhara (today’s Afghanistan), was variously called Hindoostan, Hindustan, or Hindistan, which denoted the passage of the Hindukush mountains and into a land ruled by distinctive religious groups who were known as Hindus.
According to Herodotus (5th century BCE), the Greeks may have first used the name India, which may have been derived from the river Sindhu. Megasthenes referred to ‘Indica’ in the 4th century BCE. The British replaced Hindoostan, Hindistan, and Bharat with an easier India, which stuck. However, Bharat was retained north of Vindhyas, which referred to King Bharata and derived from Sanskrit.
If these are dry histories, the opposition unity conclave cleverly adopted the ambiguous and dubious name I.N.D.I.A. for their political front to spice things up. Even a few who spent the midnight oil to coin the name to woo the masses with ‘We are INDIA, or vote for INDIA,’ and thought that they had the last laugh. The well-oiled machinery of the ruling party was no less clever. They bowled a googly by bringing back BHARAT as the name of the country and are likely to enforce obliterating the usage of the INDIA name on government records. There may be restrictions for the use of the name Bharat as well, throwing water on the ‘Jeetega Bharat, Jeetega INDIA’ (Bharat will win, India will win) dreams of the opposition’s main slogan for the general elections.
Using the country’s name or political parties having party flags deceptively similar to the national flag must be made a punishable offence. I recall my youth days, when Kwality used to be a popular name in ice cream. We did not have rigid trademark infringement laws. There were dozens of hand-pushed and yellow-coloured hand-pushed carts, all deceptively similar to Kwality, one ending with an ‘i’ as Kwaliti, another calling itself Kuality, etc., but all hoodwinking the gullible and ignorant consumers.
There is no need for any party to resort to name-changing if the fundamentals are strong. India can be known as India as well as Bharat. I do not for once believe that our Dharma or faith is under attack or that we have to resort to ignorantly weaponizing ourselves with exclusive Sanskritized names everywhere.
Sampath Kumar
Intrépide Voix
