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India is buzzing with speculation over rumoured plans to scrap the official use of the country’s English name and change it back to Bharat – the original name recorded in ancient Hindu scriptures written in Sanskrit.

This comes after G20 attendees were invited to the summit by the ‘president of Bharat’, Narendra Modi, who often refers to the country by the old name. Bharat is one of two names used for India under their constitution.

The move is likely to be in response to continued efforts to remove lingering symbols of British rule from India’s urban landscape, political institutions and history books.

Members of his Hindu nationalist ruling party, Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), have previously campaigned against using the name India, which has its roots in western antiquity and was imposed during the British conquest.

The government has called a special session of parliament for later in the month, but remains tight-lipped about its legislative agenda. But, the broadcaster News18 said unnamed government sources had told it that BJP lawmakers would put forward a special resolution to give precedence to the name Bharat.

Rumours of the plan were met with a mix of opposition and enthusiastic support.

The opposition Congress party, said on X: “I hope the government will not be so foolish as to completely dispense with ‘India’.”

“We should continue to use both words rather than relinquish our claim to a name redolent of history, a name that is recognised around the world.”

The former Test cricketer Virender Sehwag however said he welcomed the prospect of a name change and urged India’s cricket board to begin using Bharat on team uniforms. He wrote: “India is a name given by the British (and) it has been long overdue to get our original name ’Bharat’ back.”

For decades, India has worked to remove traces of the British colonial era by renaming roads and even entire cities. The process has intensified under the government led by Modi, who in public speeches has stressed the need for India to abandon traces of a “colonial mindset”.

His administration renovated the parliamentary precinct in the capital, New Delhi, which was originally designed by the British, to replace colonial-era structures.

Last month, the government outlined plans for a sweeping overhaul of India’s pre-independence criminal code to remove references to the British monarchy and what the home minister, Amit Shah, described as “other signs of our slavery”.

Modi’s government has also removed Islamic place names imposed during the Mughal empire that preceded British rule, a move critics say is emblematic of a desire to assert the supremacy of India’s majority Hindu religion.

Whether changing the name of a country will improve the lives of its citizens is debatable, but ridding yourself of the leftovers of imperialism is perhaps not a bad thing. Maybe change the caste system while you’re at it.

Perhaps we could coax Alanis Morrisette out of hiding to re-record her famous song.

[source:guardian]