Modi govt replaces India's name with Bharat in G20 dinner invitation

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's administration has substituted the name India with "Bharat" on dinner invitations issued to visitors attending this week's G20 meeting in order to avoid what his Hindu nationalist party views as a name from the colonial past.

In the invitation extended to G20 guests, Indian President Droupadi Murmu is referred to as "President of Bharat" rather than "President of India". 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.

Many historians think that the ancient Sanskrit word "Bharat" first appeared in early Hindu writings. In Hindi, the word also denotes India.

Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders support the name change. They contend that the term India was given to the country by British colonists and serves as a "symbol of slavery." Before India attained independence in 1947, the British had controlled the nation for about 200 years.

“Another blow to slavery mentality,” the top elected official of Uttarakhand state, Pushkar Singh Dhami, said on X, formerly known as Twitter. Dhami, who is a leader of Modi’s governing party, shared the dinner invitation sent to G20 guests in his post.

For years, Modi's party has worked to get names associated with India's colonial and Mughal past removed, AP reported.

Due to objections from Modi's party officials, the well-known Aurangzeb Road in New Delhi, which had been named for a Mughal emperor, was renamed Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam Road in 2015. The government also changed the name of a colonial-era street in the centre of New Delhi that was used for formal military parades last year.

The name changes, according to Modi's administration, are an effort to restore India's Hindu history.

“While there is no constitutional objection to calling India “Bharat,” which is one of the country’s two official names, I hope the government will not be so foolish as to completely dispense with “India,” which has incalculable brand value built up over centuries,” opposition lawmaker Shashi Tharoor said on X.

According to Tharoor, Indians 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."

Since opposition parties launched a new coalition in July dubbed INDIA to remove Modi and defeat his party before the national elections in 2024, arguments about "India" vs "Bharat" have gotten more attention. Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance is the name of the organisation.

Since then, some of Modi's party leaders have argued that Bharat should be used as the country's name instead of India.