Recently, there has been a lot of excitement about India changing its name. During the G20 summit, the Indian side used the "Bharat" name brand instead of the "India" name brand when attending the meeting. In the communiqué issued by the Indian government regarding Modi's trip to Indonesia to attend the ASEAN Summit, he was also referred to as "Bharat" Prime Minister instead of "Indian" Prime Minister.
The Indian media was not idle either, scrambling to report that the Modi government formally proposed a resolution to change the country's name at the special session of the Indian Parliament that opened on the 18th. They said, "Changing the country's name is a reform that the Modi government has been working hard to promote. It has strong policy coherence and is the most important part of the Modi government's pursuit of decolonization and Hinduization." At the same time, many editorial articles pointed out that India’s agenda to change the country’s name shows that Hindu nationalism is further strengthened and consolidated.
What exactly is “Bharat”? Why is the Modi government obsessed with changing the name of the country "India" to "Bharat"?
In fact, the name of India has changed many times since ancient times. The word India comes from the Sanskrit name for the Indus River - Sindhu, which refers to the Indus River and the large land area in its basin. This word was translated as "body poison" in the Tang Dynasty of my country, and can also be translated as "Tianzhu" which is more familiar to people. In the following thousands of years, different ethnic groups came to this land and evolved different variations of the word Sindhu. In the process of dissemination, people's understanding of the word India has gradually differentiated.
Around the 6th century BC, the Persians came here. Due to Persian pronunciation habits, it is difficult for many people to pronounce the S sound, so Sindhu was changed to Hindu, and the two words Hind and Hindustan were derived. The latter means "Hindu place". It has been passed down to this day and is used by "Hindustan Times", one of India's largest media. In the 4th century BC, Alexander the Great conquered Persia and then moved towards India. It was from this time that India began to be known to the West. Later, in order to adapt to the Greek pronunciation habits, the word Sindhu became Indu and Indo, which is also the etymology of the word India in English.
This is the reason why the word India is considered "exotic" to many Indians. Especially in modern times, various names in India have been given strong political and religious overtones by different groups in the country. The symbolic meaning behind them has become more and more important, and the dispute over India's country name has become increasingly fierce.
So, where did “Bharat” come from?
In fact, it also has a more familiar translation - "Bharata".
There is a legendary king named Bharata in the Indian epic "Mahabharata". His kingdom of Bharat became a household name in India. After careful research, the name "Bharata" can be traced back to the Vedic (meaning knowledge, the oldest literary material and stylistic form in India, the main stylistic forms are hymns, prayers and mantras) classic - "Rig Veda", one of the oldest poetry collections in India. In the Rigveda, Bharata is an ancient tribe that believes in Hinduism. Other historians have verified that Bharat may have been the earliest name of a primitive tribe in the western Ganges River Basin.
In view of the above, in the view of Hindu nationalists, "Bharat", that is, "Bharat", is obviously more suitable as a country name than "India". Hindu nationalists trace "Indian orthodoxy" from ancient mythological and epic documents, and prefer to define "Bharat" as an ancient Indian name with profound historical and cultural traditions. Therefore, in their eyes, the renaming of the country to "Bharat" has great significance in restoring the glory of ancient India.
Of course, some people agree, and naturally some people question it.
From a historical perspective, some scholars point out that the "Bharat" mentioned in ancient classics and documents is closer to the "cultural space of a specific social order" than to a "clear geographical space." The basis given by historical scholars is that it was not until the mid-to-late 19th century that the spread and consolidation of Orientalist scholars and the colonial education system, coupled with the construction of nationalism by Hindu intellectuals, gradually led to the equation of "Bharat" with India. In other words, although the name "Bharat" seems to have more "ancient Indian characteristics" than "India", in fact, the "history" of this characteristic is not long. In terms of "qualifications", it is the name "India" that has gone through longer years.
At the same time, more people disagree with changing the country's name out of practical political considerations.
India is a multi-ethnic and multi-religious country with long-standing conflicts between central and local governments and ethnic conflicts, which has made direct democracy in India always difficult. Some scholars in India have made it clear that the above-mentioned irreconcilable contradictions determine that India is at risk of splitting. If the divisions deepen again in terms of religion, history, and ideology, the risk of splitting will continue to rise.
At the same time, one of the important purposes of the Modi government's proposal to change "India" to "Bharat" is to downplay or even erase India's colonial history. However, no matter how painful the past may be, the history of colonization exists objectively. History is worth remembering and reflecting on, and it is worth learning from it how to stir up the turbid and promote the clear. However, this does not mean that all the humiliating past must be completely negated. It is neither necessary nor possible.
For many years, Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party led by him have been based on Hindu nationalism, and many of the policies they have implemented are related to strengthening the people's national identity. This proposal to change the country's name is just one of them.
As early as March 6 this year, the Supreme Court of India received a petition from senior leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party, hoping to rename all cities and historical places in India. The petition argues that most of the current names come from "barbaric foreign invaders" centuries ago. In the end, the Supreme Court of India dismissed the petition as unconstitutional and stated that doing so would only intensify conflicts among domestic parties and make the already secular India no longer harmonious. In other words, the Bharatiya Janata Party has long been eager to "change the name", but this time it directly planned a big show.
In fact, Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party also face a choice. In India, which is already highly secularized, how should the ruling party promote its own Hindu nationalism? Gathering the centripetal force of the domestic people is undoubtedly very important. It can even be said that gathering the hearts and minds of the people is related to the fate of the country. From this point of view, the general direction of the Modi government is reasonable. However, if it is simply through name change and publicity, will it definitely increase the people's collective identity with the country? How to deal with the different views of different ethnic groups on this matter? While the ruling party is trying to implement its own philosophy of governing the country, it also has to worry about whether its support rate will be affected, which makes the above problems even more difficult at the moment. Therefore, how to move forward with nationalism, whether in the short or long term, has become an unavoidable problem for the Modi government.
Regardless of whether the Modi government can finally formally promote the country's name change at the national parliament level, the dispute between "India" and "Bharat" reflects the increasingly strong Hindu nationalism in India. Although it is still difficult to say whether the name change will be successful, one thing is certain, that is, India will definitely be different in the future.