Opposition upset as governmentt modifies official grammar

Hyderabad: A dinner invitation issued by Rashtrapati Bhavan which refers to the Indian President as ‘President of Bharat’ has ignited a major row and the arguments and counter-arguments not only led to the entire team I.N.D.I.A. partners alleging that the government would bring in a resolution in the short session of Parliament scheduled to meet from September 18 to amend the Constitution.

Things did not stop there. The overjealous nature of some leaders was visible when a Rajasthan Congress MLA Aradhana Misra asked party workers to stop raising the slogan of Bharat Mata ki Jai. The BJP made best use of it to slam the Congress that it was allergic to the word Bharat. The Congress tried to defend that it was an old video but when informed that it was Tuesday’s video the party spokespersons said they will look into it.

But then whey this noise? Did the BJP really err? Is it really scared of team I.N.D.I.A? The fact is that the issue of whether country should be called as Bharat or India is 74 years old. Volume IX of the proceedings of Constituent Assembly of India says that H V Kamath had moved an amendment saying that Independent India should be named as Bharat.

Kamalapati Tripathi who was United Provinces General and senior Congress leader whom even Indira Gandhi used to consult on every issue said, “When a country is in bondage, it loses its soul. It would have been more proper to use the words “Bharat, that is, India” instead of “India that is Bharat.” That would have been more in accord with the prestige and the traditions of this country and indeed that would have done greater honour to this Constituent Assembly, he added. However, Dr B R Ambedkar asked them, “Is this all necessary, Sir? There is a lot of work to be done,” he said.

Another leader Hargovind Pant also United Provinces General favoured the word Bharat. I, however, fail to understand why the word ‘Bharat Varsha’ is not acceptable to the House when the importance and glory of this word is being admitted by all here, he said. He further argued that ‘The word “Bharat” or “Bharat Varsha” is used by us in our daily religious duties while reciting the Sankalpa. Even at the time of taking our bath we say in Sanskrit: “Jamboo Dwipay, Bharata Varshe, Bharat Khande, Aryavartay, etc.” It means that I so and so, of Bharat Khand, etc...........

However, the amendment got defeated and the original proposal in the draft Constitutions “India that is Bharat,” was retained.

That was not the end of it. In 2004 Samajwadi Party supremo and Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Mulayam Singh Yadav moved a resolution in the state Assembly asking the Centre to amend the Constitution saying no to ‘India that is Bharat’ instead have ‘Bharat that is India’. This resolution was unanimously passed by the Assembly.

Confirming that Bharat has been used as the name of the country in some of the documents relating to G20, sources said, it was a conscious decision. “Bharat is the official name of the country. It is mentioned in the Constitution as also in the discussions of 1946-48,” a booklet prepared for G20 delegates said.