Modi Designated “Prime Minister of Bharat,” but Same Official Document Says “ASEAN-India Summit”

Manas Dasgupta

NEW DELHI, Sept 6: After the dinner invitations to the foreign delegates of G-20 Summit issued in the name of the “president of Bharat,” another official document has become viral on the social media where Narendra Modi has been designated as the “Prime Minister of Bharat” instead of the usual Prime Minister of India.

The document posted on X by the BJP national spokesman Sambit Patra is on a note on the Prime Minister’s visit to Indonesia on Wednesday and Thursday for the 20th ASEAN-India Summit and the 18th East Asia Summit where the government uses the term ‘Prime Minister of Bharat.’

The note invited an immediate attack from the Congress for the inherent contradictions. The Congress pointed out that both the ‘ASEAN-India Summit’ and the ‘Prime Minister of Bharat’ were used in the same document. “Look at how confused the Modi government is! The Prime Minister of Bharat at the 20th ASEAN-India summit. All this drama is just because the Opposition got together and called itself INDIA,” Congress General Secretary Jairam Ramesh posted on the platform.

Some opposition leaders also pointed out that while the BJP leaders were all going ga-ga over the use of “Bharat” as the name of the country, it was surprising that it took nine years for its leader Narendra Modi and even the RSS supremo Mohan Bhagwat to realise that “India” was a colonial name and that too only after the opposition bloc coined a name for the alliance and used the abbreviation “INDIA.” They also argued that the BJP in none of its earlier election manifestoes had ever thought of getting rid of the colonial name for the country and did not take any initiative in this direction despite being in power for nine years now and six years earlier under Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

The use of ‘President of Bharat’ – instead of the traditional ‘President of India’ – on official G20 Summit invitations has sparked a buzz. The move, that comes days ahead of the special session of parliament, has sent political temperatures soaring.

“Bharat” has also been used in a G20 booklet meant for foreign delegates titled – “Bharat, The Mother Of Democracy”. “Bharat is the official name of the country. It is mentioned in the Constitution as also in the discussions of 1946-48,” the booklet says. The identity cards of Indian officials at the G20 Summit on September 9 and 10 will also now say ‘Bharat – Official’.

Sources say the government may put forward a resolution to change the country’s name later this month in the five-day special session of parliament that starts on September 18. The fact that the government has not announced any agenda for the special session has only added to the speculation.

The move drew scathing criticism from the Opposition. The members of the Opposition INDIA bloc accused the Narendra Modi government of “distorting history and dividing India.” They linked the government move to the formation of their alliance. AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal asked whether the ruling party would change the country’s name to ‘BJP’ if the opposition alliance decided to call itself “Bharat.”

BJP leaders welcomed the “Bharat” nomenclature and accused the Opposition of being anti-national and anti-constitutional. They said the term “Bharat” is also in Article 1 of the Constitution, which says: “India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States.”

Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said the decision to use ‘Bharat’ is a big statement against the colonial mindset. “This should have happened earlier. It gives me great satisfaction. ‘Bharat’ is our introduction and we are proud of it. The President has given priority to ‘Bharat.’

The controversy erupted just two days after the chief of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the BJP’s ideological mentor, suggested that the country discard India and switch to Bharat. “We must stop using the word India and start using Bharat. The name of the country Bharat will remain Bharat wherever you go in the world. In spoken and written one must say Bharat,” said RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat.

The BJP President JP Nadda had also hit out at the Congress and accused the party of objecting to every issue “related to the honour and pride of the country.”

In a lighter vein, the Congress leader Shashi Tharoor  took a swipe at the government over the India-Bharat naming row, saying the opposition bloc could call itself the “Alliance for Betterment, Harmony And Responsible Advancement for Tomorrow (BHARAT)” and then perhaps the ruling party might stop the “fatuous game of changing names.”

On Tuesday, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh had on X said, “Mr. Modi can continue to distort history and divide India, that is Bharat, that is a Union of States. But we will not be deterred. After all, what is the objective of INDIA (alliance) parties? It is BHARAT – Bring Harmony, Amity, Reconciliation And Trust. Judega BHARAT. Jeetega INDIA!”

Tharoor on Tuesday had said while there was no constitutional objection to calling India ‘Bharat,’ he hoped the government would not be so “foolish” to completely dispense with ‘India’ which has “incalculable brand value.”

The Congress MP had also claimed it was Pakistan’s founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah who had objected to the name ‘India’ since it implied that “our country was the successor state to the British Raj and Pakistan a seceding state.”

Sarma who was the first to change his Twitter bio to Bharat after the opposition alliance chose INDIA as their name, said this India versus Bharat was no debate as both are the same and Indira Gandhi took the oath as ‘Bharat ka Pradhan Mantri’, not as the Prime Minister of India. “A few days back, Amit Shah ji in Parliament placed Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. Then nobody opposed. Bharat and India are interchangeable and that is the decision of the Supreme Court in 2016,” he said.

“If I remember correctly, when Manmohan Singh ji took oath, he took the oath as Bharat ka Pradhan Mantri. When Deve Gowda ji took the oath, he took it as the Prime Minister of India, as far I remember. I tried to search on Google but could not find it. And as far as I remember, Indira Gandhi too took the oath as Bharat ka Pradhan Mantri, not as a prime minister of India. So this is not even a debate,” Himanta said.

Himanta however pitched for replacing India in Reserve Bank of India with Bharat. “The name of the central bank should be ‘Reserve Bank of Bharat’. This is a phase of renaissance. Assam has changed several old legacies and many changes have been made in the Centre also,” Sarma said.