On September 5, India’s President Draupadi Murmu sent out dinner invitations to foreign delegates (heads of state) who will come to New Delhi to attend the G20 summit. The dinner card read: “The President of Bharat requests the pleasure of … on Saturday, September 09, 2023 at 2000 hours. Venue: Multifunction Hall, Level-3, Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi.”
As soon as this news was out, speculation began that Narendra Modi’s government was going to change the country’s name from India to `Bharat’ ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. There was also a surmise that the special session of Parliament on September 18-22 has been called on to pass the constitutional amendment bill to this effect.
And with that possibility, the gossip mill went on the overdrive about the future of the name ‘India’ used in various projects, programs and slogans of Prime Minister Modi.
For example, the conjecture on the possible renaming of various state-owned institutions namely, The Reserve Bank of India, Port Trust of India, Airports Authority of India, Coal India, Steel Authority of India, Atomic Energy Commission of India, Indian Space Research Organisation, Geological Survey of India, the Election Commission of India.
Speculation is also rife on the possible deletion of the name India from passports, Aadhaar, PAN and voter cards. However, no official statement has been made by the government so far. This studied silence has actually fuelled the speculation.
For the first time in the history of independent India, the term “President of Bharat” has been used in an official invite to heads of state. The traditional “President of India” has been replaced. This sudden change from India to `Bharat’ has caused all the commotion in national politics. This has given rise to the question: “What is the sudden urgency to change India’s name?”
The opposition wasted little time in attacking the BJP on this issue. Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh wrote in X-A (formerly Twitter) on September 5, “So the news is indeed true. Rashtrapati Bhawan has sent out an invite for a G20 dinner on Sept 9th in the name of ‘President of Bharat’ instead of the usual ‘President of India’. Now, Article 1 in the Constitution can read: “Bharat, that was India, shall be a Union of States.” But now even this “Union of States” is under assault.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal questioned whether the Union Government would change the country’s name again if the opposition alliance rechristened itself “Bharat” from I.N.D.I.A.
Incidentally, the BJP camp stirred into action after the official debut of the anti-BJP alliance ‘I.N.D.I.A.’ (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance) in Bengaluru on July 18. The Prime Minister lost no time in linking ‘I.N.D.I.A.’ to militant organization ‘Indian Mujahideen’ and the banned organizations ‘Popular Front of India’ and SIMI (Students Islamic Movement of India).
He also said that the British too had the name `India’ in its East India Company that subjugated India into a British colony. He also took a dig at the Congress slogan ‘Indira is India’ during Indira Gandhi’s tenure as Prime Minister…..
According to constitutional expert P.D.T. Achary, any change in name from Republic of India will require several amendments (The Economic Times September 5, 2023).
The name India has been derived from the Sanskrit word “Sindhu” (the Indus River). The term “India” adopted from Greek “Indike”, later transitioned to Latin. Later, the Romans embraced the Greek term, leading to widespread usage. Ancient texts have references to the name “India”. For instance, Megasthenes, in his piece “Indica” during the 4th century BCE when he was an ambassador to the Mauryan Empire, gave detailed accounts of the nation under this name.
The Achaemenids used “Hind” for the lower Indus basin, which later merged with the suffix “stan” to form “Hindustan”. The British Empire preferred “India” to “Hindustan.”
It appears the question asked in William Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet” doesn’t hold good anymore and we are heading for parliamentary tug of war and may be a final verdict by the Constitutional Bench.

Isaac Harold Gomes,
Matters India