India or Bharat?

India or Bharat?

If the source of coming of the name ‘Bharat’ is from the name of ‘King Bharat’ then how can we call ‘Bharat Mata’ today, when the King is male? This is the commonly asked question today after demand for naming of our country as ‘Bharat’ instead of ‘India’ is taking its upward movement. Two stories of mythological history of India describe the fact that the name ‘Bharat’ derived from either the name of King or the name of Community. The word ‘Bharat’ is Sanskrit origin, which is a most ancient term of Tree. Purana, Mahabharata & Rigveda also referred this country as ‘Bharat’ or ‘BharatVarsha.’

According to Mahabharata, India was called BharatVarsha after the name of legendary Emperor Bharat Chakrabarty, who was ancestor of Pandavas and Kauravas. Emperor Bharat had conquered almost all major areas of greater India and united those into a single political entity, known as ‘BharatVarsha.’ But Rigveda has different story of becoming BharatVarsha. It was a battle of Ten Kings to overthrow King Sudasa, who belonged to the Bharata Tribe. Ultimately King Sudasa achieved victory and all defeated groups joined Bharata Tribe and accordingly his kingdom was called ‘BharatVarsha’

‘Bharat’ ‘Hindustan’ ‘Hind’ ‘Bharatbhumi’ ‘Bharatvarsha’ various names had been suggested for the present cosmopolitan India in the Constituent Assembly on September 18, 1949, before it was born. But finally the line - “India, that is, Bharat, shall be a Union of States” is written in the Article 1 (1) of the Constitution.

India is a home of oldest civilization of the world, which was believed to be inhabited approximately 250,000 years ago. The country, now known as largest democracy of the world, India is celebrating its 74^th years of Independence in the current year, 2020. According to etymological history of India that particular word might have originated from the name of a valley that is 'Indus valley' and we were known as people of that. By that way the name 'India' came into being before independence itself. It is explained as English term of ‘Bharat’ by many language experts because; it was christened by them in the history. But the etymological study illustrates that the word is origin of old Indian civilization and very much connected with India. May be these are some core points as to why the Constituent Assembly decided to keep two identities of the nation, that is 'India' and the 'Bharat' in unison.

Now, if we go through two lines of thinking about renaming the country we need to see its two meaning and implications too. If the name ‘India’ is retained then that will be based on our civilization. But if it is changed to ‘Bharat’ then that will be like dedicated to one King or Community, which may again be questioned in future. Because. We had many Kings, Emperors and Communities in the history and they were also found equally dominant, powerful, and influential having great contribution in maintaining our identity and territories. India being a Union of different states, its language, religion and ethnicity are also heterogeneous not homogeneous. So decision of converting the name of ‘India’ to ‘Bharat’ may be easy in Parliament by majority, but it may click again to a long drawn debate and conflict among Indian scholars and mass.