In Sanskrit, the word Bharat refers to “one who is in search of light,” and in Hindu mythology it is the name of the king who united the different peoples of the Asian subcontinent into a single great predestined nation.
The word refers to India and has a very strong weight in religious nationalism. In fact, the party of Hindu nationalists is called Bharatiya Janata, which translates as People’s Party.
In the historic and secular Congress Party, the political instrument that achieved independence, as well as in other centrist forces and in religious minorities such as Buddhism, Sikhism, Islam and Christianity, the term Bharat is often used as an acronym for Bring Harmony, Amity, Reconciliation and Trust (Bring harmony, friendship, reconciliation and trust). But religious nationalists give it the mythological and ancestral meaning.
Those who govern the country worked to stop it being called India and become called Bharat. They maintain that Bharat is the authentic name of the nation, the sum of many nations, that inhabits the Asian subcontinent. And they affirm that it was the British colonialists who called it India, therefore that name has to do with the colonial past that must be overcome to have another “golden era”, like the one that marked the beginning of the Gupta dynasty in the 4th century. of this era.
Strictly speaking, the ancient Greeks and also explorers like Marco Polo and other nations prior to the arrival of the British, called that immense territory by the name of the river that runs through it: Indus. In fact, the natives of the American continent were called Indians because Columbus believed he had reached the Indies, the name given to the island and continental territories that ran from Indonesia to Hindustan (present-day India), passing through Indochina, where Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia meet.
Therefore, officially calling Hindustan India was not a British whim of the 19th century to baptize Queen Victoria’s “crown jewel” with a far-fetched name. The word has a longer and deeper history than the Raj established by the United Kingdom in 1858, a colonial regime that encompassed India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burma and Sri Lanka.
The fact is that the name change of India would be the climax of the national-Hindu gravitation on society. Pushed by this pressure, the process of renaming cities was initiated by Varasimha Rao, of the secular and centrist Congress Party, by changing the name of none other than the city of Bombay, a word passed down by Portuguese and English settlers (mixing both languages, it means “ good bay”).
The capital of the state of Maharashtra and the country’s main financial district was renamed Mumbai, after Mumba Devi, the “mother goddess” in Hindu mythology. Then it was the turn of Madras, which was renamed Chennai; to Calcutta, which at the beginning of this century was renamed Kolkata, and Aurangabad, renamed Sambhajinagar, in addition to two dozen other less visible cities worldwide.
Now the name of the country is going to be changed at the will of the religious-nationalists, in their proclaimed attempt to remove all the signs left by foreign occupiers. Strictly speaking, the Constitution that has been in force since 1950 mentions the term Bharat, giving the country two official names. What will happen starting this year is the annulment of one of the nominations, which is the best known in the world: India.
In this way, the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Draupadi Murmu, both of the Bharatiya Janata, carries out its cultural battle to erase the vestiges of the past but also (and this is disturbing) of the democracy built by the founders of India. independent: Pandit Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi and the Congress Party. The direction taken by the government is visible in other political measures, such as the suppression of the autonomy of Kashmir, a region where the majority of the population is Muslim.
That India would be renamed Bharat would not be disturbing if a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sang, which is the most extreme arm of the Bharatiya Janata, were not at the head of the government. However, on the world stage, Narendra Modi promotes projects together with Western powers, which was evident at the G20 summit.
On crucial issues, the meeting that took place in New Delhi did not take relevant steps. What was agreed in terms of reducing greenhouse gases is not related to the alarming signs of what is already described as “climate collapse.”
The G20 final declaration also does not reflect the reality of the war in central Europe. The call not to alter by force the territorial integrity of a country is easily interpreted in favor of the invaded country: Ukraine. But the fact that Russian aggression has not been condemned or explicitly mentioned is a step backwards compared to the final document of the previous summit, held in Bali.
Except for the incorporation of the African Union as a permanent member, a necessary step for the harmonious development of the global economy and to confront “climate collapse”, half measures prevailed in all agreements on crucial issues.
The most relevant thing that happened at the G20 was carried out by a group of countries: it is the plan to link infrastructure from India to Europe, passing through the Middle East, an initiative that undoubtedly aims to compete against the “Silk Road.” promoted by China, whose president was the great absentee in New Delhi.
The plan, which includes railway projects, ports, power lines and a hydrogen pipeline, was promoted by India, the United States, the European Union, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, among others. The result not only implies a challenge to Chinese expansion projects through infrastructure but also a basis for rapprochement between Israel and its Arab neighbors.
That Narendra Modi is among the most enthusiastic promoters of this economic interaction corridor shows a crack in the BRICS as a geopolitical project, which is what Xi Jinping wants to do with that bloc created at the 2009 Ekaterinburg summit.
There were other positive signs in New Delhi, but the centrist parties and the minority Sikh, Buddhist, Muslim and Christian ethnic groups, what they heard with concern is “Bharat”, the Sanskrit word that refers to Hindu mythology and will be the new name of India.
