‘Bharat’ or India? Too much in Name | By Dhruv Vatsyayan

Some great playwright once said that “what’s in name? Even if we call Rose by some other name, it would smell sweet!” Well true that Mr. Romeo-Juliet, even if we call Rose by some other name, like for instance ‘Porcupine’ or ‘Cactus’, it still be having the same sweet scent. Yet, somehow it wouldn’t feel right.

That’s why, it’s necessary to have ‘right’ names, be it me, you, or for that matter, even a country.

India, as we today know this particular geographical location in South-east Asia, wasn’t always India. For years she was Aryavarta, then for some decades, she was Jambu-dweepa or for other times, Bharatvarsha. A major reason behind this was that as time transcended ages, the geographical frontiers kept changing; once till Afghanistan in the north-west and for other times up to Myanmar in deep east.

Source- opindia.com 

However, this vast expanse kept shrinking, and on the mid-night of 15^th of August 1947, ‘India’ was born.

After some 70 years of her ‘Nam-Karan’ as India, that is Bharat, a plea was filed in the Indian Supreme Court to ‘rename’ this pious land, in the Constitution. In the petition, the petitioner sought an amendment in the Indian Constitution; to be precise, in Article 1 of the Indian Constitution, that proclaims India, that is Bharat. The petition wanted ‘India’ to be struck off from the aforesaid article, and ‘Bharat’ to remain as sole name for the nation. The petitioner also argued that some framers in the Constituent Assembly had expressed a clear preference for ‘BHARAT’ at the exclusion of ‘INDIA’.

Nevertheless, this petition in Namah v. Union of India was dismissed by the Apex Court and the CJI Sharad Aravind Bobde observed orally that “Bharat and India are both names given in the Indian Constitution; India is already called ‘Bharat’ in the Indian Constitution”.

This plea again stirred the long-forgotten debate around the name of our country. It ignited a nationwide debate if our nation is ‘INDIA’ or, ‘BHARAT’?

Still, to arrive at any conclusion would be quite controversial and contentious. However, this compels us again to peep into our constitutional roots and turn the pages of our nation-making.

What did the Constitutional Framers want?

When the constituent assembly met on 13^th December 1946 for the first time, our Constitution sculptors had to go a very long path. This assembly was vested with the responsibility to craft a framework for future India. Yet, to draft a Constitution of the country, it was a pressing and pertinent issue regarding ‘what would be the name of our future nation’?

The Drafting Committee, headed by Baba Sahib Ambedkar, tabled Article 1 for discussion in the assembly on 15^th November 1948. Originally, in the Draft Constitution, Article 1(1) read as ‘India shall be a Union of States’.

Source- indianexpress.com

When this article was tabled in the assembly for open discussion, there were a variety of reactions, reservations, and suggestions by the members.

The very first amendment in the aforementioned article by submitted by Mr. Ananthsayanam Ayyangar, who was famously known as Ananth-Vachanam among his peers, for the kind of verbose he was. Mr. Ayyangar submitted that "That in clause (1) of Article 1, for the word 'India' the word 'Bharat (India)' and for the word 'States' the word' Provinces' be substituted." This was the first amendment proposed in the assembly for changing the name of the nation.

Seth Govind Das, a great freedom fighter and a notable Hindi author, was also a member in the assembly; and while this issue was being discussed, he expressed his concerns as, “The House very well knows how clear I am for naming our country BHARAT, but at the same time, we must try to bring unanimity of every group in this House. Of course, if that is not possible, we can go our own ways; but up to the time there was any possibility of reaching a unanimous decision by any compromise, that effort must be made. (Sir,) I Support this proposition, and I hope that by the efforts of our leaders, there will not be any division on fundamental points like this, and not only this proposition but other propositions also, like that our national language, national script, etc., we shall be able to carry unanimously.”

When such amendments and concerns were being expressed in the Constituent Assembly while deliberating upon and deciding the name of the country, in the session on 17^th September 1949, B.R.Ambedkar moved an amendment to the Draft Article 1 of the Indian Constitution; apparently to pacify such reluctance. In his amendment, he proposed the name ‘BHARAT’ be included in the debated article, but as, ‘India, that is, Bharat shall be a Union of States.’ Interestingly, this amendment itself, later on, became the Article 1(1) of the Constitution of India, 1950.

However, it was the 18^th September of 1949 that saw the fiercest debate in the constituent assembly regarding whether it should be BHARAT or INDIA or something else.

H.V.Kamath, a former Indian Civil Servant and the famous contrarian in the assembly, proposed his amendment which was somewhat a modification of Ambedkar’s proposal. He submitted that Article 1(1) of the Constitution should read as, ‘Bharat or, in the English language, India, shall be a Union of States’. To substantiate his amendment, he cited the example of the Irish Constitution, whose Article 4 establishes Ireland as ‘the Eire, or in English language, the Ireland’.

While the deliberations were going on, Seth Govind Das again stood to speak. This time not only he advocated for the name of BHARAT, but he also referred various sources where this geographical land was called BHARAT. He cited Bhishma Parva of Mahabharat, Vishnu Purana, Brahma Purana, and the Account of the Chinese traveler Hiuen-Tsang.

One member, Kala Venkata Rao also traced back the origins of this name to Rig-Veda and Vayu Purana in order to justify this demand.

Members who whole-heartedly espoused the name BHARAT were B.M.Gupta, Shree Ram Sahai, Kamalapati Tripathi, Har Govind Pant, and Brajeshwar Prasad inter alia.

However, when at the end of the session, Mr.Kamath’s amendment was put in the assembly; it was negativated with a margin of 51 against 38 votes and finally, B.R.Ambedkar’s amendment was accepted by the assembly with a large majority.

This was how our nation came to be known as India, that is Bharat.

Conclusion

It would not be an exaggeration to say that a significant number of members wanted the name to be kept as BHARAT, still, the majority in the assembly accepted the current status quo.

It should be noted that it might be possible that this plea was in the general interest of the public, however, such PILs leads us to unnecessary controversy in the public sphere of the nation. Even the Apex Court in the landmark case of Ashok Kumar Pandey v. the State of West Bengal had observed that (the) court must not allow its process to be abused for oblique considerations. Some persons with vested interest indulged in the pastime of meddling with the judicial process either by force or habit or from improper motives. Often they are actuated by a desire to win notoriety or cheap popularity. The petitions of such busybodies deserve to be thrown out by rejection at the threshold, and inappropriate cases, with exemplary costs.

Previously, also in the case of Niranjan Bhatwal v. Union of India, that had a similar matrix of that in the Namah v. Union of India, the Apex Court had dismissed the petition commenting that “every Indian has a right to choose between calling his country INDIA or BHARAT and Supreme Court has no business to either dictate or decide for a citizen regarding what should he call his country.”

Such temptations of historical interpretation and filing PILs must be refrained from in the future and such sources should be viewed in the stricter historical context as they not only do waste the precious time of the Apex Court but also stir unnecessary debates among the public.

*Author is a First-year B.A.LL.B(Hons) student at Law School, Banaras Hindu University.