By Avik Chattopadhyay
While the President of Bhārat has graciously invited G20 guests from across the world to an exposition of Indian [oops Bhāratiya] hospitality, cuisine and music, Salman is being taught by his colleague that when travelling by Delhi Metro, his name is Mukesh, has to know the Gayatri Mantra by heart, never carry any kababs to office even if from Tunday in Lucknow and, get his ‘new’ Aadhar Card pronto. Skills to save himself from getting lynched!
Welcome to Bhārat.
Land of riches and home of the faithful.
A land that knew answers to all the problems a human being would have in millennia to come much before you can ever fathom. We had all the answers for astronomy, medicine, governance, metallurgy, warfare, architecture and anything else one can think of before any other race. Our scriptures contain all measurements, predictions and remedies to alleviate human existence, right from the galactic system to the gastric system.
So what if a Meghnad Saha or a Jayant Narlikar questioned the narrative that we were the fountainhead of all knowledge, spread by the marauding Arabs to the rest of the world. We are the living centre of civilisation, unbroken for centuries. Sadly, we cannot claim the same for the birth of mankind, though we would have loved to. In fact, if the Homo Sapiens had actually originated from Jambudwipa, humanity would have been in a better state of being, already having spread to Mars and engaging in interplanetary travel over weekends. And our omnipresent faith would have ensured the galaxy wakes up to the reverberations of Om every solar day. That is the essence of Bhārat.
Or is it Bhārath?
Should it not be Bhārath instead of Bhārat?
My friends from the southern part of the peninsula must insist it is spelt that way.
Otherwise, the entire exercise will just not be inclusive enough. How can the ‘cow belt’ always have its say on everything of grave national interest? In fact, those in the south are the earliest settlers on this landmass and they have gone beyond their call of duty to preserve the core faith while the north has been soiled by outsiders. They adopted the caste system and implemented it to the hilt, so much so that the Brahmins are purer than the meat eating ones from Bengal, Bihar and Kashmir. They have let go their own languages to adopt Sanskrit and help it evolve over centuries. They have risen beyond the cause of the ‘lesser’ inhabitants in their lands to take up the cause of the pure Aryan civilisation. In fact, they are the original Aryans and not someone up north pretending to be one just by colour of eyes and skin. So, India must become Bharath, and nothing less, for that will be impure.
Or is it Bhārata?
Should it not be Bhārata instead of Bhārat or Bhārath?
For those that want either of the latter two are an insult to the oldest living civilisation on earth and its language. It is not Ram but Rama. And it is not pronounced “Raamaa”… just simply “Raama”. Just like it is neither Mahabharat nor Mahabharataa, but simply Mahabharata. Similarly, it should be pronounced “Bhaarata” and neither Bhaarat nor Bhaarataa. And definitely not Bhaarath. As most of us are experts on the Vedas, Upanishadas and Puranas, we should have known at least how to pronounce the rightful name of our nation.
For those who lament that India is a colonial name need to know that the word was first used by Herodotus in the 5th century BC in Koine Greek. And I do not think the Greeks really ended up colonising us. Even Megasthenes later used the name in his book “Indica”. The root of the word is “Indus”, the Greek name for the “Sindhu” river. If we are comfortable with the Indus Valley Civilisation, we should be pretty comfortable with India too. Someone needs to drill it down their hard heads that “India” is not a name given by the British, or the French, or the Portuguese, or the Dutch, or even the Danish. Least of all the Mughals, who preferred to call it “Hindūstān”.
Also, to set the record straight, Bhārata or Bhāratavarṣa refers to the kingdom of the Bharata clan, starting with a king called Bharata. There are various versions of who really Bharata was, whether the son of Dasharatha or that of Dushyanta or Rishabhanatha. Even if we were to dismiss this triviality of historical accuracy, the region Bhāratavarṣa refers to the western part of the Gangetic plain, then recorded as the extent of Bharata’s kingdom. It does not even refer to the entire subcontinent and physical entity that we have known as India for the last 200 odd years. Hence, even considering such a name will be disrespecting the entire geophysical entity that we are today. And we cannot deny the simple fact that this entity was put together by the English East India Company in the first place.
Article 1 of the Indian Constitution starts as “India, that is Bharat, shall be a union of states…” clearly giving priority to the name India over Bharat. The decision was taken after lots of deliberations in the Constituent Assembly in 1948 and 1949. Three names were shortlisted from the various proposals which included ones like ‘Hind’ and ‘Union of Indian Socialist Republics’ – India, Bharat and Hindustan. Hindustan was dropped as it referred to a larger landmass which had been partitioned in 1947 and also the association with the word ‘Hindu’. Between India and Bharat, the former was given priority as the name the world has known us by for centuries. Bharat was included as the second name, hence the structure of the opening sentence in Article 1.
At the end of the day, India shall be as our holiest book, the Constitution: states, a union of states, minds, thoughts, beliefs, isms and convictions… all uniting the country more than ever before.
Jai Hind!
Avik Chattopadhyay is a senior brand and business strategy consultant based in Gurugram. He writes on MxMIndia every other Thursday. The views here are personal