RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat is only a few steps away from finally accomplishing his much-cherished mission of retrieving India’s past glory as ‘Akhand Bharat’. Recently, Bhagwat reiterated that ‘Akhand Bharat’ or undivided India would become a reality before today’s youngsters become old, as those who separated from India in 1947 are now feeling that they made a mistake. This clearly underlines his obsession for identifying India as Bharat and his dislike for the word India.
He nevertheless refused to accept that obliterating the word India from the Constitution of India certainly would not be a major gain for the supremacist forces, as the former constituents of Akhand Bharat, now all of them vibrant and developing economies, would abhor any such ill-conceived move. However, his design would prove to be a major leap forward as it would pave the way for changing the Indian identity into that of a Hindu Rashtra.
If the annihilation of “India” would serve the racist desires of the RSS, it is widely believed in the saffron circle that it would immortalise Narendra Modi. In fact, Modi agreeing to terminate the name ‘India’ has been primarily conjured by this misconstrued notion. Petitions demanding changing the name of ‘India’ to ‘Bharat’ had come up earlier before the Supreme Court on two occasions, but the Modi government opposed the argument during both times arguing that the move was against the spirit of the Constitution.
In 2020, a Delhi-based businessman filed a petition seeking an amendment to Article 1 of the Constitution. As per Article 1(1), “India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States.” The petitioner had said the name “India” was of Greek origin and came from the word “Indica”. Claiming that the English name “India” does not represent the culture and tradition of the country, the petitioner said renaming it to “Bharat” would help citizens shed colonial baggage. “Replacing India with Bharat will justify the hard-fought freedom achieved by our ancestors”. In its verdict, while dismissing the plea, then Chief Justice of India Sharad Bobde said, “Bharat and India are both names given in the Constitution…India is already called ‘Bharat’ in the Constitution.” A similar petition was also rejected by a Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice of India TS Thakur in 2016. The then CJI had said every Indian had the right to choose between calling the country “Bharat” or “India”. The bench had said the Supreme Court cannot decide what a citizen should call the country.
But in 2023 the same Modi and his government has come forward with the proposal to drop India and make the global fraternity identify it as Bharat. This is the reason that the invitation for dinner sent out to foreign dignitaries from the office of President mentions the host as “President of Bharat”. Serious conjectures are being made that Modi government may bring a motion in the special session to delete “Republic of India” and rechristen it as simply “Bharat”. That the Modi government did not intend to reveal its real intensions is evident from the simple fact that it did not notify the agenda of the house and inform the political parties ahead of the special session. The fear of getting it torpedoed by the opposition onslaught is also manifest in the rejoinder of Modi’s parliamentary affairs minister, Pralhad Joshi, who instead of coming out with the facts, accused opposition leader Sonia Gandhi of “politicising the work of Parliament”.
Gandhi had written to PM Modi listing the Opposition’s agenda, since the government was yet to declare its agenda for the session. Joshi like Modi was also trying to mislead the people. It is a fact that not less than a dozen special sessions of Parliament were held in the past and the respective government of the day had announced the agenda well in advance. But this time, Modi and his lieutenants are keeping it a secret. Surprisingly, Joshi claimed that the special session had been called “following laid down rules and regulations” and that “consultations with other political parties are never done before calling a session”, thus exposing the intellectual and administrative bankruptcy of the BJP ecosystem and the bureaucrats hanging round Modi.
It is a known fact that Modi suffers from an inferiority complex and his past moves to project himself as the creator of New India and a visionary were made to overcome the crisis of identity. His latest move has wider implication. While it would project him as the liberator of India as Bharat from the clutches of the colonial past in the eyes of his saffron followers, he would use it to bolster his image of being the real “Viswha Guru”. At the same time, he expects that this would motivate the people of Bharat to elect him as the prime minister for the third consecutive term in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Much like the Balakot gimmick in 2019, this latest India vs. Bharat controversy is a new mechanism to reinvent the fading spirit of nationalism which Modi has lost track of in the wake of the political odyssey that was Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra. Highlighting Bharat is unlikely to arouse the same nationalist spirit as was seen in 2019, post the massacre of 40 CRPF soldiers in Pulwama. It is also doubtful whether Modi would be able to set a new political narrative to counter Rahul’s message of love and inclusion. Uncaring of Modi’s move, Rahul has preferred to go abroad instead of putting his head down to work out to evolve the mechanism to counter Modi’s move.
People have come to realise that unnerved at the opposition naming its unity effort as I.N.D.I.A., Modi has been resorting to vindictive actions that could be detrimental to the country’s other strategic interests. In fact some scribes and experts describe the latest salvo as Modi’s masterstroke, a planned move to create confusion in the minds of the people and send the message across that he is the supreme leader. True enough, Modi latching on to the Bharat bandwagon is manifestation of a desperate mind. This is Modi in panic mode.
Moreover, Modi is mistaken on one more count. Only the urban middle class has been keeping track of all these developments and this India vs. Bharat skullduggery has no relevance for the working class, the poor, daily wage earners and the lower middle class. It is the fight for survival that matters and unfortunately for Modi, neither India nor Bharat matters for them. In 2019, the people were carried away by the shrill cry of Modi that Pakistan-based terrorists had been killed, which eventually was proved wrong after the exposé of former Jammu & Kashmir Governor Satyapal Malik.
So, Bhagwat’s is going to enjoy a short-lived euphoria. Large-scale desertion from the BJP ranks simply testifies this. The desertion is happening even after Modi is steadily going for changing the name. It is worth mentioning that in February this year, while delivering a formal lecture in Nagpur, Bhagwat had asserted, “Hindu Rashtra banane ki baat nahi hai, kyunki woh hai” (there is no need to work for a Hindu Rashtra because it exists already). Only last week, he declared Akhand Bharat shall be “reality soon.” People of India must wait for his next announcement.
Quarrels over “India” versus “Bharat” erupted only after opposition parties in July announced their new alliance, I.N.D.I.A. to defeat Modi at the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. This name symbolised the association of the urban middle class with the BJP and especially with Modi, who in the past elections used to call upon his vote bank to rally behind him. Now the same name has been hijacked by the opposition. Modi is finding it tough to use it for electoral gains. Now the only word on which Modi could fall back for his survival is Bharat. (IPA Service)
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