Four years apart, two Chief Justices of India had reacted differently to demands for ‘Bharat’ instead of ‘India’.
While one CJI upheld the right of the individual to choose between the two names, his successor, four years down the line, suggested nudging the government about it.
Also read | Bharat vs India: one nation, two names
These hearings in the top court had happened years before the 2023 G-20 dinner invite described President Droupadi Murmu as the ‘President of Bharat’ sparking a row over whether the government was planning to drop ‘India’ and keep just ‘Bharat’.
In March 2016, Chief Justice of India T.S. Thakur told activist Niranjan Bhatwal from Maharshtra that the choice was his, to call his country ‘Bharat’ or ‘India’. Nobody, no authority, State or court, had the power to dictate to citizens what they should call their country.
“If you want to call this country ‘Bharat’, go right ahead and call it Bharat. If somebody chooses to call this country India, let him call it India. We will not interfere,” Chief Justice Thakur had said.
Mr. Bhatwal had sought clarity on the phraseology of Article 1 of the Constitution, which said “India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States”. He argued that the word ‘India’ was not a literal translation of the word ‘Bharata.’ He said history and the scriptures knew the country as ‘Bharata’. The activist had contended that ‘India’ was a name coined by the British. Citizens need to have an unambiguous understanding of what they should call their country. The petition said the Constituent Assembly had debated many names for the newborn Republic, and some of them were “Bharat, Hindustan, Hind and Bharatbhumi or Bharatvarsh and names of that kind”. ‘India’ was incorporated merely for the limited purpose of recognition of the Republic by other countries.
Second petition
An identical petition again came up before the Supreme Court, this time before Chief Justice of India S.A. Bobde, in June 2020. The country at the time was grappling with the pandemic. The hearing, this time, was held virtually. The plea wanted ‘India’ to be struck off Article 1, saying there should be “uniformity” about the name of the nation.
Chief Justice Bobde responded by pointing out to the petitioner, Namah, that “Bharat and India are both names given in the Constitution. India is already called ‘Bharat’ in the Constitution”.
Though Chief Justice Bobde did not entertain the petition, he suggested that the petition could be transformed into a representation and forwarded to the Central Ministries, primarily the Union Ministry of Home Affairs.
