Is India going to change its name?: Other countries that were renamed in recent years and why they did it

The invitation sent to the delegates of the largest global economies that will participate this weekend in the G20 summit in the India has sparked controversy because of a small detail. The letter is signed by Droupadi Murmu, “president of bharat”.

LOOK: Rumors surrounding a possible name change for India

Although the 1950 Constitution contemplates that both India and Bharat, of Sanskrit origin, are official names of the country and both options are even used in passports, using only the second name in official invitations represents a real novelty on the part of the Administration of the nationalist leader Narendra Modi.

This is mainly because there is a current in the country that seeks to keep only Bharat as its official name and thus get rid of another symbol of its colonial era.

The British monarchy ruled over this territory for 200 years, until 1947. The name of India derives from Sindhu, one of the main rivers that runs through this territory and which was mispronounced by the colonizers.

For these types of reasons, politicians such as MP Harnath Singh Yadav, from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, affirm that “the word ‘India’ is an abuse given to us by the British, while the word ‘Bharat’ is a symbol of our culture”.

This small gesture of signing the letter in the name of Bharat is part of a series of measures that Modi has adopted since he came to power seeking to get rid of the “vestiges of British rule”. It also coincides with the recent statements of his party’s ideological mentor, Mohan Bhagwat, in which he proposes keeping only the name of Bharat.

And it has also generated rumors about a possible proposal that will be presented in Parliament to make a single name official, but this has not yet been confirmed.

Among the anti-colonial measures taken by Modi, the changes of names to streets and buildings that maintained references to the time of the Mughal Empire and the British colony stand out. In 2018, for example, three islands named after British rulers were renamed Andaman and Nicobar Islands, CNN recalls in an article.

However, not everyone agrees with these types of measures. The current opposition coalition, made up of 26 parties and baptized under the acronym INDIA, accuses Modi of promoting the name change to reduce their strength in the next elections.

Prominent opposition legislator Shashi Tharoor, on the other hand, highlighted through social media that a name change would be detrimental to the achievements made by the most populous country in the world. “Although there is no constitutional objection to calling India ‘Bharat’, which is one of the two official names of the country, I hope that the Government will not be so foolish as to completely dispense with ‘India’, which has incalculable brand value accumulated over centuries“, it states.

The debate initiated in India as a result of a possible name change brings to mind the cases of other countries that in recent years have chosen to rename themselves.

Source: Elcomercio

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I am Jack Morton and I work in 24 News Recorder. I mostly cover world news and I have also authored 24 news recorder. I find this work highly interesting and it allows me to keep up with current events happening around the world.