essay writing on jai ho bharat

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Essay Writing Competition on the topic Ek Bharat Shrestha Bharat

Join the spirited celebration of Independence Day 2024 with enthusiasm through the Ministry of Defence and MyGov's compelling essay competition themed "Ek Bharat, Shrestha ...

Join the spirited celebration of Independence Day 2024 with enthusiasm through the Ministry of Defence and MyGov 's compelling essay competition themed "Ek Bharat, Shrestha Bharat."

This competition encourages Indian youth to share their ideas and perspectives on India's unity in diversity. Participants will delve into how India's diverse cultures contribute to its distinctive identity. This initiative provides a vibrant platform for reflecting on India's journey to greatness, culminating in a festive celebration of Independence Day infused with passion, pride, and profound insights.

Participation Guidelines: 1. Participants are to write an essay on the topic "Ek Bharat, Shrestha Bharat" in around 500-600 words showcasing the essence of unity in diversity of Indian Culture.

Gratifications: 1st Prize - ₹ 25,000/- 2nd Prize - ₹ 15,000/- 3rd Prize - ₹ 10,000/- Top 250 participants would be issued invitation cards by Ministry of Defence to witness Independence Day Celebration to be held on 15th August, 2024 at Red Fort, Delhi.

Click here to read the Terms and Conditions. (PDF 157KB)

For any concerns related to this Ministry, please connect on the Ministry website directly - https://mod.gov.in/

Essay on Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat for Students and Children

500 words essay on ek bharat shreshtha bharat.

It is a government scheme talked by the PM of India Mr. Narendra Modi on the occasion of National unity day (Rashtriya Ekta Divas) 31 st October 2015. Also, 31 st October happens to be the birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel.

Ek Bharat Shrestha Bharat Scheme

It is a scheme launched by Narendra Modi – the Prime Minister of India on 31 st October 2016. Furthermore, the main purpose of the scheme is to enrich and enhance the tradition and culture of the country.

In addition, it launched an initiative to boost the cultural connection between the states and union territories of the country. Furthermore, it helps people to enhance their interaction with the people of a different region of the country.

Moreover, it boosts the cultural connection between different parts of the country. Besides, it helps people to understand the different culture that exists in the country closely.

What is the Scheme?

In this scheme, one state of the country will connect to other states of the country on annual basis and both will promote the rich tradition of each other through events like song and dance festivals, food festivals, book festivals, tour and travel, literacy events and many more.

Most noteworthy, in the next year both the states, will connect to two other states for fulfilling the same aim. Furthermore, in this way, we can make sure that more people in the country will know about the tradition, culture, and practices of different states of the country.

Besides, this will enhance the understanding of the culture and bonding among the people also it will strengthen the unity of the country.

Moreover, the government of India decides to take inputs from the citizen of the country before implementing this scheme. For doing this, Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat contest was launched to get opinions and ideas from the public. In addition, in this way, the program can be made more effective in various magnitudes.

Also, the government opened a portal on which people can give their themes and sub-themes, ideas and suggestions in detail. Besides, citizens can make the following themes and sub-themes their base before writing and submitting original and views, suggestions, and innovative ideas. These themes are:

• To identify the role of the central government and state government in implementing this program.
• Also, identify a way y which civil society, public groups, government, and private sector can work together to fulfill the scheme.
• Furthermore, specify how we can use modern communication tools such as social media.
• Document some success stories of these types.
• Also, how can Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat be made a people’s movement relative to a government program?

Prize of the Scheme

Also, the PM announced that the most innovative and original idea that explains all the details will be preferable and the person score is also higher.  Also, the first, second, and third prize was Rs. 1 lakh, Rs. 75 Thousands, and Rs. 50 thousand respectively.

Furthermore, a certificate will also be provided with the prizes. Besides, the government does this to attract more participants to participate in the scheme.

To sum it up, the Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat is a nice scheme that will help the people of the country to know and understand the different cultures and traditions of the country.

FAQs about Essay on Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat

Q.1 What is the launch date of Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat and who launched it?

A.1 The launch date of Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat is 31 st October 2016 and it was launched by our Honorable Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi.

Q.2 Why 31 st October is chosen to launch this scheme?

A.2 31 st October is chosen because it is the birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel who is known as the iron man of India. Also, he is the man who united the nation against the Britishers.

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Independence Day (15 August): Essay ideas for school students

Historical Significance of Independence Day

The journey to freedom, celebrating unity in diversity, heroes of independence, the importance of patriotism, challenges post-independence, global perspectives on independence, dreams of a new india, messages of unity and tolerance, paying homage to freedom fighters, key points on how to write a good essay, visual stories.

Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat Essay

“Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat” was announced on 31 st October 2015 by the then Prime Minister Sri Narendra Modi to mark the occasion of 140 th birth anniversary of a renowned politician and the first Deputy Prime Minister of India – Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. The scheme aims for improving the unity between different cultures of Indian society. It stresses on state-state, state-Union Territory or district to district harmony and brotherhood by organizing cultural exchange programs.

The concept of “Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat” is based on many themes like music, health, cuisine, dance, painting, sculpture, handicraft etc.  Apart from cultural exchange programs, several other activities are also listed in “Ek Bharat Shrestha Bharat Scheme”, like – translation of award winning books into different languages; organizing culinary events; broadcasting programs exchange between partner states etc.

Essay on Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat

We have provided below some essay on Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat under various words limit according to the student’s needs and requirements.

Now-a-days, essays or paragraphs writing are common strategy followed by the teachers in schools and colleges in order to enhance student’s skill and knowledge about any topic.

All the Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat essay provided below are written in very easy and simple sentences in order to fulfill the students need and requirement.

So students, you can select any of these essays:

Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat Essay 1 (100 words)

Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat is a scheme, which is in the process to be launched as a new and effective scheme by the government of India. The Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi, has announced on Rashtriya Ekta Divas (31 st of October 2015, the birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel) to launch this new initiative.

The aim of this scheme is to boost unity in India through the existing cultural connections among various parts of the country. It also aims to improve interaction between Indian people who are living at different places all through the country. This initiative will connect people to people which will really enhance unity in India.

Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat Essay 2 (150 words)

The Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi, has announced on Rashtriya Ekta Divas address on 31 st October in 2015 to launch a new initiative known as EK Bharat Shreshtha Bharat. Government of India is in process to launch this new initiative in order to boost the unity among people of India through the existing cultural connections between different parts of country.

There is a plan to connect one state to any other state of the country every year on a reciprocal basis. In which, one state can popularize the rich heritage of another state such as Haryana state can connect to the Tamil Nadu state and can popularize its rich heritages through various events like literary events, book festivals, food festivals, song festivals, tours of Haryana people to Tamil Nadu, etc in its own state. In this way, a state would connect to any other state of the country every year and promote its heritages.

Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat Essay 3 (200 words)

PM Narendra Modi has announced that EK Bharat Shreshtha Bharat is a new initiative to be launched in the near future in order to enhance unity in India. This initiative is in the process to be launched and aimed to connect people to people all through the country. This scheme was announced by the PM on Rashtriya Ekta Divas address, 31 st of October 2015 (birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel) to be launched. It is to initiate the cultural connections between different parts of the country. According to this initiative, one state of the country would connect to the other and promote each other’s heritage in other state.

Through this scheme, people of a state will get proper knowledge of tradition, culture, and other practices of other states which will enhance the understanding and bonding among people thereby enhance and strengthen the unity and integrity of India. In order to make this scheme more effective ‘EK Bharat Shreshtha Bharat’ contest has been started to know the views and ideas of different people all through the country. Citizens of the country are invited to submit their views, ideas and suggestions (on government website) to structure the programme so that it can be effective in its all dimensions.

Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat Essay 4 (250 words)

Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, has talked about a new scheme called as Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat on 31 st of October 2015 (birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel) in his speech. This is an initiative in the process to be launched in near future. It is an effort by the Indian government to strengthen the unity and harmony all over the country. It is a programme aimed to connect people to people all through the country. India is a country which is the best example of “Unity in Diversity”. This programme is also an initiative to improve the quality of unity in India. He also said in his ‘Mann Ki Baat’ programme that Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat scheme is to make India “One India Supreme India”.

This solid initiative of enhancing the peace and harmony need to uphold the law and order in order to maintain the same. In order to make this programme more effective, PM has requested the views, ideas and suggestions of common public on a government portal ‘MyGov.in’. He has also requested to suggest the structure, logo and ways to increase public participation in this programme.

There are various creative minds hidden in the crowd who can give better suggestions to connect people of India to unity and harmony to make it Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat. There is a plan to make it a specific and prestigious scheme to connect people in easy manner to achieve the main goal of enriching the culture of unity and harmony in the country.

Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat Essay 5 (300 words)

Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat is a new initiative to be launched which was announced by the PM Narendra Modi on the occasion of 140 th birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (31 st of October 2015). India is a country known all over the world for its unity, peace and harmony. So, this initiative is an effort by the government to enhance its unity, peace and harmony all around the country by connecting people to people.

It is an important task need to get fulfilled in order to achieve the new heights of development in the country. This scheme has aimed to connect people to people as well as enhance the peace and harmony in the country. Below are some points regarding this scheme:

• Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat scheme has got inspiration from the life of a great person and a freedom fighter of India named as Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.
• There is a plan to launch this scheme very soon in which, any one state of this country will connect to another state every year and promote each other’s heritage like culture, tradition, language, etc.
• There has been made committees to work effectively on the scheme in consultation with the states.
• This scheme has aimed to get started with the unique partnership of two states for one year in which cultural and student exchanges would be followed.
• Students of both states will go to each other’s state in order to get knowledge about the culture, tradition and language.

In order to make this scheme en effective one, EK Bharat Shreshtha Bharat contest has been launched on 29 th of November 2015. According to this contest, government of India needs views, ideas and better suggestions about this scheme by the common people to make it effective. People can submit their views, ideas and suggestions on ‘mygov.in’ till the last date of submission, 10 th of December 2015.

Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat Essay 6 (400 words)

PM Narendra Modi has talked about a scheme on the occasion of Rashtriya Ekta Divas, 31 st of October 2015 (the birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel). The name of the scheme is EK Bharat Shreshtha Bharat which is in the process to be launched in near future aiming to enhance and enrich the culture and tradition of country. Prime Minister has announced that Government of India will launch a new initiative to boost the cultural connections between different parts of the country. It is to connect people to people by enhancing interaction among people of different states.

According to this scheme, one state of the country will connect to other state on annual basis and both popularize the rich heritage of each other through the events like song festivals, food festivals, literary events, book festivals, tour and travel, etc. Next year, both states will connect to other two states aiming the same goal. This is the way to make people know about the culture, traditions and practices of various states all through the country. This will enhance the proper understanding and bonding among people as well as strengthen the unity and integrity in India.

Government of Indian has decided to get inputs from the citizens of India before implementing this initiative. That’s why EK Bharat Shreshtha Bharat contest has been launched to get views and ideas of people. Citizens can submit their ideas and suggestions (ways to structure programme to make it effective in various dimensions) directly on the government portal (mygov.in). In order to help citizens, government of India has given some themes and sub-themes so that they can expand their ideas and suggestions in detail and in right direction. Citizens can make following themes and sub-themes their base before writing and submitting original and innovative ideas, views and suggestions:

• “Identifying role of central government and state governments in implementing the programme.”
• “Identifying the manner in which the governments, civil society and private sector can work together.”
• “Specifying the Use of modern communication tools, including social media.”
• “Documentation of success stories.”
• “Making ‘Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat’ a people’s movement rather than a government programme.”

It is said by the PM that the original and innovative ideas which are explained in detail will be more preferred and score higher. Details can be submitted in PDF format. First (Rs. 100,000/-), second (Rs. 75,000/-) and third (Rs. 50,000/-) cash prizes (along with a certificate) are also declared by the government in order to attract more participants towards this scheme. Citizens can submit the details about views and ideas till the last date of submission, 10 th of December 2015.

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एक भारत श्रेष्ठ भारत

By विकास सिंह

विषय-सूचि

एक भारत श्रेष्ठ भारत पर निबंध (100 शब्द)

एक भारत श्रेष्ठ भारत एक योजना है, जिसे भारत सरकार द्वारा एक नई और प्रभावी योजना के रूप में शुरू करने की प्रक्रिया है। भारत के प्रधान मंत्री श्री नरेंद्र मोदी ने राष्ट्रीय एकता दिवस (31 अक्टूबर 2015, सरदार वल्लभभाई पटेल की जयंती) को इस नई पहल की शुरुआत करने की घोषणा की है।

इस योजना का उद्देश्य देश के विभिन्न हिस्सों के बीच मौजूदा सांस्कृतिक संबंधों के माध्यम से भारत में एकता को बढ़ावा देना है। इसका उद्देश्य उन भारतीय लोगों के बीच बातचीत में सुधार करना है जो पूरे देश में विभिन्न स्थानों पर रह रहे हैं। यह पहल लोगों को उन लोगों से जोड़ेगी जो वास्तव में भारत में एकता बढ़ाएंगे।

एक भारत श्रेष्ठ भारत पर निबंध, Essay on Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat in hindi (150 शब्द)

भारत के प्रधान मंत्री, श्री नरेन्द्र मोदी ने, एक भात श्रेष्ठ भारत के नाम से एक नई पहल शुरू करने के लिए 31 अक्टूबर 2015 को राष्ट्रीय एकता दिवस संबोधन की घोषणा की थी। भारत सरकार देश के विभिन्न हिस्सों के बीच मौजूदा सांस्कृतिक संबंधों के माध्यम से भारत के लोगों के बीच एकता को बढ़ावा देने के लिए इस नई पहल को शुरू करने की प्रक्रिया में है।

पारस्परिक आधार पर हर साल एक राज्य को देश के किसी अन्य राज्य से जोड़ने की योजना है। जिसमें, एक राज्य दूसरे राज्य की समृद्ध विरासत को लोकप्रिय बना सकता है जैसे कि हरियाणा राज्य तमिलनाडु राज्य से जुड़ सकता है और साहित्यिक कार्यक्रमों, पुस्तक उत्सवों, खाद्य उत्सवों, गीत उत्सवों, हरियाणा के लोगों के पर्यटन जैसे विभिन्न कार्यक्रमों के माध्यम से अपने समृद्ध विरासत को लोकप्रिय बना सकता है। इस तरह, एक राज्य हर साल देश के किसी अन्य राज्य से जुड़ जाता है और अपने विध्वंस को बढ़ावा देता है।

एक भारत श्रेष्ठ भारत पर निबंध (200 शब्द)

पीएम नरेंद्र मोदी ने घोषणा की है कि भारत में एकता बढ़ाने के लिए निकट भविष्य में ईके भारत की एक नई पहल शुरू की जाएगी। यह पहल देशभर में लोगों से जुड़ने के उद्देश्य से शुरू की जाने वाली प्रक्रिया है। इस योजना की घोषणा पीएम ने राष्ट्रीय एकता दिवस पर, अक्टूबर 2015 की 31 तारीख (सरदार वल्लभ भाई पटेल की जयंती) पर की।

यह देश के विभिन्न हिस्सों के बीच सांस्कृतिक संबंधों को आरंभ करना है। इस पहल के अनुसार, देश का एक राज्य दूसरे से जुड़ जाएगा और दूसरे राज्य में एक दूसरे की विरासत को बढ़ावा देगा। इस योजना के माध्यम से, एक राज्य के लोगों को अन्य राज्यों की परंपरा, संस्कृति और अन्य प्रथाओं का उचित ज्ञान मिलेगा, जो लोगों के बीच समझ और संबंध को बढ़ाएगा जिससे भारत की एकता और अखंडता में वृद्धि होगी।

इस योजना को और अधिक प्रभावी बनाने के लिए एक भारत श्रेष्ठ भारत ’प्रतियोगिता को पूरे देश में विभिन्न लोगों के विचारों और विचारों को जानने के लिए शुरू किया गया है। देश के नागरिकों को कार्यक्रम की संरचना के लिए अपने विचार, विचार और सुझाव (सरकारी वेबसाइट पर) प्रस्तुत करने के लिए आमंत्रित किया जाता है ताकि यह अपने सभी आयामों में प्रभावी हो सके।

एक भारत श्रेष्ठ भारत पर निबंध (250 शब्द)

भारतीय प्रधानमंत्री नरेंद्र मोदी ने अपने भाषण में 31 अक्टूबर 2015 (सरदार वल्लभभाई पटेल की जयंती) पर एक भारत श्रेष्ठ भारत नामक एक नई योजना के बारे में बात की है। यह निकट भविष्य में शुरू की जाने वाली प्रक्रिया में एक पहल है। यह भारत सरकार द्वारा पूरे देश में एकता और सद्भाव को मजबूत करने का एक प्रयास है।

यह देश भर में लोगों को लोगों से जोड़ने का एक कार्यक्रम है। भारत एक ऐसा देश है जो “विविधता में एकता” का सबसे अच्छा उदाहरण है। यह कार्यक्रम भारत में एकता की गुणवत्ता में सुधार के लिए भी एक पहल है। उन्होंने अपने मन की बात ’कार्यक्रम में यह भी कहा कि एक भारत श्रेष्ठ भारत योजना भारत को “एक भारत सर्वोच्च भारत” बनाने के लिए है।

शांति और सद्भाव बढ़ाने की इस ठोस पहल को बनाए रखने के लिए कानून और व्यवस्था को बनाए रखने की जरूरत है। इस कार्यक्रम को और प्रभावी बनाने के लिए, पीएम ने एक सरकारी पोर्टल ‘MyGov.in’ पर आम जनता के विचारों, विचारों और सुझावों का अनुरोध किया है।

उन्होंने इस कार्यक्रम में संरचना, लोगो और सार्वजनिक भागीदारी बढ़ाने के तरीकों का सुझाव देने का भी अनुरोध किया है। भीड़ में विभिन्न रचनात्मक दिमाग छिपे हुए हैं जो भारत के लोगों को एकता और सद्भाव से जोड़ने के लिए बेहतर सुझाव दे सकते हैं ताकि इसे एक भारत श्रेष्ठ भारत बनाया जा सके।

देश में एकता और सद्भाव की संस्कृति को समृद्ध करने के मुख्य लक्ष्य को प्राप्त करने के लिए लोगों को आसान तरीके से जोड़ने के लिए इसे विशिष्ट और प्रतिष्ठित योजना बनाने की योजना है।

एक भारत श्रेष्ठ भारत पर निबंध (300 शब्द)

एक भारत श्रेष्ठ भारत एक नई पहल है जिसे सरदार वल्लभभाई पटेल (31 अक्टूबर 2015) की 140 वीं जयंती के अवसर पर पीएम नरेंद्र मोदी द्वारा शुरू करने की घोषणा की गई थी। भारत एक ऐसा देश है जो अपनी एकता, शांति और सद्भाव के लिए पूरी दुनिया में जाना जाता है।

इसलिए, यह पहल सरकार द्वारा लोगों को लोगों से जोड़कर देश भर में अपनी एकता, शांति और सद्भाव बढ़ाने का एक प्रयास है। देश में विकास की नई ऊंचाइयों को प्राप्त करने के लिए यह एक महत्वपूर्ण कार्य है। इस योजना ने देश में शांति और सद्भाव बढ़ाने के साथ-साथ लोगों को जोड़ने का लक्ष्य रखा है। इस योजना के बारे में कुछ बिंदु नीचे दिए गए हैं:

एक भारत श्रेष्ठ भारत योजना को एक महान व्यक्ति और भारत के स्वतंत्रता सेनानी सरदार वल्लभ भाई पटेल के जीवन से प्रेरणा मिली है। इस योजना को बहुत जल्द शुरू करने की योजना है, जिसमें इस देश का कोई एक राज्य हर साल दूसरे राज्य से जुड़ेगा और एक दूसरे की विरासत जैसे संस्कृति, परंपरा, भाषा आदि को बढ़ावा देगा।

राज्यों के परामर्श से योजना पर प्रभावी ढंग से काम करने के लिए समितियाँ बनाई गई हैं। इस योजना ने एक वर्ष के लिए दो राज्यों की अनूठी साझेदारी के साथ आरंभ करने का लक्ष्य रखा है जिसमें सांस्कृतिक और छात्र आदान-प्रदान का पालन किया जाएगा।

संस्कृति, परंपरा और भाषा के बारे में जानकारी प्राप्त करने के लिए दोनों राज्यों के छात्र एक-दूसरे के राज्य में जाएंगे। इस योजना को प्रभावी बनाने के लिए, एक भारत श्रेष्ठ भारत प्रतियोगिता 29 नवंबर 2015 को शुरू की गई। इस प्रतियोगिता के अनुसार, भारत सरकार को इस योजना के बारे में विचारों, विचारों और बेहतर सुझावों की आवश्यकता है ताकि इसे प्रभावी बनाया जा सके। लोग अपने विचार, विचार और सुझाव .in mygov.in ’पर जमा करने की अंतिम तिथि, 10 दिसंबर 2015 तक जमा कर सकते हैं।

एक भारत श्रेष्ठ भारत पर निबंध (400 शब्द)

पीएम नरेंद्र मोदी ने 31 अक्टूबर 2015 (सरदार वल्लभ भाई पटेल की जयंती), राष्ट्रीय एकता दिवस के अवसर पर एक योजना के बारे में बात की है। योजना का नाम एक भारत श्रेष्ठ भारत है जो निकट भविष्य में देश की संस्कृति और परंपरा को बढ़ाने और समृद्ध करने के उद्देश्य से शुरू करने की प्रक्रिया में है।

प्रधान मंत्री ने घोषणा की है कि भारत सरकार देश के विभिन्न हिस्सों के बीच सांस्कृतिक संबंधों को बढ़ावा देने के लिए एक नई पहल शुरू करेगी। यह विभिन्न राज्यों के लोगों के बीच बातचीत को बढ़ाकर लोगों को लोगों से जोड़ना है।

इस योजना के अनुसार, देश का एक राज्य वार्षिक आधार पर दूसरे राज्य से जुड़ेगा और दोनों एक दूसरे की समृद्ध विरासत को गीतों के त्योहारों, खाद्य उत्सवों, साहित्यिक कार्यक्रमों, पुस्तक उत्सवों, दौरे और यात्रा आदि जैसे आयोजनों के माध्यम से आगे बढ़ाएंगे। वर्ष, दोनों राज्य एक ही लक्ष्य को प्राप्त करने वाले अन्य दो राज्यों से जुड़ेंगे।

यह देश के माध्यम से लोगों को विभिन्न राज्यों की संस्कृति, परंपराओं और प्रथाओं के बारे में जानने का तरीका है। इससे लोगों में उचित समझ और संबंध बढ़ेगा और साथ ही भारत में एकता और अखंडता मजबूत होगी।

भारत सरकार ने इस पहल को लागू करने से पहले भारत के नागरिकों से इनपुट प्राप्त करने का निर्णय लिया है। इसीलिए एक भारत श्रेष्ठ भारत प्रतियोगिता को लोगों के विचारों और सुझावों को प्राप्त करने के लिए लॉन्च किया गया है। नागरिक अपने विचारों और सुझावों (विभिन्न आयामों में इसे प्रभावी बनाने के लिए कार्यक्रम की संरचना के तरीके) को सीधे सरकारी पोर्टल (mygov.in) पर जमा कर सकते हैं।

नागरिकों की मदद करने के लिए, भारत सरकार ने कुछ थीम और उप-विषय दिए हैं ताकि वे अपने विचारों और सुझावों का विस्तार और सही दिशा में विस्तार कर सकें। नागरिक मूल और अभिनव विचारों, विचारों और सुझावों को लिखने और सबमिट करने से पहले निम्नलिखित विषयों और उप-विषयों को अपना आधार बना सकते हैं:

• “कार्यक्रम को लागू करने में केंद्र सरकार और राज्य सरकारों की भूमिका की पहचान करना।”
• “सरकारों, नागरिक समाज और निजी क्षेत्र के काम करने के तरीके को पहचानना।”
• “सोशल मीडिया सहित आधुनिक संचार साधनों के उपयोग को निर्दिष्ट करना।”
• “सफलता की कहानियों का दस्तावेजीकरण।”
• “एक सरकारी कार्यक्रम के बजाय एक भारत श्रेष्ठ भारत ‘बनाना।”

पीएम द्वारा कहा गया है कि जिन मूल और अभिनव विचारों को विस्तार से बताया गया है, वे अधिक पसंदीदा और उच्चतर होंगे। विवरण पीडीएफ प्रारूप में प्रस्तुत किया जा सकता है। पहला पुरूस्कार (रु. 100,000/-), दूसरा (रु। 75,000 /-) और तीसरा (रु। 50,000/ -) नकद पुरस्कार (एक प्रमाण पत्र के साथ) भी इस योजना के प्रति अधिक प्रतिभागियों को आकर्षित करने के लिए सरकार द्वारा घोषित किए जाते हैं। नागरिक प्रस्तुत करने की अंतिम तिथि 10 दिसंबर 2015 तक विचारों और विचारों के बारे में विवरण प्रस्तुत कर सकते हैं।

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इस लेख से सम्बंधित अपने सवाल और सुझाव आप नीचे कमेंट में लिख सकते हैं।

विकास नें वाणिज्य में स्नातक किया है और उन्हें भाषा और खेल-कूद में काफी शौक है. दा इंडियन वायर के लिए विकास हिंदी व्याकरण एवं अन्य भाषाओं के बारे में लिख रहे हैं.

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no cast only indian avery prason and one law all over india

East or best this nibhand is the best aap logo ko bahut bahut dhanybad Jo aap logo ne ek Bharat sheresht Bharat par itna accha niband likha aap log sawch Bharat abhiyan par Bhi ek nibhand likhie mujhe asshsa h aap log sawch Bharat abhiyan par bhi bahut acha nibhand likhoge 😍😍😍😍 I am impressed

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जर्मनी अफ्रीका में महामारी को रोकने के लिए 100,000 एमपॉक्स वैक्सीन खुराक दान करेगा

Landslide in kerala: वायनाड भूस्खलन- प्राकृतिक हादसा या मानव जनित, paris olympic 2024: “जलवायु आपातकाल” के बीच ऐतिहासिक आयोजन, 25 जुलाई को मनाया जायेगा संविधान हत्या दिवस – अमित शाह.

South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal

Home Thematic Issues 10 ‘India, that is Bharat…’: One Cou...

‘India, that is Bharat…’: One Country, Two Names

The politics of naming is shaped by broad socio-political conditions and can be studied from several angles. Adopting a cultural history perspective, this paper considers some of the inherited discourses on ‘Bhārata’ both prior to and at the time of its official equation with ‘India’ in the Constitution (1950). It focusses on three successive definitional moments: the Puranic definition of Bhārata; the shift to its colonial definition, when the old toponym became the ‘indigenous’ name for a budding nation exposed to the imported political and geographical conceptions of (British) India; and, lastly, the choice of the Constitutional assembly to register the nation under a dual and bilingual identity: ‘India, that is Bharat’. The paper concludes with a sample of contemporary reactions that show that this double-name formula remains a baffling subject for Indian citizens.

Index terms

Keywords: , introduction 1.

• 1 This paper is an extended version of a communication delivered on 13 November 2012 in the workshop (...)

1 In The Discovery of India , a book that he composed in the Ahmednagar Fort during his years of captivity (1942-1946) and published in 1946, Jawaharlal Nehru (1946: 38-39) wrote:

2 ‘Often, as I wandered from meeting to meeting, I spoke to my audiences of this India of ours, of Hi (...) Often, as I wandered from meeting to meeting, I spoke to my audiences of this India of ours, of Hindustan and of Bharata, the old Sanskrit name derived from the mythical founders of the race. 2

• 3 The expression is a hybrid, it associates a Sanskrit word ( jaya -hail) with an Arabic word ( Hind- Ind (...)

2 When The Discovery of India was published, these names, Hindustan, Bharat (also Bharata), India, coexisted in the subcontinent. Of constant usage also was Hind, as in ‘ Jai Hind ’ (Victory to Hind), the battle-cry that Nehru, like several other political leaders, liked to proclaim at the end of his speeches. 3 To capture these various meanings today is not an easy task. It entails being aware of the simple and yet too often forgotten fact that words have a history of their own; they do not maintain the same signification throughout time. The terms with which we name reality participate in the construction of reality, in the perception that we have and give of it.

• 4 4 The name given by Yule and Burnell (1996) to their dictionary of Anglo-Indian terms. See also the (...)
• 5 The Persian Hindustān , the Greek Indikê , the latin India , and the Arabic Al-Hind are all derived fr (...)

6 See Barrow 2011: 41. I am grateful to Aminah Mohammad-Arif for this reference.

• 7 See Barrow 2011: 47. In 1894 Strachey (1894: 2), then member of the council of the Secretary of sta (...)
• 8 Savarkar wrote Hindutva (in English) during his imprisonment in Andaman and Nicobar Islands between (...)

3 Take the name India. Since its ancient use by Greek ( Indikê ) and Latin ( India ) authors, it has been applied to a variety of territories as, for example, Yule and Burnell remind us in their famous Hobson-Jobson . 4 Or take the word Hindustan, which was already used in Persia in the third century B.C. to refer to the land lying beyond the Indus River. 5 Its definition too has always been accompanied by some confusion. A comparison of 18 th and 19 th century British maps shows that the size and political designation of the territory corresponding to Hindustan changed over time along with historical developments (Barrow 2011). It was associated with the land of the Moghuls as, for example, in The History of Hindostan by Alexander Dow (1792) or in the Memoir of a Map of Hindoostan or the Mogul Empire (1793) by Rennell. 6 Did it then refer only to North India (the South being called Deccan) or was it equivalent to the whole subcontinent as in the maps of the British Empire by the 1840s? 7 And then in the compound of Hindustan the word ‘Hindu’ itself raised a difficulty of interpretation. It too had changed as everything changed around it. From being a geographic and ethnic term, it became a religious term, as in the late nineteenth century slogan ‘Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan’ that linked national identity to one language, one religious denomination and one territory or, as we will see later, in the sanskritized Hindusthāna (the Persian - stān and the sanskrit - sthāna both mean ‘place’) of the radical political activist Vinayak Damodar Savarkar’s Hindutva , published in 1923, which referred to the land of the Hindus, to a people therefore, and not to a river. 8

4 At the time of independence then, the names Bharat, India, Al-Hind and Hindustan coexisted to designate the Indian subcontinent. Those who, like Nehru, used them side by side understood their differences and knew how to interpret their contrasting usages, even if, given the complicated history of each, they did not agree on the nature of their differences. What they all agreed upon was that their meaning and usage were context—and language—sensitive.

• 9 The First article reads: ‘(1) India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States. (2) The States and (...)
• 10 The Hindi translation reads: ‘ bhārata arthāt indiyā, rājyoṃ kā saṅgha hogā .’ See http://bharat.gov. (...)

5 In 1950, four years after the publication of Nehru’s Discovery of India , the drafters of the Constitution of the larger of the two successor states of British India decided how the country should be known. In the opening article of the Constitution of India they wrote: ‘India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States’. 9 Two names: one, India, associated with the foreigners whose rule was coming to an end; the other, Bharat (skt. bhārata , also bhāratavarṣa ), perceived as native because it was found in ancient Sanskrit literature. Henceforward no other name besides these two was to be used legally. In this juridico-political conception, India and Bharat were to be interchangeable terms. 10

6 What are we to make of the equation of Bharat and India in the Constitution? How did such a double-name formula come about? This is the main question dealt with here. My argument is that the Constitutional assembly’s decision should be understood as the outcome of a long historical process with deep cultural roots. I will also make the point, though more briefly, that this process did not stop with the promulgation of the Constitution.

• 11 Reports of the Constituent Assembly Debates (Proceedings) (9 December 1946 to 24 January 1950) publ (...)

7 Critical to an enquiry of how Bharat could be equated with India at all, I contend, are preexisting definitions of Bharat, and also of Hindustan, found in different textual sources. I present some of them in the first part of the paper, focusing more particularly on the definition of Bhārata given by the Purāṇas . Then I consider the shift from the Puranic Bhārata to the colonial Bharat, when the old toponym became the ‘indigenous’ name for a budding nation exposed to the imported political and geographical conceptions of (British) India. I also briefly examine the pre-independence destiny of the word Hindustan. In the next part of the paper I analyze the arguments exchanged by the members of the Constitutional assembly when they adopted and discussed the double naming of the new nation. For this section I rely on the official recordings of the debates (in English) found on a website maintained by the Indian government. 11 Finally I thought it interesting to give a sample of contemporary reactions on the basis of information published in the printed press and on the internet. These indicate that to this day the Constitutional Assembly’s decision to give their country two names remains a baffling subject for Indian citizens.

Bhārata is a native name, but a native name for what?

• 12 Manu 2.21-24: ‘The land between the Himalaya and Vindhya ranges to the east of Vinashana and west o (...)

8 Bhārata is indeed an old name. In the Purāṇas and other Sanskrit texts of the first centuries of the Christian era, it refers to the supraregional and subcontinental territory where the Brahmanical system of society prevails. It seems to have absorbed the older and spatially narrower toponym Ᾱryāvarta (the land of the Ᾱryas ) described in the Laws of Manu. 12 We have hardly any historical evidence of the way in which the name Bhārata was used in actual life, in what circumstances and by whom. We are more assured in our knowledge of its religious and cultural imagination since we can rely on textual sources. We also have reasons to believe that the traditional depiction of Bhārata was transmitted over many generations down to the colonial period thanks to the fact that the recitation of the Purāṇas was part of the spiritual education sponsored by temples, and not only for the literate circles, since the Purāṇas were not meant to be their exclusive prerogative.

• 13 Taken together the seven islands constitute the world. They are separated from each other by oceans (...)
• 14 ‘The country that lies north of the ocean, and south of the snowy mountains, is called Bharata, for (...)

15 See Ali 1966: 109.

16 See Renou & Filliozat, 1947-1949: 547.

9 The main feature of Puranic Bhārata is its insularity. This insularity has two dimensions: one is spatial, the other is social. The territory of Bhārata is situated on Jambudvīpa or the ‘apple-tree island’ ( Jambosaeugenia ). Annular in its form, the island of Jambudvīpa is itself surrounded by six other similarly annular-shaped continents that are concentrically organized around Mount Meru, the axis mundi situated just beneath the polar star. 13 Bhārata is said to be situated between the sea in the south and the ‘Abode of snow’ ( himālaya) in the north (see for example Viṣṇupurāṇa  2. 3.1-2). 14 Its shape cannot be clearly determined for it varies from text to text. It is described as a half-moon, a triangle, a trapezoid, or a bended bow, as in Mārkaṇḍeyapurāṇa , 57.59, for example (Ali 1966: 109). In this Purāṇa , Bhārata is said to be surrounded by the ocean on the east, west and south and by the Himalaya ( himavant ) in the north, a description evoking a familiar shape. However geography is not the main concern here: the text also compares Bhārata to a tortoise floating on water and looking towards the east. 15 Though in the Purāṇas Bhārata is not per se an island but a section of the island of Jambudvīpa , it is nevertheless fairly isolated, being cut off from the main land by a high mountain and surrounded by seas. In some other ancient Indian texts it is coextensive to Jambudvīpa , as in the inscriptions of King Ashoka, and in the Buddhist (and Jain) literature. 16

• 17 ‘In the Bharatavarsha it is that the succession of four Yugas, or ages, the Krita, the Treta, the D (...)

10 From the spatial perspective, Bhārata is thus a naturally bounded territory. It is also a territory on which a specific social order prevails. As a socialized territory it shelters an organization of time and modes of living whose specificities are essentially expressed in soteriological terms. We get some idea of what Bhārata represents by examining the notions with which it is correlated. It is on its territory alone, not in the other regions of the world, that time is properly divided into cosmic ages ( yuga ), that humans who celebrate rites ( karman ) correctly can expect appropriate consequences: there and there only can they reap the fruits of acts (also karman ) committed in previous births; there and there only can they strive to obtain the permanent release from transmigration ( saṃsāra ), which entails the cessation of karman . Such considerations are summarized in the well-known classical characterization of Bhārata as the ‘land of works’ ( karmabhūmi ), as for example in the Viṣṇupurāna . 17

18 See Bhardwaj (1973: 7).

11 In Brahmanical literature Bhārata is moreover associated with an internal principle of unity. Its naturally bounded territory is unified by a network of pilgrimage sites ( tīrtha ). It is organized around some key natural sites found within it. Its mountains and rivers in particular are made objects of worship. Therefore one also finds the idea that the land of Bhārata itself is sacred. 18

• 19 In a way, contemporary orthodox Brahmans still mentally reside in Bhārata , as their ancestors did: (...)

12 Bhārata then refers to a spatially delimited social order, but not to a politically organized entity. 19 In this respect, it differs from Hindustan, at least since Moghul times, and from (British) India, two toponyms correlated with political regimes. Nobody puts it better than P.V. Kane. In the third volume of his opus magnum the History of the Dharmaśāstra (which was also published in 1946, like Nehru’s Discovery of India ), after reviewing the definitions of Bhārata in their original Sanskrit, this well-known historian of Hindu codes of law (Kane 1973: 134, 137) observed:

The Viṣṇu (II, 3, 2), Brāhma , Mārkaṇḍeya (55, 21-22) and other purāṇas proudly assert that Bharatavarṣa is the land of action ( karmabhūmi ). This is patriotism of a sort but not of the kind we see in western countries. Bharatavarṣa itself has comprised numerous countries from the most ancient times. […] There was no doubt a great emotional regard for Bharatavarṣa or Ᾱryāvarta as a unity for many centuries among all writers from a religious point of view, though not from a political standpoint. Therefore one element of modern nationhood viz. being under the same government was wanting.

13 And yet… Kane introduces a caveat: ‘But it must be noted that from very ancient times there was always the aspiration among great kings and the people to bring the whole of Bharatavarṣa ‘under one umbrella’ (Kane 1973: 137).

20 In the Matsyapurāṇa 114, 9-10, see Kane (1973: 67).

14 And yet… Bhārata is said to be named after King Bharata, one of the ‘mythical founders of the race’ mentioned by Nehru. And yet…the king who conquers the whole of Bhāratavarṣa is styled samrāṭ, universal sovereign. 20 Such conceptions contrast with most descriptions of Bhārata as having natural borders—borders of the sort not likely to move under the control of humans. They do raise the question of the immutability of its limits. Moreover, one important law code at least mentions the spatial expansion through conquest of Ᾱryāvarta , the older and smaller Brahmanical territory. The often quoted 9 th century commentary on Manu by Medhatithi (2.23) says:

21 Quoted by Kane (1974: 16). If a kṣatriya king of excellent conduct were to conquer the Mlecchas, establish the system of four varṇas (in the Mleccha country) and assign to Mlecchas a position similar to that of cāṇḍālas in Ᾱryāvarta, even that (Mleccha country) would be fit for the performance of sacrifice, since the earth itself is not impure, but becomes impure through contact (of impure persons or things). 21

22 See Halbfass (1988: 178).

23 See for example Pollock (2006: 572).

• 24 Killingley (1997:126) compares Bhārata to dār al-islām , the territory where according to Islamic ju (...)

15 There is undoubtedly here an idea that the size of the Brahmanical territory can expand as more and more people are integrated into its settled social order and made to accept its norms of conduct. But besides telling us that the world is divided between the pure Ᾱrya and the impure Mleccha and that the earth is not per se impure (two key Brahmanical representations), it is open to debate whether this commentary on Manu offers sufficient evidence for the historian to explain the actual extension of the hierarchical social system of the varṇāśramadharma in political terms. 22 The notion of samrāṭ offers another ground for debate depending on its translation and interpretation. In its original context, it refers to a universal sovereign. A samrāṭ is the ideal ‘Hindu’ king who maintains the cosmic order ( dharma ), and whose ambition is to take the whole (Hindu) world under his unique umbrella so that dharma may prevail. In royal eulogies this goal is rhetorically claimed to have been achieved. 23 But in practice Bhārata was never politically unified by any known samrāṭ . It was never co-terminus with a political regime. 24

16 ‘ Bhārata ’, then, as found in the Brahmanical tradition, belongs to a cosmological discourse that inscribes human activity within a grand spatio-temporal frame ( dvīpa , yuga ). It is associated with a vision of human beings, of their condition and experience and of their interpersonal relationships within a given social structure. Outside its territory non-order prevails. Nowhere does it refer to a country in the modern sense.

Bhārata becomes India’s ancient name

• 25 Edney (1997) explores the relationship between cartographic knowledge and power, showing how map ma (...)

26 See Embree (1977: 256, 259); Cohn (1996: introduction); Khilnani (2003: 21).

17 Bhārata is a discourse on space, but a discourse that does not allow a visual representation of that space. It is not possible, on the basis of that discourse, to draw a map in the modern sense of the word. To say that Bhārata denotes all regions comprised between the sea and the mountain range of the Himalaya is not to describe the shape of India as we know it from modern maps. The maps that associate India with a given space, that is to say with a precisely bounded space, are so familiar to us that we might easily forget that they were not introduced to the educated Indian public before the 1870s. By then, moreover, what became represented was not only a geographical space but also a political space enclosed in boundaries or administrative units drawn by the colonial power. 25 This new national space was inseparable from the equally new idea of ‘country’. 26

27 See Goswami 2003.

18 Manu Goswami has written eloquently on the conditions that allowed the emergence of new ways of viewing Indian past and has shown how the old Puranic conception of Bhārata acquired a new meaning for the Hindu intelligentsia during the colonial period. 27 Whereas Bhārata was conceived as a social order, a space where specific social relations and shared notions of a moral order prevailed, (British) India referred to a political order, to a bounded territory placed under the control of a single centralized power structure and an authoritarian system of governance. By the mid-nineteenth century what educated Hindus called ‘Bharat’ was the territory mapped and organized by the British under the name ‘India’.

• 28 See Muir [1858] 1890: Chapter 6. He also equates Bhāratavarsha with Hindustan, Muir ([1861] 1890:14 (...)

19 The old and native name Bhārata became a workable concept for the national cause despite the forcefulness with which the British conception of ‘India’—and all it entailed in terms of spatial and political unity—was propagated and imposed. Now the reason why it retained its prestige for the educated Hindus is not only to be found in the uninterrupted transmission of the Puranic conception within their class. It is also due to the fact that from the mid-nineteenth century Orientalists gave ‘ Bhārata’ a very special place in their discourse. Thus in the first volume of his Original Sanskrit Texts on the Origin and History of the People of India published in 1858, John Muir, while describing the geographical conceptions of the Purāṇas, equated Bhāratavarṣa with India as a matter of course; needless to add that he made no attempt to identify the other equally fabulous varṣas of J ambudvipā with any region of the world as we know it. 28

20 To project Bhārata as the ‘ancient name’ of India was to transform it into a political conception. Muir was quite aware of the implications if one is to judge by what he wrote in 1860 in the preface of the second volume of Original Sanskrit Texts :

My primary object in this volume, as in its predecessor, has been to produce a work which may assist the researches of those Hindus who desire to investigate critically the origin and history of their nation, and of their national literature, religion, and institutions; and may facilitate the operations of those European teachers whose business it is to communicate to the Hindus the results of modem inquiry on the various subjects here examined. (Muir [1860], 1890: vii).

21 In 1893, the German Orientalist Gustav Oppert went one step further than Muir when he declared that Bhāratavarṣa was the only relevant national designation for India:

I prefer as India’s name the designation Bharatavarsa, or land of the Bharatas. […] Such a name will bridge over the great social chasms, which divide at present the Hindus, and perhaps bring together in union the two great antagonistic sections of the original inhabitants, which since the earliest times of antiquity have lived estranged from each other [ i.e. what he calls further ‘Aryanised and non-Aryan Indian clans’]. […] by accepting such a time-honoured and honourable name as their national designation, a great step towards national unity would be taken in India (Oppert 1893: 621-23).

29 See Khilnani 2003: 17.

22 Bhārata was now fully prepared to embark on a career on the political stage, as politics had become ‘the unavoidable terrain on which Indians would have to learn to act.’ 29 In The Soul of India published in 1911, Bipin Chandra Pal (1858-1932) proclaimed it to be the only real indigenous name for India. The Bengali nationalist and social reformer, well-known for the part he had taken in the organization of the swadeshi movement after the Partition of Bengal, wrote (2010 [1911]: 65):

We never called her either India or Hindoostan. We knew her of old by quite a different name (p. 57). […] The fact of the matter really is, that as long as you look upon our country as ‘India or the Land of the Indus’—you will get no closer and truer view than the foreign officials and students have been able to do (p. 62). […] Our own name was, and is still today, among the Aryan population of the country, Bharatvarsha.

23 In this language of ‘you’ and ‘we’, whereas ‘you’ refers to a young foreigner desirous to understand India with whom Bipin Chandra Pal is supposedly corresponding ( The Soul of India is in the form of four letters), ‘we’, which includes the author himself, is associated with ‘Ᾱrya’ . At a time when the definition of one’s nation was woven into the self-definition of Indian, Ᾱrya appears to have been the best ‘non-foreign’ word at Bipin Chandra Pal’s disposal. The ethnonym was popular both with the representatives of the orthodox Hindu set-up—against whom Bipin Chandra Pal stood squarely, and with the Ᾱryasamāja, the religious organization that claimed India as the natural homeland of the Ᾱryas —whose views he did not espouse either. Like many Hindu reformists of his days, he combined nationalism with religious symbolism taken from Hinduism with outright rejection of basic aspects of that tradition.

Bhārata ? Hindustān ? Hindusthāna ?

• 30 ‘Some pre-requisites of nationhood had […] been achieved by the time that the British conquests beg (...)

24 Supported from all sides as it was, then, not only had the old name Bhārata not fallen into oblivion, but it had been invested with a new meaning and was ready to serve the emerging country. But Hindustan remained a worthy candidate for the same cause, as, among other reasons, it could claim a political career that was associated with the Moghul Empire and therefore predated the colonial period. 30 It is noteworthy that although Bipin Chandra Pal stigmatized Hindustan as ‘foreign’, he was keen to draw the attention of his young correspondent to the contribution of the Moghuls to the development of an Indian national consciousness. For unlike Puranic Bhārata , Hindustan had been associated with political sovereignty and administrative centralization, two dimensions, he stressed, that were ‘foreign to the genius of the Aryan people of India’ (Pal 2010 [1911]: 67):

The unity of India was […] neither racial nor religious, nor political nor administrative. It was a peculiar type of unity, which may be best described as cultural (p. 69) […] at a very early period of our history we had fully realized a very deep, though complex, kind of organic unity at the back of all the apparent diversities and multiplicities of our land and people. (p. 87) […] The Moslem rulers of India came into these invaluable inheritances of the Hindus. (p. 89) […] To the old community of socio-religious life and ideals the Mahomedans now added new elements of administrative and political unity. (p. 90) […] all irrespective of castes or community, became equally subject to certain laws and obligations, known only to Islam. (p. 90) […] Thus we had, under the Moguls [sic], a new and more united, a more organic, though not yet fully organized, national life and consciousness than we had before. The British came to this India; and not to an unorganized, unconscious, and undeveloped chaos, having simply a geographical entity. And in view of this, it is unpardonable ignorance to say that […] the Indians have always been and still are a chaotic congregation of many peoples, an incoherent and heterogenous collection of tribes and races, families and castes, but not in any sense a nation.’ (p. 93)

25 It was during Moghul rule rather than during British rule, at a time when India was called Hindustan, that political unity had been achieved and added to the already existing cultural unity of Bhārata , allowing Indians to develop a complete sense of belonging together, irrespective of their religions.

26 In 1904 when he penned his famous patriotic poem in Urdu Ham ā rā deśa , ‘Our country’, Mohammad Iqbal (1877-1938) also associated Hindustan with Indians at large and with a composite religious culture:

Sare jahāṃ se acchā Hindustāṃ hamārā

Ham bulbuleṃ haiṃ us kī, yi gulistāṃ hamārā […]

Mażhab nahiṃ sikhātā āpas meṃ bair rakhnā

Hindī haiṃ ham, vatan hai Hindūstān hamārā

The best in the whole world is our Hindustan

We are his robin, he is our rose-garden […]

Religion does not teach mutual hatred

31 On the history of the song and on how it was rewritten by Iqbal, see Pritchett ( http://www.columbia (...) We are Hindī, Hindustān is our native country 31

• 32 Jana-gaṇa-mana adhināyaka jaya he/Bhārata bhāgya vidhātā: Thou art the ruler of the minds of all pe (...)

27 The sense of belonging to a country ( vaṭan ) here overrides other loyalties. It is with this nationalist understanding of Hindustan that Iqbal’s song, which became immediately popular in anti-British rallies, was solemnly chanted on 15 August 1947, the day of the proclamation of India’s independence, along with Jana Gana Mana , composed by Rabindranath Tagore. 32 Iqbal’s song is still widely sung in India today.

• 33 On Savarkar, see note 8. Savarkar wrote Hindutva in English but he gave the Devanāgarī spelling of (...)
• 34 In the Saṃkṣipta hindī ṣabdasāgara (‘Abbreviated Dictionary of Hindi’), hindī as an adjective is de (...)
• 35 āsindhu sindhu-paryantā yasya bhārata-bhūmikā/ pitṛbhūḥ puṇyabhūścaiva sa vai hindur iti smṛtaḥ : ‘H (...)
• 36 ‘[…] we have left the thread of our enquiry at the point where the growing concept of an Indian nat (...)
• 37 ‘[…] the epithets Hindu and Hindusthan had been the proud and patriotic designations signifying our (...)
• 38 The ‘h’ is dropped by most authors, academics or otherwise, who quote Savarkar, though he himself t (...)
• 39 (Savarkar 1923: 31). ‘Sindhu in Sanskrit does not only mean the Indus but also the Sea which girdle (...)

28 The attempt by Savarkar to hinduize the name Hindustan was another crucial moment in the naming of the budding nation. 33 Whereas Iqbal called the inhabitants of Hindustān by the old appellation Hindī , which signifies ‘Indian’ in the ethno-geographical sense, 34 Savarkar called them Hindus, and reserved the term only for those Indians who considered Bharat both as their Holy land ( puṇyabhūmi ) and as their fatherland ( patṛbhūmi ), by which he meant the Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs but not the Muslims and Christians. 35 It is not, therefore, that Savarkar did not think of Bhārata as a suited designation for the country of his dreams. But he found the name Sindhusthāna (or Hindusthāna , given the phonetic evolution) more ‘authentic’, and he also preferred it to Ᾱryāvarta , a notion that he found too ‘parochial and narrow-minded’. 36 It was more authentic, he argued, because Hindusthan was not, as was commonly held, a foreign term, but a purely Sanskrit term, just like Hindu and Sindhu. 37 Hindu was the name by which the Hindus had always referred to themselves, Sindhu the name they had given to the Indus River and Hindusthan, the name they had given to their nation. Thus Savarkar constructed the genealogy of Hindus, demonstrating the autochthony of the three terms with due etymological and phonetic explanations. 38 In his conception, the key element was Sindhu: the Indus River was made ‘the vital spinal cord that connects the remotest past to the remotest future’. 39 To territorialize Hindu identity, Savarkar needed to associate the territory with the word Sindhu even when he called that territory Bharat . Under his pen Bharat becomes the land delimitated by the Indus River ( sindhu ) and by the sea (also sindhu in Sanskrit ) , an unheard of definition in Brahmanical literature.

40 See Oberoi (1987: 38).

29 With Hindusthan, Savarkar produced an exclusive Hindu vision of India. This vision that stressed religious differences was to remain influential in the Hindu nationalist milieu and beyond. It also left its mark on those Sikhs who from the 1940s onwards had begun visualizing the Panjab as their natural homeland and who were heard demanding in the early 1950s: ‘the Hindus got Hindustan, the Muslims got Pakistan, what did the Sikhs get?’ 40

The Constitutional debates on the naming of the nation

• 41 The Draft Constitution was being finalized when Gandhi was assassinated (31 January 1948). Its firs (...)

30 On 14 August 1947 at midnight, India became independent. Two weeks later, on 29 August 1947, the Constituent Assembly, that had been meeting since December 1946, set up a Drafting Committee under the Chairmanship of B.R. Ambedkar. From February 1948 to November 1949, the members of the Constituent Assembly examined the draft, moving and discussing in the process almost 2,500 amendments. 41 On 26 November 1949, they finally adopted the Constitution of India and signed it on 24 January 1950. On 26 January 1950, the Constitution of India officially came into force, and the Constituent Assembly became the Provisional Parliament of India until the first general elections of 1952.

• 42 The following quotations unless otherwise mentioned are from the reports of the debates mentioned i (...)

31 As we know, the Constitution was drafted under the extremely difficult circumstances of the immediate post-partition period, just two years after horrendous chaos and bloodshed. It was a time, then, when the unity and stability of the new born country were in doubt. Was it because it was linked to its identity or for another reason that the question of its naming is found to have come relatively late in the long process of the adoption of the Constitution? Whatever the case, the section ‘Name and territory of the Union’ was examined only on 17 September 1949. The very touchy nature of its first article was immediately perceptible. It read: ‘India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States’. A division arose among the delegates between those who, like B.R. Ambedkar, wanted it to be adopted within the half an hour that was left for the meeting of the day and those who wished that it be discussed at length the next day. At the risk of taxing the patience of the main author of the Draft Constitution, there followed the next day a thorough examination of the implications of the first article. It bore on two points: 1) the relationship between the two words ‘India’ and ‘Bharat’, 2) the political and administrative implications of the terms ‘Union’ and ‘States’. The second point was by far the most hotly debated one (not only during that particular session but throughout the long Constitutional proceedings). Here I will deal only with the arguments exchanged about the first point. As we can expect, they illustrated contrasting visions of the budding nation. 42

• 43 He had in fact also proposed ‘Hind’ along with ‘Bharat’ but withdrew it when it was pointed to him (...)
• 44 ‘I represent the people of the Northern part of India where sacred places like Shri Badrinath, Shri (...)

32 The main speakers (recorded) were Seth Govind Das (‘C.P. [Central Province]’ & Berar: General’) and Kamalapati Tripathi, two Congress leaders, Shri Ram Sahai (‘representing Madhya Bharat’), Hargovind Pant (‘United Provinces’), and Hari Vishnu Kamath, a leader of the All India Forward Block, a party then situated to the left of the Congress Party. Introducing the first amendment, P.V. Kamath proposed that the sentence ‘India, that is Bharat shall be a Union of States’ be replaced by ‘Bharat, or, in the English language, India, shall, be and such’. 43 He explained that he had been inspired by the Constitution of ‘the Irish Free State’ (1937), Article 4 of which read: ‘The name of the State is Eire, or, in the English language, Ireland.’ A while later, Seth Govind Das proposed: ‘Bharat known as India also in foreign countries…’. He was followed by Kamalapati Tripathi who wanted ‘Bharat, that is India’ (instead of ‘India, that is Bharat’), and by Hargovind Pant according to whom the people ‘of the Northern part of India’ that he represented ‘wanted Bharatvarsha and nothing else’. 44 None of these proposals were accepted by the Assembly. The above named delegates nonetheless made their point, which was to dwell at length on their ‘satisfaction’ that the word Bharat had been at all retained by the drafters. As Ram Sahai observed: it had ‘been felt that this name may lead to some difficulties’ and it was therefore ‘a matter for pleasure that we are going to accept the name Bharat without any opposition [emphasis added by the speaker]’.

33 The ‘opposition’, it is safe to guess, would have been to a vision of the new India that could not be shared by most delegates of the Constitutional Assembly because it clashed with their understanding of what the emerging secular state ought to be. Kamalapati Tripathi’s declaration of ‘satisfaction’ left little doubt that Bharata could indeed be associated with a conception of the nation that was potentially divisive:

When a country is in bondage, it loses its soul. During its slavery for one thousand years, our country too lost its everything. We lost our culture, we lost our history, we lost our prestige, we lost our humanity, we lost our self-respect, we lost our soul and indeed we lost our form and name. Today after remaining in bondage for a thousand years, this free country will regain its name and we do hope that after regaining its lost name it will regain its inner consciousness and external form and will begin to act under the inspiration of its soul which had been so far in a sort of sleep. It will indeed regain its prestige in the world.

• 45 On the presence of ‘Hindu traditionalists’ (whom he distinguishes from ‘Hindu nationalists’) in the (...)

34 This one-sided history, containing a distinctly anti-Muslim tone, came from an important North Indian leader of the Indian National Congress: a reminder of the fact that this party was not of one mind regarding India’s past and future. 45 K. Tripathi’s vision of the new India did demonstrate the presence of near-communalist concerns. Such an understanding of Bharat was likely to be seen as undermining national unity. What seems to have been at work with the other delegates equally keen on the name Bharat was the Hindu rhetoric of the more traditionalist sort. See, for example, the statement of Seth Govind Das, a Congress fellow of Kamalapati Tripathi. The name Bharat, he said, was ‘befitting our history and our culture’, because it was found in the old Hindu literature, whereas the ‘word India does not occur in our ancient books’, adding, to stress his point: ‘We fought the battle of freedom under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi by raising the slogan of ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’.’ A statement like that could be said to be parochial perhaps, but was it necessarily divisive or potentially detrimental to the interests of non-Hindus? In any case, it was not completely without political acumen:

We should indeed give such a name to our country as may be befitting our history and our culture. It is a matter of great pleasure that we are today naming our country as Bharat. I said many a time before too that if we do not arrive at correct decisions in regard to these matters the people of this country will not understand the significance of self-government.

35 A point of view shared by Hargovind Pant:

So far as the word ‘India’ is concerned, the Members seem to have, and really I fail to understand why, some attachment for it. We must know that this name was given to our country by foreigners who having heard of the riches of this land were tempted towards it and had robbed us of our freedom in order to acquire the wealth of our country. If we, even then, cling to the word ‘India’, it would only show that we are not ashamed of having this insulting word which has been imposed on us by alien rulers. Really, I do not understand why we are accepting this word […].

• 46 See Singh (2005: 911-912). As the debates on the name were going on, an unnamed female renouncer un (...)
• 47 Nehru was not adverse to using it either: ‘Sometimes as I reached a gathering, a great roar of welc (...)

36 Pritam Singh has recently argued that ‘the symbolic significance of ‘Bharat’ in the opening article [of the Constitution] was meant to suggest a sense of Hindu ownership of the new India—the India which was perceived to have achieved self-rule after many centuries of foreign rule. The name Bharat signified the birth of a new India, with whose government and state the Hindus felt a sense of identification.’ 46 The basic question at stake here is how to separate religion from culture when one speaks from within one’s own tradition, as had been the case for most Hindus during the national struggle. It had been the case even for Gandhi, as his use of the expression Bhārata mātā kī jaya testified. 47 Smith raised this very question when he wrote that:

Nationalism inevitably drew part of its inspiration from India’s ancient cultural traditions, and these were mainly Hindu. India was the only home of the Hindus, and whatever patriotic demands were made in the name of the majority would naturally appear to be expressions of Indian nationalism. (Smith 1963: 455)

37 This was never more obvious than at the time of choosing the name of the nation despite the fact (but also thanks to the fact) that the delegates whose words I have quoted functioned within the secular framework of politics.

38 At this point, the reader who has not forgotten that Iqbal’s Sare jahāṃ se acchā Hindustāṃ hamarā was sung on 15 August 1947 may well wonder about the whereabouts of the name ‘Hindustan!’ ‘Hindustan’ received different treatments during the Constituent Assembly. Let us start by quoting the observation that Mohammad Tahir (‘Bihar, Muslim’) made on 24 November 1949, two days before the final adoption of the Constitution:

I would like to submit that it is a matter of shame that our Constitution could not fix a name for our country. This is a proof of the intelligence of Dr. Ambedkar that he suggested a hotch-potch sort of name and got it accepted. Well, if somebody would have asked Doctor Saheb about his home land, he could have replied with pride that he belonged to Bharat or India or Hindustan. But now the Honourable Dr. will have to reply in these words: ‘I belong to India that is Bharat’. Now, Sir, it is for you to see what a beautiful reply it is.

39 Here was a subtle way of saying that three names had been at the start of the race, but at the end two had been placed on equal footing and one dropped. And the absentee was staring them in the face. But the very next day, ‘Hindustan’ reappeared. At that point of time, however, the discussion did not bear on the name of the whole country but on the demand made by certain Provinces (such as Orissa) to change their own particular names.

40 The name Hindustan popped up again when from there the discussion shifted to the naming of the United Provinces. At some point, R. K. Sidhva (‘C.P. [Central Province] & Berar, General’) recalled that there had been a serious objection when ‘the U.P. [United Provinces] Government and U.P. Assembly decided that the name should be changed into Aryavarta.’ But now, since Aryavarta had not been accepted, he feared that they might take the name Hindustan, as he recalled that in 1938: ‘when the Indian National Congress held its session in Cawnpore in the All-India Congress Committee my friends from U.P. brought a resolution that the name of the U.P. Congress Committee should be changed into Hindustan Congress Committee.’ So the prudent R. K. Sidhva had another suggestion:

Why not U.P. be called Samyukt Pradesh? If that is not acceptable there are other very fine names like Avadh, Ayodhya, Ganga, etc. Why should they usurp the name of the whole of India and tell us they are the people who are the only custodians of India? I strongly resent their monopolising the name of India.

41 Mohan Lal Gautam (‘United Provinces, General’) equally strongly objected to this:

I assure you that U.P. has a gift and it is perhaps the only province in the country which can claim that it has no provincialism. […] This function of Brahmins—of giving names ought to have some background. You say why not give it the name of Avadh. Avadh is one of the very important parts of U.P. but it is only a part. Avadh has a tradition of Nawabs and feudal lords which we do not want. […]. The solution is that the Provinces must be consulted and it must be acceptable to all-India authority and the all-India authority is the President and the President means the President and the Cabinet.

42 But for Shri R.K. Sidhva, this solution was no guarantee:

The purpose of consulting the legislature also will not be served because the majority of the Members there would say, ‘Have it Aryavarta or Hindustan’. Supposing they change it to Hindustan, what will be the remedy if the Provincial Legislature also says that U.P. will be known as Hindustan? India in future will be called Bharat but that does not mean that we discard the name Hindustan. Therefore you must tell me Sir how to safeguard the interests of the country in seeing that this word Hindustan is not adopted by the U.P. as they did make a venture in the past unofficially to introduce it in the Congress Committee but in which they failed?

43 Pandit Balkrishna Sharma (‘United Provinces, General’) had the last word when he said: ‘If it will satisfy my honourable friend, I may say I hate the word ‘Hindustan’.

44 What was the gist of this exchange about the proper naming of U.P.? Was it that Hindustan is ‘the name of India’? This was known already. No, what was said here with force was that it is not because the Constituent Assembly had decided to name India ‘Bharat’ that Indians were going to discard the name Hindustan.

• 48 I have found this ‘search engine’ a very useful tool to look into the India Constitutional debates: (...)

45 Now anyone who reads carefully the proceedings of the Constitutional debates will come to the conclusion that ‘India’ and in second position ‘Hindustan’ were the two names that came most naturally to the delegates when speaking about their country as long as they were not debating the issue of its name. 48 These two names kept reappearing throughout the debates for the simple reason that the country whose Constitution was being written had to be constantly referred to in one way or another. But when it came to the naming question, Bharat was the first name to appear. Bharatvarsh, Aryavarta and Hind were but marginally mentioned. Hindustan was never considered in this context.

• 49 This proposition came from Rajendra Prasad, the President of the Constituent Assembly, see http://p (...)

46 On 24 January 1950, the Constituent Assembly held its last meeting. The delegates rose to sing solemnly Jana Gana Mana , Tagore’s hymn to Bharat. Then instead of singing Iqbal’s Sāre jahāṃ se acchā Hindustāṃ hamarā , as they had done two-and-a-half years earlier, they chanted Vande Mātaram , ‘Mother I bow to thee’ written by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee (1882) in honour of the Mother land identified with the Goddess. On that same day, Tagore’s composition was chosen as new India’s ‘national anthem’ and Bankim’s song was given an ‘equal status’ because it had ‘played a historic part in the struggle for Indian freedom’. 49 Meanwhile Iqbal had been (posthumously) declared the national poet of Pakistan.

Naming the nation: a complex and sensitive issue to this day

47 The processes of construction and reconstruction of the meanings of the nation’s names have been uninterrupted since the adoption of the first article of the Constitution. The task of describing them is enormous in scope and would require consulting an immense variety of sources. In this final section I merely look at some of the prevailing demands and statements at the time of writing this article. I do so on the basis of information found on internet (blogs, personal pages and also printed materials appearing on the net such as newspapers, all in English).

48 A first type of demand one comes across is to altogether do away with ‘India’ in the Constitution. As one would expect, the most likely place where this occurs is the Hindu nationalist milieu. A case in point is the article published in July 2005 by V. Sundaram, a retired member of the IAS and a freelance journalist known for his Hindutva leanings. According to V. Sundaram, it is because ‘Bharat’ was thought to be too Hindu by the drafters of the Constitution that they introduced ‘India’ as a guarantee to the minorities that they would not be Hinduized. But, he argued, this was a misconception: the word Bharat carries no communalist overtones and therefore it should be the sole official name of the country. However, this Hindutva sympathiser also wants to keep ‘India’, for which he has in mind a usage presently given to ‘South Asia’:

50 ‘India that is Bharath [sic]’ by V. Sundaram, IAS (July 14 2005), see http://www.ivarta.com/columns (...) […] it will not be historically or culturally or geographically correct to call our country by the general name India. Pakistan is also India, Bangladesh is also India, our country India is also India—all these three Indias together can legitimately be called India in the larger geographical sense. […] It is quite possible that in the future countries like Pakistan, Ceylon, Bangladesh, India and Burma may get together and form themselves into an Indian Federation. We can possibly think of the name India as being appropriate for such a Federation if and ever it becomes relevant in the future. 50

51 http://www.indianexpress.com/news/bharat-versus-hindustan/1065278/

49 According to Hindu nationalists there is a basic philosophical difference between India and Bharat. This point was never made so clear as in December 2012, when commenting on the appalling gang rape that had just occurred in Delhi Mohan Bhagwat, the RSS chief, said: ‘Such crimes hardly take place in Bharat, but they frequently occur in India’. 51

50 But Hindu nationalists are not alone in thinking that Bharat is the only legitimate name for the Republic of India. There is at least one Congress MP (Goa) who entertains the idea, if one is to judge by the Bill Shantaram Naik introduced on 9 August 2012 in the upper house of parliament (Rajya Sabha) to amend the first article. He proposed three main changes: 1) that in the Preamble to the Constitution the word ‘Bharat’ be substituted for the word ‘India’; 2) that for the phrase ‘India, that is Bharat’ the single word ‘Bharat’ be substituted; 3) that wherever the word ‘India’, occurs in the Constitution, the word ‘Bharat’ be substituted. Stating his reasons, the Member of Parliament declared:

52 See http://164.100.24.219/BillsTexts/RSBillTexts/asintroduced/cons-peamble-E.pdf . The allusion is t (...) ‘India’ denotes a territorial concept, whereas ‘Bharat’ signifies much more than the mere territories of India. When we praise our country we say, ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ and not ‘India ki Jai’. There are various grounds for changing the name of the country into simply ‘Bharat’. The name also generates the sense of patriotism and electrifies the people of this country. In this regard it is relevant [to recall] a popular song: ‘Jahan dal dal par sone ki chidiyan karatin hai basera wo Bharat Desh hai mera’ [‘where marvellous birds sit on every branch, this is Bharat my country’]. 52

53 See http://www.hindu.com/2004/04/10/stories/2004041006051100.htm , retrieved October 2012.

54 http://www.deccanherald.com/content/101476/banner-300x250.swf , retrieved October 2012.

51 Finally, the argument that ‘India’ should be replaced by ‘Bharat’ is not encountered only within the political frame of ‘communalist versus secular’. It also finds its way in a context of anti-English or rather anti-Western crusades. For example in April 2004, the Samajwadi Party proposed to adopt the sole name ‘Bharat’ in the Constitution ‘as a step to protect the identity of the country’, to ‘ban the import of luxury goods’ and ‘to take other suitable economic and political measures to end the cultural degeneration being encouraged by the Western consumerist lifestyle.’ 53 In October 2012, the Chief Minister of Karnataka, B. S. Yeddyurappa, proposed to amend the Constitution to rename India as ‘Bharat’, and announced that ‘programs will be launched to promote Kannada as a classical language, at a cost of Rs 50 crore.’ 54 Here the ethical dimension of the argument comes with a chauvinistic stance, the implication being that the domestic product is morally superior to anything that is imported.

• 55 ‘We are all moolnivasis (original inhabitants) of this land and that is why we are called Adivasis. (...)

56 See http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/feb/22vhp.htm , retrieved October 2012.

• 57 ‘ How to Wipe Out Islamic Terrorism ’, Daily News and Analysis, http://jahnabibarooah.wordpress.com/ . (...)

52 Equally relevant to this section of our enquiry are arguments in favour of or against the use of the name Hindustan. Some reject ‘Hindustan’ as being too offensive to ‘minorities’ (read non-Hindus). ‘Bharat’, they argue, is to be preferred to ‘Hindustan’ because it is less divisive. Here ‘Hindustan’, even with the Persian suffix, is understood with Savarkar’s meaning of ‘land of the Hindus’—with Hindu receiving a religious signification. In contrast, ‘Bharat’ is associated with the capacity to generate and tolerate internal differences. Words do have a life of their own! Some argue that ‘Hindustan’ should be avoided by Indians because it is being used in Pakistan to refer to India. Some tribals from Gujarat have declared preferring ‘Bharat’ to ‘Hindustan’ because they are not Hindus. 55 On the opposite side, there are those who argue that ‘Hindustan’ should be used precisely to stress the Hindu character of India. Thus in February 2003 the VHP demanded that India be renamed as Hindustan in order to restore ‘the honor of the Hindu rashtra (nation)’. 56 And in July 2011, Dr. Subramanian Swamy, the president of the Janata Party who was then teaching economics at Harvard, made the same demand. He also recommended that a civil code be implemented, the learning of Sanskrit and singing Vande Mātaram be made mandatory, and non-Hindus be allowed to vote only if they acknowledged Hindu ancestry. 57 These demands reflect the legacy of Savarkar, even though they overlook that he spoke of Hindust h an.

53 The politics of naming is part of the social production of the nation. Its processes are shaped by broad socio-political conditions and can be studied from several angles. In this paper I have adopted a cultural history perspective. My purpose has been to look at some of the inherited discourses on ‘ Bhārata ’ both prior to and at the time of its official equation with ‘India’ in the Constitution of 1950. To begin with I attempted to characterize the memory that was taken in by those who in the 19 th century used the name Bhārata to refer to the geographical , political and administrative entity that the colonial power called ‘India’. The evidence presented shows that it was the Puranic memory of a naturally bounded (sea, mountains) and specifically socially organized territory where human beings could fulfill the specific sets of socioreligious duties required to maintain their cultural identity. That Bhārata —a cultural space whose unity was to be found in the social order of dharma —was a pre-national construction and not a national project. Then I argued that at the time of independence, India and Bhārata were equally worthy candidates to baptize the newly-born nation, along with ‘Hindustan’. But the opening article of the Constitution discarded Hindustan and registered the nation under a dual and bilingual identity: ‘India, that is Bharat’. One name was to be used as the equivalent or the translation of the other as exemplified on the cover of the national passport, where the English ‘Republic of India’ corresponds to the Hindi ‘ Bhārata gaṇarājya’ , or, perhaps even more telling, on India postage stamps, where the two words Bhārata and India are collocated. Pursuing the history of the reception of the Constitutional equation of Bharat and India in all its social and political complexities was beyond the scope of my enquiry. I have merely pointed to two contemporary phenomena: the name Hindustan has continued to be widely used in spite of, or may be thanks to, its plurality of meanings and the implication of the equivalence of Bharat with India has remained a subject of debate. It is likely that all these names will continue to be interpreted to fit new circumstances, to give new meanings to India’s national identity, an ongoing, open-ended process.

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1 This paper is an extended version of a communication delivered on 13 November 2012 in the workshop on ‘The Idea of South Asia’ organized by the Centre d’Etudes de l’Inde et de l’Asie du Sud, Paris. I am grateful to four anonymous SAMAJ reviewers for their close reading of the manuscript and to Aminah Mohammad-Arif and Blandine Ripert for their editorial assistance. Their suggestions were very helpful. Responsibility for the content of my article is entirely my own.

2 ‘Often, as I wandered from meeting to meeting, I spoke to my audiences of this India of ours, of Hindustan and of Bharata, the old Sanskrit name derived from the mythical founders of the race. […] I spoke of this great country for whose freedom we were struggling, of how each part differed from the other and yet was India, of common problems of the peasants from north to south and east to west, of the Swaraj that could only be for all and every part and not for some. I told them of my journeying from the Khyber Pass in the far north-west to Kanya Kumari or Cape Comorin in the distant south, and how everywhere the peasants put me identical questions, for their troubles were the same—poverty, debt, vested interests, landlords, moneylenders, heavy rents and taxes, police harassment, and all these wrapped up in the structure that the foreign government had imposed upon us—and relief must also come for all’ (Nehru 1946: 38-39).

3 The expression is a hybrid, it associates a Sanskrit word ( jaya -hail) with an Arabic word ( Hind- India). It was coined by Chempakaraman Pillai (1891-1934), a revolutionary from Kerala who went abroad during the First World War to organize an armed resistance against the British; it was later used by Subhas Chandra Bose as the battle cry of his Azad Hind Fauj (literally ‘Army of Independent India’—rendered as ‘Indian National Army’).

4 4 The name given by Yule and Burnell (1996) to their dictionary of Anglo-Indian terms. See also the entries for ‘Deccan’ and ‘Hindustan’.

5 The Persian Hindustān , the Greek Indikê , the latin India , and the Arabic Al-Hind are all derived from the old-Persian hindu (found in an inscription in Persepolis which mentions the 20 th province—satrapy—of Darius’ empire, the country of the Lower-Indus). Hindu is the Persian for Sindhu , the name for the Indus River in ancient Sanskrit literature. The Persian Hindustān got introduced in India and became very commonly used in the Moghul period. Notwithstanding their diverse linguistic forms, all these terms share the same etymology and connect an inhabited land with the Indus River.

7 See Barrow 2011: 47. In 1894 Strachey (1894: 2), then member of the council of the Secretary of state for India, observed: ‘The name Hindustan is never applied in India, as we apply it, to the whole of Indian subcontinent; it signifies the country north of the Narbada River, and especially the northern portion of the basins of the Ganges and Jumna.’

8 Savarkar wrote Hindutva (in English) during his imprisonment in Andaman and Nicobar Islands between 1911 and 1921, but it was only published in 1923. On the semantic history of the word ‘Hindu’, see Lorenzen (1999); Sharma (2002). On the import of the slogan ‘Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan!’ raised to mobilize the Hindus of Northern India at the end of the nineteenth century, see Dalmia (1997: 27  sq .).

9 The First article reads: ‘(1) India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States. (2) The States and the territories thereof shall be the States and their territories for the time being specified in Parts I, II and III of the First Schedule.’ For the text of the Constitution of India, see http://india.gov.in/my-government/constitution-india.

10 The Hindi translation reads: ‘ bhārata arthāt indiyā, rājyoṃ kā saṅgha hogā .’ See http://bharat.gov.in/govt/documents/hindi/part1.pdf , retrieved 27 September 2012.

11 Reports of the Constituent Assembly Debates (Proceedings) (9 December 1946 to 24 January 1950) published online on http://parliamentofindia.nic.in/ls/debates/debates.htm .

12 Manu 2.21-24: ‘The land between the Himalaya and Vindhya ranges to the east of Vinashana and west of Prayāga, is known the ‘Middle Region’. The land between the same mountain ranges extending from the eastern to the western sea is what the wise call Ᾱryāvarta—the region of the Ᾱryas’ (translated from the Sanskrit by Olivelle 2004).

13 Taken together the seven islands constitute the world. They are separated from each other by oceans of different composition (saltwater, syrup, wine, ghee, milk and fresh water), a configuration that suggests that they are mutually inaccessible and reinforces their insularity. Each island is divided in varṣa —a word meaning ‘rain’, hence it is usually understood as a climatic zone. Jambudvīpa (which of the seven islands is the only one inhabited by human beings) is divided in 9 varṣa , and Bhārata lies on its most southern section. See Rocher 1986: 130-131; see also Rocher 1988: 3-10 and Pollock 2006: 193ff.

14 ‘The country that lies north of the ocean, and south of the snowy mountains, is called Bharata, for there dwell the descendants of Bharata. It is nine thousand leagues in extent, and is the land of works, in consequence of which men go to heaven, or obtain emancipation.’( Viṣṇupurāṇa , 2, 3, 1-2, translated from the Sanskrit by Wilson 1840).

17 ‘In the Bharatavarsha it is that the succession of four Yugas, or ages, the Krita, the Treta, the Dvapara, the Kali, takes place; that pious ascetics engage in rigorous penances; that devout men offer sacrifices; and that gifts are distributed; all for the sake of another world. […] Bharata therefore is the best of the divisions of Jambudwipa because it is the land of works: the others are places of enjoyment alone.’( Viṣṇupurāna III, 2, 19-20, 22, translated from the Sanskrit by Wilson 1840). See also Kane (1974: 17), Kane (1973: 137).

19 In a way, contemporary orthodox Brahmans still mentally reside in Bhārata , as their ancestors did: at the beginning of their daily rituals when they express their intention ( saṃkalpa ) and identify themselves, they not only give their name, caste, lineage, etc., the period of the year, the date, but also their location in space, and this they do by using the word Bhāratavarṣa ; see, for example, Miśra (2000:19). See also Pollock (2006: 190).

21 Quoted by Kane (1974: 16).

24 Killingley (1997:126) compares Bhārata to dār al-islām , the territory where according to Islamic juridical theory Islamic law is protected.

25 Edney (1997) explores the relationship between cartographic knowledge and power, showing how map making accompanied empire building and was fundamental to the creation of British India.

28 See Muir [1858] 1890: Chapter 6. He also equates Bhāratavarsha with Hindustan, Muir ([1861] 1890:148).

30 ‘Some pre-requisites of nationhood had […] been achieved by the time that the British conquests began: in 1757, the year of Plassey, India was not only a geographical expression, it was also seen as a cultural entity and a political unit. It is, however, important to realise that, notable as these advances were in the long process of the formation of India, these did not yet make India a nation’ (Habib 1997: 8). Curiously, Hindustan is outside the enquiry of Goswami (2004: 1). Her quotation of Nehru’s text even omits the word: ‘Often, as I wandered from meeting to meeting, I spoke to my audiences of this India of ours, of Bharata, the old Sanskrit name derived from the mythical founders of the race.’ Compare with note 2 above.

31 On the history of the song and on how it was rewritten by Iqbal, see Pritchett ( http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00urdu/taranahs/juxtaposition.html ); on the evolution of the political vision of the poet, see Matringe (2011).

32 Jana-gaṇa-mana adhināyaka jaya he/Bhārata bhāgya vidhātā: Thou art the ruler of the minds of all people/ Dispenser of Bhārata's destiny. See http://parliamentofindia.nic.in/ls/debates/debates.htm on 14 August 1947.

33 On Savarkar, see note 8. Savarkar wrote Hindutva in English but he gave the Devanāgarī spelling of words he deemed important in footnotes. Those words have been rendered with diacritical marks in what follows.

34 In the Saṃkṣipta hindī ṣabdasāgara (‘Abbreviated Dictionary of Hindi’), hindī as an adjective is defined as ‘ hindustān kā [of Hindustan], bhāratiya ’, as a masculine substantive as ‘ hind kā rahanevāla [inhabitant of Hind], bhāratavāsī [dwelling in Bharat]’; in the feminine the substantive means the language: ‘ hindustān kī bhāṣā’ [language of Hindustan].

35 āsindhu sindhu-paryantā yasya bhārata-bhūmikā/ pitṛbhūḥ puṇyabhūścaiva sa vai hindur iti smṛtaḥ : ‘He is known as a Hindu he whose Fatherland as well as Holy land is the land of Bhārata that goes from the Indus ( sindhu ) to the Ocean ( sindhu )’ (Savarkar 1969: 116). Let it be kept in mind that for Savarkar (1969: 80) a Hindu is not to be identified by religion alone. Hindu does not mean a believer of Hinduism, it is a national and cultural designation. Jains, Buddhists and Sikhs too are Hindus. However, not all Indians are Hindu because Hindus ‘are united not only by the bonds of the love they bear to a common ‘fatherland’ but also by the bonds of a common blood. They are not only a Nation ( rāṣṭra ) but also a race ( jāti )’ (Savarkar 1969: 84). Hindus are also bound by their culture ( saṃskṛti ) (Savarkar 1969: 92, 100-101, 115-116).

36 ‘[…] we have left the thread of our enquiry at the point where the growing concept of an Indian nation was found to be better expressed by the word Sindhusthan than by any other existing words. It was precisely to refute any parochial and narrow-minded significance which might, as in the case of Aryavarta be attached to this word that the definition of the word Sindhusthan was rid of any association with a particular institution or party-coloured suggestion.’ (Savarkar 1969: 38-39). Here the accusation of narrow-mindedness is clearly aimed at the Ᾱryasamāja, whose founder, Dayananda Saraswati (1824-1883), had chosen Ᾱryāvarta as the only possible name for the nation in his Satyārthaprakāśa (1875), see Prasad (1908: 250, 291, 545).

37 ‘[…] the epithets Hindu and Hindusthan had been the proud and patriotic designations signifying our land and our nation long before the Mohammedans or Mohammedanized Persians were heard of […].’ (Savarkar 1969: 73).

38 The ‘h’ is dropped by most authors, academics or otherwise, who quote Savarkar, though he himself took great pains to justify the spelling Hindust h an rather than Hindustan.

39 (Savarkar 1923: 31). ‘Sindhu in Sanskrit does not only mean the Indus but also the Sea which girdles the Southern peninsula—so that this one word Sindhu points out almost all frontiers of the land at a single stroke […] the epithet Sindhusthan calls up the image of the whole Motherland: the land that lies between Sindhu and Sindhu—from the Indus to the Seas’ (Savarkar 1923: 32).

41 The Draft Constitution was being finalized when Gandhi was assassinated (31 January 1948). Its first reading was held from 21 February 1948 to 26 Oct. 1948, the second between 15 November 1948 to 17 October 1949 and the third between November 14 1949 and November 26 1949.

42 The following quotations unless otherwise mentioned are from the reports of the debates mentioned in note 11.

43 He had in fact also proposed ‘Hind’ along with ‘Bharat’ but withdrew it when it was pointed to him that he had to choose one name only.

44 ‘I represent the people of the Northern part of India where sacred places like Shri Badrinath, Shri Kedarnath, Shri Bageshwar and Manasarovar are situated. […] I may be permitted to state, Sir, that the people of this area want that the name of our country should be 'Bharat Varsha' and nothing else.’

45 On the presence of ‘Hindu traditionalists’ (whom he distinguishes from ‘Hindu nationalists’) in the Congress at the time of independence, see Jaffrelot (1996: 81-84); on the inner diversity or lack of coherence of the Congress, see Khilnani (2003: 26, 28, 33-34).

46 See Singh (2005: 911-912). As the debates on the name were going on, an unnamed female renouncer undertook to fast till her death unless India be renamed Bharat and Hindi adopted as a national language. Upon Nehru visiting her, she broke her fast on 12 August claiming that Nehru and other Congress leaders had assured her that Hindi would be adopted. See Austin (2004: 293).

47 Nehru was not adverse to using it either: ‘Sometimes as I reached a gathering, a great roar of welcome would greet me Bharat Mata ki Jai [sic]—Victory to Mother India! I would ask them unexpectedly what they meant by that cry, who was this Bharat Mata, Mother India, whose victory they wanted? […] And so question and answer went on, till they would ask me impatiently to tell them about it. I would endeavour to do so and explain that India was all this that they had thought, but it was much more. The mountains and the rivers of India, and the forest and the broad fields, which gave us food, were all dear to us, but what counted ultimately were the people of India, people like them and me, who were spread out all over this vast land. Bharat Mata, Mother India, was essentially these millions of people, and victory to her meant victory to these people. You are parts of Bharat Mata, I told them, you are in a manner yourself Bharat Mata, and as this idea slowly soaked into their brains, their eyes would light up as if they had made a great discovery’ (Nehru 1946: 39).

48 I have found this ‘search engine’ a very useful tool to look into the India Constitutional debates: http://viveks.info/search-engine-for-constituent-assembly-debates-in-india/ . It should perhaps be observed here that outside Article One, ‘India’ is the only name for the country found in the Indian Constitution.

49 This proposition came from Rajendra Prasad, the President of the Constituent Assembly, see http://parliamentofindia.nic.in/ls/debates/debates.htm on 24 January 1950.

50 ‘India that is Bharath [sic]’ by V. Sundaram, IAS (July 14 2005), see http://www.ivarta.com/columns/OL_050714.htm , retrieved in September 2012.

52 See http://164.100.24.219/BillsTexts/RSBillTexts/asintroduced/cons-peamble-E.pdf . The allusion is to a popular patriotic song written by Rajinder Krishan and sang by Rafi in the film Sikandar e Azam , 1965.

55 ‘We are all moolnivasis (original inhabitants) of this land and that is why we are called Adivasis. Indian civilisation is the oldest in the world but ours is older still. We belong to Bharat, not Hindustan. We should call ourselves moolnivasis, Adivasis [First inhabitants], Bharatvasis [Inhabitants of Bharat]. […] We are fragmented today by the different religious sects that seek our membership. We have our own religion. We are fragmented by different political parties. We need to become one. Religion is a private matter. We need to come together as Adivasis and not as Hindu or Christian, or Muslim tribals.’ See Lobo (2002).

57 ‘ How to Wipe Out Islamic Terrorism ’, Daily News and Analysis, http://jahnabibarooah.wordpress.com/ . As a consequence he was expelled from Harvard Summer School, http://www.forbes.com/sites/harveysilverglate/2012/01/17/censorship-at-harvard-comes-as-no-surprise/ , retrieved October 2012. On Subramanian Swamy, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subramanian_Swamy ).

Electronic reference

Catherine Clémentin-Ojha , “ ‘India, that is Bharat…’: One Country, Two Names ” ,  South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal [Online], 10 | 2014, Online since 25 December 2014 , connection on 08 September 2024 . URL : http://journals.openedition.org/samaj/3717; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/samaj.3717

About the author

Catherine clémentin-ojha.

Professor in anthropology, EHESS, Paris

The text only may be used under licence CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 . All other elements (illustrations, imported files) are “All rights reserved”, unless otherwise stated.

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Necessary for every Indian to say Jai Bharat, Jai Hind: Union Minister Mandavia

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‘Who is Bharat Mata’ — On History, Culture and the Idea of India, Writings by and on Jawaharlal Nehru review: Nehru’s idea of India

How the first prime minister formed his views on the nation and her culture.

Published - August 10, 2019 05:38 pm IST

Selections are invariably subjective. Purushottam Agrawal makes his subjectivity abundantly clear in his introduction. He believes Jawaharlal Nehru is deliberately being made a target of misrepresentation and distortion.

Through this selection, he wants to redress that by showing through Nehru’s writings that the latter represented maanavnishtha Bharatiyata, which he translates as ‘humane Indian nationalism’.

The phrase maanavnishtha Bharatiyata , Agrawal borrows from Dada Dharmadhikari, the freedom fighter and social reformer. This selection provides a very comprehensive survey of Nehru’s ideas about India — her civilisation, her traditions and her culture. This volume and the learning that has gone into it deserve to be lauded.

Evolving view

In spite of being greatly enriched by Agrawal’s selection, I cannot but point out one shortcoming. Nehru’s views on India and her culture were not static: they evolved over time. Agrawal’s selection is not arranged chronologically so one misses the sense of change and evolution.

When Nehru returned to India in 1912 as a graduate of Cambridge University and as a qualified barrister-at-law from the Inner Temple, he was a thoroughly westernised oriental gentleman utterly unconnected with the people of India and the conditions in which they lived.

All this changed dramatically under the influence of Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru’s own experiences as he moved around the villages of south eastern Uttar Pradesh and saw their poverty in the early 1920s. This radicalised Nehru, a process that was hastened by his exposure to socialist ideas and intellectuals in Europe.

This phase of his life was best articulated in his autobiography, written in jail and published in 1936. The book is austere in style and reflects Nehru’s growing awareness of social and economic issues as well as his reservations regarding obscurantist views, even those of Gandhi. He is self conscious enough to admit that his lack of affinity with things religious and spiritual alienated him from the vast majority of the people of India. His ‘wanderings among the kisans’ and his radicalisation notwithstanding, his approach to life remained that of a left-leaning European intellectual. Bharat Mata was not a phrase in Nehru’s rhetoric and beliefs in this phase of his life.

This changed as he served his longest prison sentence in the early 1940s.

He wrote another book during this phase of imprisonment: The Discovery of India . It was in this book that Nehru set about presenting to himself and to his readers a view of Indian history culture. This book lacks the austerity and the objectivity of his autobiography. It is an emotional book, the style florid and prolix. He sought solace in the past and its traditions. The remembrance of India’s history became for Jawaharlal an emotional cradle. He carried this emotional charge with him as he took on the mantle of prime ministership.

‘Parts of Bharat Mata’

It is in The Discovery of India that Nehru recounted an incident that helps explain his conception of Bharat Mata. Agrawal uses this as his first excerpt and takes the name of his book from Nehru’s description of the incident. Nehru wrote that as he moved across India addressing gatherings and political meetings, he would often be greeted with the roar ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ and he would ask who was this Bharat Mata. His audience, Nehru wrote, would be bewildered and seek an answer from Nehru himself. Nehru would explain that, “Bharat Mata was essentially these millions of people.” You are parts of this Bharat Mata, Nehru would tell his listeners, “you are in a manner yourselves Bharat Mata.” And Nehru recalled, “as this idea slowly soaked into their brains, their eyes would light up as if they had made a great discovery.”

A powerful image that had been invoked by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Aurobindo Ghosh and other nationalists of the country as mother was transformed in Nehru’s rhetoric as something more substantive. It had come to be identified with the people of India.

This transformation of an image enabled Nehru to define for himself what he had dedicated his life to when he had made nationalism his calling. It was not only the freedom of India from British rule that had called him. As he worked for that freedom, he came to the realisation that he was actually working with and for the people of India. It brought to him a profound sense of belonging. Tradition had become an integral part of his individual calling.

Readers are in debt to Agrawal for putting together this collection which has a distinctive focus and purpose. It is a timely volume which will also stand the test of time.

‘Who is Bharat Mata’: On History, Culture and the Idea of India, Writings by and on Jawaharlal Nehru ; Edited by Purushottam Agrawal, Speaking Tiger, ₹599.

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Essay on Atmanirbhar Bharat (India): Samples in, 250 and 600 Words

• Updated on  
• Jan 25, 2024

Essay on Atmanirbhar Bharat: Today, India, that is Bharat, has become a self-reliant (atmanirbhar) country in most of the realms. The Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, launched the Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan on 12th May 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic to make India self-reliant. As India prepares to take the global centre stage, it will become an important global economy. India is ranked 5th in nominal GDP and 3rd in purchasing power parity (PPP). 

There are five pillars of the Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan, which are economy, technology-driven systems, infrastructure, vibrant demography and demand. Moreover, India is determined to become a global power under the India Vision 2047. Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan is not just a social and economic development topic. It is about the importance of India and its citizens in the global development. Today, we will provide some samples of essays on Atmanirbhar Bharat (India) for school students.

Master the art of essay writing with our blog on How to Write an Essay in English .

Essay on Atmanirbhar Bharat in 250 Words

The Prime Minister of India launched the ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan’ on 12th May 2020. All the activities and developments under this programme are managed by the Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Health and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Meity). 

Initially, this programme was launched with a total budget of INN 5,000 crore, which is 0.025% of our GDP. Later on, the Prime Minister increased this monetary budget to INR 20 lac crore to achieve all the desired objectives. To make India a self-reliant nation, native businessmen, industrialists and traders were encouraged to participate in the nation-building programme.

There are five pillars of the Atmanirbhar Mission. These are technology-driven systems, infrastructure, vibrant demography and demand. All these pillars are equally important and are managed by different ministries and departments of the Indian government. All the ministries involved in this programme have their separate objectives. 

To become a global economy, India is focusing on producing more and more products for exports and reducing its expenses in importing. When a country’s exports are more than its imports, its economy grows at a positive rate. We have a long way ahead of us. Our major focus is on producing indigenous products by encouraging local businesses so that their production is sufficient to sustain them and to export outside the country. If this trend continues, then the time is not far when India will become the global economic power, surpassing Germany, Japan, China and the USA. 

To improve your essay writing skills, here are the top 200+ English Essay Topics for school students.

Also Read: Speech on Republic Day for Class 12th

Essay on Atmanirbhar Bharat in 600 Words

The Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan or mission is an Indian government initiative, launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 12th May 2020. The Prime Minister laid down all the objectives, responsibilities, pillars and names of the ministries which will be working to achieve all the goals of this scheme. The objective of this scheme is to make India a self-reliant nation and a global economic power. 

Total Budget

The initial budget of the Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan was INR 5000 crore. However, due to the COVID-10 pandemic and global economic slowdown, this budget was raised to INR 20 lac crore. This was done to achieve all the objectives in real-time, as India is planning to enhance its production. 

Native businessmen, industrialists and traders are encouraged by the government to contribute and invest in the Indian manufacturing sector. With the number in production increasing, the country will be focusing on exporting more and importing less.

Five Pillars of Atma Nirbhar Bharat

The Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan functions under five ministries:  Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Health and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Meity). All these ministries will be working on separate pillars of the Atmanirbhar Bharat mission. These five pillars are; technology-driven systems, infrastructure, vibrant demography and demand. All these pillars are equally important and are managed by different ministries and departments of the Indian government. 

• Technology-driven systems – A system based on technological developments, which can make India an important global power in the 21st century.
• Economy – An economic system focusing on Quantum Jump rather than Incremental change.
• Infrastructure – A modern infrastructure for a modern India.
• Demography – As the mother of Democracy, our demographic variation or diversity is our strength to make India self-sustaining.
• Demand – To enhance the cycle of demand and supply for a stronger economy

Developments So far

The Ministry of Defence is focusing on building its own infrastructure and warfare equipment, instead of importing from other countries. To achieve these goals, all five departments of the Ministry of Defence are working together. These departments are the Department of Military Affairs, the Department of Defence, the Department of Defence Production, the Department of Defence Research and Development, and the Department of Ex-Servicemen Welfare. LCH Prachand chopper, Pinaka rocket launchers, and Nag anti-tank missiles are some of the Indian-made military weapons.

Benefits to Poors and Migrants

Under the Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan, the Indian government has encouraged the local and state governments to work for the welfare of the poor and migrants.

• Migrants are given food grain supply for up to 2 months.
• Poor people are given access to education and learn technical skills so that they can participate in technological-related activities.
• To offer affordable housing complexes for migrant workers and urban poor people, the One Nation One Ration Card scheme was introduced.
• The Shishu Mudra loan service was launched, under which a 2% interest subvention for 12 months was offered. This scheme offered a total of INR 12,000 crore loans all over India.
• Another INR 70,000 crore was invested in the housing sector for middle-class people under the PMAY (Urban).
• INR 30,000 crore was invested in the Emergency Working Capital for farmers under the NABARD scheme.
• INR 2 lac crore was invested to help more than 25 million farmers under the Kisan Credit Card Scheme.

When a country’s exports are more than its imports, its economy grows at a positive rate. We have a long way ahead of us. The major focus of the Atmanirbhar Bharat Scheme is on producing indigenous products by encouraging local businesses so that their production is sufficient to sustain them and to export outside the country.

Ans: The Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan is a national mission to make India, Bharat a self-reliant country in terms of trade, economy, defence and technology.

Ans: The Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan or mission is an Indian government initiative, launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 12th May 2020. The Prime Minister laid down all the objectives, responsibilities, pillars and names of the ministries which will be working to achieve all the goals of this scheme. The objective of this scheme is to make India a self-reliant nation and a global economic power. 

Ans: The Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan or Self-reliant India mission was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with the vision to make India a self-reliant and self-sustaining nation.

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With an experience of over a year, I've developed a passion for writing blogs on wide range of topics. I am mostly inspired from topics related to social and environmental fields, where you come up with a positive outcome.

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Essay: Of Bharat, India and Hindustan

The idea of decolonization forces us to confront the uneasy coexistence of three different ideas of india that have jostled for supremacy since the birth of the country in 1947.

There have, in recent years, been a number of books written by people with clear Hindu nationalist positions that present their critiques of liberal India. The idea of India as Bharat, and of decolonization, are common themes that often run through them. In 2020, for example, A New Idea of India: Individual Rights in a Civilizational State by Harsh Madhusudan and Rajeev Mantri, was published. It began with a section titled India, that is Bharat , and ended with one on Decolonizing the Indian State . Another more recent book, titled India, that is Bharat by J Sai Deepak, is described by its publishers, Bloomsbury, as an exploration of European “colonial consciousness” on “Bharat as the successor state to the Indic civilization and the origins of the Indian constitution”. Here, too, the ideal is decolonization for the establishment of a civilisational state of Bharat, or in other words, a Hindu Rashtra.

The desire on the part of the Bharatiya Janata Party and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh to establish a Hindu Rashtra is not something they have ever been shy of expressing. On the contrary, they have always championed the “decolonization” efforts that would restore a pristine Hindu India. Recent events such as the renaming of Rajpath to Kartavya Path are a clear part of such “declolonization”. Media reports after the renaming quoted unnamed government sources saying this was in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s panch pran or five resolutions announced from the ramparts of Red Fort in his latest Independence Day speech, of which the second resolution was the “removal of any trace of colonial mindset”. Other resolutions follow in similar vein; the third resolution was “taking pride in our roots”, and the last and fifth resolution was “sense of duty among citizens”.

The idea of decolonization itself is an interesting one, with a vast literature especially from Latin America. In the case of India, it forces us to confront the uneasy coexistence of three different ideas of India that have jostled for supremacy since the birth of the country in 1947: the ideas of the country as Bharat, Hindustan and India. The oldest of these, the idea of Bharat is generally considered the ancient Sanskrit name for the country. Hindustan is the name derived from Persian by which the country was known during the days of the Mughal Empire. India, a name of Greek origins, is the name that it emerged with during and after British rule.

When the Constitution of India was being framed, the issue of choosing one of these names came up for discussion. The drafting committee of the Constitution led by Dr BR Ambedkar presented a draft that evaded the choice by using the line “India, that is Bharat” – thus suggesting that these were one and the same. On 18th September 1949, in the Constituent Assembly, a member, Hari Vishnu Kamath, took issue with this. Kamath proposed an amendment: instead of saying “Bharat, that is India”, he wanted the line to be “Bharat or, in the English language, India”. India, he said, was the name of the country only in the English language.

At the time, Ambedkar’s view prevailed, and so our Constitution begins with the words “India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States”.

It was a fix that papered over the differences in the origins, imaginations and values of Bharat, Hindustan and India.

The struggle for supremacy between two of these ideas – Bharat and India – has arguably been the prime motor of Indian politics for at least the past 32 years, since September 1990, when BJP leader Lal Krishna Advani took off on a rath yatra for the cause of building a Ram temple at the site of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. The political rise to power of the Hindu Right in the subsequent years is, in one sense, a marker of the growing ascendancy of Bharat over India. The ongoing construction of the temple at Ayodhya, which is scheduled for inauguration in 2024, will mark its final triumph. Other, lesser projects such as the one of remaking the Central Vista in New Delhi are parts of the same campaign to “remove any trace of colonial mindset” from the country. Since Hindu nationalism views the entire thousand-year period of Muslim and British rule as colonial rule, the intent is obviously to erase all traces of the “mindsets” of Hindustan and India.

The trouble is that the ideas of modern nation-states and nationalism themselves are products of colonial rule. Ancient Bharat was a shifting territory linked by elements of a shared “high culture” whose social basis was the caste system. Catherine Clementin Ojha, a professor of Indian religious anthropology, described it in a paper as “a spatially delimited social order, but not to a politically organized entity”. Ojha quoted Pandit Pandurang V Kane, author of History of Dharmasastra , to buttress her point.

The existence of numerous warring kingdoms in ancient Bharat is well known. The most important aspect of modern nation-states, namely political unity, was therefore missing.

The idea of India as a nation-state first appears only during colonial rule – and rather late in the day at that. None other than the original Hindu nationalist, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, lamented this fact in an 1879 essay titled The Shame of Bharat which has recently reappeared in a new book, To Raise a Fallen People . In the essay, Chatterjee writes, “Only twice, in recorded history, did Hindus rise as a nation”. The two instances he cites are of the Marathas under Chhatrapati Shivaji and the Sikhs under Maharaja Ranjit Singh – the latter being an inclusion that stretches the definition of Hindu in familiar ways. “The British are our beneficiaries”, he says. “Many of the things they are teaching us are priceless. I have referred in this essay to two priceless jewels we have acquired in this manner: a love for freedom and the establishment of a nation. The Hindus did not know what these meant”.

India as it exists now is a colonial creation. So are Pakistan and Bangladesh. They were constructed during a period of roughly 150 years of imperial conquest over hundreds of kings and chieftains who ruled over territories from Arunachal Pradesh and Burma in the east to Afghanistan in the west, inhabited by vastly diverse peoples who shared no common language, culture, religion or history. The separate agreements concluded with each of these kings and chiefs is contained in volume after volume of a book called A Collection of Treaties, Engagements and Sanads Relating to India and Neighbouring Countries compiled by an officer of the Indian Civil Service, Charles U. Aitchison. Together, these treaties chronicle the long process of political integration by which the British Indian Empire was built.

India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are the three fragments into which that empire broke between 1947 and 1971. The process of tighter internal integration, however, continued in each of the three successor states to the British Indian Empire after independence. In India, under the leadership of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the 562-odd princely states were integrated into the country after Independence. A similar process also occurred in Pakistan, where princely states all over the country, from Kalat in Balochistan to Bahawalpur in Punjab to Chitral and Dir on the border with Afghanistan were integrated into the modern state.

The unification of the territory of British India was followed by a spread of ideas of governance and administration that we did not previously have. India’s maharajas and nawabs were renowned globally for their fabulous wealth – and the extreme poverty of their subjects. We had rulers topping the list of “richest in the world” while lakhs of their subjects died of starvation in famines. Our kings were despots. Despite two pioneering efforts by an enlightened Dewan in the states of Travancore and Baroda, there was not a single constitutional monarch to be found among them until the dying days of the British Raj when some of them scrambled to pivot to constitutional monarchy in a desperate effort to avoid merger with India.

The practice of ordinary people of all castes, classes and genders having constitutional rights was a foreign one that came in through British colonialism and a Western education; in our system, subjects just had kartavyas towards kings whom they were expected to flatter by sycophancy without limit and by service without question. To question or doubt are still considered insults in our subcontinental cultures. Teachers tend to be offended if students question them, parents are offended if children question them, bosses are offended if subordinates question them, and of course, rulers are offended if subjects question them.

Asking questions is of critical importance to both science and democracy but we did not have the Enlightenment that transformed Europe and eventually the world. Reason and science, which flourished in ancient Bharat, had departed our shores centuries before the Mughals and British arrived. Our way had become the way of faith, where questioning any belief is blasphemy. Superstitions and rituals ruled daily life.

Notions of egalitarianism are entirely foreign to us. Arguably the most essential aspect of the “spatially delimited social order” of ancient Bharat was observance of the caste system. Even as late as the 19th Century, the seas were called kala pani (black waters) and crossing them was anathema to conservative Hindus who believed it caused one to lose caste, because the caste taboos could not be properly observed outside Bharat. The idea that people of different castes, to say nothing of religions, can “inter-dine” was inconceivable.

Nor was caste the only system of exploitation and inequity. Several of the societies in India, including some tribal societies of Northeast India, even into the colonial period, were slaving societies. We have forgotten that slavery was practised here until it was abolished by the Indian Slavery Act of 1843, a law passed by the East India Company Raj. We do remember, though, that among genders, a strict patriarchy was the norm. The revolutionary idea of women getting educated and even going to work outside the home came to us through the “wayward” West.

The ideas of equality and liberty that shaped modern India came here through colonialism and Western education. They came to be guaranteed as fundamental rights by our constitution. No wonder Dalit icon Babasaheb Ambedkar, an alumnus of the London School of Economics and Columbia University, is seen in all his statues wearing a suit and holding the Constitution of modern India.

The historical evils of colonialism are well known, and unquestionable – but it was the costly experience of colonialism that forced open closed minds. Politically, those evils ended with the end of colonial rule on 15th August 1947. Since then, for the past 75 years, “India that is Bharat” has been ruled by its own rulers and its own Constitution. So, when we talk about decolonising our mind sets further now, what exactly are we aspiring to decolonize to? When Bharat triumphs over India, what will become of the modern ideas and values that came to us with British colonialism?

Samrat Choudhury is an author and a journalist

The views expressed are personal

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The Name Game: Bharat vs India

• 15 Sep 2023
• 11 min read
• GS Paper - 2
• Indian Constitution

This editorial is based on India, Bharat and a Host of Implications which was published in The Hindu on 07/09/2023. It talks about the historical, ideological, constitutional, and international implications of the names Bharat and India, and how their use has political implications.

For Prelims: 58 th Amendment , Article 1(1) , Constituent Assembly , India's official languages

For Mains: Historical Background/History Associated with “Bharat” & “India , Balance between “India” and “Bharat”

"Bharat" is a historical and ideological name for India, while "India" is a constitutional and international name . The use of these names has become political due to the formation of an opposition alliance called INDIA (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance).

Recently, the current government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi has used the term "President of Bharat" instead of "President of India" on an invitation card for the recent G-20 Summit. This shift in terminology has raised eyebrows and suggests a political dimension to the use of these names .

What is the Historical Background/History Associated with “Bharat” & “India”?

• Origins of the Names: The words "India" and its variants, such as "Hind" in Arabic, have foreign origins. These names were historically used by outsiders to refer to the land south and east of the Indus or Sindhu River.
• Later, European colonial powers, particularly the British, used "India" to describe not only the northern region but also the entire subcontinent. For them, it was primarily a geographical designation.
• They preferred the term "Bharat" and its variations in different languages.
• This name dispute reflected the deep-seated religious and political divisions during the partition .
• "Hind" is still in use today, and expressions like "Jai Hind" reflect its enduring significance in Indian culture.

How “Bharat” and “India” are Balanced?

• Adoption of the Constitution : The Indian Constitution was originally adopted by the Constituent Assembly in English. This underscores the historical and legal importance of the English version as the foundational text of the Constitution.
• Publication of a Hindi Translation: In addition to the English version, a Hindi translation of the Constitution was published in 1950. This translation was signed by the members of the Constituent Assembly , and it was done in accordance with a resolution passed by the Constituent Assembly.
• It highlights the importance of providing access to the Constitution in both of India's official languages , English and Hindi.
• The 58 th Amendment gave the President the power to publish the official text of the Constitution in Hindi, which could also be used in legal proceedings.
• In the Hindi version, it reads "Bharat artharth India, rajyon ka sangh hoga," with "Bharat" given prominence.
• The choice of names reflects the dual-language nature of India's official documents and publications.

Some of the Other Countries that Changed their Name

• The country changed its name to assert its unity and identity against Western colonial influence in Southeast Asia. The new name, "Thailand," means "Land of the Free" and emphasises the country's independence and national pride.
• The country changed its name to distance itself from the authoritarian rule of Mobutu Sese Seko (dictator who ruled for over 3 decades). The new name emphasised the return to a democratic system of governance.
• In 1971, East Pakistan became independent from West Pakistan after a violent war, forming the new country of Bangladesh. This marked the end of the Bangladesh Liberation War and represented the cultural, linguistic, and political distinctions between the two regions.
• In 2022, Turkey changed its name to Türkiye , as the name signifies the best representation and expression of the Turkish people’s culture, civilization and values.

What is the Current Scenario?

• This highlights the practicality and standardisation of using the English name "India" in global diplomacy and communication.
• Recent Example with Greece: The reference to the Joint Statement issued during the Prime Minister's visit to Greece serves as a contemporary example. The document is titled "India-Greece Joint Statement," emphasising the use of "India" in official bilateral relations.
• This approach reflects India's commitment to multilingualism and its diverse linguistic heritage.
• Modern Usage: The use of both "Jai Hind" and "Jai Bharat" is noted in contemporary India, reflecting the coexistence of different cultural and linguistic traditions. For instance, in most of the major speeches, such as the Independence Day speech both expressions are used , signifying a recognition of the diverse historical and cultural threads that make up the fabric of the nation.
• The Supreme Court has twice rejected pleas to rename 'India' to 'Bharat', once in 2016 and then in 2020 , reaffirming that "Bharat" and "India" both find mention in the Constitution.

Such a change could alienate parts of the country that prefer the name "India" to "Bharat." Public sentiment and regional preferences regarding the country's name are diverse and should be considered in any decision. Any departure from this tradition could have cultural and identity implications. The tradition of using "India" in English and "Bharat" in Hindi, reflecting India's linguistic diversity, is considered both wise and constitutionally correct. The question raised is whether changing this tradition to prioritise one term over the other should be a priority at this time when the country is facing other challenges (Unemployment, Environmental Degradation, Poverty, Helathcare, Inequality, Gender Discrimination, etc.).

Legal Insights

Legal Perspectives of Renaming India to Bharat

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Lal Bahadur Shastri's Enduring Legacy: Lessons for Today's Leaders

The Man of Peace is Lal Bahadur Shastri. He is well known as India's second prime minister after independence. He is also renowned for coining the slogan "Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan" ('Hail the warriors and farmers'). Let us study more about the life of this great Indian historical figure.

This article is helpful content for the students of classes 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 who wish to write a 1000-word essay on Lal Bahadur Shastri in English.

Lal Bahadur Shastri was the country's second Prime Minister and a major leader of the Indian National Congress. Mahatma Gandhi had a strong influence on him, and he joined the independence movement in the 1920s.

Following India's independence in 1947, Lal Bahadur Shastri joined Nehru's cabinet, eventually becoming one of Prime Minister Nehru's principals, first as Railway Minister and subsequently in a variety of ministries including Home Minister. He also led the country throughout the 1965 Indo-Pak war, coining the slogan "Jai Jawan Jai Kisan," which is still popular today. On January 10, 1966, the Tashkent Agreement formally terminated the war. He died the next day in Tashkent. Even though it was reported that Lal Bahadur Shastri died as a result of heart arrest, his family was not satisfied.

Early Childhood and Education

Lal Bahadur Shastri was born at Mughal Sarai on October 2, 1904. He was born in Mughal Sarai, the residence of his maternal grandparents. His paternal grandparents worked under the Zamindar of Ramnagar, which is located near Varanasi. Shastri's father was a school teacher who later worked as a clerk in Allahabad's tax office.

Shastri was the eldest son of his parents, but he had a younger sister named Kailashi Devi. Lal Bahadur Shastri's father died when he was one and a half years old, during an epidemic of bubonic plague. His mother, Smt. Ramdulari Devi, was just 23 years old at the time and pregnant with her third child when she took her children and moved to Ramnagar to live with her father. In July 1906, she gave birth to Shastri's younger sister Sundara Devi.

Lal Bahadur Shastri began his education at the age of four under the tutelage of a Muslim cleric, as Urdu/Persia remained the language of instruction for generations until it was superseded by English. Budhan Mian enrolled him at East Central Railway Inter-College in Mughal Sarai.

Bindeshwari Prasad's maternal grandpa died, and his cousin Ramdulari Devi, a schoolteacher at Mughal Sarai, took over as head of the family. Bindeshwari Prasad was transferred to Varanasi & the entire family of Shastriji shifted to Varanasi. There he joined Harish Chandra School, at this time he decided to drop his caste-derived surname of Srivastava.

Lal Bahadur Shastri's Role in India's Independence Movement and His Higher Education

There was no connection between the family with the independence struggle. Nishkameshwar Prasad Mishra, his teacher at Harish Chandra High School, was nationalistic and well-liked. He provided much-needed financial assistance to Shastri by allowing him to tutor his children.

Shastri became interested in the independence struggle and began researching the history of Indian ancestors, including Swami Vivekananda, Gandhi, and Annie Besant. He attended a public meeting in Benares hosted by Gandhi when he was in the tenth grade. Inspired by Gandhi's appeal to boycott government schools and join the Non-Cooperation movement, Shastriji left Harish Chandra the next day and joined the local branch of the Congress party as a volunteer, beginning to participate in anti-government protests.

J.B. Kriplani, a former lecturer at Banaras Hindu University who later became one of the most famous leaders of the Indian Independence movement and one of Gandhi's closest followers, was Shastri's direct supervisor.

Shastri received a first-class degree in philosophy and ethics from the National Institution of Higher Education known as Kashi Vidyapith, which was founded by J. B. Kripalani and VN Sharma with the support of a wealthy philanthropist and ardent Congress nationalist, Shiv Prasad Gupta. Shastri joined the Indian National Congress as an active member in 1928. He was imprisoned for two and a half years before working as a secretary for the U.P. parliamentary board in 1937. He was sentenced to one year in prison for offering individual Satyagraha support to the independence struggle.

Lal Bahadur Shastri's Political Career

Following India's independence, he was appointed as Parliamentary Secretary in his home state of Uttar Pradesh, where he later became Minister of Police and Transport under Chief Minister Govind Ballabh Pant. As the state's transport minister, Lal Bahadur Shastri was the first to appoint conductors. During his stint as a police minister, he was successful in quelling communal disturbances, and he was the first to advise police to utilize water jets to disperse crowds rather than lathi charges.

With Jawaharlal Nehru as Prime Minister in 1951, he was appointed General Secretary of the All India Congress Committee. It was his obligation to choose the candidates and direct them in electioneering and advertising efforts. His cabinet was made up of India's most successful business people. Lal Bahadur Shastri was instrumental in the Congress Party's landslide victory in India's general elections in 1952, 1957, and 1962. In 1962, he won the UP Vidhan Sabha seat of Saron with 69% of the vote. On May 13, 1952, Shastri was appointed as the first Railway Minister in the Republic of India's first cabinet. He was also the Minister of Commerce and Industry, and he laid the groundwork for Mangalore Port.

Lal Bahadur Shastri Ji as India's Prime Minister

Shastriji was appointed Prime Minister after Jawaharlal Nehru died on May 27, 1964. Then-Congress President K. Kamaraj assisted in making him the republic's second Prime Minister. Shastri retained many members of Nehru's Cabinet and placed Nehru's daughter Indira Gandhi as Minister of Information and Broadcasting.

During his tenure, he witnessed the anti-Hindu protest in Madras in 1965, when the Indian government was attempting to establish Hindi as the sole national language of India. He encountered opposition from non-Hindi-speaking states. To defuse the tension, he stated that English would remain the official language. Following the promise, the unrest and violence abated.

Personal and Family Life

Lal Bahadur Shastri married Lalita Devi on May 16, 1928, and they had four boys and two daughters. Throughout his life, he lived by Gandhi's principles.

Shastri Ji's New Political Revolution

Nehru's socialist economic plans were abandoned by Shastri. Lal Bahadur Shastri was instrumental in launching the white revolution, an effort to improve milk production and availability. He backed cooperative businesses and established the National Dairy Development Board. On October 31, 1964, Shastri Ji paid a visit to Anand and opened the Amul cattle feed factory at Kanjari.

Lal Bahadur Shastri spent the night there, interacting with the farmers and having dinner with them. As a result of this engagement, he established the National Dairy Development Board, which was led by Mr. Verghese Kurien, the General Manager of Kaira District Co-operative Milk Producer Union Ltd (Amul at the time).

Because of the country's food shortages, Shastriji advised individuals to give up one meal voluntarily so that the food saved might be delivered to the affected population. The response to his call was amazing; even restaurants and cafes closed their doors once a week. It was known as Shastri Vrat in many parts of the world.

How Lal Bahadur Shastri handled the India-Pakistan war

1965 India His most notable movement was the Pakistan War, in which he led India to victory. As conflict broke out on a large scale, he sent the Indian army across the Line of Control and threatened Pakistan near Lahore. The two countries engaged in massive tank battles.

Despite Pakistani victories in the north, Indian soldiers gained vital strongholds at Haji Pir in Kashmir and Lahore in Pakistan, which were under artillery and mortar fire from Indian forces. According to the United Nations-mandated truce, the war concluded on September 23, 1965.

Death of Lal Bahadur Shastri

Shastri died of a heart attack on January 11, 1966, in Tashkent, after signing a peace pact to terminate the 1965 Indo-Pak War. His relatives, however, refused to accept the circumstances of his death and claimed foul play. The Indian government did not divulge any information at the time, and the media remained mute as well. Many conspiracy theories continue to circulate in relation to his death.

500 word Essay on Lal Bahadur Shastri in english for class 4,5,6,7

Lal Bahadur Shastri was born in Mughal Sarai, Uttar Pradesh, India, on October 2, 1904. Sharda Prasad was his father's name, and he was a schoolteacher. Ramdulari Devi was his mother's name. When Lal Bahadur Shastri was one year old, his father died. He has two younger sisters. His mother Ramdulari Devi moved him and his two sisters to her father's house after his father died and placed them there.

Marriage and Education

Lal Bahadur Shastri had always been honest and hardworking since he was a child. Lal Bahadur Shastri received the title Shastri Scholar after graduating with honors from the Kashi Vidyapeeth in 1926. In his childhood, Lal Bahadur Shastri learned values such as bravery, adventure, patience, self-control, courtesy, and selflessness. Lal Bahadur Shastri sacrificed his schooling in order to actively participate in the liberation fight.

Lalita Devi married Lal Bahadur Shastri. Lal Bahadur Shastri and his wife were both fortunate with six children. Their children's names were Kusum, Hari Krishna, Suman, Anil, Sunil, and Ashok.

Involvement in the Freedom Movement

Lal Bahadur Shastri was captivated by the national freedom cause as a child. He was deeply moved by Gandhi's address at the Banaras Hindu University's foundation ceremony. Following that, he became a devoted Gandhian before joining the liberation movement. As a result, he was sent to jail several times.

Lal Bahadur Shastri always thought that self-sufficiency and self-reliance were the foundations of a strong nation. Lal Bahadur Shastri preferred to be remembered for his work rather than well-rehearsed speeches full of high promises. He was always opposed to the prevalent caste system, therefore he chose to drop his surname and, after graduation, take the Shastri surname.

Following India's independence in 1947, Lal Bahadur Shastri was given the portfolios of transport and home ministry. He was appointed to the Railway Ministry in 1952. When Jawaharlal Nehru died, Lal Bahadur Shastri succeeded him as Prime Minister for only 18 months. After the victory over Pakistan in the 1965 war, he received his achievements. He died on January 11, 1966, as a result of a severe heart attack.

Lal Bahadur Shastri was India's second prime minister. He was a great individual as well as a brilliant leader, and he was honored with the "Bharat Ratna." He gave a renowned motto "Jai Jawan Jai Kissan". Lal Bahadur Shastri used his spare time to read social reformers and western intellectuals. He was always opposed to the "dowry system" and hence refused to accept dowry from his father in law. Lal Bahadur Shastri addressed numerous fundamental issues such as food scarcity, unemployment, and poverty. Shastri requested the experts to design a long-term strategy to address the urgent food scarcity. The renowned "Green Revolution" had begun. Lal Bahadur Shastri was a very quiet man.

Following the Chinese attack of 1962, India faced another aggression from Pakistan during Shastri's tenure, and Lal Bahadur Shastri showed his mettle by making it apparent that India would not sit back and watch. While allowing the Security Forces to retaliate, he stated, "Force will be met with force." Lal Bahadur Shastri served as Minister of Transport and Communications before becoming Minister of Commerce and Industry. In 1961, he was the Minister of Home, and he established the "Committee on Prevention of Corruption," which was chaired by K. Santhanam.

Lal Bahadur Shastri was also noted for his honesty, patriotism, and simplicity. India has suffered the loss of a great leader. He had endowed India with brilliance and morality. His demise remained a mystery. Lal Bahadur Shastri was a member of the Indian National Congress. He held nationalist, liberal, and right-wing political ideologies. Lal Bahadur Shastri practiced Hinduism. As the pillars of a great nation, he was always self-sufficient and self-reliant.

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Jai Ho Bharat, says Digvijay

Congress general secretary digvijay singh on saturday said, "jai ho for bharat, jai ho for the poor and jai ho for the people of india." he reiterated that manmohan singh will be the prime minister as indicated by sonia gandhi..

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