NEW DELHI: Jammu and Kashmir chief minister on Tuesday reacted to RSS general secretary‘s statement who suggested that the country’s name India should be replaced with Bharat as the former was an “English” name and the latter was a more rooted name.
Omar Abdullah said that the country has been referred to as “Bharat, India and Hindustan” and one could choose to call whatever they wanted. “We call our country Bharat, India and Hindustan. Whoever wants to call this country by whatever name, he can call it,” he said.
“We call it Indian Air Force, Indian Army and also sing ‘Sare jahan se achha Hindustan humara’..,.” he added.
Meanwhile, Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi called it an effort to distract attention from “main issues of the country.” “The kind of comments coming from the RSS… few days back, their chief had also said something… what are the main issues of the country? They are unemployment, farmers, inflation… instead of social service, RSS distracts attention from those issues,” she said.
This came as RSS general secretary Dattatreya Hosabale questioned why it was “Constitution of India, Reserve Bank of India”.
“During the G-20 summit, the invitation card for Rashtrapati Bhavan and the invitation card for the PM on January 26 had Republic of Bharat written in English. Constitution of India in English and Bharat ka Samvidhan in Hindi, It is the ‘Constitution of India’, ‘Reserve Bank of India’…why is it like this? Why do we have to do this everywhere? Such a question should be raised. It should be rectified. If the country’s name is Bharat, it should only be called that way,” Hosabale said.
The India vs Bharat debate got triggered after President Droupadi Murmu’s invite for the G20 dinner in 2023 called her the “President of Bharat” instead of the customary “President of India.”
It gained traction after the opposition parties, uniting against the BJP for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, named their alliance INDIA (Indian National Inclusive Developmental Alliance). Prime Minister Narendra Modi spearheaded the criticism, drawing parallels with organizations like the Popular Front of India, which also use “India” in their names.