Supreme Court: Plea for renaming India as Bharat can go to Centre Govt as representation
India is already called ‘Bharat‘ in the Constitution,” says Chief Justice of India. The Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered that a plea to change India’s name exclusively to ‘Bharat‘ be converted into a representation and forwarded to the Union government for an appropriate decision.
The plea claimed that a change of name will help citizens of the country get over the colonial past and instill a sense of pride in their nationality.
The petitioner, a Delhi-based man, argued that the time is ripe to recognise the country by its original and authentic name, Bharat, especially when the cities have been renamed in accordance with Indian ethos.
“The removal of the English name, though appears symbolic, will instill a sense of pride in our nationality, especially for the future generations. In fact, replacing India with Bharat would justify the hard fought freedom achieved by our ancestors,” the plea had said.
The plea had contended that the purpose of the amendment to Article 1 will ensure “the citizens of this country to get over the colonial past.”
The plea said the facts constituting the cause of action was the failure on the part of the Centre to do away with the symbol of slavery by using the name India instead of Bharat or Hindustan
The plea, citing the 1948 Constituent Assembly debate on Article 1 of the then draft Constitution, argued that even at that time, there was a “strong wave” in favour of naming the country as Bharat or ‘Hindustan’.
Similar Petition was filed in 2016, then CJI T.S. Thakur orally remarked that every Indian had the right to choose between calling his country ‘Bharat’ or ‘India’ and the Supreme Court had no business to either dictate or decide for a citizen what he should call his country. “If you want to call this country Bharat, go right ahead and call it Bharat. If somebody chooses to call this country India, let him call it India. We will not interfere,” he had said.
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