Filenews 8 September 2023 - by Howard Chua-Eoan
The host country of this year's Group of 20 (G20) summit has two official names: India and Bharat. The first was inherited from the British former rulers of the country. The other comes from Sanskrit, and from it emanates an ancient sacredness.
There was, therefore, a lot of buzz on social media when an invitation to dinner was given to the summit guests by the "President of Bharat", instead of the expected and world-famous name. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi prefers Sanskrit, as do the Hindu nationalists who are his main mainstay. Indeed, the word is also echoed in the name of his ruling party, Bharatiya Janata.
Phenomenon
There have been relatively recent precedents for country name changes, including former British colonies. Burma, Rhodesia and Ceylon are now officially Myanmar (1989), Zimbabwe (1980) and Sri Lanka (1972), respectively. Why shouldn't India decide which name it prefers?
One deterrent is that any rebranding comes late in India's rise to global prominence. It takes a little work to get used to new things. Zimbabwe has been helped by the association of its former name with white minority rule. I keep meeting people who call Sri Lanka Ceylon. The journey from "Burma" to "Myanmar" is so recent that even experts stumble between one and the other.
A prime example: last year, President Tayyip Erdogan declared that "Turkey" no longer existed and that his country was officially Türkiye. The United Nations accepted it, but it was harder to persuade English speakers to adopt it. Their word for country has been used since Chaucer's time (Bloomberg News still calls the country "Turkey"). Change can prove costly and complicated. Turkish Airlines officially became "Türk Hava Yolları Anonim Ortaklığı", however its English-language website does not reflect the change (its international code, however, is now THY). Its fleet of more than 400 planes, however, does not appear to have been painted under the new name.
For India, as one user pointed out to X (formerly Twitter), the initials of the web domain that one would expect Bharat to have (.bh) have long been "caparisoned" by Bahrain. Referring to New Delhi's bloc with Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa, one X-er reported: "The new abbreviation of BRICS, if India is renamed Bharat and the invited countries (Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates) enter it next year, it will be BARBIECUE." In a similar vein, some commentators on X point out that "Bharat" could also be Modi's attempt to counter the new Indian opposition coalition, which bears the acronym I.N.D.I.A.
Jokes are easy. The Turks are simply tired of associating their country with the voracious bird that originates in North America (turkey), which is indeed named after Türkiye (because both seemed exotic in the 16th century). However, training foreigners to call the country "Tur-kee-YAY" may sound alarmingly "cheerful."
Mill... Names
There is also the issue of choosing the right new name. In India, there is local competition from "Hindustan" – which evokes its own sensibilities, including Persian ancestry. The term "India" has etymological roots in the Indus River, which today flows mainly on the territory of Pakistan.
Modi will open an old dangerous box if he decides to reject the name "India". In 1947, as independence approached, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, was outraged that the British allowed his rival, Jawaharlal Nehru, to retain the name India, making the latter look like the successor state to the British Raj (and its vast territory). Could Pakistan claim the name "India" if its neighbor becomes Bharat? The South Asian subcontinent has already seen two initially separated parts of territory change names after a war of independence in 1971: Bangladesh and Pakistan were once East Pakistan and West Pakistan.
Indeed, independence and separation often make nomenclature a very complicated affair. In Africa, postcolonial referenda helped settle the names of the French and Belgian Congos, which became the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The latter was, for many years, also known as Zaire. North and South Korea refer to themselves by different names in their language: Choson and Hanguk, respectively. However, Pyongyang calls its rival South Choson and Seoul its neighbor North Han. Greece opposed the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia retaining its name after independence, claiming it for one of its provinces. Athens settled in 2019 with an agreement to add a compass direction (north) in the name of young democracy. However, North Macedonians feel very annoyed with the addition.
The Philippines, my birthplace, has been wrestling with its name for more than a century. It comes from the "Islas Felipinas", granted to the islands by explorers from Spain in honor of the then heir to the throne of the country: the future Philip II, who would send this armada against England in 1588. It's an ironic legacy of a colonial power that oppressed the archipelago for 300 years. Several decades ago, an attempt was made to rename the country "Maharlika", a pre-Hispanic word denoting "nobility". While some nationalists were enthusiastic, this was too far in the past to catch on. Filipinos, instead, are warmer with slang, slightly irreverent "pinoy" to describe themselves. Perhaps some national name can be constructed with it in order to reflect the character of the country.
Time
Or maybe it doesn't matter. Probably the most important part of dignity (and value, if we are talking about a global brand name) is to be sure of your identity and live by the name you have or a babel of them. The Germans call their country Deutschland, but the Poles call it "Niemcy", the French "Allemagne", the Chinese "Déguó" and the Danes "Tyskland". Germans (once themselves divided into East and West) are still very German regardless of the name. Confoederatio Helvetica is the constitutional name for Switzerland, with the Latin script transcending the country's four official languages. The Alpine nation is not going to be confused with another. Even Spaniards know the difference between someone from Suiza and people from Suecia (Sweden). China does not insist on being called Zhongguo by non-Chinese speakers. You don't have to refer to Japan as Nihon-koku (unless you want to).
As things stand, the Turks have always called their country Türkiye and "Bharat" is already in widespread use in the country known as India. These names can coexist with those used by the rest of the world. There is no need to impose universal compliance. At least not right away. Give the rest of us time to get used to the changes.
