Bharat may be perhaps only country which has two names through Constitution. Unfortunately, Bharat carried dual name of the country with British legacy “India” name given a constitutional provision. Present truly nationalist Bharat government has thus given people of this great nation a pleasant surprise that too on the occasion of global G-20 summit in New Delhi when top leaders of various countries coming to Bharat may be made automatically aware that this great nation is now known as Bharat rather than India. Demand for such a change is not new. Uttar Pradesh state assembly comprising of political parties now critical of the move, once unanimously passed resolution in this regard. Well-known film actress Kangna Ranaut in the year 2021 also raised demand to know country as Bharat only. There was a private-member’s bill in this regard in the Lok Sabha in the year 2012, which unfortunately was not taken seriously at that time. It is noteworthy that governments of Srilanka and Myanmar long back gave their countries new names by doing away with names Ceylon and Burma to eliminate signs of British slavery.
Bharat government may now rectify distorted spellings in Roman script of all Indian cities as given in British regime to their actual pronunciations like has been rightly done in case of some cities like Jullundur spelt as Jalandhar and Simla as Shimla. But in case of most other such cities including even the capital city Delhi, such rectification is much awaited. Meerut, Bareilly etc are other such examples. Spellings of all such cities in Roman script should be changed according to their actual pronunciation in one go. For example, Delhi is distorted spelling of what it should be Dehli which in Hindi means entrance. BJP Parliamentarian Vijay Goel on 24.07.2019 in Rajya Sabha raised a demand to rename Delhi but as Dilli which should have been as Dehli by all logics as Dilli in itself is a distorted name. Bangladesh and China changed spellings in Roman script of their capital cities as Dhaka and Beijing respectively in place of earlier Dhaka and Peking.
Central government should also accept long-pending resolution of West Bengal state assembly to rename the state as Bangla. Only old-timers know that since western part of pre-independence undivided Bengal came to India, the state was named as West Bengal, and East Bengal turned into East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). New generation is confused why and how a state in eastern part of the country is named with prefix West. Proposed name will be one-worded and will not be able to be abbreviated like names AP, UP, HP, AP, MP etc. Rather to avoid such abbreviations and confusion (AP stands for both Andhra Pradesh and Arunachal Pradesh), names of states like Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh should be changed to like “Andhra”, Uttaranchal”, “Himachal”, Arunachal” and “Madhyanchal”.
Constitution should be amended whereby names of all institutions including High Courts named after states or cities may be auto-changed with change in names of state or city. Names of Bombay High Court and Madras High Court still remain the same despite renaming of respective cities as Mumbai and Chennai decades back. There are too many Rampurs (32) and Bilaspurs in India which require renaming to avoid confusion. New names can be after heroic characters of Ramayan and Mahabharat. Tamilnadu government in the year 2020 renamed and re-spelt, and rightly so, distorted names or spellings of more than 1000 cities, towns and villages to their original ones in one go.
Prefixes of monarchy nature should be removed from Rajmata Vijaya Raje Scandia Marg and Shrimant Madhavrao Scindia Marg in New Delhi in the manner that there are no such pre-fixes in roads named after Samrat Prithviraj etc in roads named after them. If Bhopal can have an important road named simply as Madhavrao Scindia Marg, there is no reason that road in New Delhi may also be likewise named simply as Madhavrao Scindia Marg removing monarchy prefix of Shrimant Likewise Rajmata Vijaya Raje Scindia Marg should be renamed as Vijaya Raje Scindia Marg.
Dual naming exists unfortunately in names of roads also that too in capital city of Delhi directly under nose of Parliament, It is a well known fact that popular nouns are never translated. Even then Sansad Marg is unfortunately has officially dual name with Parliament Street in English. All roads in Delhi should be uniformly known as Marg (including in Roman scripts) like in Kolkata all roads are known as Sarni, those in Mumbai as Path and Salai in Chennai even in Roman scripts.
Even the then UN General Secretary Ban ki Moon appreciated Hindi at World Hindi Conference held at New York. The then US President George Bush had accepted Hindi to be amongst popular world-languages being considered to be taught in US in an effort to make his country stay ahead in the fast changing-world. All developed countries including China, Russia, France, Germany and Japan proudly use their own languages at all international levels without feeling shy of not communicating in English. On the other side, it is matter of great regret and disgrace that even several prominent-most Hindi newspapers especially published from Delhi forcibly induce English words both in Devnagri and Roman scripts in name of language of commoners. It is also time that now almost forgotten Sanskrit which is a treasure of scientific and medicinal research should be revived that too at a time when even NASA and Germany are engaged in doing research of hidden aspects of great importance from Sanskrit.
Constitution of Bharat had originally provided that Hindi shall be the only official language of the country from 26.01.1965. But despite strong opposition of his own party-member Seth Govind Dass defying the party-whip in Lok Sabha, the then Congress Prime Minister amended the Constitution to continue English also as official language even after 26.01.1965. It may be recalled that 26.01.1965 was a historic day when Akashwani replaced All India Radio even in English news bulletins with Prime Minister called Pradhan Mantri and Defence Minister called Raksha Mantri even in English news-bulletins, a healthy initiative reversed soon after. But since such orders cannot be changed so conveniently in armed forces, their commands continue to be in Hindi like Saavdhaan (earlier Attention) and Vishram (earlier Stand-At-Ease) even now after 26.01.1965. It is a wrong perception that English words have become part of vocabulary of commoners. It all depends on governments and political leaders how commoners can be put into practice to get relieved from British legacy of English. Glorious example is Doordarshan which is a common household name for all people only because Central Government never tried to give its English alternative like has been wrongly done in dual naming of official broadcaster as Akashwani and All India Radio. However while renaming of institutions after knowing the country by name of Bharat, efforts must be made to name institutions in other regional languages also apart from Hindi.
Writer is a Guinness Record Holder for letters in newspapers and an RTI consultant
