Umamageswari Maruthappan
The Supreme Court adjourned the hearing of a petition that challenges the applicability of the words ‘India’ and ‘Indians’ as the verbal expressions to refer to our country and citizens.
The petition was filed by Kedar Prakash and was placed before the Supreme Court Bench comprising Rohinton Fali Nariman, Justice Navin Sinha, and Justice K.M. Joseph.
Mr. Prakash had pleaded, through his petition, for the establishment of a Committee with relevant composition for examining the meaning and nature of the word ‘India’. The petition also seeks to determine the grounds of its suitability for our country.
The petitioner also stated that the term ‘Indian’ is being used by the European Countries to denote persons inferior to them. This, as stated in the plea, is violative of our fundamental right of human dignity under Article 21 of the Constitution.
“People of European countries use the word ‘Indian’ for denoting a tribal man or tribal people. It is also to be noted that this use of the word by these people of foreign countries is not recent one or that they are using this word after adoption of this word as our nationality,” the petitioner stated.
The petitioner further noted that use of the words ‘Bharat’ as mentioned in our own Constitution and ‘Bharatiya’ instead of ‘India’ and ‘Indians’ is feasible and would “provide ourselves our own respectful representation in our nation and on the International level.”
This is not the first time that a plea seeking to change the country’s name to ‘Bharat’ has been raised. In 2005, Retired IAS and Journalist V. Sundaram, through his article, had set forth his desire of replacing ‘India’ to ‘Bharat’. In 2012, a bill was proposed to change the country’s name to ‘Bharat’.
Very recently, a petition was filed before the Apex Court seeking to do away with this name. However, the plea was dismissed the plea on 3rd June 2020 by the Bench comprising CJI S A Bobde, and Justices AS Bopanna and Hrishikesh Roy.
The term ‘India’ is said to have originated in our country through the Greeks and Italians who were early travelers to the Indian Sub-continent.