A railway ministry proposal to the Cabinet has reportedly dropped “India” and replaced it with “Bharat” in the entire document, signalling the government's intent to gradually shift towards using the indigenous term for the country.
The move comes days after a National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) panel proposed replacing “India” with “Bharat” in all its school textbooks.
According to the chairman CI Isaac, the panel suggested replacing the name "India" with "Bharat" in textbooks, introducing "classical history" instead of "ancient history" in the curriculum, and including the Indian Knowledge System (IKS) in the syllabus.
Talking about the railways' proposal, a Times of India report, citing sources, said that in the coming days, Bharat would be increasingly used in government documents.
Also Read | NCERT panel's recommendation on replacing 'India' with 'Bharat' wrong: Karnataka Cong chief Shivakumar
"India" and "Bharat" are used interchangeably in the Constitution, so referring to the country as "Bharat" in the cabinet proposal was not wrong, sources said. The railway ministry’s proposal was most likely the first of the many to come that have used "Bharat" instead of India, the report added.
Moneycontrol could not verify the report.
The Centre's push for "Bharat" has been met with resistance from the opposition parties. Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar termed the government's initiative as "wrong", alleging an NDA hand to be behind the move.
"You can't change the history of India. Though you try to change Congress' history, you can't do it. The Congress' history is the country's history. So the Congress party has given the country a great history. We have got independence to India. We call it Indian independence. We don't call it Bharat independence," Shivakumar said.
In Kerala, the ruling party CPI(M) said the state would oppose NCERT's proposal to replace "India" with "Bharat".
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