New Delhi: Amid the ongoing India versus Bharat debate, the United Nations said that it will change the country’s name to “Bharat” when New Delhi completes the formalities for the same, reported NDTV citing UN Secretary General’s chief spokesperson Stephane Dujarric. This comes days after the G20 dinner invite to foreign leaders from President Droupadi Murmu mentioned ‘President of Bharat’ instead of the usual ‘President of India’.
“When India completes the formalities to change the name, they will inform us and we will change the name at the UN (records),” United Nations Secretary General’s chief spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said, as quoted by NDTV.
Notably, as the row erupted over the dinner invites, a note on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Indonesia for the 20th ASEAN-India Summit and the 18th East Asia Summit used the term ‘Prime Minister of Bharat’, fuelling the fire. The debate sparked speculations that the Centre might change the name of the country from ‘India’ to ‘Bharat’.
“It’s not for the UN to comment on the debate,” Dujarric said on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Delhi, adding “As long as the formalities are done, the UN will change the name too. It’s a bureaucratic issue when it comes to what the UN needs to do”.
However, the UN top official cited the example of Turkey changing its name to Turkiye last year and said “history has shown that it has happened a number of times for several countries”.
Earlier the UN said that it considers such requests as and when they receive them. Farhan Haq, the Deputy Spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, on Wednesday cited the example of Turkey changing its name to Turkiye last year.
“Well, in the case of Turkiye, we responded to a formal request delivered to us by the Government. Obviously, if we get requests like that, we consider them as they come,” he said.
Meanwhile, speculations are rife that the Modi government may bring a bill to change the name of the country from ‘India’ to ‘Bharat’ in the special parliament session it has called on the 18th of this month. The five-day special parliament session has been called from September 18-22.
Also, the opposition said that the Centre is ‘scared’ of the I.N.D.I.A alliance and hence willing to change the name of the country.
