It has come to light that President Droupadi Murmu sent formal invitations for the G20 dinner under the moniker “President of Bharat” rather than the customary “President of India,” as India prepares to host the G20 Summit 2023 in New Delhi later this week.
Unsurprisingly, the Opposition has expressed outrage over this, with Congress leader Jairam Ramesh even alleging that Article 1 of the Constitution is currently being attacked. India, also known as Bharat, is a “Union of States,” according to Article 1 of the Indian Constitution.
India is not the only nation that has thought about changing its official name. These modifications have been seen all over the world for a variety of reasons, including enhancing administrative effectiveness, getting rid of colonial remnants, or indicating a shift in the kind of administration.
Sri Lanka, India’s southern neighbor, changed its name in 1972, but it took the island country over 40 years to stop using its previous name, “Ceylon,” in any official capacities.
In an apparent effort to avoid any associations with colonialism, the monarch of Swaziland changed the name of the nation to Eswatini in 2018. Back then, a South African intellectual property attorney devised a formula to determine how much it would cost to rename a nation. To determine the approximate cost, Darren Olivier likened the name of the African country to a rebranding initiative at a major corporation.
According to Olivier, a major company’s typical marketing expense is around 6% of its overall sales. In turn, rebranding initiatives might cost up to 10% of the business’s entire marketing budget. According to his calculations, changing Swaziland’s name to Eswatini would cost $60 million.
Applying a similar methodology to India’s situation will result in significant costs. India’s total income for the fiscal year that concluded in 2023 was Rs 23.84 lakh crore, including both tax and non-tax revenue. In order to calculate the cost of Swaziland’s renaming, Olivier’s model took into account both revenue sources.
One may estimate the cost of renaming India to Bharat at Rs 14,304 crore by using the same technique with India’s revenue. For comparison, the Center’s food security plan, which feeds 80 crore Indians, costs close to Rs 14,000 crore per month.
The approaching special session of Parliament will reveal if the federal administration is serious about moving forward with the name-changing procedure. We now know that foreign heads of state will join the president of India at the G20 formal dinner.
In addition to other world leaders, US President Joe Biden, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Australian PM Anthony Albanese, Japanese PM Fumio Kishida, and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will attend the G20 Summit, which is set to take place September 9–10 at the Bharat Mandapam in Pragati Maidan, New Delhi.
Notably, Chinese Premier Li Qiang will take the place of Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20 Summit.
