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PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   28111 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 11, 2023

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This move to use Bharat in internationally visible context can be seen as normalizing and laying the ground work to a full-on name change. The motivation behind is by some commentators impugned to be Hindutva, the ideology of, in the opinion of these commentators, of "othering" non-Hindu groups. The logic being that India being an English word privileges English speaking-Indian, but since they lack an Asabiyyah, this isn't as dangerous affirming the Hindu name, empowring Hindus who do not lack it.

Instead of framing this as a Hindus vs Everyone Else kind of deal, in my eyes it's more emblematic of another major cultural divide in India, namely the North vs the South.

North India is majority Hindi speaking, whereas the southern states speak Tamil, Telegu and the like instead.

The latter have long been peeved about the BJP government's* tendency to name new projects/initiatives with Hindi terms, or outright rename the old commonly established English ones. This is seen as a form of cultural imperialism or at least chauvinism, since it alienates people from the south who might not be fluent or even conversant in Hindi.

*To be fair, the INC did plenty of Hindi-washing too, the BJP just leans into it more and unapologetically so.

English, while a foreign language, is still the lingua franca for educated Indians, and while Hindi has become far more common in the youth born of non-Hindi speaking parents, many prefer to use a "neutral" language instead of one that implicitly preferences one regional language, which despite what some might claim, is far from universal.

Of course there's a bit of the 'ol alienation of Muslims afoot, but this is a topic that pisses off even the orthodox Hindu majority down south.

As far as I'm concerned, Bharat just sounds way worse than India, and there's no real reason for a switch beyond inflating Modi's ego.

Isn't the name for India in most southern languages also Bharat or something close to it?

It is, but they usually don't refer to it as anything but India. Bharat is more common up north.

I am South Indian (from Karnataka to be specific).

India and Bharat are both equally palatable to me or anyone else I know, though Bharat (or in Kannada Bharata) is rarely used out of formal contexts.

I suspect that in the South Indian context the name will only cause indigestion for Periyarists from Tamil Nadu. Others won't really care.

Edit: In Karnataka, the few people who do care, namely Kannada activists in the Old Mysore region only have the issue that Bharata as it is written in Sanskrit is a more accurate name with Bharat being a bastardization of the name by Hindi.

I see, thanks for clearing that up!

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