Assam CM proposes to replace ‘India’ with ‘Bharat’ in institutions like RBI

He claimed that the word ‘India’ and practices associated with the British era are ‘colonial hangovers’ and that the country is entering a ‘phase of renaissance’ during which these will be done away with.

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has once again pitched for the name ‘Bharat’ to replace ‘India’ in institutions like the Reserve Bank of India. He claimed that the word ‘India’ and practices associated with the British era are ‘colonial hangovers’ and that the country is entering a ‘phase of renaissance’ during which these will be done away with. Sarma said, “The name of the central bank should be ‘Reserve Bank of Bharat’.

This is a phase of renaissance. Assam has changed several old legacies and many changes have been made in the Centre also.” He maintained that many practices introduced by the British rulers have been continuing in the country and those need to be changed. “People have waited for 75 years for one Modi to come and root out this colonial hangover,” he said. Sarma also dismissed Congress MP Shashi Tharoor’s remark that it was Pakistan’s founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah who had objected to the name ‘India’ since it implied that ‘our country was the successor state to British Raj and Pakistan a seceding state’. “What Tharoor said was half-truth. What Jinnah said is not important. What is important for us is which name of sages and saints used, and it was not India but Bharat,” the BJP leader said.

On Karnataka Home Minister G Parameshwara’s question on the origin of Sanatan Dharma, Sarma said, “The word Sanatan itself has the answer. It means something which has no beginning and no end. It was in existence from eternity and will continue till infinitely.” “The home minister of such a big state like Karnataka cannot understand such a simple thing, whereas someone like me from a small state can get it,” he quipped.