Restraint on Bharat-India, ‘appropriate response’ on Sanatan remark row: PM Modi’s advice to ministers

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has asked his ministers to exercise restraint and not speak on the ongoing debate over the rumoured renaming of the country from India to Bharat, sources said on Wednesday. The PM, during his interaction with ministers, also directed his cabinet colleagues that no ministers other than those authorised to speak on the G20 Summit other than those authorised to do so.

However, the PM is learnt to have taken strong exception to the remarks against Sanatan Dharma by Tamil Nadu minister Udhayanidhi Stalin and told his ministers that they must speak on the matter and “respond appropriately”. The Prime Minister’s directions came during his meeting with the Council of Ministers ahead of the G20 Summit in Delhi.

Also Read: Constitution does not recognise Bharat as official name of the country: PDT Achary | FE EXCLUSIVE

Speculations around renaming the country gathered momentum after the dinner invitation to G20 leaders mentioned President Droupadi Murmu as the “President of Bharat” instead of “President of India”. It later emerged that a government notification for the Prime Minister’s visit to South Africa for the 15th BRICS Summit, and Greece thereafter, also referred to him as “Prime Minister of Bharat”.

Opposition parties have upped the ante against the Centre on the matter, claiming that the alleged move to drop India as the country’s official name was out of the BJP’s fear of the 26-party alliance they have formed to take on the ruling government in the Lok Sabha elections next year.

Also Read: FIR against Udhayanidhi Stalin, Priyank Kharge in UP over Sanatan Dharma remarks

The Centre, on the other hand, has denied all such speculation as rumours and claimed that no proposal to change the country’s name was under consideration. Speaking to The Indian Express, Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting Anurag Thakur said that the debate was unnecessary and that the Bharat nomenclature has already been in use for a long time.

Meanwhile, an FIR was registered against Udhayanidhi Stalin in Rampur district of Uttar Pradesh over the leader’s remarks calling for the “eradication of Sanatan Dharma” and likening it to a “disease” like “dengue and malaria”.

Also Read: Before President’s G20 dinner invite, ‘Bharat’ was used on PM Modi’s BRICS notification

“Such things should not be opposed but destroyed,” he said, while speaking at an event in Chennai on Saturday. The comments triggered a backlash from several political parties, with the BJP insisting that the Congress condemn his remarks. Udhayanidhi, however, later claimed that he had not called for violence against the followers of Sanatan Dharma, but stood by his remark against the “ideology of creating divisions on the basis of caste” that Sanatan Dharma propagates.

Besides Stalin, Karnataka Congress leader Priyank Kharge has also been booked by the police for supporting Stalin’s remarks. The duo has been booked under sections 295 A (deliberate and malicious acts to outrage religious feelings) and 153 A (promoting enmity between different religious groups) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) at Civil Lines Police Station in Uttar Pradesh’s Rampur on Tuesday.