Anurag Kashyap weighs in on India-Bharat debate, says country and people will suffer because of ‘ek whimsical aadmi’

Filmmaker Anurag Kashyap weighed in on the India-Bharat renaming debate, and pointed out all the impracticalities of the idea.

By: Entertainment Desk

New Delhi | Updated: September 15, 2023 10:25 AM IST

3 min read

Anurag Kashyap talks about the importance of speaking the truth. (Express Photo by Deepak Joshi)

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Filmmaker Anurag Kashyap weighed in on the India-Bharat debate, and said that renaming the country is an impractical exercise that will have an adverse impact on everybody, especially the society’s most vulnerable citizens. In an interview, he said that this would lead to a huge waste of tax money, and create unreasonable difficulties for everybody because of all the official documents that would need to be reissued.

In an interview with Jist, where he was joined by his Haddi co-star Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub and director Akshat Ajay Sharma, Anurag was asked about the India-Bharat debate, to which he said in Hindi, “I don’t understand this. When was India not Bharat? Just writing ‘Bharat’ instead of ‘India’ on a piece of paper… And imagine doing this on all government documents, each and every one will need to get their passports renewed, Aadhar cards and ration cards will have to be renewed. They’ll spend four years worth of tax money on this alone.”

Also read | India, that is Bharat: A short history of the nation’s names, from the Rig Veda to the Constitution of India

Anurag added, “Everything will need to be changed. Is it a humanly possible task to do it without wasting all that money? Ek whimsical aadmi ek whim pe aise kare, uske consequences sochta hai kabhi woh (A whimsical man can just do this on a whim, without thinking about the consequences). All bank notes will have to be changed, educational degrees will have to be changed, everybody will be issued new vaccine certificates. What all will they reprint? Are people just supposed to wait till all this is done? People won’t get ration, people won’t be able to travel. What in the world are they thinking?”

Ahead of the recent G20 summit in New Delhi, speculation about an official name change from India to Bharat began circulating. President Droupadi Murmu’s G20 dinner invites referred to her as ‘President of Bharat’ instead of ‘President of India’. At the summit, the card in front of Prime Minister Narendra Modi read ‘Bharat’. Article 1 of the Constitution uses the two names interchangeably: “India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States.”

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