Amid the controversy surrounding a G20 dinner invite that refers to President Droupadi Murmu as the "President of Bharat" instead of "President of India" and the opposition's claim that the Narendra Modi government is planning to change the name of India to Bharat, local media reports in Pakistan say the country may lay claim to the name 'India'.
A tweet from the X handle of South Asia Index read: "Pakistan may lay claim on name "India" if India derecongnises it officially at UN level. - local media."
"Nationalists in Pakistan have long argued that Pakistan has rights on the name as it refers to Indus region in."
An earlier tweet from the handle had claimed that the government in India is set to change the name of the country from India to Bharat in an attempt to "decolonise" India.
It is to be noted that the Indian government has not made any official statement on changing the name of the country.
The handle pointed out that the name Bharat has roots in Sanskrit.
"India refers to Indus region, basin of mighty Indus River, spanning much of modern day Pakistan," it read, adding, "Jinnah had objected to British India adopting "India" as its name for newly independent country & had suggested Hindustan or Bharat instead."
In 1947, a month after India's Independence, Muhammed Ali Jinnah had refused to accept an invitation from Louis Mountbatten to be the honorary president of an art exhibition because the invitation used India instead of Hindustan to refer to the country. “It is a pity that for some mysterious reason Hindustan have adopted the word ‘India’ which is certainly misleading and is intended to create confusion,” Jinnah had then written to Mountbatten.
South Asia Index, in the tweet, further claimed that Indian rightwing has long detested name "India."
Meanwhile, former Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan claimed that the original name of the country was "unquestionably" Bharat and it was the British that started calling it India.
