What is the Official Name of India?

India is among the oldest civilisations in the world and currently one of the most known countries on the planet. Nevertheless, when an individual identifies what the official name of India is, one would say either India or Bharat without the idea that there is a detailed one. The full and formal name of India as recognised by the Constitution itself, and as used in all formal international and legal usage.

What is the Official Name of India?

The name of the country in full is the Republic of India. The Constitution of India provides this name which is used in all international treaties, diplomatic communications, the United Nations as well as in official government publications.

The Know India website has mentioned the official name of the nation as “Republic of India; Bharat Ganrajya”

In India, both Bharat and India are used as acceptable short official names in the country. The Constitution of India, Article 1 mentions: "India, which is Bharat shall be a Union of States.” It means that the Republic of India has two official short names: India and Bharat; both of them are equal in the eyes of the Constitution.

The India Government website mentions: “India, also known as Bharat, is a Union of States. It is a Sovereign Socialist Secular Democratic Republic with a parliamentary system of government. The Republic is governed in terms of the Constitution of India which was adopted by the Constituent Assembly on 26th November, 1949 and came into force on 26th January, 1950.”

However, its complete, official title is the Republic of India that is used in the foreign relations as well as in the preamble of the very Constitution itself.

What Do India and Bharat Mean?

As much as its full official name is the Republic of India, it has both names in short, India and Bharat. Understanding where these names originated can help know why they were both retained in the Constitution.

India comes from river Indus which is also referred to as Sindhu in Sanskrit. The term India was used by the authors of Ancient Greece and Persia to imply the land beyond Indus, and this word spread into the rest of the world in centuries of trade, travel and interaction. The nation was already named India in 1947 when it became independent and people of the entire world knew it by this name. Its retention in the Constitution was also a good step which fulfilled this universal recognition.

Bharat is much more rooted in the history of the land. It is named after the old Sanskrit word Bharata, the name of the king Bharata of the Mahabharata. Another name of the land is Bharatavarsha in the Vishnu Purana that means land of Bharata but was later abbreviated into Bharat. The name has been in constant use for thousands of years in Indian languages, literature and culture. We also read it in the National Anthem of India and the name of countless government establishments. 

The framers of the Constitution of India have ensured that the country could be represented by two names: India and Bharat. 

What About the Name Hindustan?

Hindustan is also another name commonly used in popular culture, poetry and in day to day speech relating to India. It is a Persian word, signifying the land of Hindus, or the nation on the other side of the river Indus. Its use became common in the medieval period, especially in the Mughal period when the language of court and administration in most of the subcontinent was Persian.

The Google Arts and Culture mentions: “Hindustan, along with its shortened form Hind, is the Persian name for North India, broadly the Indian subcontinent, which later became used by its inhabitants in Hindi–Urdu. Other toponyms of the subcontinent include Jambudvipa, Bharata, and India.”

“After the Partition of India, it continues to be used as a historic name for the Republic of India. A secondary meaning of Hindustan is as a geographic term for the Indo-Gangetic Plain in northern India,” it adds.

Hindustan is not a part of the Constitution of India and it has no official or legal status. However, it is entrenched in the national culture of the nation. 

Why Does India Have Three Names?

The three names of India refer to the different times of the nation, and serve different purposes.

• Republic of India: Its official and full name is Republic of India and is used in any international or legal setting. It refers to the fact that the country is democratic republic in its constitution.

• India: The internationally recognised short name, which is used in the global forums, at the United Nations, the Olympic Games, in diplomatic correspondence, international trade, is India. It is based on the ancient Greek and Persian mentioning of the land beyond the Indus.

• Bharat: The most widespread official name in the country is Bharat particularly in Hindi and other languages spoken in India. It connects the nation with the history and culture of civilization thousands of years ago.

The official name of India is Republic of India. It is the complete and official title of the country that can be found in the Constitution of the country, and its international treaties, as well as in all the official diplomatic correspondence. The names, India, and Bharat are equally valid names of the country, each of them with its history, and meaning.

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