Bollywood actress Kangana Ranaut said she has been in the favour of renaming India to Bharat for a while now. Taking to X, she wrote, “What is there to love in this name? First of all they couldn’t pronounce ‘Sindhu’ toh usko bigad ke ‘ Indus’ kar diya. Phir kabhi Hindos kabhi Indos kuch bhi gol mol karke India bana diya. From the time of Mahabharata, all the kingdoms who participated in the Great War of Kurukshetra came under one continent called Bharat so why were they calling us Indu Sindu??”
Further, she added, “Also the name Bharat is so meaningful, what is the meaning of India? I know they called Red Indians that because in olden English Indian simply meant a slave, they named us Indians because that was our new identity given to us by British. Even in olden days dictionary Indian’s meaning was mentioned as slave they recently changed it. Also it’s not our name we are Bhartiya not Indians.”
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In 2021, the actress had called for the abolition of the name India. At the time, she posted on Instagram, “British gave us slave name India… which literally means east of Indus River. Really would you call a child small nose or second born or worse C section. What kind of a name is this? So rudimentary. Let me tell you meaning of Bharat. It’s made of three Sanskrit words BH (bhav), Ra (rag), ta (tal). Yes that’s who we were before we were enslaved, most culturally and aesthetically evolved civilisation. Every name has a vibration and British knew this they not only gave new names to places but even to people and important monuments. We must regain our lost glory, let’s start with the name Bharat.”