The G20 dinner invites sent out by President Droupadi Murmu calling herself ‘President of Bharat’ have sparked an intense buzz around the Narendra Modi government changing India’s name to Bharat. Several reports have surfaced that the government has been using ‘Prime Minister of Bharat’ in official notes while Modi visited Greece last month. The identity cards of the officials working at the G20 summit also say ‘Bharat’.
While the speculations are rife and there is no official confirmation or denial so far, a latest report says that the decision of going Bharat from India would cost a huge sum for the national exchequer. According to a report by the Outlook, the cost of ‘India to Bharat’ transition would cost a staggering Rs 14,304 crore. The report said the calculations were based on the model devised by IP lawyer Darren Olivier.
The South Africa-based legal expert had come up with the model while calculating the cost of Swaziland’s 2018 decision to change its name to Eswatini. Oliver had said that the cost of changing the country’s name is very similar to a corporate giant’s rebranding exercise. According to Oliver, the average marketing budget of any big company is roughly around 6 per cent of the total revenue.
However, in case a company goes for a rebranding exercise, it would cost around 10 per cent of the overall marketing budget of the company. According to the 2018 estimate, Oliver had said that the Swaziland to Eswatini renaming exercise would have cost $60 million.
The Outlook report applied the same formula to India. Taking India’s 2023 fiscal revenue receipts (Rs 23.84 lakh crore) into consideration, the Outlook report said that if the Oliver formula is applied, then the cost of renaming India to Bharat would come to a whopping Rs 14,304 crore.
There are speculations that the Special Session of Parliament called by the government later this month may discuss or table the proposal of changing India’s name to Bharat for all official purposes.