'India' or 'Bharat'? What does it matter

A high-level committee for social sciences is exactly what it sounds like: a high-level committee for social sciences. Does it have anything to do with scholarship, knowledge or academics? You tell us after reading this. The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has formed such a high-level committee to revise the school curriculum, and has recommended replacing the name 'India' with 'Bharat' in textbooks, and introducing 'classical history' instead of 'ancient history' in the curriculum. You do not need a high-level committee for social sciences for this. All you need is a blessing from higher-ups.

In politics, geo or otherwise, turning India into Bharat, or even playing around with I.N.D.I.A., has hypnotic value. It turns minds malleable enough to say, 'Hmm. That makes sense.' But in knowledge-gathering and knowledge-dispersal, such semantrickery doesn't matter one bit. 'India' or 'Bharat' will be known or unknown regardless of what it is called. For all one knows, the Idea of India/Bharat could well be called the Idea of Timbuktu, for those looking for Indic-Malian connections. And if the fluidity of 'classic rock' as a musical genre teaches us anything, it's that replacing 'ancient' with 'classical' is about personal discomfort and comfort with another. That history remains what it always is.