India to Bharat: After Amitabh Bachchan, Kangana Ranaut and Jackie Shroff react to ongoing debate

On Tuesday (September 05), several Bollywood celebrities took to social media to respond to the ongoing debate over India's name change to Bharat. Celebrities reacted to the name change, from Amitabh Bachchan to Kangana Ranaut, and joyfully accepted the new name for the nation. The announcement comes a day after President Draupadi Murmu's invitation to the G20 leaders for a special dinner went viral on social media, in which she referred to herself as President of Bharat.

Kangana took to X (previously known as Twitter), and said she favoured the renaming. The actress reminded fans that she had expressed her views on renaming the nation two years ago and still passionately supporting the cause. She asserted that the nation's residents were referred to as Indians because 'that was our new identity given to us by the British.' She went on to say that the word Bharat is 'meaningful,' while the term India is meaningless.

“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??" she wrote, replying to a social media user.

“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," she added.

In 2021, Kangana 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."

As soon as the news of India's name change went viral on social media, Amitabh Bachchan also shared a cryptic post on X amid the renaming of India debate. He wrote, “T 4759 - 🇮🇳 भारत माता की जय 🚩 (T 4759 - 🇮🇳 Bharat Mata Ki Jai 🚩)."

Jackie Shroff also reacted to the name change and told a news agancy, “Earlier, our country was called Bharat right? My name is Jackie, some call me Jocky, and some call me Jaki. People change my name because of that I will not change. Just the name will change, we will not. You people keep changing the country's name, but don't forget that you are an Indian."

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• Amitabh Bachchan
• Jackie Shroff
• Kangana Ranaut
• Bollywood actors