New Delhi: A report on Indian Express notes how, thanks to a push from a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-linked organisation, a number of state and central universities have replaced the word ‘India’ with ‘Bharat’ in their degrees, marksheets, correspondence, invites, and signboards.The report by Vikas Pathak cites how on June 21 President Droupadi Murmu will attend a convocation of the Rani Durgavati University in Madhya Pradesh’s Jabalpur, where all degrees to be awarded will have the word ‘Bharat,’ instead of ‘India.’“We are people of Bharat and the real name of the country is Bharat. The name India came later,” the university Vice-Chancellor (V-C) Rajesh Kumar Verma told the paper.These moves are complemented by fillips from Hindu religious organisations. Verma, for instance, told the paper that the university was felicitated at Gyan Mahakumbh held during Mahakumbh in Prayagraj in 2025 for this proposal, the report noted.But behind them is a campaign by the Shiksha Sanskriti Utthan Nyas, an organisation with close RSS links, which had been associated with the late Dina Nath Batra. A member of the central executive committee of a wing of the Nyas, M.L. Gupta, who has written a book unambiguously titled India Nahin Bharat (‘Bharat, not India’) claimed that the use of ‘Bharat’ even in English during the G-20 summit was “a sign of the change of mood in the country”.The Bharatiya Janata Party-led government’s push to use ‘Bharat’ instead of ‘India’ has not found rousing welcome. During the 2023 G20, there was high drama over the wording of a G20 dinner invitation from the president’s office that described Droupadi Murmu as the “President of Bharat”.The Indian Express report also notes a veritable competition between universities when it comes to replacing ‘India’ with ‘Bharat’. Devi Ahilya Vishwavidyalaya in Indore, for one, told the paper that it was the first off the block in the state and that “other universities are following the example” set by them.The trend is visible in central and state government funded universities alike. The report cites the example of the Guru Ghasidas Vishwavidyalaya in Chhattisgarh’s Bilaspur, a central university.Article 1(1) of the Constitution says, “India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States.”In 2016, while dismissing a public interest litigation which sought a direction that India be called ‘Bharat’ for all purposes, the Supreme Court had largely left it to individual choice. “You want to call it Bharat, go right ahead. Someone wants to call it India, let him call it India,” the apex court had said.