Rs 14,000 crore: How much it could cost to rename India to Bharat

Darren Oliver, an intellectual property lawyer based in South Africa, came up with a calculative method to measure renaming of a nation, when Swaziland was renamed to Eswantini to do away with colonial imprint.

With speculation rife about India being renamed to Bharat, one might wonder what financial ramifications such an exercise would have.

In 2018, an intellectual property lawyer based in South Africa, Darren Oliver, compared the renaming of African nations to corporate rebranding exercises and devised a method to calculate the approximate cost of renaming a country.

Applying the same formula with India’s revenue, the estimate comes around to a whopping Rs 14,304 crore, reported Outlook Business.

Oliver came up with his calculative method when Swaziland was renamed to Eswantini to do away with colonial vestiges. As per Oliver’s method, the average marketing budget of a large enterprise is around 6 per cent of its total revenue. Rebranding exercises, meanwhile, cost up to 10 per cent of the company’s overall marketing budget.

For the fiscal year 2022-23, India's revenue receipts stood at a total of Rs 23.84 lakh crore, including tax and non-tax revenue. Applying Oliver's formula to India (0.006*23.84 lakh crore), the 'rebranding' amount stands at a gargantuan Rs 14,304 crore.

What's in a name?

Many countries, cities, roads and monuments have witnessed name changes in the past, for reasons varying from erasure of colonial legacies to administrative effectiveness, etc.

However, with regard to the current row, the Opposition bloc I.N.D.I.A has claimed that the reason for the ruling regime’s sudden distancing from the name 'India' is because of the name adopted by the alliance.

Names hold cultural, historical, and political significance and a sustained attempt has been made by BJP since 2014 to change the names of places within the country that allegedly had colonial or Islamic references.

The City of Aurangabad became Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar this year, while Hoshangabad became Narmadapuram in 2021. The city of Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh underwent name change to Prayagraj in 2018. India Today had reported earlier that the renaming of Allahabad cost the state government upwards of Rs 300 crore, citing sources in the finance department.

Though some leaders from BJP have said that there’s not going to be any formal change in name, no clarity has been officially given.

However, if there’s even the slightest prospect of the matter being taken up in the Special Session of the Parliament to be held from September 18-22, then there is likely to be considerable strain on the national exchequer, as the renaming process would require changes at the hyperlocal and individual levels to the international level.