Revision as of 19:01, 19 July 2023

The official name of India

See India: The Land and the People, especially for the debate on the word Hindustan

India, in the official languages of India

Assamese ভাৰত Bhārôt

Bengali ভারত Bhārot

Bodo भारत Bhārôt

Dogri भारत Bhārat

Gujarati ભારત Bhārat

Hindi भारत Bhārat

Kannada ಭಾರತ Bhārata

Kashmiri ہِندوستان Hindōstān

Konkani भारत Bharot

Maithili भारत Bhārat

Malayalam ഭാരതം Bhāratam

Marathi भारत Bhārat

Meitei (Manipuri) (Bengali Assamese ভারত Bharôt) ( Meitei script ꯏꯟꯗꯤꯌꯥ[D] Indiyā)

Nepali भारत Bhārat

Odia ଭାରତ Bhārata

Punjabi ਭਾਰਤ Bhārat

Sanskrit भारतम् Bhāratam

Santali (Ol Chiki ᱥᱤᱧᱚᱛ[E] Siñôt) (Devanagari भारोत Bharot)

Sindhi भारत Bhārat/ ڀارت

Tamil இந்தியா (official), பாரதம்[F][8] Intiyā, Pāratam

Telugu భారతదేశం Bhārata

Urdu ہندوستان Hindustān

The historical names of India

Adrija Roychowdhury/ From Meluha to Hindustan, the many names of India and Bharat/ June 7, 2020/ The Indian Express

One of the oldest names used in association with the Indian subcontinent was Meluha that was mentioned in the texts of ancient Mesopotamia in the third millennium BCE, to refer to the Indus Valley Civilisation.

The earliest recorded name that continues to be debated is believed to be ‘Bharat’, ‘Bharata’, or ‘Bharatvarsha’, that is also one of the two names prescribed by the Indian constitution. Its roots are traced to Puranic literature, and to the Hindu epic, Mahabharata

Bharata, writes social scientist Catherine Clémentin-Ojha,, refers to the “supraregional and subcontinental territory where the Brahmanical system of society prevails”. Geographically, the Puranas mentioned Bharata to be situated between the ‘sea in the south and the abode of snow in the north’. Its shape and dimensions varied across different ancient texts. In that sense, …Yet, on another note, Bharata is also believed to be the mythical founder of the race.

‘Aryavarta’, as mentioned in the Manusmriti, referred to the land occupied by the Indo-Aryans in the space between the Himalayas in the north and the Vindhya mountain ranges in the south.

The name ‘Jambudvipa’ or the ‘land of the Jamun trees’ has also appeared in several Vedic texts, and is still used in a few Southeast Asian countries to describe the Indian subcontinent.

Jain literature on the other hand, also lays claim to the name Bharat, but believes that the country was called ‘Nabhivarsa’ before. “King Nabhi was the father of Rishabhanatha (the first tirthankara) and grandfather of Bharata,” writes geographer Anu Kapur in her book, ‘Mapping place names of India’.

The name ‘Hindustan’ was the first instance of a nomenclature having political undertones. It was first used when the Persians occupied the Indus valley in the seventh century BCE. Hindu was the Persianised version of the Sanskrit Sindhu, or the Indus river, and was used to identify the lower Indus basin. From the first century of the Christian era, the Persian suffix, ‘stan’ was applied to form the name ‘Hindustan’.

At the same time, the Greeks who had acquired knowledge of ‘Hind’ from the Persians, transliterated it as ‘Indus’, and by the time the Macedonian ruler Alexander invaded India in the third century BCE, ‘India’ had come to be identified with the region beyond the Indus.

By the 16th century, the name ‘Hindustan’ was used by most South Asians to describe their homeland. Historian Ian J. Barrow in his article, ‘From Hindustan to India: Naming change in changing names’, writes that “in the mid-to-late eighteenth century, Hindustan often referred to the territories of the Mughal emperor, which comprised much of South Asia.” However, from the late 18th century onwards, British maps increasingly began using the term ‘India’, and ‘Hindustan’ started to lose its association with all of South Asia…

The debate to name an Independent India

After the Independence of the country, the Constituent Assembly set up a drafting committee under the chairmanship of B R Ambedkar on August 29, 1947. However, the section, ‘name and territory of the Union’ was taken up for discussion only on September 17, 1949. Right from the moment the first article was read out as ‘India, that is Bharat shall be a union of states’, a division arose among the delegates.

Hari Vishnu Kamath, a member of the Forward Bloc suggested that the first article be replaced as ‘Bharat, or in the English language, India, shall be and such.’ Seth Govind Das, representing the Central Provinces and Berar, on the other hand, proposed: “Bharat known as India also in foreign countries”. Hargovind Pant, who represented the hill districts of the United Provinces, made it clear that the people of Northern India, ‘wanted Bharatvarsha and nothing else’…

It is worth noting though, that ‘Hindustan’ was hardly a contender in the debates. “Hindustan received different treatments during the constituent assembly,” writes Ojha. She adds that “three names had been at the start of the race, but at the end two had been placed on equal footing and one dropped.”…

The word India

The Avestan name for Sindh is Hinduš. It was inscribed by Persian emperor Darius I (550-486 BC) on the Persepolis terrace

The ancient Greeks used the name Ἰνδία (Indía). Herodotus (484 – 425/413 BC) referred to "Indian land" Ἰνδός/ Indos (‘an Indian’), following the Persians.

The Byzantine people used the word Iindía to describe the region beyond the Indus (Ἰνδός) River

Ancient Latin speakers borrowed the name India from the Greeks.

Most European languages—including English—use a variant of the Latin word India.

In English, King Alfred (A.D. 848-899)'s translation of Orosius is the oldest known use of the word India in the English language.

However, English writers who were influenced by the French replaced India with Ynde and Inde. Inde remains the French spelling.

William Shakespeare (1564- 1616) and the first edition of the King James Bible (1611) used the spelling Indie

In the 1600s the Spanish and the Portuguese spelt the word as it is today, India, which was also the official Latin spelling. This could have induced the British to revert to the spelling India.

Summary: The British did not ‘give’ Bharat the name India. They took it from the Latin languages, which in turn took it from the Greeks, who were influenced by the Persians, who preceded the oldest known use of the word India by the British by more than 1300 years

The name India has nothing to do with the colonial era and is the name by which India has been known for the last 2500 years or even more.

Kling, in the Malay and neighbouring languages

The term "Kling" is a Malay word that was used to refer to people from the Kalinga kingdom, which was located in what is now the Indian state of Orissa. The Kalinga kingdom was a powerful empire that existed from the 3rd century BC to the 13th century AD. It was known for its wealth and its military prowess.

The term "Kling" was first used in Southeast Asia in the 14th century, when the Kalinga kingdom was in decline. The Malays began to use the term to refer to all Indians, regardless of their origin. This usage of the term was not derogatory at the time. In fact, it was often used as a term of respect.

However, the meaning of the term "Kling" began to change in the 19th century. As more and more Indians migrated to Southeast Asia the term "Kling" came to be used as a derogatory term for Indians, and it is still considered offensive by many Indians today.