I am not sure how many of you think about name of our motherland. We know that "Bharat" is one of the name of our country. We know reason as well. The word derives from the word "Bharat Varsha" - land of king Bharat. But then why today every map has India printed on it. Shouldn't "Bharat" be a preferable name, as "India" is too redolent of colonial disparagement. Not many would be aware that, Some Maps Printed in 1947 showed Republic of India as Bharat and not India. But even after Independence, when we were free to choose official name of our own country, why our Govt. decided to use "India" as official name? There is an interesting story behind this.This is the story of Nehru's astuteness and Jinnah's Ignorance.
Year was 1947 and "two-nation theory" was about to become a reality. British India was getting divided in two countries. Jinnah and Nehru were negotiating hard. That was a time to decide everything. Time was to write constitution, to divide assets and army, to define boundaries and yes, to decide name of states. . But as British were about to leave India- dividing her into two states - Congress and Muslim League had to decide name for their own nations. Earlier She was Bharat, then Hindusthan and after that India. Nehru had to decide the future name of Nation.
Jinnah already had a Islamic sounding acronym - PAKISTAN. Yes, though it means "land of paks -pure and clean" its actually an acronym for a greater muslim homeland consisting of P- unjab, A - fgania (i.e. North West Frontier), K -ashmir, I- ran, S- indh, T- urkharistan, A- fganistan and Baluchista-N.
As mentioned earlier, INDIA was a term, too redolent of colonial disparagement. Jinnah was convinced that Nehru would not use that. Even Nehru showed his inclination towards -Bharat. But then, Nehru was a 'politician' with in-depth knowledge about history. Though term India was coined by outsider and denotes acquisition rather than territory; it also represents ab-originality. It meant, this land belongs to people in India. Another point - Jinnah missed and Nehru scored - was importance of the term "Indian Subcontinent". Irrespective of name of countries, this term had to be the same. Using the name India implied the supremacy over subcontinent region. Nehru met Lord Mountbatten and declared his decision. Of course, Mountbatten accepted it. Jinnah was absolutely furious. He realized his mistake but Mountbatten had already acceded to Nehru's demand to remain "India". For world, Jinnah's Pakistan was a part of "Indian Subcontinent" with presence of a country -"India", implying Indian supremacy all over the region. Now the most amazing part is, word "India" was derived from the river "Sindhu \ Indus" which flows through Pakistan .
Origin of the word - India
Sanskrit word for river is "Sindhu" ( Sapt-Sindhu means seven rivers) . In an ancient Persian (Iranian) language, which is near relative of Sanskrit, pronunciation for the initial 's' of Sanskrit was rendered as an aspirate -'h'. 'Sindhu' is thus 'Hindhu'. In Arabic and related languages a word Hindusthan was formed. Turks and Mughals would know India with same name -'Hindusthan' and people were known as Hindu. word made its debut in Inscriptions found in Iran dated 500 B.C. In Greek, an aspirate 'h' was dropped. Thus word 'Ind' -root for Indus and India was formed.
