India Or Bharat: An Analysis Of The Origins Of The Names

Interestingly, the name changes according to the context/language in which it is used. In English language discourse, the word ‘India’ is used and in Hindi expressions, the word ‘Bharat’ is used. The Anglicised call it ‘India’, and the indigenous call it ‘Bharat’. Our ruling class calls it ‘India’, the others, the janata, call it ‘Bharat’. It has become a trend and fashion to prefer the word ‘India’ over ‘Bharat’. We converse with the country in Hindi and other vernaculars while we govern it in English.

Not only that, even in current literature in India, it has become a fashion to describe the educated, urban, white collar, economically better segments as belonging to India and rural, backward, poor, uneducated belonging to ‘Bharat’. It has become a practice among all sections to speak of ‘India’ while talking in English and of ‘Bharat’ while talking in Hindi/Hindustani. To illustrate, it would be relevant to mention a cultural event held recently in Delhi. It was the Delhi International Arts Festival with the ‘Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav’ edition at the India Gate lawns from Dec 16 to 30, 2022. Its theme was ‘Where Bharat Meets India’ – the sacred space where the spirit of Bharat meets the constitutional republic of India clearly suggesting that these entities are different! This is utterly confusing and derogatory.
The exercise in this article is to undertake an impartial study of the evolution, implications and suitability of these names for the country.

The ancients knew their country, almost of sub-continental size, as Jambu Dweep (the continent of the Jambu, Jamun, the berry) or Bharatvarsha (the land of the sons of Bharat, a legendary emperor). The first name ‘Jambu Dweep’ was related to the fruit of Jamun tree found in abundance in the sub-continent. It may have been perhaps due to its similarity in shape to that of Jamun fruit! Diana L. Eck, an eminent Indologist, writes in her book, ‘India: A Sacred Geography’:

“The Chinese traveller Fa-Hien describes a country (India) triangular in shape, broad in the north and narrow in the south, and he goes on to observe that 'people’s faces are of the same shape as the country’." (Page 83)

There could not be a better description. They are actually so, indicative of their ethnicity, of the shape of Jamun; hence, the name of the country: Jambu Dweep; in contrast to Mongoloid features, the ethnicity of Fa-Hien himself. This name may not be in general use today but is recited in all religious ceremonies/yajnas of Hindus.

Sindhu River

Out of the three names currently in use for the country, only the name ‘Bharat’ is an endonym, i.e., a name given to us by ourselves. Whereas, two of these names Hind and India, extensively used in colonial historical context, are exonyms, i.e., the names given to us by outsiders. They both come from the same source: its most important western river Sindhu which originates in the high Himalayas that not only provide protection/isolation to it but are also the source of her three great northern river systems – Sindhu/ Indus, Ganga and Brahmaputra. Sindhu is the original Sanskrit name for the great and mighty river bordering the sub-continent to its northwest. It flows almost 3,200 kms from the Himalayas to the Arabian Sea. In fact, two of the subcontinent’s greatest rivers, one western, Sindhu, and the other eastern, Brahmaputra, originate from the same region in the Himalayas and define its boundaries to the west and east respectively. Thus, the river Sindhu gave its two names to the country. We will now see how these names evolved.

Before we proceed further, a little elaboration about names would be in order. An endonym is a common, native name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect. It is used inside that particular place, group or linguistic community. Thus, it is their self-designated name for themselves, their homeland, or their language. On the other hand, an exonym is an established, non-native name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect. It is used initially only outside that particular place, group, or linguistic community and in due course may be adopted by those groups themselves. Exonyms exist not only for historico- geographical reasons but also due to difficulties while pronouncing foreign words.

The Persians, who were the close cousins of Indian Aryans, found it difficult to pronounce the initial ‘S’. The initial S of a Sanskrit word was invariably rendered as an aspirate, ‘H’. Hence, they pronounced it ‘H’ and called the river Sindhu as Hindu. With the Muslim invasions, the Persian name returned in the form of Hind, and those of its inhabitants who followed the old religion became known as Hindus. Some other words would make it further clear. Soma, the mysterious hallucinogen distilled, deified and drunk to excess by the Vedic Arya, is thus Homa or Haoma in old Persian. A more common parallel word in current use is Persian ‘Hafta’, an equivalent of Sanskrit ‘Saptah’ (week of seven days). ‘Sapta Sindhu’, the precursor of Panchnad, was known as ‘Haptha Hindu’. The form ‘Hindustan’, popular in modern India, is an Indo-Iranian hybrid wherein the suffix ‘-stan’ is generally used to denote a country though, in turn, it is also a form of the Sanskrit word ‘-sthan’, a place or an area. For example, Multan is from Moolsthan. These words are cognate and have their origin in Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-European languages. Many countries in central Asia under Persian influence have this word at the end of their names: Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan and even Pakistan. Thus, in the pronunciation of Persians, the immediate neighbours, the word became ‘Hindu’ and came to stand for not just the river but also for the people who lived across it to the east. Accordingly, the lands lying beyond its eastern bank were called ‘al- Hind’ or simply ‘Hind’ and it was from this word that the country was and is still known as Hindustan; the name continues even after the partition of India in 1947.

This word makes its debut in an inscription found at Persepolis in Iran, which was the capital of the Persian or Achaemenid empire of Darius 1. This inscription, dated C 528 BC, lists amongst his numerous domains that of ' Hi(n)du'.

Similarly, the word ‘India’ for the country also comes from the Sindhu River. From Persia, the word Hindu passed on to Greece, where the whole of the country became known by the name of its westernmost river. India takes its name from Indus, as the Sindhu was known by the Greeks. When the word Hind found its way from Persian into Greek, the initial aspirate was dropped as the 'H' sound in Greek is silent! It may be noted that the Greeks pronounced their own words ‘Hella/Hellenic’ as ‘Ella/Ellenic’! Thus, it started to appear as the root 'IND' and consequently, the words ‘Indus’, ‘Inde’ and ‘India’ were coined. In this form, it reached Latin and most other European languages. However, in Arabic and related languages, it retained the initial 'H', giving Hindustan as the name by which Turks and Mughals would know India. The word was also passed on to Europe to give Hindu as the name of the country's indigenous people and of what, by Muslims and Christians alike, was regarded as their infidel religion.

The Greek word ‘Inde’ or ‘Ind’ evolved into the English name India for the country. And, naturally, the people living in ‘Inde’ or ‘India’ were known as Indians. Thus, it is clear that India takes its name from Indus, as Sindhu was known by Europeans, especially Greeks.
We now notice that the words ‘Hindu/ Hindoo’ and ‘Indian’ are both same and are primarily geographical in nature. At that time, the word Hindu had no religious connotations at all. It was essentially a geographical entity or at the most a nationality.

From the above analysis, we can draw an equivalence table of names as under:

Original 

Greek/ Europe 

Persian 

River

Sindhu 

Indus 

Hindu 

Land

Bharat 

India 

Hind/ Hindustan

People

Aryan 

Indian

Hindu/Hindustani

Religion 

Vedic/Ors 

Hindu 

Hindu 

In view of the above, the following things must be clear:

(i) The name ‘Hind’ and ‘Hindu/oo’ were not given to the country by Islamic invaders towards whom Indians, especially the Hindus, are very sensitive. It was in fact given by pre-Islamic Persians or Iranians. It originated from Persian, a sister language of Sanskrit, both belonging to the family of Indo- European languages.

(ii) Whenever invaders came from the north-west, they always called the host people, and the defending armies/rulers, as ‘Hindustanis/ Hindoos’ irrespective of their religious identities. Some references would illustrate this point.

a) Babur called the forces of Ibrahin Lodhi, the Hindustanis. At page 464 of ‘Babarnama’, Babar writes:

“When we had left Rupar and dismounted at Karal opposite Sirhind, a Hindustanii coming said, ‘I am Sultan Ibrahim’s ( Lodhi) envoy’.

This clearly refers to Ibrahim (a Muslim himself) as a Hindustani.

b) On the eve of battle of Khanwa, many Muslim commanders, who had their domains in India, deserted Babar. They were called Hindustanis. Babar rues thus (page 557, ibid):

‘Desertions of many Hindustanis set in: Haibat Khan deserted and went to Sambhal’.

c) It is interesting to note that the name of one of his most important commanders who fought in the right-wing both at Panipat and Khanwa, was Jalalu’d-din HINDU Beg quichin. He was of the stock of Babar and was named Hindu due to his association with Hissar territory, then known as Little Hind (page 566).

d) The Muslim rulers fighting on his side at Khanwa are described as ‘Amirs of Hind were in this division on the left’ (page 567). Further, among the list of the ‘Hindu Chiefs killed in the Battle’ on Rana Sanga’s side, the first name is ‘Hasan Khan Mewati’ (page 573).

We all know that the infamous Mahmud Ghaznavi ruthlessly destroyed Hindu temples and massacred the people. He even had an army contingent which served under their own commander called the Saalaar-i Hinduuyaan!

This brief commentary is to just show that the word ‘Hindu’ was used for both Hindus and Muslims of Hindustan and religion was not a distinction to be made in so far as the indigenous people/ rulers were concerned. Thus, both words Hindu and Hindustani had territorial connotations.

(iii) Whatever Hindus of today may call their religion with all the derivatives of this word like Hinduism or Hindutva, this word is not found in any of their sacred scriptures! Yet, they galvanize around this word not only for their religious identities but for its resurgence and mobilisation. Even our most important language Hindi, termed as an official language of the country, is derived from the word ‘Hind/ Hindu’. It is believed that originally, Urdu, which means Lashkar or military column/ camp, was called Hindi!

Thus, both words ‘Indian’ and ‘Hindu’ have a common origin and both mean the same thing. It is also clear that ‘Bharat’, ‘Hind/ Hindustan’ and ‘India’ are the names of one and the same country with specific boundaries and well-defined geographical landmarks. Since the equivalent words then were purely geographical, they had no religious connotations. The words assumed religious connotations for the original/ indigenous people in due course.

India/East India:

Now we advert to the word ‘India/ Inde’ in general and ‘East India’ in particular in some detail. As has been mentioned above, the word ‘India/ Inde’ for the country reached Latin and most other European languages including English. It would be interesting to know how and when did the word India come into large-scale use. It was in the 16th and 17th centuries when, after the discovery of the sea route to India by Vasco da Gama of Portugal in 1498, the European trading companies had a free-for-all scramble on the Indian shores.

With this intense competition, East India became a common word which was reflected in the names of these companies. We have all heard and known about British East India Company. But, we should know that the British alone did not have their East India Company. Many other imperialist and colonial competing powers of those times had their own EICs! So, we had a Dutch company called the United East India Company of Netherlands, the French had French East India Company, Portuguese had the Portuguese Companhia da India Oriental.

Even the less-known Danes had an attempt to establish their ports and colonies in India. The success of four other European powers clearly stirred envy in Denmark by the 17th century AD. As a result, on March 17, 1616, the king of Denmark signed a charter for establishing the ‘Danish East India Company’, which would have a monopoly for the spice trade between Denmark and Asia. Two of the most important Danish settlements in India were Tanquebar in Tamil Nadu and Serumpur in Bengal. Their bid, however, ended in financial disaster and they called it a day.

Thus, there was severe competition between the British, the French and the Dutch to challenge the Portuguese, the first Europeans to trade in India. India or East Indies was for grabs again as it had been in the earlier forms of Hind or Hindustan. It was not till mid 18th century that British traders predominated. A century later, trading by the BEIC had become political throughout virtually all of the subcontinent which continued till independence in 1947. In due course, only the British could survive in India and other players were largely eliminated except for holding on to certain small pockets/ enclaves. It was this British East India Company which later on became the ruler of India. With British domination, the word India for this country became more and more famous not only in the ruling circles and popular usage but also in the international arena.

It would further be interesting to probe why the word ‘East India’ and why not just ‘India’ or ‘Indian’ or ‘Hind/ Hindustani’ was used by all these Companies. For this, we have to delve a little deeper into the background of European discoveries. There was a great curiosity in Europe about the “rich and fabulous lands of the East”.

Let us have a brief look at some of the perceptions about the richness of the country amongst outsiders, particularly Europeans. Through contacts between Greeks and Persians, Greek historians like Herodotus gathered some ideas about India and its riches. Compared to the intervening lands of Anatolia (Turkey) and Iran, it appeared a veritable paradise of exotic plenty. Herodotus told of an immense population and of the richest soil imaginable from which “kindly ants, smaller than dogs but bigger than foxes”, threw up hillocks of pure gold dust. Notwithstanding the scientific authenticity of this process, gold was what registered in political circles and peoples’ perceptions. With rivers to rival the Nile and behemoths (elephants) from which to give battle, it was clearly a land of fantasy as well as wealth.

Though India did not have much of gold sources or mines, it was always known as the mine of gold or golden bird, ‘Sone ki Chidiya’! It still is going by the gold holdings in the families. How did India come to possess such huge amounts of gold? The answer is simple. Through trade. During ancient times, the Romans imported so many luxuries from India that in 77 CE, Roman writer Pliny, despairingly called India the ' sink of the world's gold'!

So, a sea route to India and the East by going west was being contemplated in order to grab their riches. The Americas were not known then! Maps did not show any landmass to the West! So, it was thought that if you travel west by sea you would reach India one day! Yet, no one dared to set out across the western ocean. It was too immense and too unknown. But, one Christopher Columbus dared. Who was he and what did he do?

He was a penniless but adventurous and ambitious Italian from Genoa. As the earth was known to be round by that time, it was logical to presume that by sailing westwards going around the world you would land in the East. And you would be in China, in the fabulous Indies, lands rich in gold and ivory and spices. Columbus argued that with this new route, the Indies were only days away, rather than months by land (till then, it had not become East Indies). After hard bargaining, he was engaged by Spain and was given only two sailing ships in poor condition- it would be no great loss if they sank! And he rented a third himself. With this fleet, he sailed on and on westwards, determined to reach the Indies. At last, on October 11, 1492, at 2 am, a cannon fired from one of the ships signalled 'Land ahoy'!

Columbus was filled with pride and joy because he had discovered the promised land of Indies at last. His party presumed that the friendly people on the shore must be Indians, or as the Spanish people called them, ‘Indios’! But they were totally wrong as the time would prove! In fact, Columbus was nowhere near India but actually on an island off America. It was owing to his mistake and wrong belief that we still call the original inhabitants of the Americas, both continents, 'Indians' and the islands where Columbus landed the 'West Indies' (in the Caribbean Sea)! The real India was still an interminable distance away. But, at the time he thought he was in the Indies, the land of his dreams. Two implications of this episode are of importance to the subject: (i) The origin of the word East Indies. Once the Columbian mistake was detected, ‘his Indies’ was called West Indies and the real and ultimate destination, India, the East Indies! So, India and eastern adjacent lands were called East Indies. Hence, the use of the word East India by various companies operating in the region. The word ‘Indo’ was used even for lands farther like Indonesia, Indo-China etc.

(ii) Due to this Colombian mistake, the original inhabitants of the lands were called ‘Indians’. And this name got permanently stuck with them. Even today, the original Americans are called ‘Indians’ which word signifies the aboriginals, tribal, backward indigenous people belonging to history. And that creates hugely derogatory perceptions about the word ‘Indians/ India’, the real India that is Bharat. Many people around the world have misconceptions that the Indians of Bharat are the same as the original Indian tribes of the Americas, the Red Indians! The literature of the world including Indian authors is filled with the usage of this word when referring to these aboriginals of the Americas – North, Central and South. The perception of the word Indian gets radiated to the actual Indians, i.e., people of Bharat.

You experience distorted and derogatory perceptions about the word Indian painfully more when you visit places outside India, particularly the Americas. Even in writings, the word ‘Indian’ is freely used for Indians of the Americas, the aboriginal inhabitants at times also called ‘red Indians’. I would just quote two references: (a) Encyclopedia Britannica states about the people of Peru, a country in South America which has a great civilisational past: “Almost half of the people are Quechua Indians and nearly one third are Mestizos (mixed Indian and Spanish ancestry ); the remainder are Aymara Indians and persons of Spanish ancestry.” (b) Irawati Karve, a great Indologist, talks of the ‘Mexican Indians’ in her book, ‘Hindu Society: An Interpretation’ (page 3). Such references are numerous.

Do we notice that all original and native people of Peru, and by extension of the Americas, are all called Indians? I learnt during my visit to South America that the original people of the Americas, particularly South America, feel extremely offended if they are called Indians. They prefer to be called ‘indigenous’ rather than ‘Indians’!

Why is word ‘India’ for the country derogatory?

The word ‘India’ is thoroughly distorted and derogatory for, inter alia, various reasons which can be broadly summarised as under:

(i) It is an Exonym; the word given by outsiders to us. Thus, it has a foreign origin. How can a country feel proud if its name is given by outsiders invariably by invaders or conquerors?

(ii) It lacks a respectable indigenous pedigree. In the whole rich body of the sacred and other Sanskrit literature, word ‘India’ is nowhere is mentioned nor does the term occur in Buddhist or Jain texts; nor was it current in any of the South Asia’s numerous other languages.

(iii) As stated in detail above, the word ‘Indian’ outside gives distorted demeaning connotation of being aboriginals of Americas. Even they do not like this word and prefer being called indigenous.

(iv) It is too reminiscent of colonial disparagement, of loot, plunder and destruction.
John Keay sums up the perception about word ‘India’ or ‘Hindustan’ in his book ‘India: A History’ as under:

“… (Word India’s derogatory) historical currency amongst outsiders, specially outsiders who had design on the place; it was an object of conquest! ... in the case of ‘India’, this demeaning connotation had lasted until modern times. ‘Hindustan’, ‘India’ or the ‘Indies’ (its more generalized derivative) had come, as if by definition, to denote an acquisition rather than a territory. Geographically imprecise, indeed movable if one took account of all the ‘Indians’ in the Americas, ‘India’ was yet conceptually concrete: it was somewhere to be coveted – as an intellectual curiosity, a military pushover and an economic bonanza. To Alexander the Great as to Mahmud of Ghazni, to Timur the Lame as to his Mughal descendants, and to Nadir Shah of Persia as to Robert Clive of Plassy, ‘India’ was a place worth the taking.” We have already mentioned above the disparaging and humiliating perceptions of the word Indian and its implications the world over. As stated supra, the word ‘Indian’ abroad is intimately associated with original Americans, a type of people living in past with curious features. During my visit to the US in 2009, I was very keen to visit a museum popularly called the Indian Museum in Washington DC and hoped that I would be able to see the past glory of India depicted and the proof of it being a Vishwa Guru. Once I went in, it proved to be a great comedown from the point of Indian greatness visions. It was largely about the Americas’ original Indians (its official name being the National Museum of the American Indians, part of Smithsonian Institution and devoted to the culture of the Indigenous people of ancient Americas) depicting mainly their loot and plunder by Europeans and colonisers such as the sad story of Huthanhua of Incas and how his people were plundered/decimated by Spanish Conquistodor Fransisco Pizzaro. A great museum no doubt but nothing about Indian Glory. That is the perception of the word Indian!

I would like to mention an incident in a different part of the world. In 2001, I was attending an International training programme in Sweden. There, a delegate from an African country presented a diary of his country to me. This diary had a map of Africa and Asia regions. Our country was shown as ‘Bharat’ and not ‘India’ on that map! He made some queries about these two words for the country and I could explain to him with great embarrassment why ‘India’ and ‘Bharat’ are the same country. That confusion is likely to be created in every person’s mind outside India who is not familiar with “India that is Bharat” dichotomy.

Some efforts have been made in this regard earlier. I would mention one such attempt. Mulayam Singh Yadav, former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, and head of Samajwadi Party, released the party’s manifesto on April 9, 2004, on the eve of parliamentary elections. The party promised to amend the Constitution of India to change the name of the country from ‘India’ to ‘Bharat’ “as a step to protect the identity of the country” and take suitable economic and political measures to end the cultural degeneration being encouraged by the Western consumerist lifestyle. “Mr Yadav said the name of the country had been ‘Bharat’ since time immemorial but the British (sic) changed it. Due to some unknown circumstances after independence, the makers of the Constitution gave prominence to the word India, starting their work with the mention of "India that is Bharat". This was a mistake that had to be corrected, he said. It was a remarkable proposal.

Not only that. Subsequently, the UP assembly passed a resolution in August 2004 for a Constitutional amendment to change the name of the country from ‘India that is Bharat’ to ‘Bharat that is India’. The resolution was moved by the CM himself and passed unanimously by the assembly. It is interesting to note that the BJP, then in opposition, had staged a walk-out from the House a few minutes before the motion was tabled for the voice vote!

In 2014, a PIL was filed in Supreme Court to issue directions to the Centre to change the name of India to Bharat. The SC refused to consider the prayer stating that the petitioner should first approach the competent authority in this regard.

Bharat

Thus, for reasons above mentioned both ‘India’ and ‘Hindustan’ should be ruled out as the name of this great country. What should then be its appropriate name? The obvious answer is ‘Bharat’. This name is a short form of Bharatvarsha, 'the land of the descendants of the Bharatas'; these Bharatas being the most prominent and distinguished of the early Vedic clans. It is thus an Endonym. By adopting this word, it would get rid of the colonial and derogatory names. Bharat as the country’s name could lay claim to a revered ancient heritage. It would be all inclusive geographically and culturally which will neither provoke regional jealousies nor be detrimental to the nation’s avowed polity of secularism. It has a respectable indigenous and cultural pedigree; almost all the ancient and indigenous texts of the country use this word. Therefore, its single name should be ‘Bharat’ and ‘Bharat’ alone to avoid the current dichotomy and confusion resulting in much avoidable embarrassment. It will thus enhance the stature and greatness of the country.

It is evident from the above analysis that the word ‘India/ Indian’ is not only given to us by aliens but it is pregnant with many distorted and adverse perceptions about the land and people of this great country. It seems a continuous struggle is going on in India between the Indigenous and alien thought processes. What could be more insulting and humiliating for a people of the same country to be classified into such categorisation and creation of an obnoxious dualism? It is high time that the issue is considered in all seriousness without any encumbrances of ideology. It is an absolute imperative that the name of the country is changed officially to its rightful name ‘Bharat’; to one name ‘Bharat’ and ‘Bharat’ alone.

(OPS Malik is a retired officer of the Indian Police Service (IPS).)