PM Narendra Modi’s well-known flair for wordplay, using alliteration and other rhetorical devices, was given another airing when, during the parliamentary deadlock over the violence in Manipur, he took a dig at the opposition combine, which has adopted the acronym INDIA, and pointed out that the word ‘India’ has often been used as guise, or camouflage, by all manner of entities engaged in various kinds of nefarious activities.
In support of his claim, he cited examples as diverse as the Indian National Congress, set up during the Raj under the auspices of Alan Octavian Hume after the 1857 uprising as a ‘safety valve’ and a counter-revolutionary sop to further British imperialism, and terrorist organisations such as the Indian Mujahideen and the Popular Front of India.
Though he did not include it in his charge sheet, consumer rights fora could aver that an airline which features India in its name might merit mention in that it has been known to inspire, if not terror, a measure of angst, among its patrons, thanks to its manifold vagaries regarding erratic schedules, technical glitches and other contretemps, such as rash-causing bedbugs lurking in the folds of inflight blankets.
However, such exercises in what might be called namesmanship aside, India that is Bharat, which is Hindustan, has a long record of name-calling of a different sort.
The name India is supposedly derived from the name of the Sindhu (Indus) river, and traces its genealogy back to Herodotus, the 5th century BCE Greek ‘Father of History’, who is believed to have first used the term.In its Anglicised rendition, it reportedly cropped up in the 9th century, and re-emerged in its current form in the 17th century.Considering this exotic lineage, those given to renaming not just streets but entire cities because of their nomenclature of foreign provenance might, in response to such a revelation, well demand a name change, which fortunately enough is readily available in the made-to-order Bharat, India’s a.k.a.
However, this also proves a poser of a different sort as to its genesis. Is Bharat descended from the name of the son of King Dasaratha in the Ramayana, or from the name of the son of King Dushyanta in the Mahabharat? Contending claims between the supporters of the two putative origins might result in an epic war of words.
The third name for India, Hindustan, again a variation on the Indus river, is said to be of Persian coinage, and was later adopted by the Mughals, and could also be deemed to be fraught with outlandish association, as indeed is the term Hindu, descriptive of the indigenes of that region. This etymological train of thought could open a whole new can of worship best left alone.
Long before any of these appellations came into being, the peninsula that was to become India was referred to as Jambudvipa, from the Sanskrit for ‘Berry Island’ in Southeast Asia.
In ancient Tibet, India was referred to as Gyagar, and Phegyul, both of which trace their etymology to Buddhism, the inextricable bond between the two countries, an assertion that present-day Beijing would look more than askance at, cocking a snook as it does at considerations, such as LAC, not to mention the principles enshrined in the 1954 Panchsheel Agreement, which, if push came to shove, could become the doctrine of Punch-sheel Disagreement.
To further confound confusion regarding the whyfors and wherefores of India, in 1492, an Italian called Christopher Columbus, seeking a westward route which would obviate the long voyage around Africa to reach the spice-rich ‘Indies’, landed up, via what are now the Bahamas, in what he thought was India, but what later turned out to be America.
To further demonstrate that as an explorer he was more ex than plorer and didn’t know his Asia from his elbow, the hapless Genovese dropped anchor off Cuba in the fond belief that he’d found Japan, and no GPS either.
Such circumambulations aside, in that it occasioned so much by way of discovery and definition, India by any other name is truly an inspirational and inspiring brand, and not just a naam ke waaste logo.