India ( ‘that is Bharat’, as the opening lines of its constitution reads) is a nation with more names than any other (widely circulated ones, anyway). Legislatively, it has two — India and Bharat. However, there is also the socially championed ‘Hindustan’ and ‘Hind’, and the ancient, Sanskrit-given ‘Bharata Varsha’. Each name brings with it a nuanced history of origin, with varying levels of colonial influence.
The eldest of these five, Bharata Varsha, refers to a single area of the mythical Jambudvipa island. According to Indian mythology, the Earth (or terrestrial region) is divided into two hemispheres, the northern hemisphere being the “Jambudweepa” (with the southern hemisphere being called ‘Patala’). Jambudvipa (deriving from ‘Jambu’ (Indian blackberry fruit) and ‘Dweepa’ (an Island or continent), roughly translating to, ‘the island where the fruit grows’) is an island, 800,000 miles in breadth and length, divided into 9 Varshas (regions). Our known Earth area is on the southern coast of Jambudvipa and is 8,000 miles in diameter. India is just one continent on the circle of Sudarshana Dvipa/Bharata Khanda (the name for our Earth circle). Formerly all of the known earth circle was called Bharata Varsha, but now it is mainly used to denote the tectonic plate of modern-day India.
The names ‘Hindustan’ and ‘Hind’ do not appear in Indian legislature, but are most commonly used in social and cultural settings. Hindustan is thought to have derived from ‘Hindu’, the Persian cognate form of the Sanskrit ‘Sindhu’ (pertaining to the site of the Indus river, along which the invaders progressed), which came into currency with the Achaemenid Persian conquest of the Indus valley (northwestern parts of the subcontinent) that begin in the 6th century BC. The invaders wrongly pronounced ‘Sindhu’ as ‘Hindu’, which is where the prefix of ‘Hindustan’ originates. By the time of the early Mughals in the 16th century, the name ‘Hindustan’ was used to describe the entire Indo-Gangetic plain, pictured below.
The Achaemenids used the term to identify the lower Indus basin, and from around the first century of the Christian era, the suffix “stan” came to be used with the name to create “Hindustan”. The Greeks, who had acquired knowledge of ‘Hind’ from the Achaemenids, transliterated the name as ‘Indus’, which later became Anglicanised to ‘India’.
One of the two legislative names of the modern day region, Bharat is best understood in the sense of a religious and socio-cultural entity, rather than a political or geographical one, as the social scientist Catherine Clémentin-Ojha claims. ‘Bharat’ refers to the “supraregional and subcontinental territory where the Brahmanical system of society prevails”. The name ‘Bharat’ derives originates from the Mahabharata, one of India’s two great epics. It talks of King Bharat, a legendary monarch, who was the ancestor of the Rig Vedic tribe of the Bharatas, and by extension, the progenitor of all peoples of the subcontinent.
The Supreme Court recently overturned a proposition to remove the name of ‘India’ from the Constitution itself (in order to “ensure the citizens of this country…get over the colonial past”) saying: “India is already called Bharat in the Constitution itself.”
Indeed, the first lines of the first article of the Constitution read as such; ‘India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States’. This was the subject of much contention, as many interlocutors felt the omission of ‘India’ at all, due to its colonial origins, would have instilled a stronger sense of identity and patriotism into this foundational legislature. For example, Hari Vishnu Kamath suggested that the first article should read, “Bharat, or in the English language, India, shall be and such”. Representative of Central Provinces and Berar, Seth Govind Das, also offered; “Bharat known as India also in foreign countries” as the opening lines.
Finally, Hargovind Pant, Representative for the hill district of the United Provinces, argued that the people of Northern India wholly support the singular use of Bharat. He claims, “So far as the word ‘India’ is concerned, the Members seem to have, and really I fail to understand why, some attachment for it. We must know that this name was given to our country by foreigners who, having heard of the riches of this land, were tempted towards it and had robbed us of our freedom in order to acquire the wealth of our country. If we, even then, cling to the word ‘India’, it would only show that we are not ashamed of having this insulting word which has been imposed on us by alien rulers.”
So finally, to India. It became apparent that, from the late 18th century onwards, British maps increasingly began to use the name ‘India’, and ‘Hindustan’ started to lose its association with all of South Asia. “Part of the appeal of the term India may have been its Graeco-Roman associations, its long history of use in Europe, and its adoption by scientific and bureaucratic organizations such as the Survey of India,” Barrow wrote. Certainly, the British mapmakers sided with the colonial, recognizable (easily pronounceable) nomenclature.
“The adoption of India suggests how colonial nomenclature signaled changes in perspectives and helped to usher in an understanding of the subcontinent as a single, bounded and British political territory,” he added.
The many names of India all hold particular sentimental and cultural significance. Perhaps, with the recent mention of the return of ‘Bharat’ to global legislation to denote the Indian territory (following the announcement of the G20 summit dinner invite from the ‘President of Bharat’ as opposed to the ‘President of India’), many of these names will return to public and scholarly scrutiny.
