Don’t forget that Savarkar had called ‘Hindustan’, ‘Bharat’ became popular through Tagore, calendar and temples. | Pro IQRA News

Don’t forget that Savarkar had called ‘Hindustan’, ‘Bharat’ became popular through Tagore, calendar and temples. | Pro IQRA News

News Updates.

When I titled my book in August 2022 “We the People of the States of India: The Making and Remaking of India’s Internal Boundaries” Had I anticipated the debate on renaming India to Bharat? The curiosity of my readers has increased to know this. While I would like to give myself credit for such an “insight”, I must make it clear that it is beyond my understanding to predict the future. Fortunately for me, the appearance of “India” at the G20 coincided with the release of my paperback book, which led to a sudden surge in sales. I have received invitations from many universities and libraries across the country – and even the UAE – to discuss my book.

But before we discuss Bharat and India, there is a reference to both in Article 1 of the Constitution – which reads “India, that is, a Union of States”. We must look at a historical reality: how the geographical region that now includes India, Pakistan and Bangladesh came to be called “India” instead of “Hindustan”. This name was widespread before the arrival of Europeans. It serves as a vantage point for constructing different narratives of Indian history.

A real idea of ​​Hindustan as a cultural, political and spatial unity was expressed in contemporary history in several languages, including Arabic, Persian, Sanskrit, Prakrit and later Urdu, mainly between the 15th and 19th centuries. . Bharat became popular as a preferred name when the East India Company (EIC) began acquiring territory for its provinces. Founded first in Madras in 1640, then in Bombay in 1687, at the same time as the Surat factory was transferred to the islands, and finally in 1690 at Fort William in Calcutta (now Kolkata).

It was in Bengal that the EIC began to exercise “sovereign” power after the Battle of Plassey in 1757 and the Battle of Buxar in 1764, which resulted in the formation of the Bengal Presidency in 1765. After this, British maps began to show the conquered territories. For this, methods such as betrayal, unequal treaties and asymmetric trade relations in the form of “Indian property” were used. Perhaps the last time Hindustan was used by an EIC officer was in 1768 when Alexander Dow, an infantry officer in the EIC’s Bengal Army, History of Hindustan Wrote a book called

Ever since Warren Hastings took command of EIC operations, the British have called and referred to the subcontinent as India. But for more than a century, i.e. until the revolt of 1857, the country’s name was always taken as Hindustan in the advertisements and conversations of the rebel leaders. He used to talk about freeing this country from foreign (foreign) rule. This confirms that even a hundred years after Robert Clive’s historic victory at Plassey, the idea of ​​Hindustan as a political and geographical entity had not ended.

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