India That Is Bharat

INDIA THAT IS BHARAT

India-One Country, Many Names.
The land mass on this beautiful planet, which is called “India, that is Bharat’ today, was known by different names.
In the beginning, India was called Aryavarta (Land of Aryas) in the Vedic Period under the laws of Manu (Manusmriti).
After a long gap, some people started calling it Bharatvarsa/Bharat/Bharatam-founded by King Bharata Chakravarti, son of King Dushyanta and Shakuntala, and grand-grandfather of Pandavas and Kauravas.

After another lengthy gap, the Persians came and pronounced it Indos after Sindhu/Indus River a Land on the other side of Sindhu/Indus River).

After the Muslim invasion and take over it was called Hindustan/ Hindustana (Indos + stan)/Hindostan/Hindoostan.

The Britishers could not pronounce any of the above and called it India.

All along this, the Bharata dynasty did not recognize Aryavarta, Persians did not recognize Bharata, Muslims did not recognize Indos, and the British did not recognize Hindustan. They wrote their own history.

The only thing they did was change the names of places and build new ones in their own names. No one tried or succeeded in changing the fate of the people who lived there.

The only thing common was that each one of them became a past and no one could change the basic character of the patches of small land masses within this whole land mass, inhabited by many groups with many things common and few things not common particularly language. Till such time the country was not politically unified in its true meaning.

After the British left, the Democratic System of Governance was adopted. The first party to rule, the Congress Party, with the help of legal luminaries of those days adopted a rule book named Indian Constitution.

After marathon deliberations, the Country was named in Article 1 (1) “India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States”. (India, associated with foreigners whose rule was coming to an end and Bharat as native as was found in the ancient Sanskrit Literature).

It was only after Independence and the adoption of the Indian Constitution that the country became politically unified in its true sense.

History is taking another turn. Some people are thinking of renaming it again as Hindu Rashtra. Changing the names of cities and places started long back but it has got added momentum now. One self-acclaimed Saint even threatened to take Jal Samadhi if it was not done immediately. He found some excuse and postponed it indefinitely.

I hope it never happens. As it is, the history of this land mass, surrounded by sea in the south and Snowy Hills Himalayas in the north, had many names, as we have seen above,has been very complicated. Hope it is not made more complicated for history students of the future.

THE PRIORITY SHOULD BE TO CHANGE THE FATE OFITS POOR INHABITANTS AND NOT USE THEMAS SCREWS FOR POLITICAL GAMES)

Let us sing together.


Mohammad Iqbal (1877-1938)

Sare jahāṃ se acchā Hindustāṃ hamārā

Ham bulbuleṃ haiṃ us kī, yi gulistāṃ hamārā.

Mażhab nahiṃ sikhātā āpas meṃ bair rakhnā

Hindī haiṃ ham, vatan hai Hindūstān hamārā

 

It is true. The India or Bharat we know today was never a country. It was Kingdoms and Kingdoms. What is known as Aryavarta/Bharat was mainly the Northern Part of this land mass. The southern part was independent of the North.

 

Thanks. Diversity is the greatest asset of India, that is Bharat.