Don't Take 'India' Away From Us

Renaming the country could divert valuable resources from critical areas of development and progress

- Raman Kaul

ARE names of all countries proper nouns that should be the same in all languages? This is certainly not true for all countries. Germany is known as Deutschland by all German language speakers. It is also called Allemagne in French, Alemania in Spanish and Arabic, Tyskland in Danish and Saska in Finnish. It probably has a dozen names in a dozen languages. Hungary is known as Magyarország by Hungarians, Ungarn by Germans and Magyarestan by Persian speakers. The country we know as China in English, Cheen in Hindi, Kitay in Russian, is called Zhōngguó by the Chinese people. The country we know as Japan is called Nippon by the Japanese. The list of such countries is long.

Yet, the people or governments of none of these ancient countries have complained that their names in other languages are an imposition or are a sign of colonisation. If you look at a German government document or website in the English language, the country is called Germany, just as Bharat is called India in any English language document. The point I am trying to make is that having different names in different languages is not limited to India, and this is neither a sign of colonisation nor something to be bemoaned.

Why are some Indians being small-minded about this? Names of countries with ancient civilisations have become parts of various languages over the millennia. They are not subject to limitations as ordinary proper nouns. India belongs to this select group of countries with a long history. We are called Bharat in Hindi and many Indian languages, Hindustan in Urdu and Persian, Alhind in Arabic, Inde in French, Indien in German, Yindu in Chinese, and India in English. This should be considered a privilege, one not available to newer country names like Pakistan or Bangladesh, which do not have a lot of history behind them.