Another aspect of the country\u2019s name in English represents an image of the country as seen by a foreigner or an outsider. Even Indians get an outside (or relatively superficial) view of the country which is referred to in the English language. It generally does not refer to rural regions or regions where one\u2019s grandparents perhaps used to live.<\/p>\n
I remember when I went to France as a tourist I used to ask, in my broken French, some question about a town or an area from the local people I would meet. The answer I would get generally used to be a superficial answer. The local people could understand that I was an outsider and would therefore not provide a detailed answer about their society or the region. They felt a brief answer was adequate, and a detailed answer would be incomprehensible to me.<\/p>\n
Similarly, a person asking some aspect of Indian society or region in English language would be given a relatively superficial answer. If the question was being asked in Hindi or the regional language of that area, a more detailed answer could be provided. Thus, a language that was being used would decide the nature of the answer\u2014 detailed or superficial.<\/p>\n
Another common name of the country is\u00a0Hindustan. This comes from the division of the country at the time of independence from British rule in 1947. India was divided into Pakistan and Hindustan \u2014 the former populated mostly by Muslim people, and the latter by Hindus and Sikhs or Buddhists and other non-Muslims. There used to be large migrations of peoples from one region to another depending on their religion. At that time Bengal was also part of Pakistan \u2014 its eastern part.\u00a0 It became\u00a0Bangladesh<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0many years later.<\/p>\n On the world stage, similar issues are observed. Russia feels that Ukraine is part of Russia and holds on to it militarily although now the common feeling is that Ukraine is a different country like Hungary or Romania and Russia should give Ukraine independence.<\/p>\n The world is replete with issues such as Ukraine\u2019s independence. However, many a time\u00a0might is right <\/em>and\u00a0<\/em>consequently Russia does not like to grant independence. Taiwan also faces problems from China about its independence, especially economically.<\/p>\n The world is a stage where many political dramas take place. Fortunately India has overturned any controversy that used to arise about its independence.<\/p>\n ______________________________________________<\/p>\n Recently a debate, almost a controversy, has started about the name of my country \u2014 India. The word\u00a0Bharat \u00a0is an ancient name in Sanskrit and earlier languages for the region.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":166069,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[759,2909],"class_list":["post-247257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transcend-members","tag-india","tag-mahabharata"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247257"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":247259,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247257\/revisions\/247259"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Ravi-P.-Bhatia-150x150-1-e1596524021103.jpg\")
<\/a> Dr Ravi P Bhatia is a member of the <\/em>TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment<\/em><\/a>, an<\/em> educationist, Gandhian scholar and peace researcher. Retired professor, Delhi University. His new book, <\/em>A Garland of Ideas\u2014Gandhian, Religious, Educational, Environmental was published recently in Delhi.<\/em> ravipbhatia@gmail.com<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"