when the Muslims of British India were seeking a separate country of their own

 when the Muslims of British India were seeking a separate country of their own. Allama Iqbal had proposed a new Muslim homeland in 1930 but no one had discussed a name for it. After all there weren’t many readily available names for it. India, which meant ‘land of the Indus’ was the logical candidate, but besides being of foreign origin, it had now come to denote the entire South Asian Subcontinent. The same was true for Hindustan, the land of Hind (Sindh). The term Sindh could have been a reasonable choice but for centuries now it was limited to a small region, and it might not have been acceptable to non-Sindhis. 

Enter Choudhary Rahmat Ali and his fellow firebrands. In 1933, Rahmat Ali, a young Muslim lawyer published a pamphlet in which he proposed the name ‘Pakistan’ based on an acronym denoting ‘P’ for Punjab, ‘A’ for Afghan Province (NWFP), ‘K’ for Kashmir, ‘S’ for Sindh and ‘-stan’ for Balochistan. 

There was no ‘B’ for Bengal in the name as at that time Bengal was not a part of the proposed Pakistan.

For an independent Bengal, Rahmat Ali later coined the name ‘Bangistan’. As Pakistan Movement gained momentum, this new name based on nationalist fantasies of a young man, fired the imagination of Muslims. Its appeal lay both in its sound as well as its literal meaning. The ‘-stan’ proclaimed its Islamic credentials, while ‘pak’, which means pure or clean was suitably worthy of Muslim sensibilities. A new Islamic name for a new Islamic state. There was no looking back. Even the Bengalis, who had no representation in the name were swept along in the excitement. So Pakistan it was that came into being in 1947, and almost 75 years later, Pakistan it remains. Pakistanis have embraced their new identity and appear to be quite happy with it. The only people, who might have had misgivings about the absent ‘B’ went their separate way in 1971, removing any discrepancies in Rahmat Ali’s acronym.

But what about our eastern neighbour, which also gained independence at the “stroke of midnight” on 14/15 August 1947, as the Dominion of India? They, too, after all were an old civilization. And yet they were called ‘India’ meaning ‘land of the Indus’ – which, geographically speaking, was now Pakistan!

 Hindu nationalists had never been comfortable with ‘India,’ which was a foreign name. Hindustan was an equally unacceptable alternative because of its association with the 800-year Muslim rule. As early as the 19th century, they had sought a suitably Hindu name for the country. One of the proposed Sanskritised names was ‘Hindusthana’ (land of the Hindus) but it did not gain any traction. A more popular alternative was ‘Bharat’ (from the idealised Bharatavarsha of Puranas) named after a mythical king from the Gangetic plain. However, right until 1947, all four names; India, Hindustan, Hind and Bharat were in common usage. But the country gained independence as India and not as Bharat or Hindustan. This was because Lord Mountbatten, the last British viceroy, acceded to Jawaharlal Nehru’s demand that his new state would be called India.

When the Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah learnt about it, he “was absolutely furious.” He had believed that the name India would continue to refer to the whole Subcontinent and not a part of it. But there was nothing he could about it. Nehru had laid claim to the entire historical and cultural legacy of the Subcontinent. The irony of claiming a name which geographically no longer applied to his new state apparently escaped him.

However, opposition to the foreign name would not go away. To accommodate both sides of the argument, the Indian constituent assembly came up with a clever play of words. When the Indian constitution was framed in 1950, it referred to the new republic as “India, that is Bharat.” They had appropriated two names in one sentence. Although there was no mention of Hindustan or Hind in the constitution, the Indians have been loath to give up even these foreign names. Unlike Pakistan, the debate over the country’s name continues to tax their minds even today. While hostility to ‘India’ persists in Hindu nationalist circles, they appear to have overcome their aversion to ‘Hindustan’ by resurrecting an old revisionist myth. By employing phonetic jugglery, Hindustan has been Hinduised as ‘the land of Hindus’ as opposed to its actual meaning of ‘the land of Hind (Sindh)’. At the same time, prominent Hindu leaders like Narendra Modi have started calling India/Bharat as Hindustan in their public pronouncements.

Thus it came to pass that Pakistan, built upon a 5,500-year-old civilization, was named after an acronym, while India, with an equally venerable past, ended up with four names: India, which means land of the Indus, which is today Pakistan; Hind, which means Sindh, which is today in Pakistan; Hindustan, which means land of Sindh, which is also in Pakistan; and Bharat, a mythical king or tribe, who may or may not have existed.