Take 1: What's in the name?
”WHAT'S IN A NAME? THAT WHICH WE CALL A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME WOULD SMELL AS SWEET” (QUOTE FROM ROMEO AND JULIET BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, CA. 1600). This is a sentence from one of the many plays from Shakespeare. It has not only garnered the might of a quote today, but apparently it almost enjoys an immortal status of an universal truth. But the true truth is that, it is far from being a truth. Being universal altogether is an idea far fetched by light years away.
The first article of the Constitution of India states that "India, that is Bharata, shall be a union of states," implicitly codifying "India" and "Bharata" as equally official short names for the Republic of India. A third name, "Hindustān", is sometimes an alternative name for the region comprising most of the modern Indian states of the subcontinent when Indians speak among themselves. The usage of "Bhārat", "Hindustān", or "India" depends on the context and language of conversation.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_for_India
But there is more to it. The 1940 Lahore Resolution of the All-India Muslim League demanded sovereignty for the Muslim-majority areas in the northwest and northeast of British India, which came to be called 'Pakistan' in popular parlance and the remaining India came to be called 'Hindustan'. The British officials too picked up the two terms and started using them officially. However, this naming did not meet the approval of Indian leaders due to the implied meaning of 'Hindustan' as the land of Hindus. They insisted that the new Dominion of India should be called 'India', not 'Hindustan'. Probably for the same reason, the name 'Hindustan' did not receive official sanction of the Constituent Assembly of India, whereas 'Bharat' was adopted as an official name. It was recognized however that 'Hindustan' would continue to be used unofficially.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindustan
India or Hindustan?
In September 1947, barely a month after the British Raj ceased to exist, leaving in its place the two independent nations of India and Pakistan, Louis Mountbatten invited Muhammed Ali Jinnah to be the honorary president of an art exhibition from the “Dominions of India and Pakistan”. Mountbatten had overseen Partition as the Raj’s last viceroy and was now India’s governor general, an honorary appointee of the British sovereign roughly equivalent to the post-1950 president of the Indian republic.
Mountbatten and Jinnah did not get along (in an interview in 1973, Mountbatten would call Jinnah a “bastard”). Yet, in 1947, both were governors general, Mountbatten India’s and Jinnah Pakistan’s. Such an invitation was, therefore, standard fare. Jinnah, however, objected to it. The reason: the invitation used India rather than Hindustan to refer to the new country. He wrote to Mountbatten: “It is a pity that for some mysterious reason Hindustan have adopted the word ‘India’ which is certainly misleading and is intended to create confusion.” He wanted the description to read, “exhibition of Pakistan and Hindustan art” – something that was unacceptable to Mountbatten. In the end, Jinnah accepted the invitation as is. This was not a one-off incident. The Muslim League had objected to the name “Union of India” in the run-up to Partition, although there was little clarity about its reasons for doing so.
I was too young to understand the importance of name when I watched the movie Sardar for the first time. However, the sequence between 1:12:52 to 1:13:17 of the movie intrigued me ever since.
Sardar: https://youtu.be/MQlxU4xYwPM
The naming of nation has far reaching consequence on socio-political fabric and the observations could be made from several perspective. Ranging from cultural history angle to civilizational and linguistic aspect we inherited debate on ‘Bhārata’ both prior to and at the time of its official equation with ‘India’ in the Constitution (1950). However, to understand this with ease and simplicity, I would rather make an analogy from branches, trunks and roots of a tree to convey what I wish to. Considering the root as civilizational base and trunk as national pillar and branches as different ethnocultural outcomes below are the images I could create to understand what it really means.
This is the answer to Shakespeare's epic question "What's in the name?". It is not about roses and the smell. There is more to it and it needs the study and understanding of civilizations which are older then 5000 years.
Take 2: Wave One
The second wave of SARS-CoV-2 causing COVID-19 in India has triggered many waves of thought in my mind and I was compelled to rewind an year back and google out the some of the news from popular media houses.
Google Search Results
Excerpts from the news : "During a phone conversation on Tuesday, state councilor and foreign minister Wang Yi told counterpart S Jaishankar that China hopes that India was “opposed” to the “narrow mindset” of using the phrase “China virus”. Beijing has urged India not to use “China” to describe the novel coronavirus, saying it could stigmatise the country and would be detrimental to international cooperation. Chinese ambassador to India Sun Weidong said in a tweet: “Dr. Jaishankar agreed not to label the virus and the international community should send a strong signal of solidarity.’’
We can have a debate whether it was an error of judgement on the part of Indian diplomacy to concede to such reach out by their Chinese counterpart. Did the chest which is generally inflated to 56 inches got deflated at that juncture ? Or why our opposition which is always vocal against any move of the govt decided to keep quite. It is but obvious that red brigade and their influencers in mass communication decided not to give mileage to this important event. Interestingly no leader on the earth barring Donald Triumph decided to look the other way when it came to the phrase "Chinese Virus". However, it is for sure that, the Chinese very well knew the far reaching consequences of the phrase "Chinese Virus" so they deployed their time tested tool of propaganda through international media and wedged the sensitive and popular subject of racism and hate to create a popular opinion in their favor on an individual basis. Additionally they supplemented their cause by leveraging on their seasoned diplomats to engage with their counterparts across the globe to get the same stamped officially so that the narratives around this "Chinese" virus could be secured as per their own design. I can't stop my self from quoting a famous line from the poet Sri Rahat Indori.
"ये लोग पैरों से नहीं ज़ेहन से अपाहिज है, वही चलेंगे जहा रहनुमा चलता है"
Take 3: The Second Wave
Below are some of the news articles found on internet. Interestingly the mutant and variants are named after their country of origin or detection. e.g. UK Variant, India Double mutant, Desi Double mutant, South African variant etc. Once again time tested method of propaganda by engaging media as a tool is at play.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-56792740
We all talk about covid a number of time every single day and no one even think about China when Corona is discussed. We all discuss about the fear and threat which looms over all of us but not even in our subconscious there a shred of thought about the actual origin of this virus as china. And my question is, why the original virus could NOT be named after the China if we can comfortably name the variants and mutants after some countries. Almost 103 year back we managed to name deadly flu after a country "Spain" and interestingly even this flu had its first documented illness and mortality in USA.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu
Seems like our minds are still struggling to recover from hangover we have inherited from our previous generation which were rooted in colonial sensibilities. Hence we we keep falling for Shakespeare and his absurd logic with ”WHAT'S IN A NAME? THAT WHICH WE CALL A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME WOULD SMELL AS SWEET”
continued as "It's all our fault"
No comments:
Post a Comment