Neil Pickup said:
I hadn't seen that in four years on this forum - and it intrigued me that you've used Hindustani only when in a seemingly negative manner. It reminds me of a member we used to have that used "Mongolians" instead of Indians when being awkward.
Still, perhaps I'm being over-sensitive and none too culturally aware. What's everyone else think?
The term 'hindustan' is commonly used by the hindi/urdu speakers of the subcontinent in reference to India. It leads to quite a few mis-understandings, particularly amongst many Muslims who i've met, who conted that the name 'Hindustan', directly translated to as 'land of the Hindus' is religious favouritism.
However, it is essential to understand the genesis of the term 'Hindustan' and 'Hindu's.
Neither of those terms existed until 1200s/1300s and is of Iranian origin.
Historically, many Indians have referred to India/subcontinent as the 'sapta-Sindhu', meaning 'the seven rivers/ seven rivers of Sindhu'. Indeed, the word 'sindhu' is of sanskritic origin and while most often is used in reference to the river 'Indus', 'sindhu' actually means 'river' in Sanskrit and has been used liberally around the subcontinent in the ancient times.
Indeed, the 'sapta-Sindhu' reference is a sanskritic reference of the Punjab river systems( Punjab means land of the five rivers), Ganga and the legendary Saraswati.
It is also often used/has been used to designate any major river system, be it the Punjab area,Ganges-Jamuna system, the Ganga-Brahmaputra-Megha delta or even major south Indian river systems such as Godavari or Krishna-Tungabhadra.
The word 'sindhu' got changed to 'sindh' by the Afghans, as their language has a tendency to drop 'u' at the end of a word.
'Sindh' was subsequently changed to 'Hind' by Persians, as the Persian language has a tendency to substitute 'h' for 's' in the beginning of a word.
The reference of 'hindu' and 'hindustan' originated around a thousand years ago with the foreign perceptions of India, as 'sindhu/sindh/hind' was in reference to the Indus river and 'hindus/hindustan' being in reference to the people/the land around the Indus.
In sanskrit, the term most often used for India is 'bharat'. The word 'hindus/hindustani' was introduced into the Indian culture around 1200s/1300s by turko-mongol invaders, who set up a 600 year rule of the subcontinent, primarily the northern parts of it and brought along quite a few terms/terminlogy that were adapted into north indian languages and even led to the rise of a new language - urdu.
In essence, 'hindu/hindustan' is a label used by near-eastern/turkic folks in reference to India and got filtered into India through the 600 years of turko-mongol rule of northen india/most of india.
. India is a country with people of different religions and is generally very tolerant
