''Hindūstān'' ( , from '' Hindū'' and ''-stān''), also sometimes spelt as Hindōstān ( ''Indo-land''), along with its shortened form ''Hind'' (), is the

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

-language name for the

Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a list of the physiographic regions of the world, physiographical region in United Nations geoscheme for Asia#Southern Asia, Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian O ...

that later became commonly used by its inhabitants in the Hindi–Urdu language. Hindustan was the

word for ''India'', but when introduced to the subjects under Persianate rule, the subsequent

culture Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.Tyl ...

which resulted from these events gave it another specific meaning that of the cultural region between the river

Sutlej The Sutlej or Satluj River () is the longest of the five rivers that flow through the historic crossroads region of Punjab in northern India and Pakistan. The Sutlej River is also known as ''Satadru''. It is the easternmost tributary of the Ind ...

(end of Northwestern India) and the city

Varanasi Varanasi (; ; also Banaras or Benares (; ), and Kashi.) is a city on the Ganges river in northern India that has a central place in the traditions of pilgrimage, death, and mourning in the Hindu world. * * * * The city has a syncretic t ...

(start of Eastern India). As the area where

Ganga-Jamuni Tehzeeb ''Ganga–Jamuni Tehzeeb'' ( Hindustani for ''Ganges–Yamuna Culture''), also spelled as ''Ganga-Jamni Tehzeeb'' or just Hindustani Tehzeeb, is the high culture that arose in the Yamuna-Gangetic plains of northern India, the Hindustan region ...

and the

Hindustani language Hindustani (; Devanagari: , * * * * ; Perso-Arabic: , , ) is the '' lingua franca'' of Northern and Central India and Pakistan. Hindustani is a pluricentric language with two standard registers, known as Hindi and Urdu. Thus, the lan ...

traces its origins, it corresponds to the plains where the river

Yamuna The Yamuna (Hindustani language, Hindustani: ), also spelt Jumna, is the second-largest tributary river of the Ganges by discharge and the longest tributary in List of major rivers of India, India. Originating from the Yamunotri Glacier at a ...

flows or the regions/states encompassing

Haryana Haryana (; ) is an Indian state located in the northern part of the country. It was carved out of the former state of East Punjab on 1 Nov 1966 on a linguistic basis. It is ranked 21st in terms of area, with less than 1.4% () of India's land ar ...

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...

Harit Pradesh Harit Pradesh is a proposed new state of India comprising the western parts of Uttar Pradesh state. The etymology derives from Harit, meaning Green (which signifies the agricultural prosperity of the region), and Pradesh, meaning state. The r ...

, and Awadh. Other toponyms for the subcontinent include ''

Jambudvīpa Jambudvīpa ( sa, जम्बुद्वीप; Pali: Jambudīpa) is a name often used to describe the territory of Greater India in Ancient Indian sources. The term is based on the concept of '' dvīpa'', meaning "island" or "continent" i ...

'' and ''

Bharata Khanda Bharata Khanda (IAST : ''Bhāratakhaṇḍa'') is a term used in Hindu texts, including the Vedas, ''Mahabharata'', ''Ramayana'' and the Puranic, to describe the Indian subcontinent. The historical context of the Sanskrit epics are the Vedi ...

''. Since the

Partition of India The Partition of British India in 1947 was the Partition (politics), change of political borders and the division of other assets that accompanied the dissolution of the British Raj in South Asia and the creation of two independent dominions: ...

in 1947, although limitedly, ''Hindustan'' continues to be used to the present day as a historic name for the

Republic of India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

Etymology

Hindustan is derived from the

word ''Hindū'' cognate with the Sanskrit ''Sindhu''. The

Proto-Iranian Proto-Iranian or Proto-Iranic is the reconstructed proto-language of the Iranian languages branch of Indo-European language family and thus the ancestor of the Iranian languages such as Pashto, Persian, Sogdian, Zazaki, Ossetian, Mazandarani ...

sound change ''*s'' > ''h'' occurred between 850 and 600 BCE, according to

Asko Parpola Asko Parpola (born 12 July 1941, in Forssa) is a Finnish Indologist, current professor emeritus of South Asian studies at the University of Helsinki. He specializes in Sindhology, specifically the study of the Indus script. Biography Parpola is ...

. Hence, the

Rigvedic The ''Rigveda'' or ''Rig Veda'' ( ', from ' "praise" and ' "knowledge") is an ancient Indian collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns (''sūktas''). It is one of the four sacred canonical Hindu texts (''śruti'') known as the Vedas. Only one S ...

''sapta sindhava'' (the land of seven rivers) became ''hapta hindu'' in the Avesta. It was said to be the "fifteenth domain" created by

Ahura Mazda Ahura Mazda (; ae, , translit=Ahura Mazdā; ), also known as Oromasdes, Ohrmazd, Ahuramazda, Hoormazd, Hormazd, Hormaz and Hurmuz, is the creator deity in Zoroastrianism. He is the first and most frequently invoked spirit in the ''Yasna''. ...

, apparently a land of 'abnormal heat'. In 515 BCE,

Darius I Darius I ( peo, 𐎭𐎠𐎼𐎹𐎺𐎢𐏁 ; grc-gre, Δαρεῖος ; – 486 BCE), commonly known as Darius the Great, was a Persian ruler who served as the third King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, reigning from 522 BCE until his ...

annexed the

Indus Valley The Indus ( ) is a transboundary river of Asia and a trans-Himalayan river of South and Central Asia. The river rises in mountain springs northeast of Mount Kailash in Western Tibet, flows northwest through the disputed region of Kashmir, ...

including ''Sindhu'', the present day

Sindh Sindh (; ; ur, , ; historically romanized as Sind) is one of the four provinces of Pakistan. Located in the southeastern region of the country, Sindh is the third-largest province of Pakistan by land area and the second-largest province ...

, which was called ''Hindu'' in Persian. During the time of Xerxes, the term "Hindu" was also applied to the lands to the east of Indus. In

middle Persian Middle Persian or Pahlavi, also known by its endonym Pārsīk or Pārsīg () in its later form, is a Western Middle Iranian language which became the literary language of the Sasanian Empire. For some time after the Sasanian collapse, Middle Per ...

, probably from the first century CE, the suffix ''

-stān The suffix -stan ( fa, ـستان, translit=''stân'' after a vowel; ''estân'' or ''istân'' after a consonant), has the meaning of "a place abounding in" or "a place where anything abounds" in the Persian language. It appears in the names of ...

'' was added, indicative of a country or region, forming the present word ''Hindūstān''. Thus, Sindh was referred to as ''Hindūstān'' in the Naqsh-e-Rustam inscription of Shapur I in 262 CE. Historian

B. N. Mukherjee Bratindra Nath Mukherjee (1 January 1932 – 4 April 2013) was an Indian historian, numismatist, epigraphist and iconographist, known for his scholarship in central Asian languages such as Sogdian. He was a Carmichael Professor of Ancient Indi ...

states that from the lower Indus basin, the term ''Hindūstān'' got gradually extended to "more or less the whole of the subcontinent". The Greco-Roman name "India" and the Chinese name ''Shen-tu'' also followed a similar evolution. The Arabic term ''Hind'', derived from Persian ''Hindu'', was previously used by the Arabs to refer to the much wider Indianised region from the

Makran Makran ( fa, مكران), mentioned in some sources as Mecran and Mokrān, is the coastal region of Baluchistan. It is a semi-desert coastal strip in Balochistan, in Pakistan and Iran, along the coast of the Gulf of Oman. It extends westwards, ...

coast to the Indonesian archipelago. But eventually it too became identified with the Indian subcontinent.

Current usage

Republic of India

"Hindustan" is often used to refer to the modern-day

. Slogans involving the term are commonly heard at sports events and other public programmes involving teams or entities representing the modern nation-state of India. In marketing, it is also commonly used as an indicator of national origin in advertising campaigns and is present in many company names.

Muhammad Ali Jinnah Muhammad Ali Jinnah (, ; born Mahomedali Jinnahbhai; 25 December 1876 – 11 September 1948) was a barrister, politician, and the founder of Pakistan. Jinnah served as the leader of the All-India Muslim League from 1913 until the ...

, the founder of

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

, and his party the Muslim League, insisted on calling the modern-day Republic of India "Hindustan" in reference to its Hindu-majority population.

People

The term 'Hindustani' refers to an Indian, irrespective of religious affiliation. Among non-Hindustani speakers e.g. Bengali-speakers, "Hindustani" is used to describe persons who are from the Yamuna-Ganges belt; also regardless of religious affiliation, but rather as a geographic term. ''Hindustani'' is sometimes used as an

ethnic An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...

term applied to South Asia (''e.g.'', a Mauritian or Surinamese man with roots in South Asia might describe his ethnicity by saying he is ''Hindustani''). For example, ''

Hindoestanen Indo-Surinamese, Indian-Surinamese or Hindustani Surinamese are people of Indian origin who are nationals of Suriname with ancestry from India and the wider subcontinent. Their ancestors were Indian indentured workers brought by the Dutch and th ...

'' is a Dutch word used to describe people of

South Asian South Asia is the southern Subregion#Asia, subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geography, geographical and culture, ethno-cultural terms. The region consists of the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, ...

origin, in the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

and

Suriname Suriname (; srn, Sranankondre or ), officially the Republic of Suriname ( nl, Republiek Suriname , srn, Ripolik fu Sranan), is a country on the northeastern Atlantic coast of South America. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north ...

Language

The ''

'' is the language of Hindustan and the

lingua franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...

of the northern Indian subcontinent. Hindustani derives from the Old Hindi dialect of

Western Uttar Pradesh Western Uttar Pradesh is a region in India that comprises the western districts of Uttar Pradesh state, including the areas of Rohilkhand and those where Khariboli, Braj and Kannauji are spoken. The region has some demographic, economic and cul ...

and

areas. Its literary standard forms—

Modern Standard Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been des ...

and

Modern Standard Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
''

Historical usages

Early Persian scholars had limited knowledge of the extent of India. After the advent of Islam and the Muslim conquests, the meaning of ''Hindustan'' interacted with its Arabic variant ''Hind'', which was derived from Persian as well, and almost became synonymous with it. The Arabs, engaging in oceanic trade, included all the lands from ''Tis'' in western Balochistan (near modern

Chabahar Chābahār ( fa, چابهار, bal, چھبار, čahbàr; ; formerly ''Bandar Beheshtī'') is the capital city of Chabahar County, Sistan and Baluchestan Province, Iran. It is a free port (free-trade zone) situated on the coast of the Gulf of ...

) to the Indonesian archipelago, in their idea of ''Hind'', especially when used in its expansive form as "''Al-Hind''". ''Hindustan'' did not acquire this elaborate meaning. According to André Wink, it also did not acquire the distinction, which faded away, between ''Sind'' (roughly what is now western Pakistan) and ''Hind'' (the lands to the east of the Indus River);: "The Arabs, like the Greeks, adopted a pre-existing Persian term, but they were the first to extend its application to the entire Indianized region from Sind and Makran to the Indonesian Archipelago and mainland Southeast Asia." other sources state that ''Sind'' and ''Hind'' were used synonymously from early times, and that after the arrival of Islamic rule in India, "the variants Hind and Sind were used, as synonyms, for the entire subcontinent." The 10th century text '' Hudud al-Alam'' defined ''Hindustan'' as roughly the

, with its western limit formed by the river Indus, southern limit going up to the Great Sea and the eastern limit at

Kamarupa Kamarupa (; also called Pragjyotisha or Pragjyotisha-Kamarupa), an early state during the Classical period on the Indian subcontinent, was (along with Davaka) the first historical kingdom of Assam. Though Kamarupa prevailed from 350 to 11 ...

, the present day Assam. For the next ten centuries, both ''Hind'' and ''Hindustan'' were used within the subcontinent with exactly this meaning, along with their adjectives ''Hindawi'', ''Hindustani'' and ''Hindi''. Indeed, in 1220 CE, historian

Hasan Nizami Hasan Nizami was a Persian language poet and historian, who lived in the 12th and 13th centuries. He migrated from Nishapur to Delhi in India, where he wrote ''Tajul-Ma'asir'', the first official history of the Delhi Sultanate. Early life Lit ...

described ''Hind'' as being "from

Peshawar Peshawar (; ps, پېښور ; hnd, ; ; ur, ) is the sixth most populous city in Pakistan, with a population of over 2.3 million. It is situated in the north-west of the country, close to the International border with Afghanistan. It is ...

to the shores of the ndianOcean, and in the other direction from Siwistan to the hills of Chin."

North India

With the Turko-Persian conquests starting in the 11th century, a narrower meaning of ''Hindustan'' also took shape. The conquerors were liable to call the lands under their control ''Hindustan'', ignoring the rest of the subcontinent.Shoaib Daniyal
Land of Hindus? Mohan Bhagwat, Narendra Modi and the Sangh Parivar are using 'Hindustan' all wrong
Scroll.in, 30 October 2017. In the early 11th century a satellite state of the Ghaznavids in the

Punjab Punjab (; Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising ...

with its capital at

Lahore Lahore ( ; pnb, ; ur, ) is the second most populous city in Pakistan after Karachi and 26th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 13 million. It is the capital of the province of Punjab where it is the largest city. ...

was called "Hindustan". After the

Delhi Sultanate The Delhi Sultanate was an Islamic empire based in Delhi that stretched over large parts of the Indian subcontinent for 320 years (1206–1526).

was established, north India, especially the Gangetic plains and the Punjab, came to be called "Hindustan".: "Hindostan, n.p. Pers. ''Hindūstan''. (a) 'The country of Hindūs', India. In modern native parlance the word indicates distinctively (b) India north of the Nerbudda, and exclusive of Bengal and Behar. The latter provinces are regarded as ''pūrb'' (see Poorub), and all south of the Nerbudda as ''Dakhan'' (see Deccan). But the word is used in older Mahommedan authors just as it is used in English school-books and atlases, viz., as (a) the equivalent of India Proper. Thus Babur says of Hindustan: 'On the East, the South and the West it is bounded by the Ocean'" Scholar Bratindra Nath Mukherjee states that this narrow meaning of ''Hindustan'' existed side by side with the wider meaning, and some of the authors used both of them simultaneously. The

Mughal Empire The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the d ...

(1526–1857) called the invaded Bharatiya land as 'Hindustan'. The term 'Mughal' itself was never used to refer to the land. As the empire expanded, so too did the expanded usage of the word 'Hindustan'. At the same time, the meaning of 'Hindustan' as the entire

is also found in ''

Baburnama The ''Bāburnāma'' ( chg, ; literally: ''"History of Babur"'' or ''"Letters of Babur"''; alternatively known as ''Tuzk-e Babri'') is the memoirs of Ẓahīr-ud-Dīn Muhammad Bābur (1483–1530), founder of the Mughal Empire and a great-great- ...

'' and ''

Ain-i-Akbari The ''Ain-i-Akbari'' ( fa, ) or the "Administration of Akbar", is a 16th-century detailed document recording the administration of the Mughal Empire under Emperor Akbar, written by his court historian, Abu'l Fazl in the Persian language. It for ...

''.

Kingdom of Nepal usage

The last

Gorkhali The Gurkhas or Gorkhas (), with endonym Gorkhali ), are soldiers native to the Indian Subcontinent, chiefly residing within Nepal and some parts of Northeast India. The Gurkha units are composed of Nepalis and Indian Gorkhas and are recruit ...

King

Prithvi Narayan Shah Maharajadhiraj Prithvi Narayan Shah (1723–1775) ( ne, श्री ५ बडामहाराजाधिराज पृथ्वीनारायण शाह देव) was the last ruler of the Gorkha Kingdom and first monarch of the ...

self proclaimed the newly unified Kingdom of Nepal as ''Asal Hindustan'' (Real Hindustan) due to North India being ruled by the

Islamic Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God (or '' Allah'') as it was revealed to Muhammad, the mai ...

Mughal rulers. The self proclamation was done to enforce Hindu social code Dharmashastra over his reign and refer to his country as being inhabitable for

Hindus Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism.Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...

. He also referred Northern India as ''Mughlan'' (Country of Mughals) and called the region infiltrated by Muslim foreigners.

Colonial Indian usage

These dual meanings persisted with the arrival of Europeans. Rennel produced an atlas titled the ''Memoir of a Map of Hindoostan or the Mogul Empire'' in 1792, which was in fact a map of the Indian subcontinent. Rennel thus conflated the three notions, 'India', 'Hindustan' and the Mughal Empire. J. Bernoulli, to whom ''Hindustan'' meant the Mughal Empire, called his French translation ''La Carte générale de l'Inde'' (General Map of India). This 'Hindustan' of British reckoning was divided into British-ruled territories (sometimes referred to as 'India') and the territories ruled by native rulers. The British officials and writers, however, thought that the Indians used 'Hindustan' to refer to only North India. An ''Anglo-Indian Dictionary'' published in 1886 states that, while ''Hindustan'' means India, in the "nativa parlance" it had come to represent the region north of Narmada River excluding

Bihar Bihar (; ) is a state in eastern India. It is the 2nd largest state by population in 2019, 12th largest by area of , and 14th largest by GDP in 2021. Bihar borders Uttar Pradesh to its west, Nepal to the north, the northern part of West Be ...

and

Bengal Bengal ( ; bn, বাংলা/বঙ্গ, translit=Bānglā/Bôngô, ) is a geopolitical, cultural and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal, predom ...

. During the independence movement, the Indians referred to their land by all three names: 'India', 'Hindustan' and 'Bharat'.

Mohammad Iqbal Sir Muhammad Iqbal ( ur, ; 9 November 187721 April 1938), was a South Asian Muslim writer, philosopher, Quote: "In Persian, ... he published six volumes of mainly long poems between 1915 and 1936, ... more or less complete works on philoso ...

's poem '' Tarānah-e-Hindī'' ("Anthem of the People of Hind") was a popular patriotic song among Indian independence activists. ''Sāre jahāṉ se acchā Hindustān hamārā'' (the best of all lands is our Hindustan)

Partition of India

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 The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

, 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

. They insisted that the new

Dominion of India The Dominion of India, officially the Union of India,* Quote: “The first collective use (of the word "dominion") occurred at the Colonial Conference (April to May 1907) when the title was conferred upon Canada and Australia. New Zealand and N ...

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 The Constituent Assembly of India was elected to frame the Constitution of India. It was elected by the 'Provincial Assembly'. Following India's independence from the British rule in 1947, its members served as the nation's first Parliament as ...

, whereas 'Bharat' was adopted as an official name. It was recognised however that 'Hindustan' would continue to be used unofficially. The Indian Armed Forces use the salutary version of the name, "

Jai Hind Jai Hind (, , ) is a salutation and slogan that originally meant "Victory to Hindustan", and in contemporary colloquial usage often means "Long live India" or "Salute to India". Coined by Champakaraman Pillai and used during India's independenc ...

" as a battle cry.

References

General sources

* * * * * * * * *