JKLF chief comes home with his Pakistani bride

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

I am still rummaging through the immense amount of links you posted earlier.. will update that single post with everything I can find. There are just too many ******** rulers at different times for modern day Pakistan to be called a different people since the people remained largely same, only rulers kept changing and people kept changing loyalties.

The same could be said for all of South Aisa, rulers, over a varied set of ethnicities and cultures, kept changing.

What the maps suggest is that the lands comprising Pakistan have historically been part of empires that did not include what today comprises the Indian state. The same with the civilizations that largely existed in what is today Pakistan.

British did not name us India. The company that entered India from Bengal was East India Company. Dont you think it was a case of us naming them? India was named India/Hindustan faaar long back. Infact the Chinese which is an even older civilization calls us yindu. So yindu, hindu, india, indus, sindh all sound like emanating from the same phonetic root.

Amerigo Vespucci was looking for an alternate route to India wasn't he? So India as a name and land of riches was well established. Native Americans to this day are called American Indians.

I think the argument is that the British were the first to name a single politically consolidated entity India - before that the word India was used to describe a region.

Also, I am not amalgamating my posts for your benefit - you can read, so please go back and read what has been posted.

 

[lamayuru]

I think the argument is that the British were the first to name a single politically consolidated entity India - before that the word India was used to describe a region.

You have to use to your head. This is absolute hog wash that the British called us Indian to unify the empire.

British started their conquest of India via Bengal. If they were to name us, why choose the Indus river & not Ganga/Ganges which is a lot more central to the subcontinent, while Indus is periphery, farthest from where they start their conquest.

I am dumb struck at you could even suggest something so incredulous. Let me rest this controversy for good, & I don't know what your source of information is but would I like to know!

Names of India - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Etymology
"
The name India may refer to either the region of Greater India (the Indian subcontinent), or to the contemporary Republic of India contained therein. The term is derived from the name of the Sindhu (Indus River) and has been in use in Greek since Herodotus (4th century BC). The term appears in Old English in the 9th century, and again in Modern English since the 17th century.

....
The English term is from Greek Indía (Ἰνδί&#945, via Latin India. Iindía in Byzantine (Koine Greek) ethnography denotes the region beyond the Indus (Ἰνδό&#962 river, since Herodotus (5th century BC) ἡ Ἰνδική χώρη "Indian land", Ἰνδός "an Indian", from Avestan Hinduš (referring to Sindh, and listed as a conquered territory by Darius I in the Persepolis terrace inscription). The name is derived ultimately from Sindhu, the Sanskrit name of the river, but also meaning "river" generically. Latin India is used by Lucian (2nd century).

The name India was known in Old English, and was used in King Alfred's translation of Orosius. In Middle English, the name was, under French influence, replaced by Ynde or Inde, which entered Early Modern English as Indie. The name India then came back to English usage from the 17th century onwards, and may be due to the influence of Latin, or Spanish or Portuguese. [1]
.....
The term [Bharat] in Classical Sanskrit literature is taken to comprise the territory of Republic of India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh, as well as portions of eastern Afghanistan. This corresponds to the approximate extent of the historical Maurya Empire under emperors Chandragupta Maurya and Ashoka the Great (4th to 3rd centuries BC). Later political entities unifying approximately the same region are the Mughal Empire (17th century), the Maratha Empire (18th century) , and the British Raj (19th to 20th centuries).
"
4th century BC! That goes a long way before any Brits arrived here. 4th century BC!

What do you mean by before the word India was to describe a region. Every place word describes a region! Just as USA does or Doha does. Dont just say something to suit the world to yourself.

Specifically, to help you see the boundaries of the land even in 300 BC
"
c. 300 BC India/Indikē Megasthenes "India then being four-sided in plan, the side which looks to the Orient and that to the South, the Great Sea compasseth; that towards the Arctic is divided by the mountain chain of Hēmōdus from Scythia, inhabited by that tribe of Scythians who are called Sakai; and on the fourth side, turned towards the West, the Indus marks the boundary, the biggest or nearly so of all rivers after the Nile."
"

India has survived that long as an entity! It is more like it started out as India, was India under many Kings/rulers including the British, there was obviously no ambiguity in calling Bengal India by the time they arrived on Indian shores. It was geographically expanses as a country demarcated by sea to the south and Himalayas to the north and east, Indus to west have been approximated under:

1. Maurya Empire [Chandragupta Maurya & Ashoka the Great] 4BC..3BC
2. Mughal (17th century)
3. Maratha (18th century)
4. British (18th & 19th century)

So in contemporary history, all of India-Pak-Bangladesh had been India for 4 centuries until '47. And the earlier reference to Maurya Empire also testifies to all of it being one entity/one ruler.

 

[lamayuru]

The same could be said for all of South Aisa, rulers, over a varied set of ethnicities and cultures, kept changing.

What the maps suggest is that the lands comprising Pakistan have historically been part of empires that did not include what today comprises the Indian state. The same with the civilizations that largely existed in what is today Pakistan.

Yes. Various cultures and ethnicities yes. But they were never clearly demarcated, it has always been chaotic. There was just continuous war. So to pull out a few maps from some random times to suit yourself is partisan.

The fact is there was continuous flux. And the maps you and Omair have pointed out were not static for too long. My point remains the same ie the locals were the same, the rulers kept changing.

You should use things like farming tools, clothes, cultures, language as a parameter. Why is spoken language in Pakistan like Hindi, written script has changed I know? and not the language of the Saudi's, Iranians, Afghanis?

 

[lamayuru]

@AM:
"
What the maps suggest is that the lands comprising Pakistan have historically been part of empires that did not include what today comprises the Indian state. The same with the civilizations that largely existed in what is today Pakistan.
"
And prey what civilizations were they? Let me give you a hint: Feudal Warlords, left over from invading marauders, were gifted away prinicipalities. Again people remained same, rulers changed, Some were tolerant, some not so. Pakistanis ethnically are the same as North Indians, who are well, quite different from South Indians and Indians of the North Eastern frontier.

 

[lamayuru]

@AM:
"
What the maps suggest is that the lands comprising Pakistan have historically been part of empires that did not include what today comprises the Indian state. The same with the civilizations that largely existed in what is today Pakistan.
"

Well, you are referring Indus Valley civilization (Bronze Age!), it existed so far back that today no map can geniunely claim to show it accurately. It was a Hindu civilization, people were used to worshipping nature as elsewhere in civilizations of the period.

File:IVC Map.png - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It was a settlement of ancient Hindus around the river Indus. Would you read anymore into it?

You have to be clear first on whether you want to be known as sons of Ghazis who effectively came massacred your ancestors and went back to wherever it is they came from or be called an ancient people that was Hindu, but converted to Islam under different ruling interests. Does there even exist a factual history of what is now Pakistan in Pakistani library archives?

Do people in the middle east treat you as how should I put it.. equal Muslims? Or are the Arab Muslims superior to anything from the sub continent? There may lie a clue to where you come from.