Pak leader moots common currency for India, Pakistan

[Virendra]

the Hindustan name to India was given by Muslims for being the place of Hindus
What is wrong in this?

Everything actually.
It is true that Persians transformed s to h at many places and hence called Sindhu as Hindu but that is not from where Indians are called Hindu.
'Hindu' term has been used for Indians much before that.

1. The Hamadan, Persepolis and Naqsh-I-Rustam Inscriptions4 of Persian monarch Darius mention a people 'Hidu' as included in his empire. These inscriptions are dated between 520-485 B.C.

2. Xerexes was ruling between 485-465 B.C.4 On a tomb in Persepolis, another inscription assigned to Artaxerexes (404-395 B.C.), mentions three things inscribed
a) 'iyam Qataguviya' (this is Satygidian),
b) 'iyam Ga(n)dariya' (this is Gandhara) and
c) 'iyam Hi(n)duviya' (this is Hi(n)du).

3. The Asokan inscriptions (3rd century B.C.), repeatedly use expressions like 'Hida' for 'India' and 'Hida loka' for 'Indian nation'.
'Hida' and its derivative forms are used more than 70 times in the Ashokan inscriptions.
Examples from Jaugadha rock edict II :

Line 3,4
(All men are my people. I desire for my people that they may be provided with all
welfare and happiness. I desire for my people, including the people of Hind and
beyond and I desire for all men.)

Line 7-8
(Dhamma may be followed and and the people of Hind and beyond may be
served.)

In Persepolis Pahlvi inscriptions of Shahpur II (310 A.D.) the king has the titles
"shakanshah hind shakastan u tuxaristan dabiran dabir",
That is
"king of Shakastan, minister of ministers of Hind Shakastan and Tukharistan"

The inscriptions of Darius and Xerexes which describe India as Hi(n)du, also use the
term 'Sugd' for Sogdiana. This 'Sugd' should have become 'Hugd' but it didn't.

4. In the Avesta, Hapta-Hindu is used for Sanskrit Sapta-Sindhu.
Avesta is dated variedly but many centuries back B.C.E.

5. In the Avestan Gatha 'Shatir', 163rd Verse speaks of the visit of Veda Vyas to the court of Gustashp
and in the presence of Zorashtra, Veda Vyas introduces himself saying
'man marde am Hind jijad' - I am man born in 'Hind'

6. The Greek term 'Indoi' is a softened/derivative form of 'Hindu' where the initial 'H' was dropped as the Greek alphabet has no aspirate.
The greek scholars used this derivative 'Indoi' as early as 6th century B.C.

7. The Hebrew bible uses 'Hodu' for India, which is a Judaic form of 'Hindu'.
Today's Hebrew spoken in Israel also uses Hodu for India.

8. The Chinese used the term 'Hien-tu' for 'Hindu' about 100 B.C.
While describing movements of the Sai-Wang (100 B.C.), the Chinese annals state that the Sai-Wang went towards the South and passing Hien-tu reached Ki-Pin.
Later Chinese travellers Fa-Hien (5th century A.D.) and Huen-Tsang (7th century A.D.) use a slightly modified term 'Yintu'.

9. Sair-ul-Okul is an anthology of ancient Arabic poetry available in the Turkish library Makhtab-e-Sultania in Istambul.
In this anthology is included a poem by Prophet Mohammed's uncle Omar-bin-e-Hassham.
The poem is in praise of Mahadev (Shiva), and uses 'Hind' for India and 'Hindu' for Indians.
Some verses are quoted below:

Wa Abaloha ajabu armeeman Mahadevo
Manojail ilamuddin minhum wa sayattaru
(If but once one worships Mahadev with devotion,
One will attain the ultimate salvation.)

Wa sahabi Kay yam feema Kamil Hinda e Yauman,
Wa Yakulam na latabahan foeennak Tawajjaru.
( Oh Lord grant me but one day's sojourn in Hind,
Where one can attain spiritual bliss.)

Massayare akhalakan hasanan Kullahum,
Najumam aja at Summa gabul Hindu.
( But one pilgrimage there gets one all merit,
And the company of great Hindu saints.)

The same anthology has another poem by Labi-bin-e Akhtab bin-e Turfa who is arguably dated 2300 years before Mohammed i.e. 1700 B.C.
This poem also uses 'Hind' for India and 'Hindu' for Indian. Some verses are as follows :

Aya muwarekal araj yushaiya noha minar Hinda e,
wa aradakallha manyonaifail jikaratun.
( Oh the Divine land of Hind, blessed art thou,
thou art chosen land showered with divine knowledge.)

Wahalatjali Yatun ainana sahabi akhatun jikra,
Wahajayahi yonajjalur rasu minal Hindatun.
( That celetial knowledge shines with such brilliance,
Through the words of Hindu saints in fourfold abundance.)

10. Meru Tantra, a Shaive (Sanskrit) text dated 4th-6th cnetury A.D. comments on 'Hindu' :
Heenam Cha Dooshyatyev Hindurityuchyate Priye
(Hindu is one who discards the mean and the ignoble.)

The same idea is expressed in Shabda Kalpadruma :
Heenam dooshayati iti Hindu

Brihaspati Agam says :
Himalayam Samarabhyam Yaavadindu Sarovaram
Tam Devanirmitam Desham Hindusthanam Prachakshate
(Starting from Himalaya upto Indu waters is this God-created country Hindusthan)


Vriddha Smriti (4th century B.C.) says :
Hinsaya Dooyate Yashcha Sadacharanatatpara
Vedagopratimasevi Sa Hindumukhshbdabhaak
(One who abhors the mean and the ignoble, and is of noblebearing,
who reveres the Veda, the cow, and the deity, is a Hindu.)

Many other ancient Sanskrit works before Arab arrival, use the term 'Hindu'.
Examples - Kalika Puran, Bhavishya Puran, Adbhut Kosh, Medini Kosh, Ram Kosh.
Even Kalidas has used a derivative form 'Haindava'.

As per Nirukta rules of Vedic grammar, in the Vedic language replacement of S with H is permitted.


So no, it was not the Muslims who named India or Indians as Hindustan or Hindus.
They only followed an existing terminology.
Thus, Hindu is an old original term as well as a transformed word for Sindhu.
The term is used in its original and transformed sense since way before the Muslims came in.

 

[Blackwater]

:der::der:

 

[Rage]

the Hindustan name to India was given by Muslims for being the place of Hindus
What is wrong in this?

The name "Hindustan" was not given to the land east of the Indus by the Muslims. Period. It's etymology dates back prior to the advent of Islam to the old Persian/Avestan for the people living east of the Indus, Hindus + their country, staan (or the Sanskrit cognate, sthan) and even finds mention in a shloka from the Barhaspatya Samhita of the Rigveda (ca. 1700-1100 BC):

Himalyam Samarabhya
Yavadindusarovaram
Tam Deonirmitam Desham
Hindusthanam Prachakshate

meaning: "the country which starts from Himalayas and the borders of which reach the Indian Ocean (Indu-sarovaram) is created by the devas and its name is Hindusthan."

Just thought I'd clear that up.

-x-x-x-x-


Now, for the topic at hand:

Why would we do the following:

- devalue our currency for Pakistan.
- make ourselves susceptible to large-scale money laundering, looser hawala channels and easier economic subversion by players with vested stakes and interests- and all the entailed political and militancy problems therein.
- given the political and military hostility, the primacy of the military in Pakistan and its recalcitrant political situation, subject ourselves to even more risks and financial instability in our currency market.
- subject our firms to greater technological, technical and competitive intelligence by the perils of foreign ownership.
- restrict our regulatory preferences and scope, calibrated to local-specific needs and risk-payoff preferences by diluting our discretion over them.
- subject ourselves to a wider range of shocks, given the widening dissimilarity of inter-national production structures.
- lead to great fiscal and financial disparity, by pooling resources that are needed elsewhere and giving them to 'free-riders'.
- subject ourselves to greater volatility under a common currency regime, where there is a high level of disparity in reform-movements and restructuring of the financial sectors in both countries.


Given that relative prices and outputs across both countries have not largely been coetanous or coequal, or for that matter even symmetrical, over the same economics shocks and the fact that factor mobility constraints will tend to be 'sticky', pending a political detente, there is no common ground for a monetary/currency union. Because managing a monetary union becomes very difficult when the co-movement of relative prices and outputs across countries is low and pointless when mobility of factors of production is constrained.


Clearly, Pakistan stands a lot to gain economically if they had a common currency with India. An argument can be made that the value of their currency, their fiscal and trade positions and general economic well-being could be improved through increased confidence in a much larger economy, with shared resources. But what do we stand to gain? Pakistan is not a large enough market for consumer goods to validate opening up our own, nor is it a destination for financial instruments or a large enough consumer of financial services. Its agricultural is even more abysmally organized than our own, and India is under no compelling constraints to completely eliminate all barriers from its agricultural market. Its poorer peripheral regions will necessitate a lot more support from central planning and resources, the greater bulk of which necessarily comes from India and are already strained within it. The political benefit is clearly not seen: there is no foreseeable extension of administrative control, no associated conjoint of institutions . The economic benefits are not clearly visible either: there is no 'optimum currency area', no significantly reducible transactions costs, given the volume of trade that prevails under the political and military situation, no inflationary benefits, given their logistical and fiscal roots and and no volatility reduction of any great benefit since the exogenous factors that affect both economies are common, while the endogenous variables are distinctly autonomous . The only benefit I can see from a common currency union is: a smoother passage to a gateway for Central Asian trade. But even then, the motivation for that resolution needs to be primarily political, and not economic.