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Re: We Need to Talk About India.
I think India is an attractive sounding name. I've run across it a few times, always on black women. I don't think it's popular with white people at all. the Gone With the Wind character (who was not actually a terribly important character to the story except for one incident) notwithstanding.I would also like to point out that India is the Latin? Greek? anyway, it's the European-coined name for the country/subcotinent. I don't know what the place is called by its non-English-speaking residents, actually, though that would be interesting.
I don't think that using the name of a country is offensive or should be taken as appropriation, as place names overall are and hav been quite popular.But my experience is that it's nearly always white people who get worked up about this kind of thing, and like you said, it's easy to end up telling other people what they ought to be offended over and basically coming off as a wannabe White Savior. Not calling you that or accusing you of it, just agreeing.Before you criticize a man, walk a mile in his shoes. That way, when you criticize him, you're a mile away and you have his shoes!
Steve Martin
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Bhārat Gaṇarājya is another name for India, but I think it's not universally used in India? Also there's Hindustan (Hindu and India are based off the same Sanskrit word, Sindhu referring to the Indus river), which seems old-fashioned to me but maybe some Indians still use it...

This message was edited 8/19/2022, 10:04 AM

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