SIR,—Mr. Stephens has omitted one possible alternative to Delkaria, which
in my opinion has equal if not superior merits. That a new word h necessary for the sub-continent which once was India (without possibility of confusion) no one can doubt. Why not Indinia ? It has one letter less than Delkaria. It departs little, though significantly, from the name which we have always used. It gives priority to the larger country, and yet in the magic syllable " din " should satisfy the smaller. "Dinia " was in fact the name given to the sub-continent by some of the earlier workers for a Pakistan State. (See, for instance, Mr. C. Rahmat Ali's pamphlet The Millat and the Mission, 1942.) As he wrote then: " Still to call her ' India,' i.e. the land of Indians or Hindoos, is to deny the existence on her soil of several faiths and their followers. . . . We must proclaim . . . that the sub-continent of India is the Continent of Dinia."
So why not Indinia, the land of Hindus, and the land of the (Muslim) religion ? The two countries share the letter " d " and so the name symbolises their partial kinship, for all but a minute per- centage of Indians, of whatever faith, had Indinians as their ancestors to the remotest ages. Chowdhuri himself suggested " Adiania "—" the land of religions "—as an alternative, but Indinia meets the need
far better.—Yours faithfully, E. F. OATEN. 7 Amyand Park Gardens, Twickenham, Middlesex.
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