I got interested in the history of resignation letters and found this book. Anyone read it? amazon.com/Last-Goodbye-H
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Curiosity piqued by video I saw yesterday of a stressed out government Covid doctor in India quitting due to abuse by politicians. He used the Urdu word for resignation letter (isteefa) which got me wondering why there’s no common Sanskrit-Hindi word for it.
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त्यागपत्र is quite commonly used, I think. especially in sanskritized Hindi context...
[in Sanskrit, परित्यज: = abandonment/to leave is used in different contexts]
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Older than 1955 for sure.
I remember seeing a few years ago a novel (‘The Resignation’) published by Penguin, translation of 1930s Hindi novel ‘Tyagpatra’.
Probably came to be used commonly in 19th C in the Hindi speaking areas as salaried employment with British increased.
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त्याग also has connotations of philanthropy/sacrifice/renunciation which are not quite appropriate for the concept at hand here, of potential dissent/conflict. I don’t know the etymology of isteefa, but am kinda assuming it has the modern sense of formal separation from an org.

