Dear Editor
Recently, Mohan Bhagwant, the RSS head, repeated the rhetoric that every citizen of India is ‘Hindu’, like every citizen of America is American, Germany is German, Italy is Italian. But he misses a vital point that in those countries, American, German or Italian are not the name of any religion there. In India, ‘Hindus’ are a religious group and Hinduism is the nomenclature of their religion. Muslim invaders used to call India ‘Hindustan’ and consider all its natives as ‘Hindus’. After the 8th century, the ‘Sanatan Vedic Dharam’ was changed into ‘Hinduism’. The minorities of India would not object to being called ‘Hindus’ – natives of India – if the majority community rechristens it Sanatan Vedic Dharam.
KS Cheema,
Via-e-mail
