On Sun, 9 May 2004, Radhakrishnan Nair wrote: > Sandeep Heble, in his othewise well-written post, does not say how the > word 'Hindu' originated. It has its origins in Persion. The Iranians > called the Sindhu River 'Hindhu' as 'ha' is pronounced 'sa' in Persion. > Thus the people who lived on the banks of the Sindhu came to be known > as Hindus. > > As he rightly mentions, the word originally had no religious > connotations whatsoever.
Is the Pope a Catholic? Was Christ a Christian? Come on, I think we are playing on semantics to stretch the argument too far. Agreed, the origin of the word Hindu had geographical connotations, not religious. But is that the same situation today? When the saffron ideology talks in terms of "Hindu" Christians and "Hindu" Muslims (or terms to that effect), it is only playing on words and not talking about accepting all people of India equals whose equality is decided by modern concepts like citizenship -- rather than accidents of history, places of birth (as in the case of Sonia Gandhi) and possibly even religion. By stressing on the need to treat India as both the 'fatherland' and the 'holyland', are we not playing politics with words and meanings? Agreed that Hinduism is not defined as tightly as the Semitic-influenced religions, and has a lot of diversity within itself. But it would appear that the attempt to claim it is a religion when convenient, and argue otherwise when not, is a form of duplicity. Likewise, the attempts to clutch onto a statement made by a Supreme Court judge that Hinduism is a "way of life" is ingenious to say the least. It is true that few people would use the word "Hindu" to define themselves till very recently. But then, emerging identities can be formed rather rapidly in these times of electronic influences and what not. At the same time, we must not lose sight of the fact that the religion Hinduism and the politicised Hindutva are two very different entities, even if strenous attempts are being made by the latter to pass off as the former, largely for electoral and political gains. FN ########################################################################## # Send submissions for Goanet to [EMAIL PROTECTED] # # PLEASE remember to stay on-topic (related to Goa), and avoid top-posts # # More details on Goanet at http://joingoanet.shorturl.com/ # # Please keep your discussion/tone polite, to reflect respect to others # ##########################################################################
