The-Hindus-An-Alternative-History---Wendy-Doniger

Hindus (implicitly acknowledging their diversity). “Hindu” has, however, been an insider’s wordtoo for centuries, and it is the word that most Hindus do use now to refer to themselves. And it isnot uncommon for one culture to take from another a word to designate a concept for which theoriginal culture had a concept but not a word.That the word has a geographical basis is, as we have seen, absolutely true. But it is notjust the word but the very concept of Hindus and Hinduism that is geographically rooted inhistory. The textbook of legal code (dharma) attributed to Manu (first century CE) does not usethe word “Hindu” but does offer a geographical definition of the people to whom his dharmaapplies (a definition that, it is worth noting, uses animals to define humans):From the eastern sea to the western sea [the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal], the area inbetween the two mountains [the Himalayas and the Vindhyas] is what wise men call the Land ofthe Aryas. Where the black antelope ranges by nature, that should be known as the country fit forsacrifices; and beyond it is the country of the barbarians. The twice-born [the upper classes andparticularly Brahmins] should make every effort to settle in these countries [2.23-24]. Muchhas happened since the time when one could define India as the land where the (deer and the)antelope play from sea to shining sea (eastern to western). The belief that all Hindus (should)live in India may have been strong once, though more honored in the breach than in theobservance. The Hindus are, after all, one of the great merchant civilizations of the world, andthe diaspora is very old indeed. Even Manu merely expresses the pious hope that the upperclasses “make every effort” to stay within the boundary lines. Granted, many Hindus did sufferloss of caste status when they headed west across the Indus (particularly under the British Raj).Nevertheless, Hindus spread first through Southeast Asia and later through the British Empire,and they now live all over the world; there are approximately one and a half million Hindus inthe United States, some 0.5 percent of the population.So it has been said for much of Indian history that ideally, all Hindus should live in India.But the corresponding implication, that everyone in India is (or should be) a Hindu, was nevertrue, not true during the millennia of cultures before either the Indus Valley or the Vedas, nottrue of most of India even after those early settlements of North India, and certainly never trueafter the rise of Buddhism in the fifth century CE. Nowadays there are still enough Muslims inIndia—15 percent of the population, almost as many Muslims as in Pakistan 33 —to make Indiaone of the most populous Muslim nations in the world, and Muslim input into Indian culture isfar more extensive than the mere numbers would imply. Yet Hindu nationalists have used thegeographical implications of the word to equate Hinduism with India and therefore to excludefrom the right to thrive in India such people as Muslims and Christians; in 1922, V. D. Savarkarcoined the term “Hindutva” to express this equation. But not everyone who uses the word“Hinduism” can be assumed to be in their camp, an assumption that would reduce an intellectualproblem to a political problem and a move that we need not make. When we use the word, wecan, like Humpty Dumpty, pay it extra, in this case to mean not “the people of India” but theintersecting clusters of Hinduisms outlined above.What’s in a name? We might take a page from Prince and call it “the religion formerlyknown as Hinduism” or “Hinduism après la lettre.” Despite the many strikes against the word“Hinduism,” Hinduism by any other name would be just as impossible to categorize, and it isstill useful to employ some word for it. We cannot insist that Hindus rethink the name they wantto use for their tradition (as they have renamed not only streets in cities but whole cities, likeMadras/Chennai, Bombay/Mumbai, and Calcutta/Kolkata), no matter how recent or troubled thename may be. 34 “Hinduism” is, in any case, the only poker game in town right now; s it is by far