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135-526: The Hindu American Foundation ( abbr. HAF ) is an American Hindu non-profit advocacy group founded in 2003. The organisation has its roots in the Hindu nationalist organisation Vishwa Hindu Parishad America and its student wing Hindu Students Council . HAF's areas of activism include protecting Hindu rights in the United States, highlighting Hindu persecution in other countries, pushing back against

270-539: A Rabbi speak before." At funerals for the unknown soldier, rabbis stood alongside the other chaplains and recited prayers in Hebrew. In a much-publicized wartime tragedy, the sinking of the Dorchester , the ship's multi-faith chaplains gave up their lifebelts to evacuate seamen and stood together "arm in arm in prayer" as the ship sank. A 1948 postage stamp commemorated their heroism with the words: "interfaith in action." In

405-482: A "Judeo-Christian tradition" as supersessionism : Once one recognizes that Christianity has historically engendered antisemitism, then this so-called tradition appears as dangerous Christian dogma (at least from a Jewish perspective). For Christians, the concept of a Judeo-Christian tradition comfortably suggests that Judaism progresses into Christianity—that Judaism is somehow completed in Christianity. The concept of

540-605: A "rise" in Hinduphobic hate crimes in 2019 to not correspond with reality — out of the 7,120 hate crimes which were reported to the FBI in 2018, only fourteen concerned Hindus; the years before, this count was stable at eleven and ten. In 2016, HAF along with Indiaspora and other organizations convinced the United States Postal Service to issue a stamp commemorating the festival of Diwali . In 2002, Gujarat witnessed

675-547: A "stereotype", that was imposed upon South Asians only by the British Raj. In October 2022, HAF provided legal representation to two University of California professors who sued their employer to prevent the implementation of caste-based protections. The month before, they unsuccessfully sued the California Civil Rights Department for allegedly misrepresenting caste as intrinsic to Hinduism in its submission to

810-489: A Hindu religious identity". Scholars state that Hindu, Buddhist and Jain identities are retrospectively-introduced modern constructions. Inscriptional evidence from the 8th century onwards, in regions such as South India, suggests that medieval era India, at both elite and folk religious practices level, likely had a "shared religious culture", and their collective identities were "multiple, layered and fuzzy". Even among Hinduism denominations such as Shaivism and Vaishnavism,

945-510: A Judeo-Christian tradition flows from the Christian theology of supersession, whereby the Christian covenant (or Testament) with God supersedes the Jewish one. Christianity, according to this belief, reforms and replaces Judaism. The belief, therefore, implies, first, that Judaism needs reformation and replacement, and second, that modern Judaism remains merely as a "relic". Most importantly the belief of

1080-516: A North western Indian region of seven rivers and as an India whole). The Greek cognates of the same terms are " Indus " (for the river) and " India " (for the land of the river). Likewise Hebrew cognate hōd-dū refers to India mentioned in Hebrew Bible ( Esther 1:1 ). The term " Hindu " also implied a geographic, ethnic or cultural identifier for people living in the Indian subcontinent around or beyond

1215-671: A coalition of other religious groups, filed a lawsuit and blocked the issuance of Christian-themed license plates in South Carolina. In 2015, as a part of the Hate Crimes Coalition, HAF participated in the drafting and submission of edits to an FBI manual to track hate crimes against Hindus specifically. However, Azad Essa argued that the HAF has exaggerated the hate crimes faced by Hindus in America. Essa found HAF's alarmist statements about

1350-604: A common name for the country. Al-Biruni 's 11th-century text Tarikh Al-Hind , and the texts of the Delhi Sultanate period use the term 'Hindu', where it includes all non-Islamic people such as Buddhists, and retains the ambiguity of being "a region or a religion". The 'Hindu' community occurs as the amorphous 'Other' of the Muslim community in the court chronicles, according to the Indian historian Romila Thapar . The comparative religion scholar Wilfred Cantwell Smith notes that

1485-753: A communal riot under the Chief Ministership of Narendra Modi ; scholars blamed the incumbent government — including Modi himself — for active complicity. In 2005, when the Asian-American Hotel Owners Association invited Modi for an address, activists, including John Prabhudoss , lobbied the United States Congress to introduce a resolution criticizing him for his role in those riots. Joseph Pitts and John Conyers introduced House Resolution 160 to such effects. HAF opposed this resolution, deeming it "Hinduphobic" and criticizing

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1620-489: A conglomeration of American universities. It accused the conference of platforming activists with "extensive histories of amplifying Hinduphobic discourse ... [who] equate the whole of Hinduism with caste bigotry, deny the subcontinental indigeneity of Hindus ... and deny the resulting genocides and ethnic cleansings of Hindus". Multiple academics and activists involved in the conference reported receiving death threats and being subject to other forms of intimidation. In response,

1755-523: A consequence, religious groups have an interest in being recognised as distinct from the Hindu majority in order to qualify as a "religious minority". Thus, the Supreme Court was forced to consider the question whether Jainism is part of Hinduism in 2005 and 2006. Starting after the 10th century and particularly after the 12th century Islamic invasion, states Sheldon Pollock , the political response fused with

1890-576: A diversity of beliefs, and seems to oscillate between Hindus holding a centralist and pluralist religious views. In the texts of Delhi Sultanate era, states Sharma, the term Hindu remains ambiguous on whether it means people of a region or religion, giving the example of Ibn Battuta's explanation of the name "Hindu Kush" for a mountain range in Afghanistan. It was so called, wrote Ibn Battuta, because many Indian slaves died there of snow cold, as they were marched across that mountain range. The term Hindu there

2025-566: A fixed set of religious beliefs within Hinduism. One need not be religious in the minimal sense, states Julius Lipner , to be accepted as Hindu by Hindus, or to describe oneself as Hindu. Hindus subscribe to a diversity of ideas on spirituality and traditions, but have no ecclesiastical order, no unquestionable religious authorities, no governing body, nor a single founding prophet; Hindus can choose to be polytheistic, pantheistic, monotheistic, monistic, agnostic, atheistic or humanist. Because of

2160-420: A labor law attorney; and his wife, Adeeti Joshi, a speech therapist. Describing itself as a human rights and advocacy group, it emphasized upon the "Hindu and American ideals of understanding, tolerance and pluralism ." Vinay Lal , a professor of South Asian history at University of California, Los Angeles noted that the organization appeared to have banked on the enormous goodwill created by Mahatma Gandhi in

2295-722: A lack of theological sanction in its most sacred texts and urged for reforms led by Hindus themselves. This led to a flutter in conservative Hindu circles in India and the following year, HAF toned down their report; they even cautioned against the trend of passing resolutions against caste discrimination adopted by various global organizations and held caste to be an internal affair of a sovereign India. HAF has since portrayed castes as occupational guilds which had brought stability to premodern India before being reified under British colonialism ; it has vehemently opposed drawing parallels between caste-discrimination and racism — arguing that it belittles

2430-474: A lawsuit against California's Curriculum Commission's decision to reject most of the edits proposed by the Vedic Foundation and Hindu Education Foundation — two Hindu Nationalist groups linked with RSS — to the textbooks taught in the state. The suggested changes had sought to downplay the salience of caste in Indian history, reject Indo-Aryan migrations in favor of Indigenous Aryanism , and not describe

2565-552: A millennium, allegedly found a channel of outburst in the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the demolition of the Babri Masjid . Coalition Against Genocide (CAG) — a platform established in the aftermath of 2002 Gujarat riots against Hindu nationalist violence directed at minorities — alleged the formation of HAF to have been the outcome of Meghani's parleys on the governing council of VHPA and an effort to rebrand

2700-615: A politics embedded in Hindutva. Sailaja Krishnamurti, a professor at Saint Mary's University (Halifax) who specializes in religious traditions of the South Asian diaspora, summarized that HAF has "earned a reputation" of being a conservative group purveying Hindu nationalist politics. Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst, a historian specializing in South Asian religions at the University of Vermont , qualified

2835-427: A priest, a rabbi, and a minister, to run programs across the country, and fashion a more pluralistic America, no longer defined as a Christian land, but "one nurtured by three ennobling traditions: Protestantism , Catholicism and Judaism ....The phrase 'Judeo-Christian' entered the contemporary lexicon as the standard liberal term for the idea that Western values rest on a religious consensus that included Jews." In

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2970-456: A professor of Religious Studies at Indiana University , located HAF's claims within a polemical discourse of religious fundamentalism that unwittingly borrowed from and mirrored the West; while HAF spoke about the inevitable Hinduization of anybody who chooses to practice Yoga in its "true essence", the Christian far-right denounced Yoga as a satanic act which took practitioners away from Christ into

3105-601: A professor of Yoga Studies at Loyola Marymount University , found it ironic that to defend against perceived Christian ingressions, HAF had to borrow from Christian (and colonial) notions of what constituted a Yogic canon. In 2010, HAF issued a report titled "Hinduism: Not Cast in Caste" alleging that Christian missionaries were able to push their proselytizing agenda only because of the prevalence of caste discrimination in India ; it went on to argue that caste cannot be considered to be an intrinsic definitional aspect of Hinduism due to

3240-447: A reaction to alleged cultural appropriation and secularization of yoga by popular press and neo-gurus who according to the HAF "abstained from discussing the origins of yoga in Hinduism and corrupted a Hindu philosophical practice to a mere collection of physical postures." Particular emphasis was laid on the Hindu nature of yoga manuals across centuries to corroborate claims of yoga being a Hindu form of spiritual quest. Andrea Jain ,

3375-401: A reasonable construction of history. However, the existence of non-textual evidence such as cave temples separated by thousands of kilometers, as well as lists of medieval era pilgrimage sites, is evidence of a shared sacred geography and existence of a community that was self-aware of shared religious premises and landscape. Further, it is a norm in evolving cultures that there is a gap between

3510-546: A record of producing "anti-Hindu scholarship". On 15 March 2022, Judge Amit Mehta stayed the defendants' motions to dismiss the suit since he deemed one of their arguments about whether HAF had satisfied the second requirement of invoking diversity jurisdiction — by proving the amount of monetary loss to have exceeded 75,000 USD — as a "substantial question" of procedure, that needed to be settled before adjudication on merits. Mehta accepted HAF's new evidence to pass muster and ordered discovery. On 20 December 2022, he dismissed

3645-659: A religion and digital culture scholar at University of Denver , found the lawsuit to leverage "the rhetoric and tactics of social justice activists" in "pursuit of an oppressive ideology." Sundaram, Dheepa (23 June 2023). "Hindutva 2.0: How a Conference on Hindu Nationalism Launches a Change in Strategy for North American Hindutva Organizations" . Journal of the American Academy of Religion . 90 (4): 809–814. doi : 10.1093/jaarel/lfad028 . ISSN   0002-7189 . </ref> Scholars, almost unanimously, agree that HAF purveys

3780-430: A result of Western influence during its colonial history. Scholars such as Fleming and Eck state that the post-Epic era literature from the 1st millennium CE amply demonstrate that there was a historic concept of the Indian subcontinent as a sacred geography, where the sacredness was a shared set of religious ideas. For example, the twelve Jyotirlingas of Shaivism and fifty-one Shaktipithas of Shaktism are described in

3915-625: A sacred pilgrimage site is documented in the Varanasimahatmya text embedded inside the Skanda Purana , and the oldest versions of this text are dated to 6th to 8th-century CE. The idea of twelve sacred sites in Shiva Hindu tradition spread across the Indian subcontinent appears not only in the medieval era temples but also in copper plate inscriptions and temple seals discovered in different sites. According to Bhardwaj, non-Hindu texts such as

4050-747: A saint. [...] When Khusraw stopped at his residence, [Arjan] came out and had an interview with [Khusraw]. Giving him some elementary spiritual precepts picked up here and there, he made a mark with saffron on his forehead, which is called qashqa in the idiom of the Hindus and which they consider lucky. When this was reported to me, I realized how perfectly false he was and ordered him brought to me. I awarded his houses and dwellings and those of his children to Murtaza Khan, and I ordered his possessions and goods confiscated and him executed. Sikh scholar Pashaura Singh states, "in Persian writings, Sikhs were regarded as Hindu in

4185-468: A theological or liturgical) sense was used by George Orwell in 1939, along with the phrase "the Judaeo-Christian scheme of morals". According to theologian Richard L. Rubenstein , the "normative Judaeo-Christian interpretation of history" is to treat human suffering, such as a plague, as punishment for human guilt. According to historian K. Healan Gaston, the term became a descriptor of the U.S. in

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4320-533: A uniform civil code, where all citizens are subject to the same laws, everyone has equal civil rights, and individual rights do not depend on the individual's religion. In contrast, opponents of Hindu nationalists remark that eliminating religious law from India poses a threat to the cultural identity and religious rights of Muslims, and people of Islamic faith have a constitutional right to Islamic shariah -based personal laws. A specific law, contentious between Hindu nationalists and their opponents in India, relates to

4455-560: A vector for Islamophobia by exclusion. The Jewish community's attitude towards the concept has been mixed. In the 1930s, "In the face of worldwide anti-semitic efforts to stigmatize and destroy Judaism, influential Christians and Jews in America labored to uphold it, pushing Judaism from the margins of American religious life towards its very center." During World War II , Jewish chaplains worked with Catholic priests and Protestant ministers in order to promote goodwill, addressing servicemen who, "in many cases had never seen, much less heard

4590-598: A wedding or when a baby is born or cremation rituals. Some Hindus go on pilgrimage to shared sites they consider spiritually significant, practice one or more forms of bhakti or puja , celebrate mythology and epics, major festivals, love and respect for guru and family, and other cultural traditions. A Hindu could: In the Constitution of India , the word "Hindu" has been used in some places to denote persons professing any of these religions: Hinduism , Jainism , Buddhism or Sikhism . This however has been challenged by

4725-727: A wide range of organizations and individuals that alleged its links to Hindutva. However, Arun Chaudhuri, an anthropologist of religion and politics at York University , cautions that such disavowals should not be taken at face value but rather as efforts at distancing HAF from the overtly negative connotations of Hindu nationalism. Sonia Sikka, an academic specializing in the intersection of religion and politics, too rejects HAF's claims of non-partisanship. Hindus Traditional Hindus ( Hindustani: [ˈɦɪndu] ; / ˈ h ɪ n d uː z / ; also known as Sanātanīs ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism , also known by its endonym Sanātana Dharma . Historically,

4860-528: A world where the term Judeo-Christian had obscured critical differences between the two faiths." Reacting against the blurring of theological distinctions, Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits wrote that "Judaism is Judaism because it rejects Christianity, and Christianity is Christianity because it rejects Judaism." Theologian and author Arthur A. Cohen , in The Myth of the Judeo-Christian Tradition , questioned

4995-469: Is a controversial political subject, with no consensus about what it means or implies in terms of the form of government and religious rights of the minorities. There are 1.2 billion Hindus worldwide (15% of world's population), with about 95% of them being concentrated in India alone. Along with Christians (31.5%), Muslims (23.2%) and Buddhists (7.1%), Hindus are one of the four major religious groups of

5130-464: Is a term used to describe the culture and identity of Hindus and Hinduism , including the historic Vedic people . Hindu culture can be intensively seen in the form of art , architecture , history , diet , clothing , astrology and other forms. The culture of India and Hinduism is deeply influenced and assimilated with each other. With the Indianisation of southeast Asia and Greater India ,

5265-651: Is ambivalent and could mean geographical region or religion. The term Hindu appears in the texts from the Mughal Empire era. Jahangir , for example, called the Sikh Guru Arjan a Hindu: There was a Hindu named Arjan in Gobindwal on the banks of the Beas River. Pretending to be a spiritual guide, he had won over as devotees many simple-minded Indians and even some ignorant, stupid Muslims by broadcasting his claims to be

5400-474: Is an organic relation of Sikhs to Hindus, states Zaehner, both in religious thought and their communities, and virtually all Sikhs' ancestors were Hindus. Marriages between Sikhs and Hindus, particularly among Khatris , were frequent. Some Hindu families brought up a son as a Sikh, and some Hindus view Sikhism as a tradition within Hinduism, even though the Sikh faith is a distinct religion. Julius Lipner states that

5535-631: Is documented in Islamic literature such as those relating to 8th century Muhammad bin-Qasim , 11th century Mahmud of Ghazni , the Persian traveler Al Biruni, the 14th century Islamic army invasion led by Timur, and various Sunni Islamic rulers of the Delhi Sultanate and Mughal Empire. There were occasional exceptions such as Akbar who stopped the persecution of Hindus, and occasional severe persecution such as under Aurangzeb , who destroyed temples, forcibly converted non-Muslims to Islam and banned

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5670-479: Is especially focused on areas of commonality between the teachings of Judaism and their own beliefs. During the late 1940s, evangelical proponents of the new Judeo-Christian approach lobbied Washington for diplomatic support of the new state of Israel. From the 1990s, continuing through the first two decades of the 21st century, interest in and a positive attitude towards America's Judeo-Christian tradition has become mainstream among evangelicals and (to some extent)

5805-554: Is this Rama to be described.. who freed Varanasi from the mleccha (barbarian, Turk Muslim) horde, and built there a golden temple of Sarngadhara". Pollock notes that the Yadava king Ramacandra is described as a devotee of deity Shiva (Shaivism), yet his political achievements and temple construction sponsorship in Varanasi, far from his kingdom's location in the Deccan region, is described in

5940-556: The American Historical Association condemned the attacks against academic freedom, and the Association for Asian Studies noted Hindutva to be a "majoritarian ideological doctrine" different from Hinduism , whose rise to prominence had accompanied "increasing attacks on numerous scholars, artists and journalists." The conference went ahead as scheduled and without any significant disruptions. HAF has since complained to

6075-630: The California State Senate passed the bill after a divisive debate. However, in October 2023, after sustained lobbying by HAF, California Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed the bill, agreeing that "caste discrimination [was] already prohibited under existing civil rights protections". Audrey Truschke , a historian of South Asia at Rutgers University , notes HAF to have "prioritized attacks on higher education." Other scholars agree. In March 2006, HAF filed

6210-484: The Cisco caste discrimination lawsuit . Ajantha Subramaniam, a professor of South Asian Studies at Harvard University, rejected HAF's charges concerning anti-caste legislations and questioned their accusations of being discriminated based on religion; she and other scholars emphasized on the depth of scholarship that has held caste to be a reality of central significance from premodern South Asia to present-day India including in

6345-487: The Hindu Sabhas (Hindu associations), and ultimately a Hindu-identity driven nationalism in the 1920s. The colonial era Hindu revivalism and mobilisation, along with Hindu nationalism, states Peter van der Veer, was primarily a reaction to and competition with Muslim separatism and Muslim nationalism. The successes of each side fed the fears of the other, leading to the growth of Hindu nationalism and Muslim nationalism in

6480-484: The Hindutva agenda as "Hindu rights" to suit mainstream American politics. They further note most of the HAF office bearers to have been drawn from HSC activists. HAF rejected that their founders had any ties with Hindu Nationalist politics and accused CAG's "leaders and member organisations" of "espousing Marxist ideology or fringe Islamist positions, openly advocating anti-American, anti-Israel, and anti-India views". HAF

6615-762: The Sindhu (Indus) River . By the 16th century CE, the term began to refer to residents of the subcontinent who were not Turkic or Muslims . Since ancient times, Hindu has been used to refer to people inhibiting region beyond the Sindhu river, therefore some assumptions that medieval Persian authors considered Hindu as derogatory is not accepted by practicing Hindus themselves as those references are much later to references used in pre-Islamic Persian sources, early Arab and Indian sources, all of them had positive connotation only as they either referred to region or followers of Hinduism. The historical development of Hindu self-identity within

6750-578: The United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom . These together accounted for 99% of the world's Hindu population, and the remaining nations of the world combined had about 6 million Hindus as of 2010 . The word Hindu is an exonym . This word Hindu is derived from the Indo-Aryan and Sanskrit word Sindhu , which means "a large body of water", covering "river, ocean". It was used as

6885-450: The University of Colorado, Boulder , specializing in gender and sexuality studies found the group's queer-friendly portrayal of Hinduism to be embedded within a discourse of Hindutva homonationalism . The BBC has noted that the HAF has lobbied support in favor of Narendra Modi, the incumbent Prime Minister of India, amongst the diaspora. Georgetown University 's Bridge Initiative found HAF board member Rishi Bhutada to have also served as

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7020-813: The Upanishads . The Puranas and the Itihasa (mainly Ramayana and the Mahabharata ) are enduring traditions among Indonesian Hindus, expressed in community dances and shadow puppet ( wayang ) performances. As in India, Indonesian Hindus recognise four paths of spirituality, calling it Catur Marga . Similarly, like Hindus in India, Balinese Hindus believe that there are four proper goals of human life, calling it Catur Purusartha – dharma (pursuit of moral and ethical living), artha (pursuit of wealth and creative activity), kama (pursuit of joy and love) and moksha (pursuit of self-knowledge and liberation). Hindu culture

7155-587: The diaspora . In early 2023, HAF was among several Hindu-American organizations that opposed the SB 403 bill , which aimed to explicitly add caste into the definition of ancestry under anti-discrimination laws in California . The proponents of the bill insisted that an explicit ban on caste discrimination was needed to raise awareness of this bias, but HAF contended that this proposal unfairly targeted Hindus; and may result in racial profiling against Hindu Americans. In May,

7290-418: The revocation of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir , which took away the autonomy of the province and rendered it a union territory, HAF published a "Reporter’s Guide" which emphasized about how the new regulations would ensure equal property rights for women, protections for the queer community, and better opportunities for Dalits in the region. In 2010, HAF launched the "Take Back Yoga" campaign as

7425-399: The "lived and historical realities" of a religious tradition and the emergence of related "textual authorities". The tradition and temples likely existed well before the medieval era Hindu manuscripts appeared that describe them and the sacred geography. This, states Fleming, is apparent given the sophistication of the architecture and the sacred sites along with the variance in the versions of

7560-583: The 17th-century Bhakta Mala text using the phrase "Hindu dharma ". Scholar Arvind Sharma notes that the term "Hindus" was used in the 'Brahmanabad settlement' which Muhammad ibn Qasim made with non-Muslims after the Arab invasion of northwestern Sindh region of India, in 712 CE. The term 'Hindu' meant people who were non-Muslims, and it included Buddhists of the region. In the 11th-century text of Al Biruni, Hindus are referred to as "religious antagonists" to Islam, as those who believe in rebirth, presents them to hold

7695-767: The 1920s, as a reaction to the Islamic Khilafat Movement wherein Indian Muslims championed and took the cause of the Turkish Ottoman sultan as the Caliph of all Muslims, at the end of the World War I . Hindus viewed this development as one of divided loyalties of Indian Muslim population, of pan-Islamic hegemony, and questioned whether Indian Muslims were a part of an inclusive anti-colonial Indian nationalism. The Hindu nationalism ideology that emerged, states Jeffrelot,

7830-551: The 1930s, when the country sought to forge a unified cultural identity in an attempt to distinguish itself from fascism and communism in Europe. Becoming part of the American civil religion by the 1940s, the term rose to greater prominence during the Cold War , especially when it was used to express opposition to communist atheism . In the 1970s, the term became particularly associated with

7965-509: The 1950s, "a spiritual and cultural revival washed over American Jewry" in response to the trauma of the Holocaust. American Jews became more confident in their desire to be identified as different. Two notable books addressed the relationship between contemporary Judaism and Christianity, Abba Hillel Silver 's Where Judaism Differs and Leo Baeck 's Judaism and Christianity , both motivated by an impulse to clarify Judaism's distinctiveness "in

8100-574: The 19th century as a response to British colonialism by Indian nationalists and neo-Hinduism gurus. Jaffrelot states that the efforts of Christian missionaries and Islamic proselytizers, during the British colonial era, each of whom tried to gain new converts to their own religion, by stereotyping and stigmatising Hindus to an identity of being inferior and superstitious, contributed to Hindus re-asserting their spiritual heritage and counter cross examining Islam and Christianity, forming organisations such as

8235-509: The 7th-century CE Chinese text Records on the Western Regions by the Buddhist scholar Xuanzang . Xuanzang uses the transliterated term In-tu whose "connotation overflows in the religious" according to Arvind Sharma . While Xuanzang suggested that the term refers to the country named after the moon, another Buddhist scholar I-tsing contradicted the conclusion saying that In-tu was not

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8370-573: The American Christian right . It is sometimes employed in a separate context in political attempts to restrict immigration and LGBT rights . The rise of antisemitism in the 1930s led concerned Protestants, Catholics, and Jews to take steps to increase mutual understanding and lessen the level of antisemitism in the United States . In this effort, precursors of the National Conference of Christians and Jews created teams consisting of

8505-624: The Congressmen for making India the "focus of a resolution condemning religious persecution in South Asia" while ignoring Pakistan and Bangladesh. Nonetheless, the State Department denied Modi a visa two days after the bill was introduced. In 2013, HAF again opposed a fresh bill by Pitts that commended the 2005 visa denial, encouraged the federal government "to review the applications of any individuals implicated in religious freedom violations under

8640-592: The Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights against the University of Pennsylvania for violating Title VI requirements — they alleged that the University, co-sponsored a "one-sided" conference, promoted negative "stereotypes and slurs" about Hindu academics, and discriminated against them. However, multiple professors at the University who identify as Hindus rejected the accusations and highlighted how HAF had weaponized Hindutva to stifle free speech. Dheepa Sundaram,

8775-471: The European merchants and colonists began to refer to the followers of Indian religions collectively as Hindus. Other prominent mentions of 'Hindu' include the epigraphical inscriptions from Andhra Pradesh kingdoms who battled military expansion of Muslim dynasties in the 14th century, where the word 'Hindu' partly implies a religious identity in contrast to 'Turks' or Islamic religious identity. The term Hindu

8910-664: The German term "Judenchristlich" ("Jewish-Christian") to describe and emphasize what he believed were neglected aspects of the continuity which exists between the Jewish and Christian worldviews. The expression appears in The Antichrist , published in 1895 but written several years earlier; a fuller development of Nietzsche's argument can be found in the prior work, On the Genealogy of Morality . The concept of Judeo-Christian ethics or Judeo-Christian values in an ethical (rather than

9045-404: The HAF as a "deeply conservative" outfit. Sangay K. Mishra, an assistant professor of political science at Drew University , argued that the HAF had remolded Hindutva -leaning politics into the language of "Hindu rights" to be palatable in the American mainstream. Truschke finds HAF to be an integral component of the "wider Sangh Parivar" and Hindu right in the United States. Sundaram found among

9180-678: The Hindu identities, states Leslie Orr, lacked "firm definitions and clear boundaries". Overlaps in Jain-Hindu identities have included Jains worshipping Hindu deities, intermarriages between Jains and Hindus, and medieval era Jain temples featuring Hindu religious icons and sculpture. Beyond India, on Java island of Indonesia , historical records attest to marriages between Hindus and Buddhists, medieval era temple architecture and sculptures that simultaneously incorporate Hindu and Buddhist themes, where Hinduism and Buddhism merged and functioned as "two separate paths within one overall system", according to Ann Kenney and other scholars. Similarly, there

9315-523: The Hindu identity and religious response to Islamic invasion and wars developed in different kingdoms, such as wars between Islamic Sultanates and the Vijayanagara kingdom, and Islamic raids on the kingdoms in Tamil Nadu . These wars were described not just using the mythical story of Rama from Ramayana, states Chattopadhyaya, the medieval records used a wide range of religious symbolism and myths that are now considered as part of Hindu literature. This emergence of religious with political terminology began with

9450-413: The Hindu-majority post-British India. After the separation of India and Pakistan in 1947, the Hindu nationalism movement developed the concept of Hindutva in second half of the 20th century. The Hindu nationalism movement has sought to reform Indian laws, that critics say attempts to impose Hindu values on India's Islamic minority. Gerald Larson states, for example, that Hindu nationalists have sought

9585-701: The Hindus and intensely scrutinized them, but did not interrogate and avoided reporting the practices and religion of Mughal and Arabs in South Asia", and often relied on Muslim scholars to characterise Hindus. In contemporary era, the term Hindus are individuals who identify with one or more aspects of Hinduism , whether they are practising or non-practicing or Laissez-faire . The term does not include those who identify with other Indian religions such as Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism or various animist tribal religions found in India such as Sarnaism . The term Hindu, in contemporary parlance, includes people who accept themselves as culturally or ethnically Hindu rather than with

9720-450: The Indian subcontinent. In the 20th century, the sense of religious nationalism grew in India, states van der Veer, but only Muslim nationalism succeeded with the formation of the West and East Pakistan (later split into Pakistan and Bangladesh), as "an Islamic state" upon independence. Religious riots and social trauma followed as millions of Hindus, Jains, Buddhists and Sikhs moved out of the newly created Islamic states and resettled into

9855-451: The Indic religious culture and doctrines. Temples dedicated to deity Rama were built from north to south India, and textual records as well as hagiographic inscriptions began comparing the Hindu epic of Ramayana to regional kings and their response to Islamic attacks. The Yadava king of Devagiri named Ramacandra , for example states Pollock, is described in a 13th-century record as, "How

9990-506: The Jewish populace. The scriptural basis for this new positive attitude towards Jews among evangelicals is found in Genesis 12:3, in which God promises that he will bless those who bless Abraham , and curse those who curse them. In the evangelical interpretation this promise includes the descendants of Abraham. Other factors in the new philo-Semitism include gratitude to the Jews for contributing to

10125-565: The Puranic literature. According to Diana L. Eck and other Indologists such as André Wink, Muslim invaders were aware of Hindu sacred geography such as Mathura, Ujjain, and Varanasi by the 11th century. These sites became a target of their serial attacks in the centuries that followed. The Hindus have been persecuted during the medieval and modern era. The medieval persecution included waves of plunder, killing, destruction of temples and enslavement by Turk-Mongol Muslim armies from central Asia. This

10260-459: The RSS as defamatory. A diverse group of intellectuals and academics — Akeel Bilgrami , Amitav Ghosh , Anita Desai , Cornel West , Martha Nussbaum , Nandini Sundar , Noam Chomsky , Romila Thapar , Sudipta Kaviraj , Sheldon Pollock , and Wendy Doniger among others — condemned HAF's tactics as a SLAPP , designed to silence critics and push forward Hindutva . Shukla, in response, noted them to have

10395-714: The Sikhs and by neo-Buddhists who were formerly Hindus. According to Sheen and Boyle, Jains have not objected to being covered by personal laws termed under 'Hindu', but Indian courts have acknowledged that Jainism is a distinct religion. The Republic of India is in the peculiar situation that the Supreme Court of India has repeatedly been called upon to define "Hinduism" because the Constitution of India , while it prohibits "discrimination of any citizen" on grounds of religion in article 15, article 30 foresees special rights for "All minorities, whether based on religion or language". As

10530-746: The US to create an axis of countries against Islamic terrorism . In 2004, HAF unsucessfully challenged the public display of the Ten Commandments in Texas, appearing as amici curiae in Van Orden v. Perry in the United States Supreme Court ; they argued that the display represented an "inherent government preference" for Judeo-Christian religions over others and hence, violated the state's obligation to maintain religious neutrality. In 2008, HAF, along with

10665-603: The West. In 1991, Meghani had founded the University of Michigan 's chapter of the Hindu Students Council (HSC), a nationwide network of student societies affiliated with the Vishwa Hindu Parishad America (VHPA). He went on to serve on the governing council of VHPA and authored an essay for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) comparing Hindus — a religious majority in India — with Jews, Black Americans, and colonized groups, whose bottled-up anger, for over

10800-533: The Yavanas [Muslims], The Kali age now deserves deepest congratulations for being at the zenith of its power, gone is the sacred learning, hidden is refinement, hushed is the voice of Dharma . The historiographic writings in Telugu language from the 13th- and 14th-century Kakatiya dynasty period presents a similar "alien other (Turk)" and "self-identity (Hindu)" contrast. Chattopadhyaya, and other scholars, state that

10935-487: The abuse of Hindus in the Muslim-majority regions of South Asia, including Kashmir , Bangladesh and Pakistan ; </ref> since then, they have continued to publish regular "Hindu Human Rights" reports. HAF critiqued Pakistan's treatment of Hindus and advocated for better assimilation and integration of Pakistani Hindu migrants and refugees in India. The organization also supported strong ties between India, Israel and

11070-504: The academic freedom of scholars to "offer any interpretation" of any religion. In May 2021, HAF filed a defamation lawsuit against Sunita Viswanath and Raju Rajagopal of Hindus for Human Rights , Rasheed Ahmed from the Indian American Muslim Council , Prabhudoss, and Truschke. It alleged statements in two Al Jazeera articles that characterized the HAF as having "ties to Hindu supremacist and religious groups" and with

11205-573: The aftermath of World War 2 and the Holocaust , "there was a revolution in Christian theology in America. […] The greatest shift in Christian attitudes towards the Jewish people since Constantine converted the Roman Empire ." The rise of Christian Zionism , religiously motivated Christian interest, and support for the state of Israel increased interest in Judaism among American evangelicals . This interest

11340-489: The brutality faced by African Americans — or even any depiction of the caste-system as a rigid birth-determined pyramid of hierarchy. In 2021, on the heels of prolonged transnational activism by Dalits, "caste" was added as a protected category to California State University 's anti-discrimination policy. HAF perceived such policies to have the potential to enable the malicious targeting of Indian Hindu academics and lodged stiff opposition; their office-bearers argued caste to be

11475-526: The celebration of Hindu festivals such as Holi and Diwali . Other recorded persecution of Hindus include those under the reign of 18th century Tipu Sultan in south India, and during the colonial era. In the modern era, religious persecution of Hindus have been reported outside India in Pakistan and Bangladesh . Christophe Jaffrelot states that modern Hindu nationalism was born in Maharashtra , in

11610-528: The choice. They alleged Doniger's scholarship to be laden with numerous inaccuracies and an anti-Hindu bias. HAF also accused her of offering "offensive, shocking, and gratuitous deconstruction of some of the most important [Hindu] epics" and providing "pornographic depictions" of Hindu deities. Suhag Shukla, director of HAF and also an ex-student of Doniger, went on to criticize the American Academy of Religion for coming out in support of Doniger and supporting

11745-481: The cultural appropriation of yoga , and opposition to legislation of anti-caste discrimination laws. Scholars argue that HAF's activism aligns with Hindu nationalism and impinges on academic freedom. The Hindu American Foundation (HAF) was founded in September 2003 by Mihir Meghani, an emergency care physician; Aseem Shukla , an associate professor in urologic surgery; his wife, Suhag Shukla, an attorney; Nikhil Joshi,

11880-454: The culture has also influenced a long region and other religions people of that area. All Indian religions , including Buddhism , Jainism and Sikhism are deeply influenced and soft-powered by Hinduism . Judeo-Christian In the United States , the term was widely used during the Cold War in an attempt to invoke a unified American identity opposed to communism . The use of

12015-431: The custom of distinguishing between Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, and Sikhs is a modern phenomena, but one that is a convenient abstraction. Distinguishing Indian traditions is a fairly recent practice, states Lipner, and is the result of "not only Western preconceptions about the nature of religion in general and of religion in India in particular, but also with the political awareness that has arisen in India" in its people and

12150-420: The declining status of women in ancient India, arguing that such portrayals would humiliate Hindu children in classrooms. Multiple Indologists , including Romila Thapar , Michael Witzel , Harry Falk , Robert P. Goldman , Jonathan Mark Kenoyer , Sheldon Pollock , Patrick Olivelle and Madhav Deshpande , and other South Asian activist groups opposed the changes. The court ruled against HAF and chose to retain

12285-472: The early medieval era Puranas as pilgrimage sites around a theme. This sacred geography and Shaiva temples with same iconography, shared themes, motifs and embedded legends are found across India, from the Himalayas to hills of South India, from Ellora Caves to Varanasi by about the middle of 1st millennium. Shakti temples, dated to a few centuries later, are verifiable across the subcontinent. Varanasi as

12420-534: The first Muslim invasion of Sindh in the 8th century CE, and intensified 13th century onwards. The 14th-century Sanskrit text, Madhuravijayam , a memoir written by Gangadevi , the wife of Vijayanagara prince, for example describes the consequences of war using religious terms, I very much lament for what happened to the groves in Madhura , The coconut trees have all been cut and in their place are to be seen,   rows of iron spikes with human skulls dangling at

12555-460: The fold of Brahmins . the Christian far-right denounced Yoga as a satanic act which took practitioners away from Christ into the fold of Brahmins Furthermore, Jain found the HAF's essentialist discourse on Yoga to be ahistorical — according to him, Yoga was a fluid tradition made and remade by different socio-religious cultures across different times with different connotations. Other scholars reiterate Jain's observations; Christopher Patrick Miller,

12690-405: The group's aims to sanitize the exclusionary nature of Hindutva, in part by borrowing from decolonial vocabulary, misleadingly portraying terms like "Hindutva", "Brahminism", etc. as oriental pejoratives. Chad Bauman, a professor of religion at Butler University , contended HAF's portrayal of Hinduism to be misleadingly monolithic and in service of a political agenda. Nishant Upadhyay, a professor at

12825-486: The highest percentage of Hindus (in decreasing order) are Nepal , India , Mauritius , Fiji , Guyana , Bhutan , Suriname , Trinidad and Tobago , Qatar , Sri Lanka , Kuwait , Bangladesh , Réunion , Malaysia , and Singapore . The fertility rate, that is children per woman, for Hindus is 2.4, which is less than the world average of 2.5. Pew Research projects that there will be 1.4 billion Hindus by 2050. In more ancient times, Hindu kingdoms arose and spread

12960-598: The historical records in Vaishnavism terms of Rama, a deity Vishnu avatar. Pollock presents many such examples and suggests an emerging Hindu political identity that was grounded in the Hindu religious text of Ramayana, one that has continued into the modern times, and suggests that this historic process began with the arrival of Islam in India. Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya has questioned the Pollock theory and presented textual and inscriptional evidence. According to Chattopadhyaya,

13095-476: The influential Asiatick Researches founded in the 18th century, later called The Asiatic Society , initially identified just two religions in India – Islam, and Hinduism. These orientalists included all Indian religions such as Buddhism as a subgroup of Hinduism in the 18th century. These texts called followers of Islam as Mohamedans , and all others as Hindus . The text, by the early 19th century, began dividing Hindus into separate groups, for chronology studies of

13230-486: The legal age of marriage for girls. Hindu nationalists seek that the legal age for marriage be eighteen that is universally applied to all girls regardless of their religion and that marriages be registered with local government to verify the age of marriage. Muslim clerics consider this proposal as unacceptable because under the shariah-derived personal law, a Muslim girl can be married at any age after she reaches puberty. Hindu nationalism in India, states Katharine Adeney,

13365-664: The local Indian population, in a religious or cultural sense, is unclear. Competing theories state that Hindu identity developed in the British colonial era , or that it may have developed post-8th century CE after the Muslim invasions and medieval Hindu–Muslim wars . A sense of Hindu identity and the term Hindu appears in some texts dated between the 13th and 18th century in Sanskrit and Bengali . The 14th- and 18th-century Indian poets such as Vidyapati , Kabir , Tulsidas and Eknath used

13500-509: The memoirs of Chinese Buddhist and Persian Muslim travellers attest to the existence and significance of the pilgrimage to sacred geography among Hindus by later 1st millennium CE. According to Fleming, those who question whether the term Hindu and Hinduism are a modern construction in a religious context present their arguments based on some texts that have survived into the modern era, either of Islamic courts or of literature published by Western missionaries or colonial-era Indologists aiming for

13635-415: The mid-19th century, colonial orientalist texts further distinguished Hindus from Buddhists , Sikhs and Jains , but the colonial laws continued to consider all of them to be within the scope of the term Hindu until about mid-20th century. Scholars state that the custom of distinguishing between Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs is a modern phenomenon. At approximately 1.2 billion, Hindus are

13770-399: The military and political campaign during the medieval era wars in Deccan peninsula of India, and in the north India, were no longer a quest for sovereignty, they embodied a political and religious animosity against the "otherness of Islam", and this began the historical process of Hindu identity formation. Andrew Nicholson, in his review of scholarship on Hindu identity history, states that

13905-659: The name of the Indus River and also referred to its tributaries. The actual term 'hindu' first occurs, states Gavin Flood, as "a Persian geographical term for the people who lived beyond the river Indus (Sanskrit: Sindhu )", more specifically in the 5th-century BCE, DNa inscription of Darius I . The Punjab region , called Sapta Sindhu in the Vedas, is called Hapta Hindu in Zend Avesta . The 6th-century BCE inscription of Darius I mentions

14040-600: The official spokesperson of " Howdy Modi ," a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)-backed rally in support of India's incumbent prime minister Narendra Modi held in Houston, Texas in 2020. They — as well as several journalists — documented numerous anti-Muslim statements made by HAF board members, past and present. Academics and journalists have also investigated money trails linking HAF to other Sangh Parivar groups via their donors. HAF denies these charges, claims to be non-partisan, and has unsuccessfully filed defamation suits against

14175-431: The phrase Hindu dharma (Hinduism) and contrasted it with Turaka dharma ( Islam ). The Christian friar Sebastiao Manrique used the term 'Hindu' in a religious context in 1649. In the 18th century, European merchants and colonists began to refer to the followers of Indian religions collectively as Hindus , in contrast to Mohamedans for groups such as Turks, Mughals and Arabs , who were adherents of Islam. By

14310-511: The points, In the highways which were once charming with anklets sound of beautiful women,   are now heard ear-piercing noises of Brahmins being dragged, bound in iron-fetters, The waters of Tambraparni , which were once white with sandal paste,   are now flowing red with the blood of cows slaughtered by miscreants, Earth is no longer the producer of wealth, nor does Indra give timely rains, The God of death takes his undue toll of what are left lives if undestroyed by

14445-465: The political conservative movement in the United States. In contrast, by the 1970s, mainline Protestant denominations and the National Council of Churches were more supportive of Palestinians than Israel. Natan Sharansky observed in 2019, that for the first time, he was encountering the situation of nations with ample governmental support for Israel but disinterest and even overt hostility by

14580-433: The province of Hi[n]dush , referring to northwestern India. The people of India were referred to as Hinduvān and hindavī was used as the adjective for Indian language in the 8th century text Chachnama . According to D. N. Jha , the term 'Hindu' in these ancient records is an ethno-geographical term and did not refer to a religion. Among the earliest known records of 'Hindu' with connotations of religion may be in

14715-511: The religion and traditions across Southeast Asia, particularly Thailand , Nepal , Burma , Malaysia , Indonesia , Cambodia , Laos , Philippines , and what is now central Vietnam . Over 3 million Hindus are found in Bali Indonesia, a culture whose origins trace back to ideas brought by Hindu traders to Indonesian islands in the 1st millennium CE. Their sacred texts are also the Vedas and

14850-449: The religions have drawn their curved swords;" however, the date of this text is unclear and considered by most scholars to be more recent. In Islamic literature, 'Abd al-Malik Isami 's Persian work, Futuhu's-salatin , composed in the Deccan under Bahmani rule in 1350, uses the word ' hindi' to mean Indian in the ethno-geographical sense and the word ' hindu' to mean 'Hindu' in

14985-582: The same standard", and urged for the repealing of anti-conversion laws in several Indian states. HAF mounted fresh criticism, arguing that the bill ignored the impact of Islamist and Maoist terrorism in the country, and selectively targeted Hindus; a few Indian activist groups who supported the bill were denounced for being unpatriotic. In 2016, HAF hosted briefings for legislators about Pakistan’s support for terrorism in Kashmir and raised concern about how US aid might be diverted against India. In August 2019, after

15120-473: The sense of a follower of the Hindu religion". The poet Vidyapati 's Kirtilata (1380) uses the term Hindu in the sense of a religion, it contrasts the cultures of Hindus and Turks (Muslims) in a city and concludes "The Hindus and the Turks live close together; Each makes fun of the other's religion ( dhamme )." One of the earliest uses of word 'Hindu' in a religious context, in a European language (Spanish),

15255-443: The sense of non-Muslim Indians". However, scholars like Robert Fraser and Mary Hammond opine that Sikhism began initially as a militant sect of Hinduism and it got formally separated from Hinduism only in the 20th century. During the colonial era, the term Hindu had connotations of native religions of India, that is religions other than Christianity and Islam. In early colonial era Anglo-Hindu laws and British India court system,

15390-476: The side of the HAF sought to whitewash California's history textbooks to present a nativist, blemish-free view of how the Hindu caste system was enforced in India. They also argued that the term "South Asia" correctly represents India's collective history with countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh. A letter to the California State Board of Education about this issue, which garnered thousands of signatures,

15525-414: The suit since HAF had failed not only to establish any cause of action , even assuming that their allegations were factually accurate, but also to provide any evidence that the court had personal jurisdiction over the defendants except one. During August–September 2021, HAF launched a protest campaign against a virtual conference, Dismantling Global Hindutva : Multidisciplinary Perspectives , organized by

15660-507: The term " Abrahamic religions " to refer to the common grouping of faiths which are attributed to Abraham ( Islam , the Baháʼí Faith , Samaritanism , Druzism , and other faiths in addition to Judaism and Christianity) is also sometimes seen as problematic. The term "Judæo Christian" first appears in a letter by Alexander McCaul which is dated October 17, 1821. The term in this case referred to Jewish converts to Christianity . The term

15795-470: The term 'Hindu' retained its geographical reference initially: 'Indian', 'indigenous, local', virtually 'native'. Slowly, the Indian groups themselves started using the term, differentiating themselves and their "traditional ways" from those of the invaders. The text Prithviraj Raso , by Chand Bardai , about the 1192 CE defeat of Prithviraj Chauhan at the hands of Muhammad Ghori , is full of references to "Hindus" and "Turks", and at one stage, says "both

15930-408: The term Hindu referred to people of all Indian religions as well as two non-Indian religions: Judaism and Zoroastrianism. In the 20th century, personal laws were formulated for Hindus, and the term 'Hindu' in these colonial 'Hindu laws' applied to Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs in addition to denominational Hindus. Beyond the stipulations of British colonial law, European orientalists and particularly

16065-500: The term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for people living in the Indian subcontinent . It is assumed that the term "Hindu" traces back to Avestan scripture Vendidad which refers to land of seven rivers as Hapta Hendu which itself is a cognate to Sanskrit term Sapta Sindhuḥ (This term Sapta Sindhuḥ is mentioned in RigVeda that refers to

16200-493: The textbooks; it found HAF's accusations of a biased and negative portrayal of Hinduism unpersuasive. In 2016, the HAF lobbied against the replacement of the word "Indian" with "South Asian" in middle school history textbooks in California, arguing that the change was essentially an erasure of India itself. These efforts were protested by South Asian academics and activists belonging to India's minority groups, who said that those on

16335-554: The theological foundations of Christianity and being the source of the prophets and Jesus ; remorse for the Church's history of antisemitism ; and fear that God will judge the nations at the end of time based on how they treated the Jewish people. Moreover, for many evangelicals Israel is seen as the instrument through which prophecies of the end times are fulfilled. The use of the term "Judeo-Christian" in 21st century discourse has been criticized for equating two different faiths and being

16470-528: The theological validity of the Judeo-Christian concept and suggested that it was essentially an invention of American politics , while Jacob Neusner , in Jews and Christians: The Myth of a Common Tradition , writes, "The two faiths stand for different people talking about different things to different people." Law professor Stephen M. Feldman looking at the period before 1950, chiefly in Europe, sees invocation of

16605-505: The various beliefs. Among the earliest terms to emerge were Seeks and their College (later spelled Sikhs by Charles Wilkins), Boudhism (later spelled Buddhism), and in the 9th volume of Asiatick Researches report on religions in India, the term Jainism received notice. According to Pennington, the terms Hindu and Hinduism were thus constructed for colonial studies of India. The various sub-divisions and separation of subgroup terms were assumed to be result of "communal conflict", and Hindu

16740-451: The vernacular literature of Bhakti movement sants from 15th to 17th century, such as Kabir , Anantadas, Eknath, Vidyapati, suggests that distinct religious identities, between Hindus and Turks (Muslims), had formed during these centuries. The poetry of this period contrasts Hindu and Islamic identities, states Nicholson, and the literature vilifies the Muslims coupled with a "distinct sense of

16875-424: The wide range of traditions and ideas covered by the term Hinduism, arriving at a comprehensive definition is difficult. The religion "defies our desire to define and categorize it". A Hindu may, by his or her choice, draw upon ideas of other Indian or non-Indian religious thought as a resource, follow or evolve his or her personal beliefs, and still identify as a Hindu. In 1995, Chief Justice P. B. Gajendragadkar

17010-417: The world's third-largest religious group after Christians and Muslims. The vast majority of Hindus, approximately 966 million (94.3% of the global Hindu population), live in India , according to the 2011 Indian census. After India, the next nine countries with the largest Hindu populations are, in decreasing order: Nepal , Bangladesh , Indonesia , Pakistan , Sri Lanka , the United States , Malaysia ,

17145-560: The world. Most Hindus are found in Asian countries. The top twenty-five countries with the most Hindu residents and citizens (in decreasing order) are India , Nepal , Bangladesh , Indonesia , Pakistan , Sri Lanka , United States , Malaysia , Myanmar , United Kingdom , Mauritius , South Africa , United Arab Emirates , Canada , Australia , Saudi Arabia , Trinidad and Tobago , Singapore , Fiji , Qatar , Kuwait , Guyana , Bhutan , Oman and Yemen . The top fifteen countries with

17280-623: Was codified by Savarkar while he was a political prisoner of the British colonial authorities. Chris Bayly traces the roots of Hindu nationalism to the Hindu identity and political independence achieved by the Maratha confederacy , that overthrew the Islamic Mughal empire in large parts of India, allowing Hindus the freedom to pursue any of their diverse religious beliefs and restored Hindu holy places such as Varanasi. A few scholars view Hindu mobilisation and consequent nationalism to have emerged in

17415-664: Was constructed by these orientalists to imply people who adhered to "ancient default oppressive religious substratum of India", states Pennington. Followers of other Indian religions so identified were later referred Buddhists, Sikhs or Jains and distinguished from Hindus, in an antagonistic two-dimensional manner, with Hindus and Hinduism stereotyped as irrational traditional and others as rational reform religions. However, these mid-19th-century reports offered no indication of doctrinal or ritual differences between Hindu and Buddhist, or other newly constructed religious identities. These colonial studies, states Pennigton, "puzzled endlessly about

17550-685: Was headed by the HAF. In 2009, Wendy Doniger — the Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of History of Religions at the University of Chicago — published The Hindus: An Alternative History , to rave reviews in mainstream media. However, soon it drew ire from the Hindu Right who found Doniger's work to be stigmatizing of Hinduism. The following year, as the National Book Critics Circle shortlisted her work for its 2010 annual awards, HAF protested

17685-435: Was later used occasionally in some Sanskrit texts such as the later Rajataranginis of Kashmir (Hinduka, c.  1450 ) and some 16th- to 18th-century Bengali Gaudiya Vaishnava texts, including Chaitanya Charitamrita and Chaitanya Bhagavata . These texts used it to contrast Hindus from Muslims who are called Yavanas (foreigners) or Mlecchas (barbarians), with the 16th-century Chaitanya Charitamrita text and

17820-442: Was quoted in an Indian Supreme Court ruling: Although Hinduism contains a broad range of philosophies, Hindus share philosophical concepts, such as but not limiting to dharma , karma , kama , artha , moksha and samsara , even if each subscribes to a diversity of views. Hindus also have shared texts such as the Vedas with embedded Upanishads , and common ritual grammar ( Sanskara (rite of passage) ) such as rituals during

17955-577: Was similarly used by Joseph Wolff in 1829, in reference to a type of church that would observe some Jewish traditions in order to convert Jews. Mark Silk states in the early 19th century the term was "most widely used (in French as well as English) to refer to the early followers of Jesus who opposed" the wishes of Paul the Apostle and wanted "to restrict the message of Jesus to Jews and who insisted on maintaining Jewish law and ritual". Friedrich Nietzsche used

18090-551: Was the first American Hindu advocacy organization to have a professional organizational structure as well as full-time staff and is widely considered to be the most prominent organization in the Hindu advocacy field. The organization was heavily aided by Jewish advocacy groups during its development; it continues to work with the Anti-Defamation League . During 2004–05, the organization held events to educate legislators about issues of concern to Hindu Americans. These included

18225-407: Was the publication in 1649 by Sebastio Manrique . In the Indian historian DN Jha 's essay "Looking for a Hindu identity" , he writes: "No Indians described themselves as Hindus before the fourteenth century" and that "The British borrowed the word 'Hindu' from India, gave it a new meaning and significance, [and] reimported it into India as a reified phenomenon called Hinduism." In the 18th century,

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