Talk:Hindu (ethnicity)

The idea of "Hindu" as a ethnic term (other than the "Hindoo" of yore) is puzzling! Comparing Hindu "ethnicity" to Jewish ethnicity appears to be a deeply faulty comparism. Judaism is actually a very special case; Jewish converts will frequently continue referring to themselves as Jews, e.g. Jubus (Jewish Buddhists), Jews for Jesus (Jewish Christians), or Humanist Jews. I've yet to come across converts from Hinduism who continue to refer to themselves as Hindu; for example, are there communities of "Hindu Muslims" or "Hindus for Christ"? (Those sounds about as absurd as "Catholics for Krishna" or "Islamic Vaishnavites.")

Do we have any evidence that there exists any significant number of non-Hindus who actively claim "Hindu ethnicity"?

I believe the idea of Hindu ethnicity is entirely is a historical term, used only in cases like:
 * the naive Western conception that all Indian / South Asians were called "Hindoos" (a usage most "Hindoos" themselves would have disagreed with)
 * some 18th and 19th century Hindus converting to Christianity referred to themselves as culturally "Hindu" (to differentiate themselves from non-Indian Christians)

Comments? --Anirvan 06:49, 12 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree, I would love to hear the rationale behind this page maybe we could ask the person who initiated the page because the only usage ethnically I have come across is that all non-indian hindus are referred to alongside an appendage attributing their ethnicity such as Bengali-Hindu, Pakistani-Hindu, Sri-Lankan Hindu, Balinese Hindu, Nepalese Hindu all in order to differentiate them from those that reside in India. I think Indian is more synonymous with Hindu to such a degree that other religious identities have to be specifically identified to differentiate such as Indian Muslims/Christians/Buddhists etc. While that may be the case Indians are still referred as Hindu, the closest I can think of is Hindi used by the arabs, but thats only because that is their version of Indian, where India is still known as Hind.


 * The only thing I can think of is the use of Hindu as term used earlier in history to refer to people living beyond the Indus. As such I think the definite is succussfully covered in the article Hindu under Origins of the word Hindu. Unless there is a lot more history to add than can be encompassed in that article I think we need merge this article with that. The sections Sacred India and Hintuva movement are even perplexing here as they should also in Etymology of India and Hindutva rather than here.

--Tigeroo 04:32, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to go ahead and redirect this page to Hindu. Though badly written, I think that section comes closest to discussing the topics discussed in this article (in a somewhat more fact-based and NPOV way). --Anirvan 16:26, 13 July 2006 (UTC)