The word “Hinduism" itself is not ancient. Neither is it native nor organic. The very suffix “ism" within the word “Hinduism" reeks of Western taxonomy, aiming to confine the civilisation within rigid, dogmatic lines, much like the Abrahamic religions of Christianity and Islam. Such a framework is violently alien to Sanatan Dharma, which never sought reduction into a closed creed.

The Hindu civilisational experience is fluid, plural, evolving, contradictory, and unapologetically non-dogmatic. As Atal Bihari Vajpayee observed in his 1998 interview with Javed Akhtar, India’s secularism flows naturally from Hindu civilisation itself. Hindu thought binds no one to a single prophet, a single book, or a compulsory theology. One may be astika or nastika, devotional or sceptical, ritualistic or philosophical, and still remain within the civilisational fold. There is no concept of blasphemy, apostasy, or enforced belief.

“Hinduism" was not born in Kashi or Kanchipuram. It was midwifed in colonial census offices and missionary tracts. European orientalists and British administrators required a neat category to govern, classify, and evangelise. In doing so, they lumped together diverse Indic traditions (Vedic, Tantric, Bhakti, folk) under a single label, often distorting them to fit monotheistic templates. The term gained currency only in the early 19th century. By freezing Sanatan Dharma into “Hinduism", colonialism hollowed out its essence, morphing it to fit within their monotheistic template.

Hindutva, contrary to hysterical propaganda, does not destroy this civilisational ethos, but it vociferously exposes the artificiality of the colonial box it was forced into. Hindutva is not ritualistic “Hinduism", but when etymologically translated from........

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