ABSTRACT
The ways South Asians define their history and cultural boundaries have undergone radical changes during the past two centuries. Categories like “India” and “Hinduism” stand for complex, shifting ideas, muddled by obscure academic arguments and fierce political controversy. How these two terms relate to each other, whether they fall into a neat congruence of geography and civilization, whether they exclude “non-Hindu” from a rightful place on the Indian map—these questions have become essential to drawing national boundaries and creating viable national communities. Loyalties have rallied around ideas of what is indigenous and what is foreign, and the relevant evidence can often reach back centuries or even millennia.
