From an interview given by Dr Koenraad Elst to a student of religious studies collecting material for her dissertation

Q : You have written that a Hindu simply is an Indian Pagan. This raises the question – What is a Pagan, exactly ? Or what is Paganism ?

A : Strictly a ‘rustic’, ‘peasant’ or ‘village bumpkin’, as opposed to the Christians in the Roman Empire who were at first mostly city-dwellers. The textbook definition since the 4^th Century is ‘a non-Christian’. After Islam became more familiar in Europe, it often came to mean a non-Abrahamist, or better, anyone who does not subscribe to prophetic monotheism. The category ‘Pagan’ strictly includes atheists and polytheists, but mostly it is only used for a type of religious people, excluding non-religious atheists and agnostics.

When the Muslim invaders brought the Persian geographical term ‘Hindu’ into India, it came to mean ‘Indian by birth and by religion’, excluding those who were non-Indian, or who were Indian but followed a non-Indian religion. In those days, people remained conscious of their original nationality for very long. When in the wake of the British, some Indian Zoroastrians settled in South Africa, they called themselves ‘Persians’ though their families had lived in India for a thousand years. By the same token, the Syrian Christians counted as Syrians; but even if they counted as Indians, they would still not be Hindus, for they followed a non-Indian religion.

By contrast, all Indians without foreign links are Hindus : Brahmans, upper castes, middle castes, downtrodden, tribals, Buddhists, Jains. By implication even sects that did not exist yet, were Hindu upon birth : Lingayats, Sikhs, Arya Samaj, RK Mission, ISKCON.

Today, ‘Hindu’ is a dirty word, so they all try to weasel out of it and declare themselves non-Hindu, also to enjoy the legal benefits of being a minority. (Indeed, under the prevailing anti-secular Constitution, non-Hindus are privileged above Hindus.)

They see Hinduism as a sinking ship, and being rats, they leave it. But I am not impressed by this. People should simply grow up and face facts : They satisfy the definition of ‘Hindu’, so they are Hindus, Indian Pagans. I don’t care what elephants think of being called elephants; since they satisfy the definition of ‘elephant’ they are elephants. Period.

Since roughly 1980, the RSS family of Hindu nationalist organisations have tried to water down this clear historical definition by saying that ‘Hindu’ simply means ‘Indian’. That would have been the pre-invasion usage, when Persia and Arabia were not tainted by Islam yet. But when the word was brought into India, it immediately differed from ‘Indian’ by its religious dimension. Muslims and Christians are by definition not Hindu. But because the contemporary Hindutva leaders are not clear-headed – or brave – enough to face the difference, they try to spirit the difference between Hinduism and Islam away by calling the Indian Muslims ‘Mohammedi Hindus’. And likewise, ‘Christi Hindus’. I think that is the summum of cowardice.

– Dr Koenraad Elst (Courtesy : VoiceOfIndia.me, 4.9.2021)