India's search for identity cannot be divorced from the 7000 years long Hindu religious and cultural experience.
Most often Hinduism is defined in terms of Indian geography with references to the Himalayas and the Sindhu, Ganga and Brahmaputra rivers. Words like India and Hindu refer to the Sindhu or Indus river. Outsiders know and call all Indians as Hindus and not as Vedantins, Mussalmans or Christians. The modern attempt to create a secular India disregarding this historical fact will be inauthentic and futile. Hindus are all over the world — in the Americas, Europe, Middle East, Asia Pacific, the Caribbean, and Africa. The Internet age has brought them together and multiculturalism a quest among them for identity. Religious world view and cultural perspectives underlie a people's outlook to life and interpretation of experiences. It is in this context that we engage in this conversation on the Indian identity, both as a nation and as individual Hindus belonging to different countries.
Swami Bodhananda
An introduction to “Hinduism & Indian Identity”, a free-flowing, open-ended conversation with Swami Bodhananda at Kunzum Travel Cafe, Hauz Khas Village, New Delhi, 22 March 2014