The Persian word ‘Hindu’ indeed means black

The Mughal emperor Babur (also spelled Babar) used the word Hindu as 'black' for the people of the sub-continent in his memoirs

Karnataka Congress leader Satish Jarkiholi triggered a political war of words with his remarks that “Hindu” is a Persian word and did not originate in India. Jarkiholi said while addressing a gathering in Belagavi that the meaning of the word Hindu is ‘horrible’.

“Where did the word Hindu come from?” Jarkiholi questioned and went on to say that ‘WhatsApp and Wikipedia’ say that the word “Hindu” came from Persia. “The word Hindu, where did it originate from? Is it ours? It’s Persian, from the region of Iran, Iraq, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan. What is the connection of the word “Hindu” with India? Then how can you accept it? This should be debated,” Jarkiholi said.

Jarkiholi is not horribly wrong. But his connotation depends upon Indians’ disparaging attitude towards the colour black, and in that sense and context, “Hindu” (black in Persian) could be a derogatory term. The great Persian mystic Hafiz Shirazi wrote in one of his oft-quoted couplets in Persian, Agar aan Turk-e-Shirazi badastaayad dile-maara/Ba’khaale HINDUash bakhsham Samarkando-Bukhara (I can give away cities like Samarkand and Bukhara in preference to the black mole on your face; Khaal is a mole in Persian).

Also Read: Everyone living in India is 'Hindu', says RSS chief Bhagwat

It’s worthwhile to state that the legendary mystic was enamoured of a lad from Shiraz in Iran, known for lovely lasses and lads.

Though etymologists often argue among themselves that the word Hindu is a distortion of the word “Sindhu” (after Sindhu or the Indus river) because the invaders from Central Asia and the Arab Peninsula were not able to pronounce Sindhu and they mispronounced it as Hindu, the fact remains that the word “Hindu” was used in a pontificating manner by the
early Mughals. But for the Central Asian Mughals, the word “Hindu” was purely a complexion-oriented term, and it didn’t mean a thief at any juncture.

The Mughal emperor and founder Mirza Zahiruddin Muhammad Babur (also spelled Babar) used the word Hindu as “black” for the people of the sub-continent in his memoirs, Tuzuk-e-Babri, originally written in Chagatai (an early form of Turkish). It was later translated into Persian by Akbar’s courtier and one of the nine gems, Abdul Rahim Khan-e-Khanan, as Babarnama.

He retained the original meaning of the word Hindu in all Central Asian tongues and dialects. Central Asians were and are still very fair and have a ruddy complexion. To them, the complexion of the people of the subcontinent was pretty humdrum, if not outright dirty.

But doesn’t this show the hypocrisy of the Indians? We ourselves are disdainful of the colour black, but criticise those who call us black!

It’s an irony of the highest order. We have a psychological, nay, pathological, craving for fairness. So black is forever looked down upon. This is nothing short of a kind of mental and social enslavement that has become integral to our consciousness and collective thinking. Matrimonial advertisements still shamelessly underline the colour of a bride’s complexion, and dark is frowned upon. Nowhere in India can you come across, even accidentally, a matrimonial advertisement that states that a ‘girl has a dark complexion’. It’ll be a sure enough recipe for outright rejection!

Coming back to the recent black controversy, if we stop fussing over the skin texture and complexion of people and accept all without a scintilla of discrimination, the word “black” or “Hindu” will lose its insulting intensity. But the problem is that we’re either embroiled in colour or neck-deep in the shenanigans of neo-Hinduism and religious fanaticism. So, all terms even remotely related to this will sound scornful to us, and we’ll take no time in making an issue out of them.