Editing Hindus (section)

=== Colonial-era usage (18th to 20th century) ===
{{multiple image
 | direction = vertical
 | width = 235
 | footer = The distribution of Indian religions in India (1909). The upper map shows distribution of Hindus, the lower of Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs.
 | image1 = Hindu percent 1909.jpg
 | image2 = Sikhs buddhists jains percent1909.jpg
 }}
[[File:A Hindu wedding ritual in progress b.jpg|thumb|upright=1.05|A Hindu wedding ritual in [[India]]]]
During the colonial era, the term Hindu had connotations of native religions of India, that is religions other than Christianity and Islam.<ref name=gauri>Gauri Viswanathan (1998), Outside the Fold: Conversion, Modernity, and Belief, Princeton University Press, {{ISBN|978-0-691-05899-3}}, page 78</ref> In early colonial era Anglo-Hindu laws and British India court system, the term Hindu referred to people of all Indian religions as well as two non-Indian religions: [[Judaism]] and [[Zoroastrianism]].<ref name=gauri /> In the 20th century, personal laws were formulated for Hindus, and the term 'Hindu' in these colonial 'Hindu laws' applied to Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs in addition to denominational Hindus.<ref name="rachel">Rachel Sturman (2010), Hinduism and Law: An Introduction (Editors: Timothy Lubin et al), Cambridge University Press, {{ISBN|978-0-521-71626-0}}, pag 90</ref>{{efn|According to Ram Bhagat, the term was used by the [[British Raj|Colonial British government]] in post-1871 census of colonial India that included a question on the individual's religion, especially in the aftermath of the [[Revolution of 1857|1857 revolution]].<ref name="iips">{{cite web |last1=Bhagat |first1=Ram |title=Hindu-Muslim Tension in India: An Interface between census and Politics during Colonial India |url=http://archive.iussp.org/members/restricted/publications/Oslo03/5-con-bhagat03.pdf |website=iussp.org |publisher=IIPS |access-date=17 April 2019 |archive-date=17 April 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190417052237/http://archive.iussp.org/members/restricted/publications/Oslo03/5-con-bhagat03.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Archive of All Colonial India documents |url=https://arrow.latrobe.edu.au/store/3/4/5/5/2/public/census.htm |website=arrow.latrobe.edu.au |publisher=The Centre for Data Digitisation and Analysis at The Queen's University of Belfast |access-date=17 April 2019 |archive-date=30 May 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190530131730/http://arrow.latrobe.edu.au/store/3/4/5/5/2/public/census.htm |url-status=live }}</ref>}}

Beyond the stipulations of British colonial law, European [[Oriental studies|orientalists]] and particularly the influential Asiatick Researches founded in the 18th century, later called [[The Asiatic Society]], initially identified just two religions in India – Islam, and Hinduism. These orientalists included all Indian religions such as Buddhism as a subgroup of Hinduism in the 18th century.<ref name=brian111>{{citation|last=Pennington|first=Brian K.|title=Was Hinduism Invented?: Britons, Indians, and the Colonial Construction of Religion|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7drluePK-acC&pg=PA111|year=2005|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-803729-3|pages=111–118|access-date=31 July 2018|archive-date=31 March 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240331131328/https://books.google.com/books?id=7drluePK-acC&pg=PA111#v=onepage&q&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref> These texts termed followers of Islam as ''Mohamedans'', and all others as ''Hindus''. The text, by the early 19th century, began dividing Hindus into separate groups, for chronology studies of the various beliefs. Among the earliest terms to emerge were ''Seeks and their College'' (later spelled Sikhs by Charles Wilkins), ''Boudhism'' (later spelled Buddhism), and in the 9th volume of Asiatick Researches report on religions in India, the term ''Jainism'' received notice.<ref name=brian111 />

According to Pennington, the terms Hindu and Hinduism were thus constructed for colonial studies of India. The various sub-divisions and separation of subgroup terms were assumed to be result of "communal conflict", and Hindu was constructed by these orientalists to imply people who adhered to "ancient default oppressive religious substratum of India", states Pennington.<ref name=brian111 /> Followers of other Indian religions so identified were later referred Buddhists, Sikhs or Jains and distinguished from Hindus, in an antagonistic two-dimensional manner, with Hindus and Hinduism stereotyped as irrational traditional and others as rational reform religions. However, these mid-19th-century reports offered no indication of doctrinal or ritual differences between Hindu and Buddhist, or other newly constructed religious identities.<ref name=brian111 /> These colonial studies, states Pennigton, "puzzled endlessly about the Hindus and intensely scrutinized them, but did not interrogate and avoided reporting the practices and religion of Mughal and Arabs in South Asia", and often relied on Muslim scholars to characterise Hindus.<ref name=brian111 />