Re: Unamerican

>> Unamerican etc.
I've wondered about wherther we use a phrase like "Un-Indian." I doubt it,
because _no-one_ is quite sure about what "Indian" means. (Though I remember
learning a whole chapter in Hindi  in school about _Bharatiyatha_  i.e.
Indianness / Indianism) I suppose that there is general agreement that we
are different, although this usually comes up in negative situations - like
when a politician or religious leader screams about western imports and
traditions destroying our _Indian_ customs etc. This being _Indian_  usually
implies being religious, conservative etc.

Of late however, right wing political leaders have started equating
Indianness with Hinduness (note - not Hinduism, which would probably be
clearly communal and hence illegal) They've come up with a concept called
_Hindutva_ very loosely translated as the Hindu way of life. So they claim
that Un-Indian means un-Hindu, which basically doesn't give much thought to
the hundreds of millions of muslims, christians, sikhs, buddhists etc here.

In my opinion, with our diversity, _Indian_ could and should only imply
living in India or being part of India, so it would include almost anything.
And so the concept Un-Indian would probably be meaningless.