The White House staffers charged with transcribing the every public utterance of U.S. President George W. Bush and his friends do not have an easy job. If they falter even for a moment in the constant war against 
tape hiss, mumbling and ill-timed coughs, they risk putting the wrong words in some of the most powerful mouths on the planet.
And so, as I read today’s official transcript of remarks made by Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the G8 Summit in Japan, I wondered if the transcriber forgot to take a cotton swab to their ear that morning:
PRIME MINISTER SINGH: Mr. President, it is a great opportunity for me to once again meet you and to review with you the state of Hindu-American relations. (Emphasis added.)
Surely some mistake? (UPDATE 5.25pm: The White House has now corrected the transcript on its website, but the original version can still be seen here and here.)
Singh is known to be a soft-spoken man, but he is very clear on at least one point: his Congress Party, which heads India’s coalition government, is intended to be a secular party, embracing equally the 230 million Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jains, Zoroastrians, Jews, animists, agnostics and atheists that live alongside India’s 900 million Hindus. (Besides which, Singh himself is a Sikh.) A vote for Congress, so its leaders say, is a vote against what are darkly called “the forces of communalism” — a thinly veiled reference to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), India’s main opposition, which believes Indians of every creed should revere and live by the wisdom of the Vedas and other ancient Hindu texts.
For once, the BJP might be delighted to read over Singh’s remarks, but he actually said “Indo-American” relations, according to Sanjaya Baru, Singh’s spokesman. (”An amusing mistake,” Baru said with a chuckle, adding that they were seeking to get the transcript corrected.)
So have the “forces of communalism” reached even as far as the White House? Or is this just another example of the confusion some non-Indians have grasping the differences between “Hindu”, “Hindi” and “Indian”?
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iqbal’s…
Interesting post. I came across this blog by accident, but it was a good accident. I have now bookmarked your blog for future use. Best wishes. Ragheb Alama Website Team….
- Posted by Ragheb AlamaMost Americans are clueless and this distinction will probably wash over them like every other cultural distinction does. Believe it or not, Americans cannnot distinguish between:
shia vs sunni
indian vs pakistani
pakistani vs arab
arab vs persian
arab vs muslim
sikh vs muslim
latino vs hispanic
spanish vs latino/hispanic
and god knows how many others…its safe to say the only distinction most Americans are loathe to forget is the white/non-white one:)
- Posted by ShahidThe actual term “Hindu” first occurs as an Old Persian geographical term (derived from the river sindhu), to identify the people who lived beyond the River Indus. However, the modern origin is derived from the Arabic texts - Al-Hind (the Hind) referring to ‘the land of the people of modern day India’ - which then got vernacularised as Hindu.In the world history “Hindu” was also used by all Mughal Empires and towards the end of the eighteenth century by the British to refer to the people of “Hindustan”, the area of northern and adjoining northwestern India. Eventually “Hindu” became equivalent to anybody of “Indian” origin who was not otherwise Sikh, Jain, or belonged to a religion of Abrahamic denomination, thereby encompassing a wide range of religious beliefs and practices.
- Posted by AyazOne of the accepted views is that “ism” was added to “Hindu” around 1830 to denote the culture and religion of the high-caste Brahmans in contrast to other religions. The term was soon appropriated by Indians themselves as they tried to establish a national identity opposed to colonialism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu
Vijay,
don’t get too emotional and spin what I said. What I said was straight forward. Moles and parasites don’t mean any religion in particular. If you are paranoid then there is something wrong with you. Btw I don’t believe in Aryan Dravidian theory and I have read many tamil literatures. Detox your mind from EV Ramasamy’s spin about aryan dravidian theory.
- Posted by vivekThe word ‘Hindu’ comes from ‘Sindhu’ or Indus.
The people living in today’s India and Iran had very similar cultures and religious beliefs in the ancient age. The two people had many mythological characters and stories in common, with the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ reversed sometimes.
As another example, ‘Asura’ is a very common term in Indian mythologies and the Zoarastrians (Iran) have ‘Ahura’.
It is from such a use that ‘Hindu’ arises and it definitely referred to people of a particular place - the Indian subcontinent. It is only in the last 100-150 years that the term Hindu has got its religious connotation.
- Posted by TPGuess they say like that in Texas. BUt Mr. Singh is known to be a soft spoken man. He must have spoken “Indo” softly, to be only heard as “Hindu”. Its a different issue that some MUllahs here in India may pick this up and say, “See, this proves once again this country is of HIndoos. And our community is in DANGER (pun intended!)….blah…blah…blah. BUt was Mr. Bush’s transcriber as ignorant as the mullahs? Perhaps he needs to get his ear-wax cleared up! As it is, Dubya’s english is unbearable!
- Posted by danish khan