Heptulla triggers controversy, calls all Indians 'Hindus'

Minority Affairs Minister Najma Heptulla has stoked a controversy by reportedly calling all Indians 'Hindus'.

However, she sought to clarify her comments today, saying she had called all Indians Hindi, the Arabic term for people living in India and what she said was "not in relation to the religion but in relation to identity as nationality". She did not call them Hindus, she said.

Heptulla hinted at the need of having uniformity of identity for all Indians as she told PTI that she did not think "there is any country with three names in three different languages".

In Arabic, Indians are called Hindi and Hindustani and Indian in Persian and English respectively, she said.

"We are Hindi, we are Hindustani by identification as nationality. Hindi Indians and Hindustani are all one and the same thing," she said.

When asked for her views on RSS head Mohan Bhagwat's comments that Indians should be called Hindus, she declined to make any comment.

"I have no comment on that," she said.

She quoted Iqbal's famous lines "Hindi hain hum watan hai Hindostan hamara (We are Hindi and our country is Hindostan)" to make her point.

Heptulla was quoted as saying in a media report that "there is nothing wrong in calling all Indians Hindu.

Congress reacted sharply to her reported comments with party leader Manish Tewari saying she should read the Constitution.

"We respect Najmaji a lot but it would be better if she reads the Constitution. The Constitution mentions 'Bharat' and going by that every citizen of the country is a 'Bharatiya' and not Hindu," Tewari said.