Calling Diwali ‘Jashn-e-Riwaz’ is part of an old linguistic tactic that Abrahamics have been employing for ages to belittle us. To begin with, they added ‘ism’ to ‘Hindu’ but ‘ity’ to ‘Christian’, implying ours is dogma, theirs is faith. Islam stays Arabic, bearing no English language influence.

To say Diwali is a riwaz (custom) is to make the subtle point that the festival has no religious roots. Just as it is customary to greet people when we meet, we observe Diwali. No more serious than wishing ‘good morning’!

Have you noticed that chaste Urdu speakers never refer to the script for Hindi, Devanagari, as Devvanagari? They call it Nagari ― implying there is no godly aspect to it. This is another subtle show of disregard for our culture

When I was a teacher, I noticed Muslim students deliberately writing Hindu as “hindu”, with a lower-case h, in their exercise books. Note that the English language associates a certain degree of respect/recognition with proper nouns and certain adjectives. Even in French, Français (with capital F) and français (small f) have different values attached. My Muslim students who wrote “hindu” while never referring to the followers of their own religion as “muslim” were making a clear case of comparison, projecting M as greater than h

Referring to Krishna as “the blue god”, Hanuman as “the monkey god”, etc are linguistic ways of saying our religion is alien and amusing. If pop iconography determines these terms, why is Jesus Christ not “the crucified god”? Why is Allah not “the invisible god”?

While Allah cannot be depicted in paintings, films, sculpture, etc, the name flashes Arabic calligraphy before the eyes. So, shouldn’t Allah be “the Arab god”? He isn’t. Even the Buddha is not “the Nepali (born in Lumbini) god”. Adjectives for “god” are preserved only for us.

@FabindiaNews has merely furthered n old agenda of ME religions to degrade others w/ linguistic subtlety. Hindus should’ve objected to references like “the festival of colours” (Holi) & “festival of lights” (Diwali), but they hadn’t understood the game until now.

Surajit Dasgupta

Founder and editor-in-chief of @SirfNewsIndia, formerly with MyNation, Hindusthan Samachar, Swarajya, The Pioneer, The Statesman