There are no edicts or texts older than 13th century found on this land, called people of this land Hindu. Hindu word was used by 13th century invaders or foreigners from west to differentiate people of this land from them. It was based on religious beliefs. As we lost authority over our sovereignty, we accepted the term. In my view Hindu word is the first tag of slavery we got from western world. We are still enslaved in it. What is to deduce from here is that we carry along with us a tag which is not justified and also we never tried consciously to find the worth of it for us. This is the first instance of ignorance of people of this land. And that is why we are still Hindu - just people who live beyond Sindhu.
It may have provided us an ease to connect to others with same beliefs on this diverse land but cost of this ease is very high. This ease of unification may be a reason of this tag's prolonged use but it could also be one facet of ignorance among us, we never stopped using it. As it is clear the need of this tag at older times was necessary because some foreigners were present on this land and may served as a resistance to accept their faith. But we indirectly accepted them as our masters. They NAMED US! I am not blaming our forefathers, what was necessary at those times was done in absence of a strong leadership or central think tank but now times have changed and I feel now we can analyze these things from past and put up a discussion. It will definitely help people who associate with this identity.
Same goes with the word Indian. In about 16th century Europeans came to this land in form of trading companies, most of them had India in their name. Contemporary name of the land was Hindustan, named by Persian rulers. No one till that time on this land called it India. In 18th Century they stared conquering this land and English succeeded. Now a need was felt to govern this new earned authority of company from Britain, hence some acts were passed in British parliament and we got this name! New masters new name!
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