"As a term introduced by Persian-speaking outsiders, “Hindu” is not an identity to which one has to subscribe in order to be included in it. To the Arab and Turkic invaders, it simply meant “any Indian who is not a Zoroastrian, Jew, Muslim or Christian”. The term is not limited to any specific sect or caste, nor does it require espousal or rejection of any specific set of beliefs, but it denotes the whole commonwealth of mutually interacting Indian religious traditions. It is an ongoing conversation between many different viewpoints, and Hindus will deem you a member of the club once you take part in the conversation, as an accepted member of any of the subsets of the conversing society. It is only a matter of course that as a participant located at a specific point in the broad spectrum of viewpoints, any Hindu voicing an opinion would thereby disagree with a great many other Hindus... To its original Muslim users, the term “Hindu” definitely included Buddhists, tribals, later on also the Bhakti (devotional) sects, such as the Nanak Panth now known as Sikhism, and independent Bhakti poets like Kabir."