New Delhi: The lone Muslim minister in the Narendra Modi government has landed in trouble by reportedly endorsing the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) view that all Indians are Hindus.

Najma Heptulla, the minister for minority affairs, was quoted by English daily Hindustan Times in its Friday edition as saying that there is nothing wrong with the term Hindu being applied to all citizens as a national identity.

“If some people called Muslims Hindi or Hindu they should not be so sensitive because it does not affect their faith... It is not about right or wrong. It is about history,” Heptulla, 74, was quoted as saying.

Her statement created a stir forcing Heptulla to make a U-turn and blame the media for misinterpreting her view.

“I did not say Hindu. I used the word ‘Hindi’. Hindi is an Arabic word. When people go from India to Gulf or Arab countries, they are known as Hindi. If they go to Iran then they are known as Hindustani. This is a national identity,” Heptulla clarified on Friday, adding that the reporter who interviewed her probably got confused between Hindi and Hindu or did not understand what she was saying.

Fundamentalist Hindus have become emboldened ever since the Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government came to power in May this year. Heptula’s statement followed RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s announcement earlier this month that India is a Hindu nation and all Indians are Hindus.

BJP’s pro-Hindu agenda helped it become a prominent national party and emerge the single largest party in a hung parliament forcing the party to put its original agenda on the backburner to form a coalition government that it ran for six years from 1998 to 2004.

However, BJP’s return to power after a decade, that too with an absolute majority, has seen fundamentalists come out of the woodwork much to the anxiety of minorities.

BJP has for years tried to woo Muslims to give the party a secular face and has promoted several Muslim party leaders. Its two prominent Muslims leaders could not make it to the Modi government as Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi did not contest the last general elections. Shahnawaz Hussain was defeated, leaving Prime Minister Modi with no choice but to induct Heptulla as the lone Muslim face of his government.

Heptulla, grand niece of prominent freedom fighter Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad, quit the Congress party to join BJP in 2004 after serving as deputy chairperson of Rajya Sabha for nearly 17 years.

However, her Hindu versus Hindi statement prompted the opposition to criticise her saying she it was only to please her political bosses.

“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,” said the Congress party spokesman Manish Tewari, while Tariq Anwar, general secretary of the Nationalist Congress Party, said she was merely trying to save her post as a minister by currying favour with the BJP leadership.

“I am not so immature that to save my chair I would say such things,” Heptulla said, while refusing to comment on RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s statement that India is a Hindu nation and all Indians are Hindus.