This chapter examines how the Western categorical term ‘religion’ and its engagement with the colonial construction of Hinduism has limited the scope of dharma in Indian nationalist and political discourse. It argues that the modern Indian and colonial reimagination of dharma is problematic because it denies the multiple meanings of dharma and inappropriately projects Hinduism as a Western form of religion within Indian traditions. The Western colonial encounter with India in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries led to significant changes in how indigenous culture and religious traditions were understood, with colonialists reframing the concept of dharma into the categories of ‘religion’ and ‘Hinduism.’ This reframing process increasingly reduced the meanings of dharma to fit Western and Christian constructions of religion. The chapter also discusses the perspectives of several prominent figures in modern Hindu and Indian nationalist movements, including Debendranath Tagore, Keshubh Chandra Sen, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Sri Aurobindo, Rabindranath Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi, and how they viewed religion and dharma. Although most of these reformers followed Vedantic traditions associated with a reform of Hinduism rooted in dharma, they differed on whether their views were extreme, nationalist or religious. Somehow the appropriation of ‘dharma’ as a synonym for ‘Hindu,’ ‘Hinduism’ and ‘religion’ was shaped by both Indian elites and Europeans, limiting dharma to homogeneous speculation rather than highlighting its plural influence.