Talk:Superstition in India

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Superstition in India article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

This article is written in Indian English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour, travelled, centre, analysed, defence) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

The subject of this article is controversial and content may be in dispute. When updating the article, be bold, but not reckless. Feel free to try to improve the article, but don't take it personally if your changes are reversed; instead, come here to the talk page to discuss them. Content must be written from a neutral point of view. Include citations when adding content and consider tagging or removing unsourced information.

The contentious topics procedure applies to this page. This page is related to India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, which is a contentious topic. Please consult the procedures and edit carefully.

The contentious topics procedure applies to this page. This page is related to pseudoscience and fringe science, which is a contentious topic. Please consult the procedures and edit carefully.

Arbitration Ruling on the Treatment of Pseudoscience

In December of 2006 the Arbitration Committee ruled on guidelines for the presentation of topics as pseudoscience in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pseudoscience. The final decision was as follows:

Neutral point of view as applied to science: Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, a fundamental policy, requires fair representation of significant alternatives to scientific orthodoxy. Significant alternatives, in this case, refers to legitimate scientific disagreement, as opposed to pseudoscience.
Serious encyclopedias: Serious and respected encyclopedias and reference works are generally expected to provide overviews of scientific topics that are in line with respected scientific thought. Wikipedia aspires to be such a respected work.
Obvious pseudoscience: Theories which, while purporting to be scientific, are obviously bogus, such as Time Cube, may be so labeled and categorized as such without more justification.
Generally considered pseudoscience: Theories which have a following, such as astrology, but which are generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community may properly contain that information and may be categorized as pseudoscience.
Questionable science: Theories which have a substantial following, such as psychoanalysis, but which some critics allege to be pseudoscience, may contain information to that effect, but generally should not be so characterized.
Alternative theoretical formulations: Alternative theoretical formulations which have a following within the scientific community are not pseudoscience, but part of the scientific process.

India Top‑importance

	India portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject India, which aims to improve Wikipedia's coverage of India-related topics. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page.IndiaWikipedia:WikiProject IndiaTemplate:WikiProject IndiaIndia articles
Top	This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.

Skepticism Top‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Skepticism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of science, pseudoscience, pseudohistory and skepticism related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SkepticismWikipedia:WikiProject SkepticismTemplate:WikiProject SkepticismSkepticism articles
Top	This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.

Alternative medicine

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Alternative medicine, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Alternative medicine related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Alternative medicineWikipedia:WikiProject Alternative medicineTemplate:WikiProject Alternative medicineAlternative medicine articles

Alternative Views High‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Alternative views, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of significant alternative views in every field, from the sciences to the humanities. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion.Alternative ViewsWikipedia:WikiProject Alternative ViewsTemplate:WikiProject Alternative ViewsAlternative Views articles
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

Paranormal High‑importance

	This article falls under the scope of WikiProject Paranormal, which aims to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to the paranormal and related topics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the attached article, help with current tasks, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and discussions.ParanormalWikipedia:WikiProject ParanormalTemplate:WikiProject Paranormalparanormal articles
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

Sociology Mid‑importance

	Society portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Sociology, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of sociology on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SociologyWikipedia:WikiProject SociologyTemplate:WikiProject Sociologysociology articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment[edit]

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 7 September 2020 and 18 December 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Ghady Nasrallah. Peer reviewers: Karim Akkkk.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 03:55, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Nomination for review[edit]

The fact that this and "Superstition in Pakistan" are the only articles with this sort of "Superstition in X Country" leads me to wonder why it is that the authors feel the need to single out India. There are certainly countries in Africa and elsewhere in Asia in which superstition (the use of which word is already highly charged with POV, but I think it can be allowed in some cases) is a matter of major public concern. Superstition is also pretty prevalent in the West. There are also issues with straightforward religious practices like animal sacrifices being labelled as "superstition"---if this is the case, every other ceremonial practice of every other religion needs to be labelled superstition on every other article on Wikipedia. The article also has many instances were it reads more like an essay than an encyclopedia article, like the completely out of place quote from Francis Bacon. Kevin Corbett (talk) 07:33, 15 May 2015 (UTC

@Kevin Corbett: You are absolutely correct. The other countries should also have a "Superstition in X" page. Superstition is a serious issue in developing nations, unlike in the west. People in such nations are exploited and even killed due to superstition. In Tanzania, albinos are being killed and eaten, because they are thought to have magical properties as part of their religion. The situation in India, is not much different. But, the rising number of educated citizens is resulting more debate and lawsuits. However, the rising income level has also resulted in more opportunistic people who exploit them. The article only notes those superstitions that have been subjects of major public debates and lawsuits. The article considers animal sacrifices as superstition because the authorities consider it so and there are court orders prohibiting it. The Francis Bacon quote was recently added and has been removed. I hope all your concerns have been addressed. Write on my talk page, if you feel this or any other related pages have more problems. -Kenfyre (talk) 05:12, 12 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

If the authorities use that specific language "superstition", I think such needs to be included. That is, is this being prohibited on the lines of it being animal cruelty, or it being superstition? I really think that the entire "Other Notable Superstitions" section is concerning matters that are religious in nature seem pretty far removed from the matters discussed elsewhere in the article. Considering how loaded a word "superstition" is, I think at least this needs to be framed in a way such as "Some scholars/activists/skeptics/whatever believe that several traditional religious practices in India, such as animal sacrifice and taboos preventing menstruating women from entering temples, to be representative of superstitious attitudes." Kevin Corbett (talk) 01:25, 19 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 3 external links on Superstition in India. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 08:48, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Very less people believe in these bad rituals[edit]

Sati pratha is not happening in nowdays and those study which classify that how many people are superstitious in india is talking about people who believes that mirror breaking is bad and something like this but sati pratha and girls killing assuming tham ghost is not practical in nowdays and isro is most effective research organisation in world Pooji tiwari (talk) 03:46, 7 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Requesting help in article expansion[edit]

Hi,

Requesting you to have a look at

Superstitions in Muslim societies and also Talk:Superstitions in Muslim societies

Requesting article expansion help, if above topics interest you.

Thanks and regards

Bookku (talk) 06:14, 6 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Superstitions in Hindu societies[edit]

Topic Superstition and religion is going through expansion for societies of various religious background.

Topic Superstitions in Hindu societies substantially overlaps with Superstition in India same time it is not complete overlapping either. So like other religious society articles regarding superstitions do we initiate separate article Draft:Superstitions in Hindu societies or Superstition in India is more than enough for the purpose??

Bookku (talk) 13:36, 7 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The normal process would be to expand the content in a section of the parent topic, in this case roughly Superstition in India, and split if off into a new article if it becomes a coat rack.

The way i see it, if Superstitions in Hindu societies doesn't meet GNG the only argument left is that the content would become an immediate coatrack. Without a draft version that's hard to tell. If there is a substantial amount of valuable content that would be not be published as it is out-of-scope for Superstition in India that could be a supporting argument but i intuit that's not the case. Hope that helps, Zindor (talk) 14:20, 10 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Refs[edit]

Bookku (talk) 01:15, 19 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

https://www.hindustantimes.com/opinion/superstition-sorcery-and-the-state-a-look-at-the-laws-to-combat-black-magic-and-other-such-practices-101709308576213.html

Bookku (talk) 12:38, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Requesting reconsideration[edit]

@Skywatcher68 Pl. would you revisit your edit dif?

Suggesting a change some thing like following:

".. Common superstitions in India today include the belief that cutting fingernails or toenails at night brings bad luck, similarly a black cat crossing the road is considered bad luck, .."

Or

".. Common superstitions in India today associate bad luck with a black cat crossing the road or cutting fingernails/toenails at night. .."

Bookku (talk) 10:32, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Is there some reason you can't WP:BEBOLD and do it yourself? I won't mind. –Skywatcher68 (talk) 13:40, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]