Talk:Accession of Kalat

changes and overview
Some of the sources are from separatist and Indian blog sites. I have cleaned up a few the others remain fine such as the political scientists etc but it still requires some work adding blog and quotes from separatist leaders and using Indian Defence websites is probably unwisely as it becomes slanted to one opinion. PremijAnans (talk) 07:54, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

The article which quotes Altaf Hussein is not good enough the word "forcibly" Is not used in Hyderabad or Junagarh either so why do Indian editors insist it should be used here ? When we clearly know "Operation Polo" was a military invasion and forced action. To add to this that blog from DailyO is not used anywhere else on pages such as Balochistan and the reason is because it would be deleted as its not reliable. The same language must be used and no bias should be made when mentioning Hyderabad or Junagarh as both were "forcibly" annexed. PremijAnans (talk) 07:16, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

WP:FAKE citations
It appears that random WP:OR has been written on this page, with equally random citations added afterwards. I can't make head or tail of anything writen on this page. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 11:47, 1 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Quite decent but a history of elites; little discussion about those who were the subjects.
 * Provides a longue-durée history of the Khanate and relevant background on the peculiar circumstances. TrangaBellam (talk) 17:55, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
 * TrangaBellam (talk) 15:03, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Provides a longue-durée history of the Khanate and relevant background on the peculiar circumstances. TrangaBellam (talk) 17:55, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
 * TrangaBellam (talk) 15:03, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Sheikh (2018)
I am afraid that Salman Rafi Sheikh is a blatant propagandist (!= biased/heavily opinionated) and might not be used. This was his M.Phil thesis and we do not normally use them either. I will cite a particularly instructive example about what renders his scholarship disingenuous and him, unreliable:

In p. 82, he writes about how the date of the accession was suddenly altered after a previous meeting had failed due to opposition from certain members, how a few members were absent from the assembly on that day, and how Jogezai manipulated a victory. Hence, Sheikh concludes that there was no consensus for accession to Pakistan etc.
 * Cited is p. 197 from Martin Axmann's monograph on Balochistan. What does Axmann tell us?
 * That the above account is by one Jan Mahammad Dashti, an ardent Baloch nationalist. Axmann chose to reproduce him only because he was the most "outspoken" and "colorful" advocate of this "fake referendum" theory which had apparently resulted out of a "British-Pak" conspiracy. Axmann goes on to reproduce equally partisan accounts by pro-accession activists, which Rafi skips.
 * Axmann leaves it to the reader to construct a sketch of the referendum by adding and subtracting from these accounts but warns that none of the writers had any proclivity for truth. The day of the referendum varies (and even the year) as does the number of representatives (and composition thereof) from one account to another.
 * In any case, Axmann believes such reconstructions to be only of academic interest and reiterates that the result of the accession had been a foregone conclusion since long. TrangaBellam (talk) 16:18, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

Further, we do not need much on the referendum. As Axmann emphasizes, the referendum had nothing to do with Kalat except for the leased areas to British Baluchistan - a couple of whom declared their allegiance to Kalat after being claimed by the Khanate - but had their fate decided by the referendum. TrangaBellam (talk) 16:21, 20 August 2022 (UTC)


 * I agree I am still baffled how this one single piece of work from a student gets such massive prominent inclusions on multiple articles such as Balochistan, Pakistan and Khanate of Kalat surely his views need to be atleast trimmed down or outright removed TopHustler (talk) 22:14, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

No referendum in Kalat
Right. There was no referendum in Kalat. But there was legislature of some kind. The Khan of Kalat convened it, in order to get backing for his bid for independence. The Lower House was all in favour of it. But then the Khan suddenly changed his mind and acceded to Pakistan. After this, things get a bit hazy. The Army was sent in and the majority of the legislators were arrested. The Khan's brother escaped into the hills and raised an insurgency. The Pakistan Army has battling them ever since. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:30, 20 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Yeah. Both the Lower House and Upper House supported Kalat's bid for independence.
 * With tributaries acceding to Pakistan, Kalat became surrounded from all sides and it dawned upon Khan that the more he resisted the inevitable, the greater was the probability of being rendered a person of insignificance in Pakistan. So, he sold his "legislators" down the river —blaming them for misguided politics and prodding the state to ban KSNP— and built a career at the altar of Jinnah. He was rewarded with the Presidentship of Balochistan States Union and granted considerable leeway in continuing his erstwhile rule without any meaningful oversight.
 * What happened in the immediate aftermath of the accession is hazy since Pakistan appears to have disposed off all relevant records esp. after scholars started digging for them. The only way to glean information is off partisan autobiographies - for example, this has some interesting trivia on how KSNP penetrated into the ranks of local Muslim League despite the ban etc. TrangaBellam (talk) 17:24, 21 August 2022 (UTC)