Talk:Ananda Marga/Archive 2

Recent rv of user bobrayner
I deleted some informations not directely related with Ananda Marga (but only with some of it's followers in the past): the acts of a person are the responsibility of that person and not of his/her religion. This is an elementary principle. Otherwise, all Christians should be considered pedophiles 'couse of acts committed by Cardinal O'Brien, all muslims terrorists 'couse of acts committed by Bin Laden and so on. If someone has done something wrong that does not mean that the Ananda Marga is responsible for this. The Crusaders do not show at all that Christianity or the Church are violent organizations. I should like to discuss this here after the recent rv of user:bobrayner.--Cornelius383 (talk) 17:54, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't see what the problem is. The article is not suggesting that all Ananda Margis are terrorists or that Ananda Marga is responsible for any of the acts by its followers. However, the events surrounding Sarkar's arrest and how his followers reacted to it are significant and integral aspects of Marga's history, which is why they are mentioned in many tertiary sources including WP. Other controversies which involved Ananda Marga but were not directly related to its history, such as the Purulia arms drop case, have been left out, even though an argument could be made for including all of them as well in a separate section.  Correct Knowledge  «৳alk»  18:18, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Ok I understand your point. But following your logic can we insert the Cardinal O'Brien admissions on the article on Catholic Church?--Cornelius383 (talk) 18:27, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes we can. :) Feel free to include any cases of sexual abuse by Catholic church in Catholic Church and Catholic sex abuse cases. We are NOTCENSORED.  Correct Knowledge   «৳alk»  18:46, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
 * ...and I'm sure the watchguards on this have already made those insertions. I'll have to look further at the Sydney bombings, but the other case is patently relevant. Mangoe (talk) 18:50, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Well CK.. I was speaking about the article on Catholic Church and not on Catholic Church of course:). Anyway the facts mentioned, in my opinion, should not be part of this article. Ananda Marga does not support these facts and URPF (I never heard about it) is absolutely not part of Ananda Marga. We can build a new article in this regard (If you really think it is so important) like for Catholic sex abuse cases. If this is your proposal I could support it. But I should like to hear also the users out of the "anti-Sarkarverse" group of course.--Cornelius383 (talk) 19:04, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
 * There should be valid reasons for splitting out a new article from an existing one. What you are suggesting would be a WP:POVFORK which is obviously unacceptable. Correct Knowledge  «৳alk»  19:33, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Cornelius asked me to look at this discussion (via my Talk page). Frankly, I am not at all disturbed by this paragraph. In other words, it could stay exactly as it is, and I would not lose any sleep over it. However, any semi-intelligent person who examines the paragraph closely would realize that the language is not at all neutral.
 * (1) The paragraph begins: "Some intiates [sic] of Ananda Marga, also referred to as Ananda Margis, undertook terrorist acts for the purpose of freeing Sarkar." And yet everything after that is just unproven allegations - "allegedly this" and "allegedly that". So the word "allegedly" should also have appeared in the first sentence as well, but it does not.
 * (2) About mid-paragraph, one sentence reads: "Some non–Indian initiates formed a splinter group of PROUT, United PROUTists Revolutionary federation (URPF)." But there is no evidence that I have ever seen that this is so. Which "non-Indian initiate" was a member of the UPRF, and what evidence is there that the UPRF was a "splinter group" of anything?
 * (3) Regarding Pederick, he later retracted his confession and was released early from jail, after it was observed in court that his account of events did not tally with the known facts.
 * (4) The last sentence of the paragraph ends with "after which Ananda Margis ceased terrorist activities", but nothing in the earlier part of the paragraph actually establishes that any Ananda Margiis committed terrorist activities. (Of course, there might have been one or two confirmed incidents, but none are mentioned in this paragraph.)
 * If anyone would prefer neutral language and accurate information, then


 * (1) the first sentence could be amended by inserting the word "allegedly" before "undertook terrorist acts",
 * (2) the sentence in the middle of the paragraph could be changed by replacing "formed a splinter group of PROUT..." with "are suspected of forming the United Universal Proutist Revolutionary Federation (UPRF)"
 * (3) and the final sentence could be amended by simply deleting the final clause (as clearly the alleged purpose of the alleged terrorist activities had ceased to exist). --Abhidevananda (talk) 19:41, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
 * reformatted for easier reading. Garamond Lethe t c  07:02, 5 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Removing sourced content that looks negative, whilst keeping sourced content that looks positive, is whitewashing. In that light, Cornelius383's edit summary - "Deleted informations not related with Ananda Marga but with some followers: the acts of a person are the responsibility of that person and not of his/her religion. This is an elementary principle of law. Otherwise, all Christians should be c" - is an obvious fallacy. That is no more surprising than the usual canvassing of supporters. bobrayner (talk) 22:59, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for inviting me to participate in this discussion. Being quite interested in Buddhism, Yoga and tantric traditions I have also read some books of the Indian philosopher Shrii Shrii Anandamurti (the founder of Ananda Marga). I read the whole article and in particular the section quoted by Cornelius. First of all I have to make a general observation, related with some logical inferences in the text: if we say that A is a thief, and that A is a member of the X religion, we certainly cannot say that X religion professes larceny. This section of the article makes statements and draws some conclusions: if some members of the Ananda Marga have made mistakes in the past this does not mean neither that it has been because of their religion/beliefs nor that their religion is responsible for these acts. Of course we can make this statement, but we have to prove it. And I can't see any evidence of that on the article. Otherwise we are making a false/discriminatory statement. In short: I think that we have to produce this evidence otherwise we should delete those claims.--Knight of Infinity (talk) 03:42, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Are there specific claims where you think the sources are inadequate? Garamond Lethe t c  07:02, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks Knight of Infinity your opinion is clear to me. I propose to wait for other suggestions in addition to those already expressed by Correct Knowledge, Bobrayner and Abhidevananda.--Cornelius383 (talk) 08:26, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks Knight of Infinity your opinion is clear to me. I propose to wait for other suggestions in addition to those already expressed by Correct Knowledge, Bobrayner and Abhidevananda.--Cornelius383 (talk) 08:26, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

(1) See WP:ALLEGED, specifically:  Alleged and accused are appropriate when wrongdoing is asserted but undetermined, such as with people on trial for crimes.   I understand you to be saying that while we have a catalog of crimes that are attributed to Ananda Marga members, we don't have sources for which have gone through to conviction. I agree that this needs additional sourcing.

(2) Source should be VaNRM, pg 255.

(3) That needs fixing.

(4) I think VaNRM (255) is a better cite for this, as it has Sarkar condemning the terrorism and the terrorism halting before he is released.

Garamond Lethe t c  08:47, 5 March 2013 (UTC)


 * As I have said many times, Crovetto is not a very reliable source. Nevertheless, regarding (2), even Crovetto qualifies every one of her statements. Crovetto says: "Before Sarkar’s retrial, what appears to have been a splinter group of PROUT formed in response to Sarkar’s conviction. Some outraged non-Indian Margiis were suspected of being behind its creation. This group, the Universal PROUTists Revolutionary Federation (UPRF), claimed responsibility for acts of international terrorism, including assault and bombing, against Indian interests (U.S. Department of Justice 2007b). These incidents culminated in 1978 with the bombing of the Hilton Hotel in Sydney, Australia, in which three people died." However, if you check the records about the Hilton Bombing, it seems that the UPRF never claimed responsibility for that event. And, as for the rest of Crovetto's remarks, what I read is: "what appears to have been a" and "suspected of". There is nothing definite there - nothing to justify the categorical statement that Bob inserted into the article, i.e. "Some non–Indian initiates formed a splinter group of PROUT, United [sic] PROUTists Revolutionary federation (URPF) [sic]." And not just the name written by Bob, but even the name written by Crovetto is probably wrong. If my memory serves me right, it was either "Universal Proutist Revolutionary Federation" or "Universal Proutist Revolutionaries Federation". I doubt that it was ever "Universal PROUTists...", and I doubt that it had that strange capitalization either. Regarding (4) - Sarkar's statement and its connection with the end of terrorism for Sarkar's release - that is just Crovetto speculation. Indeed, the timeline is rather not just absurd but self-contradictory, given the fact that Crovetto implies that the UPRF was behind the Hilton bombing. The Hilton bombing took place four months after Sarkar's statement. And nine months after Sarkar's statement, the Yagoona event took place. Anyway, the simple truth is that Crovetto incorrectly describes Sarkar's statement, and she offers no source to back up her imaginative claims. From a historical perspective, all that anyone can really say for sure is: (1) After seven years in jail - during which time Sarkar fasted for five years, four months, and two days after having been poisoned - Sarkar was acquitted of all charges and released (2) After Sarkar's release, no further terrorist activities allegedly for the purpose of securing Sarkar's release took place. As to the Yagoona 3 (Alister, Anderson, and Dunn), seven years after they were convicted and incarcerated, the conviction was overturned, with compensation awarded by the State to all three men. But, having said all of the above, as far as I'm concerned, anyone can write whatever they like here. Fact or fiction, none of this is a big deal to me. The article is about Ananda Marga, and - in my opinion - this is way out on the periphery of that subject. --Abhidevananda (talk) 17:17, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Happy to be here to express my opinion. I gave a quick look at this article, particularly at the part of it highlighted here. It seems that the statements contained in it looks very seriuos, particularly as they are referred to a religious organization. With a simple internet search I found that this organization has the "not-for-profit" status and the "religious designation" in many countries included the U.S. I asked myself: would the U.S. or the Indian government really recognize an organization as a religion if it was involved in criminal activities? Frankly I do not think this to be possible. And I cannot even imagine how the U.N. has been able to recognize since 1991 the Ananda Marga Universal Relief Team (an organization that appears to be a branch of Ananda Marga) if this was a criminal organization. I believe that in order to make such statements in an encyclopedia there should be a strong evidence of that. Various highly reliable and neutral sources should clearly lead to these heavy conclusions: without any doubt. Otherwise this part of the article should be changed. And we should find a consensus on the kind of changes to be made.--Goldenaster (talk) 20:08, 5 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Abhidevananda, I do remember you saying many times that Crovetto was not a reliable source. I also remember taking the issue to WP:RS and establishing that Crovetto was indeed a reliable source, and you agreed.  I understand you think Crovetto might be inaccurate, but that's a wholly separate issue from reliability.


 * Crovetto doesn't claim that UPRF claimed responsibility for the Sydney Hilton bombing, and in doing so she follows the several other reliable sources I consulted. The timeline issue you raise is interesting.  Do you have another source for Sarkar's statement and these dates?  Garamond Lethe t c  20:31, 6 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Garamond, the VaNRM paragraph by Crovetto that I quoted (above) clearly implies that the Hilton bombing was the work of the UPRF. The only other reference to the Hilton bombing in that article is another one-liner, mentioning the confession by Evan Pederick - a confession that was impeached by the courts and subsequently retracted by Pederick himself, but that additional information does not get mentioned by Crovetto (or this paragraph in Wikipedia). Regarding your taking the matter of Crovetto's reliability to WP:RS, I never agreed to that, never participated in any discussion there, and never concurred with any conclusion that may have been reached at WP:RS on this subject. Perhaps, by Wikipedia standards, Crovetto may be deemed a "reliable source", but the fact remains that her article is highly biased and riddled with errors (as demonstrated above). As to Sarkar's statement, it should be understood that he rarely spoke with the press. Indeed, during his entire incarceration, there was only one such occasion. I was in India when this took place, and the latest it could have been was the first week of October 1977. I don't have access to Indian newspaper reports from that time, but anyone with such access could easily verify this point. Sarkar was no doubt courteous in his dealings with the representatives of the press who met him in prison, but his official statement was a single sentence. The reason why I remember it well is because I met with Sarkar only a few days after that event, and that was one of the topics we talked about. (Sarkar asked me if I had read his statement and whether I liked it. I responded in the affirmative to both questions.) BTW, I see now that the paragraph in question has been edited once more. The new version still treats allegations as if they are facts, and is very slipshod in its presentation of information. Starting off a catalog of incidents with a mere allegation of killing - the L N Mishra case still sub judice after 38 years now - is rather ridiculous. As for the Justice A N Ray case, that is still under appeal, the grounds being that the main Government witness, a co-accused named Vikram, retracted his confession. (Anyone a little bit acquainted with CBI interrogation techniques knows that torture is commonplace.) There is a comment that some margiis self-immolated out of fear for Sarkar's life, but no reason is given for that fear. In fact, the fear was not fueled by the poisoning, as Sarkar survived that. The fear was due to the protest fast of Sarkar (five years four months and two days, ending only on his release from jail after being acquitted of all charges). No one imagined that anyone could survive such a prolonged fast, especially not under prison conditions. I also see in that paragraph the same unsubstantiated claim: "Some outraged non–Indian Margis formed a splinter group of PROUT, United PROUTists Revolutionary federation (URPF)." As mentioned before, that statement is not consistent with what is written in the Lewis book (although the Lewis book is cited as the reference for the statement). --Abhidevananda (talk) 05:34, 7 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Ok, you don't have a source. I'll see what I can dig up.  Garamond Lethe t c  07:29, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Rewriting history section
I'm planning on incorporating information from an 1989 Hinduism Today article as well as more recent material. The remainder of the article has issues similar to what was fixed recently at PROUT, but I'd prefer to get the history section stabilized first before making the rest of the article more encyclopedic. Comments and discussion are welcome. Garamond Lethe t c  13:07, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

I think several problems will disappear if this article focuses exclusively on Ananda-Marga-the-organization and Ananda-Marga-the-philosophy gets its own article or (more likely) gets folded into the Sarkar article. Garamond Lethe t c  14:17, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Recent edits
Well, Ugog Nizdast, the article as it is right now is very biased. The lead is unequally and unevenly (principle of same weight) filled up and the titles as well seem to be directed in the same way. Something should be done to fix it. I've very short on time to make research. However I know that if the lead will be composed of 2 paragraphs only, one of them should not be about some controversial alleged terrorism activity, which has been falsified by evidence and testimony. --Universal Life (talk) 14:12, 24 September 2013 (UTC)
 * All I know is, that an entire chunk of unsourced information was added by a newuser who also changed the meaning/wording of some actual sourced content; to anybody, that would raise an alarm. Anyway, I agree that it's in a bad state (as with so many other Indian articles) and the lead second para maybe can be made into a sentence or better, expand the first para itself. I haven't checked what the sources say about these controversies and if you find that something is biased/misinterpreted please edit it. I don't see why time is a problem here and if you want, I can be of some help here. This article has been on my watchlist due to persistent anonymous vandalism some time ago. Sincerely, Ugog Nizdast (talk) 14:26, 24 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I understand. Thank you. I'll try to fix the problem as much as I can. --Universal Life (talk) 14:42, 24 September 2013 (UTC)