Talk:Assam Movement

This article seems very one-sided. For example, it refers to Muslims as "illegal aliens" even though source 7 says "Most Bengali-speaking Muslims in Assam and Bengal have a history going back to the 1860s." It suggests that Indian police officer K.P.S. Gill himself attacked and killed a student, but the article referenced does not say that at all.

Request move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the proposal was moved. --BDD (talk) 17:59, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Assam agitation → Assam Movement – Per WP:UCN Assam agitation only gets 3,880 hits on GBooks. Assam movement gets 5,860 --Relisted. --  tariq abjotu  17:53, 29 June 2013 (UTC) Darkness Shines (talk) 15:42, 22 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I looked at the last page for each, and there were 173 results for "Assam movement" and 177 for "Assam agitation". Even this isn't accurate for determining the most common name, as some of the books only contain the words close together, not the exact phrases. Peter&#160;James (talk) 09:54, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
 * In a borderline case like this, I guess we should move to the slightly more comprehensible, accessible name. It looks like a proper noun and therefore should be capitalized either way. Red Slash 06:02, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Support: A study by Manirul Hussein calls it "Assam Movement".  Both Sanjib Barua and Hiren Gohain, two writers who have discussed it in the journal Economic and Political Weekly and elsewhere, even as it was on and later, called it Assam Movement, . Chaipau (talk) 11:27, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

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The Lead is still poor
, I am not satisfied with your lead revisions:

The first sentence is not WP:NPOV which says, among other things, do not state facts as opinions. If you do, you confuse the heck out of the readers. What is "According to the leaders" doing here? Isn't that the normal understanding of "aliens"? The wording in the source is more accurate.

The second sentence seems to be making an argument making it appear as if the Assamese demands were unreasonable. Here you are stating an opinion as a fact. This too is a violation of NPOV. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:25, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Sure, it is a work in progress. The first sentence is a whole lot more NPOV than what was there earlier.  Yes, what the leaders were demanding was legal.  If so, why did the GOI not accept the demands, let the agitators go home and avoid all the bloodshed?  In fact the GOI (1) passed a law (IMDT) applicable only to Assam and (2) insisted on 1971 as the cut-off year (it is 1951 in the rest of the country).  These issues are yet to come (in NPOV language).  So be a little patient.  Chaipau (talk) 23:46, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Please don't expect Wikipedia to answer for GOI. It is not our job.
 * Combing back, it is not really possible to write a LEAD without writing the body first. So I will await further writing on your part. Please take a look at National Register of Citizens for Assam and COPY whatever you can use from there. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 00:02, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
 * The Background section of an old version of the Citizenship Amendment Act also has useful material. (It was unfortunately rejected as being UNDUE for that page.) -- Kautilya3 (talk) 00:16, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your comments. Wikipedia does not answer for anyone. It just puts out what has been already said in an encyclopedic fashion. I do understand that.  I have material to refer to for now.  I shall dip into these other articles when needed.  Chaipau (talk) 00:37, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

Recent immigrants
thanks for these references. Please note that we are looking at the situation only up to the 1981 at most here, since that the background of the Assam Movement. Nevertheless, what is mentioned in the this and other pages need to be consistent. Chaipau (talk) 18:01, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
 * , I don't buy this argument. While the official "Assam movement" supposedly ended in 1985, the problems continue and the unrest also. Weiner is reporting the Census Bureau's estimates, which have only vague resemblance to reality, and become laughable for the 1971-1981 period. The ICSSR figures are much more thorough. I suggest that we use both. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 02:51, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Sure, that belongs in the legacy/aftermath section when it becomes available. There has been some surprises too in the data (NRC).  For example, it seems that a large section of the immigrants were Hindus and not Muslims and this challenges some of the basic premises of the movement.  Weiner published his estimates in 1983, and those were the numbers that form the backdrop of the Movement and represent the best estimates from then even though they might look not so accurate on further analysis.
 * I agree that the Assam Movement problem persists. As Weiner has said: "The inability of the authorities to distinguish between illegal and legal Bengali settlers is at the moment the most pressing element of the problem. No matter what date is chosen as the cutoff point to determine de facto citizenship-" (replace Bengali with immigrant).  This problem goes beyond Assam.
 * Chaipau (talk) 10:06, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
 * A solution could be—a dedicated article Post-colonial immigration in Assam. Chaipau (talk) 12:37, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

Sourcing
Recent edits have significantly changed the article and, together with the move, the general direction seems to be toward a rather euphemistic view of history in line with Indian nationalism, even if some paragraphs have seen improvements. I don't care enough to invest further efforts into the issue, but wish to document one issue that was immediately apparent. The lede now states: "when the draft enrollments in Mangaldoi showed high number of non-citizens in 1979 AASU decided to campaign for thoroughly revised electoral rolls" The quoted source, Pisharoty's Assam: the accord, the discord, does not, however, state this. The relevant passage reads: “ In his speech, the then chief election commissioner (CEC) S.L. Shakdher emphasised on the need to avoid omissions and improper additions to the electoral rolls and referred to ‘large-scale inclusion of foreign nationals in some states, including the North East’.”. In other words: the author merely quotes a contemporaneous statement by a politician. The choice to quote this statement instead of directly stating the alleged fact, should indeed be treated as a vote of no confidence in its accuracy. To misrepresent a source in such a way is a clear violation of policy, and it strains credulity to believe this isn't readily apparent.

There are other statements with similar issues, such as the idea, immediately preceding the above, that "it was known since 1963 that foreign nationals had been improperly added to electoral rolls" which is sourced to a government report, i. e. a first-party source. --Matthias Winkelmann (talk) 01:21, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
 * The basic structure of the article follows the historical framework established by Myron Weiner—and I am struggling to figure out how this could be a "euphemistic view of history." Here are some additional thoughts:
 * Shakdher was not a politician but the CEC. CEC's are usuall manned by civil servants of high standing, constitutional positions that are protected from political interference " It is very difficult to remove the authority of the Chief Election Commissioner once appointed by the president, as two-thirds of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha need to present and vote against him for disorderly conduct or improper actions."
 * "It was known since 1963..." comes from Reddi, who was also a civil servant.
 * That the Mangaldai electoral roles (and its suspected misrepresentation) set the ball rolling is well known. Nevertheless, I agree that the citations can be improved to illustrate this point.
 * It would do us all good to familiarize yourself with the subject before making blanket statements. This is a thorny issue, no doubt, and it is very easy to fall into some of the false narratives that are prevalent.
 * Chaipau (talk) 02:49, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I have now added additional citations and citation quotes that connect the Mangaldai findings and the beginning of the Assam movement (, Pisharoty 2019, Reddi 1981). Chaipau (talk) 12:36, 19 January 2021 (UTC)