Talk:Kongunadu Munnetra Kazhagam

POV
Ok, obviously this thing was written as a defense against allegations that KMK is a gounder caste party and nothing more. To remove POV, the following facts can be added to say why opponents allege KMK is a casteist outfit (and they do say it is a casteist outfit)


 * 1) They didnt initially field a candidate for the reserved Nilgiris lok sabha constituency in 2009.. They did so only after the other parties started branding them as casteist and working for a single caste alone and after 3 weeks of announcing candidates for other 11 constituencies they were contesting.


 * 2) in 2009, bye elections for Tamil Nadu assembly by-election, 2009 they came third behind Congress and DMDK. Their "star candidate" E.R.Easwaran got pushed to third place. this puts a spanner in the "third biggest party" theory (admk abstained)


 * 3) the party began as "kongu vellala gounder peravai" explicitly as a specific caste outfit. The feb 15, 2009 conference this article is referring to was called as "gounder ezhuchi manaadu"


 * 4) In 2009 out 12 candidates they fielded, 11 were gounders. The remaining one was for a reserved constituency (see point 1) - . this is the "diverse communal background" the article mentions about.


 * 5) the slogan they used for their rally in feb 15 was "kazhagangal arasandathu podum, kavundargal arasalattum". (lit. the Kazhagams (dmk and admk) have ruled long enough. let gounders rule in the future). I have no citation for this except witnessing the hoardings. so this is original research can be discarded. :-)


 * 6)they demand the repeal of the Protection of Civil Rights (PCR) Act, 1955.


 * 7) constituency wise breakup of 2009 vote share they got . indicates they didnt get votes from other castes.--Sodabottle (talk) 17:40, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Tomatafarm's edits
new User Tomatofarm's is adding content from the viewpoint of a party faithful / fan. I am removing them and he keeps adding back. I appear to be in an edit war. I will revert his additions for the third time. If he adds back, will ask for someone else to take a look.--Sodabottle (talk) 07:18, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

From Aruvavettu's talk page
More description about KMP added. This description cites lot of references from India's leading newspapers like Times of India and The Hindu. Neutrality has been maintained by including words like "claimed by leaders or party" which clearly shows that it is not a general fact or belief but the words told by leaaders or party. I am willing to discuss with anyone protesting for changes.

good work
good work with the KMP. I agree with your edits except one - it began as a caste organisation representing Gounder interests, then repositioned itself as the champion of all kongu nadu in the face of criticism as as caste outfit. I am adding that information with sources.--Sodabottle (talk) 07:10, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Modified the allegations
Hi Sodabottle, first of all I would like to congratulate you for bringing up more description about KMP. In fact wikipedia is a place to learn more.

I completely agree with your first modification that KMP was launched by a caste outfit called Kongu Vellala Goundergal Peravai.

The second modification ("In response to criticism from other parties, that it was castiest in nature") explicitly means that the party was working for a particular caste at the beginning and later changed its agenda. Please observe that this article is only about KMP not about its predecessor. The reference article given by you (http://www.dinamalar.com/Political_detail.asp?news_id=7103) doesnot mention anything that the new party will work only for Gounders. The news article just mentions the launch of new party by the Gounder organisation. Neither the party nor the party's leaders claim that the party was only for Gounders. The second reference (http://hindu.com/2009/04/23/stories/2009042351600300.htm) also just mentions about the other parties accusations. The party general secretary justifies the reason for delay in fielding other caste candidate. Again the news article doesnot explicitly or implicitly mention that the party worked for Gounders initially and later changed. It seems like the party right from its inception is working for the entire kongu region. So I am redesigning your second modification. Please cite a reference that explicitly mentions that KMP worked for a particular caste in the beginning. If you feel that I am not right, you are welcome for more discussions.

Your third modification regarding the by election is a good addition. Securing 9.8% already implies that the candidate lost his deposit (Please look for this website which clearly mentions criteria for losing deposits- http://www.indian-elections.com/electionfaqs/contesting-for-elections.html). Of course parties win some elections and lose some elections. A lot of national parties lost security deposit in the elections starting from India's independance. I don't see any wikipedia articles of contemporary parties (DMK,ADMK,PMK,DMDK etc.) mentioning about the loss of security deposit although they had lost it many times in earlier elections.

Though I am not opposed to non-English references, I prefer English references as this will reduce the probablities of misinterpretations occuring during translations - AruvaVettu


 * Regarding the first point - Fair enough. I believe it will be difficult to find a reference that speficially says they worked "only for gounders" (though they did make the usual noises any new caste based party makes). Anything in the media would be only "accusations" and "allegations". But the fact remains that they started out making claims to represent the gounders, that despite gounders being in majority they are underrepresented. The media coverage while they launched the party was that they are the "gounder party". . Most of the media articles on the KMP, note that their support based is grounded in Gounders. The article if it mentions what the party claims to represent, it should in some way present this view. I will see if i can dig out Tamil mags reporting the "kazhagangal arasaandathu podhum, goundergal arasaalattum" slogan they used during the early days. I have personally seen it being used during their campaigns and for ads for the Feb 19 meeting and seen it being reported in the media. I will see if i can find a media report that says so.


 * And regarding the deposit, i accept it is undue. But on the Tamil sources vs English sources, i have to disagree. Both are equally relevant and i dont think there is there any chance of "lost in translation" thing happening for someone who knows both english and tamil.--Sodabottle (talk) 04:46, 29 November 2010 (UTC)


 * And one more thing i am adding a "caste" descriptor for the "gounder organisation" tag. Even when we blue link a term, we are supposed to describe it in known terms in the article, as we should aim to explain things in the article itself.--Sodabottle (talk) 04:50, 29 November 2010 (UTC)


 * And truthdive.com is not a reliable source. Can you find a better source than that (i am sure there was one hindu report analysing the vote splits right after the election. couldnt find it now)--Sodabottle (talk) 04:58, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree with your view point that one should try to explain the things in the article itself. Explaining things which are directly related to KMP is acceptable and fine. Please observe that this page is meant for KMP. The phrase "a Gounder caste organisation" tries to explain the "Kongu Vellala Goundergal Peravai" whereas the page is meant for KMP. I even thought of removing the entire phrase but shortened it by removing the word "caste". I am expecting such disputes to be resolved through consensus and not willing to engage in edit war with anyone. Please substantiate clearly the need to explain about other organisations in the wikipedia page that is meant for KMP - AruvaVettu —Preceding unsigned comment added by AruvaVettu (talk • contribs) 00:36, 30 November 2010 (UTC)


 * I am puzzled by your reluctance to mention anything about caste in the article. KMP was started by KVGP. KVGP is a caste outfit. we are blue linking gounder, which is a caste. So why the reluctance to include "caste" as a descriptor. KVGP is not just any other organisation but the KMP's "parent". If we are describing PMK, then we would mention vanniyar sangam and while describing the justice party, we describe its predecessors as "non-brahmin" associations. Why do you want the page to be scrubbed of anything associated with "caste", when the party was started by a caste outfit?. Again i am not applying the descriptor to KMP itself, but to its parent.--Sodabottle (talk) 04:08, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree 100% with your view point that KVGP is a caste outfit. But I disagree with your point that KMP's parent is KVGP. I don't know much about the history of KVGP but what I know for sure is that it is a non-political caste outfit. On the other hand, KMP is a pure political party. A non-political outfit cannot be a parent of political party. It can be termed as the launch pad of KMP. Coming directly to the issue of caste descriptor, as we had discussed in our earlier talk, so far it has not been clearly established (with the help of references) that KMP supports only a particular caste. Hence I don't prefer to include a caste descriptor in the article of KMP even though its launch pad was a caste outfit. If you wanna include any caste related information, KMP is not the right place. Rather use it under KVGP banner but not under KMP banner. Again please note that this article comes under KMP banner not under KVGP banner. So this is not the appropriate place to include caste descriptor. Hope this explanation helps - AruvaVettu (talk) 05:35, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

—Preceding unsigned comment added by AruvaVettu (talk • contribs) 05:23, 30 November 2010 (UTC)


 * >>But I disagree with your point that KMP's parent is KVGP. Wrong KVGP was involved in politics and supported parties in the prior elections. Besides a non-political organisation can be a parent of a political outfit. half the political outfits in India were launched like this


 * >> Hence I don't prefer to include a caste descriptor in the article of KMP even though its launch pad was a caste outfit.
 * You are trying to air brush the word "caste" out of the article. despite the word "gounder" being here. This is getting silly. I guess, you are some sort of party supporter who wants to hide the caste affiliations of the party. I am not going to edit war over this. I will ask some other editor to take a look at this issue. --Sodabottle (talk) 06:03, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

What i am trying to do is to maintain the neutrality of the article. It seems like you are more interested in attaching the "caste" tag to the party. There by trying to bring calumniation to the party followed by more than half a million (as of 2009). None of the references provided by you, clearly indicates the caste attachment for the newly formed party. It seems like the party's launch pad was a caste outfit but not the party itself. Without strong references a party cannot be accused as "caste" based. It seems like you are biased against a particular community. Your POV at the beginning points to lot of non - reliable resources. Some of the articles are even personal opinions (kalachuvadu). Those are not given by well known authors. They appear to be very biased and I think you are carried away by those. A party can be accused as "caste" based only if there is positive response to the any of the following questions. 1. Did the party official leader or general-secretary told in any meetings that it will only work for Gounders ? (Of course, after party's launch) 2. Is any one of the party founding principles stress only on Gounder development ? 3. Did the party official spokesperson tell in any press conference that it works for Gounder development ? 4. Did the party manifesto tells that they are only for Gounders ? 5. Finally, did any of the party's candidates canvassed people during election that it works only for Gounders ?

A positive answer for these should be well guarded by strong and clear references. Looking at your past history of editing and preventing new edits for this article, I also prefer some other editor who will go by reliable and standard references - AruvaVettu (talk) 06:33, 30 November 2010 (UTC)


 * For the record, i did not add any of the above references/opinions to the article. The article was first written as a pure propaganda piece by a party activist. Someone from the opposing camp slapped a POV tag without explaining anything in the talk page. I cam along and added the explanation, why the party could be seen as casteist and the article in the original state could be seen as POV. After a few months, i stubbed the article removing the POV portions and the tag. From there I have maintained this article from both anti- and for party activists. (take a look at article histories to see how many times i have reverted Thaniyarasu supporters from vandalising this article and the ones on Easwaran/best ramasamay. I am the one who sourced and kept both the later articles from deletion).


 * I am not the one accusing KMP as "casteist". everyone except KMP is doing so. In fact almost every media article that mentions KMP mentiones it works for gounders and the party spokesmen and leaders have to deny that they are casteist everytime they give a press conference. So this is not my perception alone. We don't go by the official party line alone to describe what a party is. This is not the party website. We have tons of secondary coverage in reliable sources, which point out that the party is gounder based. I am not the one who is an obsessed single issue wiki editor - you are. If i had a rupee everytime some caste POV pusher accused me of being against X or Y caste in wikipedia, i would be a rich man by now.--Sodabottle (talk) 06:51, 30 November 2010 (UTC)


 * It is great that KMP is attempting to get rid of the "casteist" stigma. good for the country. but, the comment Please observe that this article is only about KMP not about its predecessor by AruvaVettu doesnt make any sense. the article should contain everything related to the subject roughly in proportion to relevance, significance and coverage in reliable sources. (disclosing the solicitation, for the record) --CarTick (talk) 21:27, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

The line "party was originally launched as an organisation representing Gounders, it has attempted to reposition itself as a representative of all people in the entire Kongu region following 2009 Lok Sabha election" was included without clear references. From the reference (http://hindu.com/2009/04/23/stories/2009042351600300.htm), it is very clear that the party fielded a non-gounder candidate for the 2009 lokshaba elections. Will anyone field a candidate after election ? A non-gounder candidate was fielded well before the elections.This is an ample proof to disqualify the phrase "following 2009 Lok Sabha election". Also the references cited by you, did not firmly establish that the party "worked only" for gounders at the beginning and later changed its agenda. I think misintrepretation happened by assuming its predecessor as the party itself. This issue was discussed earlier and a line was removed due to non-availability of correct references (Please go through the discussion above). You are trying to bring in the line which gives same meaning but with different set of words. Please stop playing around with the words with sensitive issues like "caste". Please bring in strong references to support your argument. Verifiability and Neutral point of view are two of the core content policies of wikipedia. Please understand that allegations cannot be termed as the general and established fact.

To support my argument, I am bringing in three references. First two references point to the interview given by party's president "well before" the 2009 lokshaba elections. In the first reference, Best Ramasamy, explians that the party was not formed only to represent gounders. http://www.hindu.com/2009/04/29/stories/2009042959840300.htm

The second reference, he gives the reason for the formation of the party(Region's neglect prompted party's formation). I strongly beleive that the word "region" represents all communities in the kongu region and not "only gounders'. http://news.chennaionline.com/newsitem.aspx?NEWSID=58500191-0d90-4b6a-b3ce-a5f75347a90d&CATEGORYNAME=CHN

The third reference, points to the interview given by party's general secretary. Again this one also given before the elections. In this he speaks of development issues but not about caste. http://www.hindu.com/2009/04/10/stories/2009041055640700.htm

Finally, I am roping in these references not to support the party but to counter your line. Please don't flag me as a party supporter/fan for asking references - AruvaVettu (talk) 04:49, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

The by-poll election section is no more required as main assembly election is approaching. Also, no other political party pages display by-election results. AruvaVettu (talk) 23:56, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

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