Talk:Standstill agreement (India)

New addition
An IP added the content below, and another IP reinstated it after it was reverted:

The first bit about promise not being kept is in the source, and I will add it into the previous paragraph. (It is not clear however how the author knows this. No evidence is given.)

But the rest of the passage seems to be WP:OR. I couldn't find anything of this kind in the source. The fact that India blocked arms imports is well-known. It is not merely an accusation. However, this has no relevance to the Standstill Agreement. The third bit is entirely irrelevant. India might have made plans to invade. But it didn't invade until the negotiations were exhausted. Once again, this WP:OR and has no place on Wikipedia. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 22:56, 5 August 2017 (UTC)


 * In a third edit, the IP provides p.213 for the claim that India "covertly" supported raids into Hyderabad. The passage in the source states this:




 * Here we see that the raids were conducted by (Hyderabad) State Congress and India supposedly supported them covertly. The sentence is at least partly ambiguous. It is unclear whether India's support was for the Hyderabad State Congress or its raids. The page 288 of Campbell-Johnson 1951 says nothing of the kind. The author presumably used some other edition of Campbell-Johnson. By pattern matching against other citations in the source, I gather that the relevant passage appears on page 314, which says this: "On the Hyderabad side come detailed complaints of economic blockade". There is nothing about raids or the Hyderabad State Congress.


 * If it was "known" since 1951 that India was supporting raids into Hyderabad, one would expect pretty much every reliable source to state that. Such is not the case. As per WP:EXTRAORDINARY, such claims require multiple reliable sources.


 * It also appears to me, in the light of this, that Benichou is a rather sloppy source and claims attributed to it should be double-checked with caution. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 13:40, 6 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I am afraid you are second-guessing a reliable source. How Benichou gets information and what he finds reliable and what he doesn't, is not our business. Unless you have a reliable source that contradicts the information, it is not proper to question it.


 * Benichou which you call a sloppy source has been described in scholarly reviews in this way


 * Lucien D. Benichou (2002) From Autocracy to Integration: Political Developments in Hyderabad State (1938-1948), Contemporary South Asia, 11:3, 357-383, DOI: 10.1080/0958493032000057753






 * Benichou is quite clear to a neutral reader, India was covertly supporting Congress raids on Hyderabad.


 * On the other hand this article has two citations to Srinath Raghavan whose book has been criticised for selective bias. A much higher authority than us found Srinath Raghavan guilty of ‘selection bias’ and of pervasive ‘lack of theoreti¬cal reflection’


 * Which is obvious. He does not care to consider in his book that Nehru did not keep his promise to take up with the provincial governments the issue of economic blockade on Hyderabad.


 * And how many sources published by academic presses do you want me to cite for the anti-Hyderabad raids?


 * Roosa, John (1998) The Quandary of the Qaum: Indian Nationalism in a Muslim State, Hyderabad 1850-1948, Volume 2, University of Wisconsin—Madison, pp. 636 says


 * Sinn, Judy (1993) Clifford Chance: Its Origins and Development, Granta Editions, pp. 138 says


 * Sherman, Taylor (2015) Muslim Belonging in Secular India: Negotiating Citizenship in Postcolonial Hyderabad, Cambridge University Press, pp. 23 says


 * And here is the record of the anti-Razakar Mr. Hyder in Hajari, Nisid (2015) Midnight's Furies: The Deadly Legacy of India's Partition, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, pp. 234


 * Campbell-Johnson, 1951, p. 381 says


 * Prasad, Rajendra (1984) The Asif Jahs of Hyderabad: their rise and decline, Vikas Publishing House Private, Limited, pp.385 says
 * 2405:204:3101:C36A:3361:DBA6:918C:97E1 (talk) 04:25, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
 * None of these quotes establish the content you added, viz., that "India" covertly supported raids into Hyderabad. The Hyderabad State Congress was the State's own political party, whom the Nizam had banned for some twenty years and excluded from the State's government. Perhaps they were waging a war on the Government. Perhaps many Indians sympathised with them and helped them. What does this say anything about "India"? What does this have to do with the Standstill agreement? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:22, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you did not care to read the quotes of John Roosa and Mr. Hyder? Even Benichou suffices. Your comment seems like OR and POV which you are trying to set up against corroborated RS. for review. 2405:204:3101:C36A:3361:DBA6:918C:97E1 (talk) 02:57, 8 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Well if you take the time to flip a page or two forwards and backwards in Benichou’s book you might find yourself face to face with the same information you call OR.
 * For your convenience.
 * The rest about Hyderabad’s view on the loan to Pakistan, Laik Ali’s retort about the Ittihad are also readable in the book. The current version of the article is just the Indian state’s version of events. My version does much better justice. 2405:204:3101:C36A:3361:DBA6:918C:97E1 (talk) 03:32, 8 August 2017 (UTC)
 * The rest about Hyderabad’s view on the loan to Pakistan, Laik Ali’s retort about the Ittihad are also readable in the book. The current version of the article is just the Indian state’s version of events. My version does much better justice. 2405:204:3101:C36A:3361:DBA6:918C:97E1 (talk) 03:32, 8 August 2017 (UTC)
 * The rest about Hyderabad’s view on the loan to Pakistan, Laik Ali’s retort about the Ittihad are also readable in the book. The current version of the article is just the Indian state’s version of events. My version does much better justice. 2405:204:3101:C36A:3361:DBA6:918C:97E1 (talk) 03:32, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

You are claiming consensus has been reached. Nothing of the kind. One issue at a time. We have been talking about "India" supporting armed raids into Hyderabad. The evidence so far is that some members of the Hyderabad State Congress who escaped to "camps" in Indian provinces (they were refugee camps) launched these raids. The State Congress itself did not order or support the raids. In fact its liberal members were "alarmed". Roosa (in his PhD thesis) concluded that, because the "INC leaders in Delhi" didn't close down the camps, they were supporting the raids. That hardly counts as support. El Edroosy believed that some "Indian troops" were helping them. While I have great respect for the man, there is not much of evidence there. This is an organised effort either. Hyder talks about camps and raids a great deal, and what he says convinces me that the Sholapur District Magistrate was complicit. However, his description:

does show that the problems were internal to Hyderabad. The Muslims there were terrorising the Hindus. The Hindu leaders escaped across the border and launched raids. This is not a problem created by India. It was Hyderabad's own problem. The Government in Delhi was trying hard to drill it in their heads but they had wooden ears. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 18:08, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

Very well. Your silence was taken as your acquiescence Now you say

Now this is why I complained you are setting up your OR against RS. To you it hardly counts as support. But to the people that matter on Wikipedia such as Roosa etc it is support. I do not see it necessary to recap WP to you about OR and WP:SYNTHESIS. Remember the bone of contention here is whether India supported the raids. Whether it fueled it. RS such as Benichou and Roosa tell us Indian officials did. Who started the whole business inside Hyderabad is irrelevant in this particular paragraph. We will move onto that soon once we settle this paragraph.

You also need to insert attribution for the claim that Hyderabad violated all clauses of the agreement. This is the Indian state's POV which you have written in Wikipedia voice. That’s no good. I will be checking Hodson's work as soon as I get my hands on it. But nonetheless attribution is required. As Benichou tells us Hyderabad had its own version of events. You have deleted that perspective too.

I also note you have changed 'Nehru' to 'Government' regardless that the latter is a very vague term and lacks specification. How will the average reader know which Government's sin is being narrated? Indian Government or Hyderabad's?

You have also used weasel wording 'which is considered a breach of the standstill agreement' to describe what RS tells us was a definite breach of the Standstill Agreement; something which India never replied about. 2405:204:3191:7A83:A5EB:2E9B:2DD7:F41 (talk) 05:19, 11 August 2017 (UTC)


 * This is not OR. This is what the reliable sources say, including the ones you yourself cited, e.g., Taylor Sherman, p.23. It doesn't look you have actually read the sources you are citing. Your approach is to type in your POV into Google, pick up the sources that pop up and then claim "this is sourced". That is exactly POV-pushing. Achieving what the Wikipedia community understands as neutrality means carefully and critically analyzing a variety of reliable sources and then attempting to convey to the reader the information contained in them fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without editorial bias. Your blatant disregard for the sources you yourself cite doesn't work in your favour. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 18:34, 12 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I won't bother with your personal fantasies on how I research information. Now to business if you find you can drop WP:STICK (or I will just have to go for a RfC or mediation).
 * Prove it then. Nowhere does Taylor Sherman, p.23. say our Indian officials were not supporting the raids on Hyderabad. I have given you no less than 2 scholarly sources which say our India/n officials were supporting the raids on Hyderabad. You have not even given one which clears our country's innocence in this aspect. All you have done is insist that what we Indians did 'hardly counts as support' in contradiction to explicit passages of RS  and with no backing from RS either.
 * Achieving what the Wikipedia community understands as neutrality means carefully and critically analyzing a variety of reliable sources and then attempting to convey to the reader the information contained in them fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without editorial bias.
 * Well as you have sanctimoniously recounted WP I think now you should have no excuse not to know that there's no need to write in Wikipedia voice that Hyderabad violated all clauses of the Standstill Agreement as respectable scholars differ, nor any need to use weasel wording to describe what the reliable sources tell us was a definite breach of the Standstill agreement by our beloved yet sinful India.47.31.9.34 (talk) 04:19, 13 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Well as you have sanctimoniously recounted WP I think now you should have no excuse not to know that there's no need to write in Wikipedia voice that Hyderabad violated all clauses of the Standstill Agreement as respectable scholars differ, nor any need to use weasel wording to describe what the reliable sources tell us was a definite breach of the Standstill agreement by our beloved yet sinful India.47.31.9.34 (talk) 04:19, 13 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Benichou is not acceptable beecause he provides no evidene. Roosa's PhD thesis is not admissible as a RS in a contentious setting. If you want to propose new text based on Sherman, p.23, please do so. If not, I will add some text myself when time permits. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 16:27, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

On Benichou
Benichou's book was a PhD thesis carried out in 1985. It is not clear why it took the author 15 years to publish it. One might expect that the content might have been updated in the interim. Not so. K. V. Kate's book, which is extensively referenced on Wikipedia's pages, finds no citations here. The fact that the Ittehad revised its constitution in 1938, changing its ideology from sovereignty of the Nizam to the sovereignty of Muslims finds no mention at all. The author is simply unaware of what happened in Hyderabad post-independence, except for the submissions made to the Government of India, and limited to the British perceptions pre-independence. Not even the intelligence reports seem to have been available to the author. The book is badly out of date, suffers from inadequate research, and is not authoritative for anything. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 11:51, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

RfC about the violations of the Standstill agreement by India and Hyderabad

 * The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

This is the paragraph at the centre of controversy.

The issue here are:

1.Should this sentence (i.e. ‘Hyderabad violated all clauses of the agreement’) be written in Wikipedia voice?

I think keeping the later issues in mind, it shouldn’t. Actual facts described in RS are more nuanced than this. Hyderabad had its own side of the story too (see issue 2). We cannot write the perspective of my Indian countrymen as blanket facts.

2.Whether this clause should be added after the sentence in issue number 1.

Hyderabad protested that its loan to Pakistan was a non-political investment and the private army was for the defence of Muslims.

I think it should as it explains some of the Hyderabadi perspective about their ‘violations’ of the Standstill agreement. It is cited to a reliable source too.

3.Should ‘considered a breach of the standstill agreement’ in the contentious passage be changed to was a ‘definite breach by India of the Standstill agreement’?

My reason for saying it was a definite breach is that is how the cited RS describes it. ‘Considered to be’ appears to be weasel wording, WP:EUPHEMISM.

4.Should India’s support for border raids on Hyderabad, cited to scholar Lucien D. Benichou, be included?

My stance is that it should. My opponent called Lucien D. Benichou a sloppy source. I disagreed and pointed out the favourable scholarly reviews of Benichou’s book in contrast to other sources used for this article such as Srinath Raghavan. My opponent then said ‘Benichou is not acceptable beecause he provides no evidene’.

My stance again is that he is a reliable scholar who has studied the Hyderabadi integration into India in detail and has received favourable scholarly reviews. Asking for evidence from scholars is not in the scope of Wikipedia editors. How reliable scholars get their information is not our business. 2405:204:33A9:962F:2133:E96C:B796:88E9 (talk) 04:01, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

Comments

 * Yes for 1, No for the rest.
 * Re. 1, we do not state facts as opinions (WP:YESPOV). It is factual that these violations occurred, and it is also factual that they were violations by the most plain reading of the Standstill Agreement. Hodson is a neutral WP:THIRDPARTY source, who has "brought the special insight of personal experience to his analysis", representing the "fruit of years spent in research, reflection, and writing, [that] was begun in 1963," according to Robert Frykenberg. I think his assessment that these are violations is more than adequate.
 * Re. 2, the nom wants to explain the violations by citing a source that is sympathetic to Hyderabad, but such explanations do not change the factual posiiton. Moreover, the expalanations cannot be one-sided. The Indian objections to those explanations would also need to be covered. I am not sure this article is the place for such debates.
 * Re. 3, "definite breach" is a bit of WP:PEACOCK. A breach is a breach. India has explanations for why this breach occurred, but the article doesn't go into those. I see no need to overemphasize the issue.
 * Re. 4, this has been discussed extensively in the previous section of this talk page. Basically, Benichou, who states unequivocally that "India supported border raids", doesn't provide any evidence for the claim. I have suggested to the IPs to propose new content based on Taylor Sherman, but they have not done so. The nom wants to argue that Benichou is authoritative based on one scholarly review. However, this is the only scholar review that I could find, and it is not by any South Asia expert. Peter Lehr is a Lecturer in Terrorism Studies and his review basically says that it is a valuable piece of work, without any expert analysis. It is not WP:NPOV to insert blatant accusations based on one (questionable) source, when other sources don't corroborate it. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 12:43, 14 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Comment: Achieving what the Wikipedia community understands as neutrality means carefully and critically analyzing a variety of reliable sources and then attempting to convey to the reader the information contained in them fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without editorial bias


 * I don’t see any proportional and editor bias-free representation of the sources in this article’s contentious paragraph.
 * So lets see what Hodson’s passage is on Hodson, The Great Divide (1969), pp. 480–481




 * So even Hodson agrees that India made breaches of the Agreement. As there is no difference of scholarly opinion about Indian breaches of the Standstill agreement there is no reason to use WP:EUPHEMISM to describe it as ‘considered a breach of the agreement’. I say use ‘definite breach’ because that is how the scholars describe it. Benichou says India did a ‘’definite’’ breach and Hodson also says India’s breaches were ‘real enough’.


 * More worryingly, Hodson’s 1969 book provides no evidence that Hyderabad violated the Standstill agreement, other than just say it did. Which is why WP:ATTRIBUTION should be used for that statement. Benichou’s more recent scholarly work investigates these supposed ‘breaches’ and describes the breach affair like this.






 * So Benichou does not say Hyderabad here breached the agreement. Benichou only said ‘’was also considered’’. That’s no definite statement. Benichou then adds nuance and showcases Hyderabad’s side of the story. So as per NPOV policy we should include the RS description of the Hyderabadi side of the story and attribution for the anti-Hyderabad Indian POV. 2405:204:33A9:962F:2133:E96C:B796:88E9 (talk) 04:57, 15 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Hodson's words "Hyderabad flouted" and "there were counter-accusations", clearly indicate an asymmetric treatment. There is no equivalence between the two. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 09:27, 15 August 2017 (UTC)


 * It seems Kautilya3 has devolved to flinging mud at reputable scholars with favourable scholarly reviews just to prevent a neutral article. Now I will await input from neutral editors, preferably someone who is not from my country India, as most of my Indian countrymen are not here to build an encyclopedia but to act as a mouthpiece for the Indian state. Hopefully, neutral editors can judge for themselves Hodson’s paragraph, its supposed ‘asymmetric treatment’ and criss-cross it with Benichou and come up with a balanced, editor-bias free representation of the sources.
 * I forgot to respond about point four of the RfC. There are plenty of scholarly sources which talk about the Indian state’s role in formenting trouble inside Hyderabad. Benichou should be enough for neutral editors but I will add an Indian scholar here too.
 * 2405:204:33A9:962F:72EC:3F73:55D2:681B (talk) 03:08, 18 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Yes for 1. (Comment as per Feedback Request.) Here is a link to the full text of the relevant page of an unbiased book that confirms violation of the agreement as a fact and the reasons. https://books.google.ca/books?id=48D8CAAAQBAJ&pg=PA139&dq=Violation+of+the+Standstill+agreement+by+India+and+Hyderabad&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Violation%20of%20the%20Standstill%20agreement%20by%20India%20and%20Hyderabad&f=false (Published in 1961 by Springer, Netherlands .. not in Asia.)

Citing books that other editors cannot examine is not very helpful for those trying to provide Feedback.

Here is a link to the full text of the relevant page of another book that confirms violation of the agreement as a fact and the reasons. I do not know if this is a solid source. Publisher: Imprint unknown (March 1991) https://books.google.ca/books?id=G7xPaJomYsEC&pg=PA41&dq=violated+Standstill+agreement+++India+and+Hyderabad&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=violated%20Standstill%20agreement%20%20%20India%20and%20Hyderabad&f=false

This unbiased book provides the United Nations' perspective on the issues; the link leads to the full text of the relevant pages: https://books.google.ca/books?id=VCrnCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA48&dq=UN+Standstill+agreement+Hyderabad+Nizam&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi59rGI4OHVAhWH4IMKHVqTDWMQ6AEIMjAC#v=onepage&q=Standstill%20agreement%20Hyderabad%20Nizam&f=false (Oxford University Press. April 11, 1985)

I am not an expert on this topic and cannot evaluate the validity of the sources cited by others, or by myself. The sources that I listed above do provide a reason for the violation! If there are definitely solid sources that do so, then the reasons should be discussed in the article.

Dr. Peter Lehr certainly sounds like a reliable source but I do not have access to his commentary about the violation of the Agreement. https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~wwwir/research/cstpv/staff/pl17.html Peter K Burian (talk) 21:49, 18 August 2017 (UTC)


 * So User:Peter K Burian you will be okay with this version? It discusses the reasons for the alleged 'violations' like you said (If there are definitely solid sources that do so, then the reasons should be discussed in the article.) from a solid source, Benichou, who has favourable scholarly reviews including from Peter Lehr, whom you say is reliable.




 * The last sentence has two authoritative reliable sources cited to it to back it up. There are more but I think these should be good enough. What say you? 2405:204:3197:4CD8:F291:817:C06F:8E31 (talk) 02:59, 21 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Like anyone who adds a comment because of a request for Feedback, I do not plan to continue adding comments to this page. (Just as I would not expect you to become a regular editor to articles about Canada or Costa Rica.) This article has some competent editors who know a lot more about India, etc. than I ever will. (Yes, I spent two weeks in India but in the South.) And they are more capable of determining which sources are solid/reliable. I offered a few sources that seem reliable (at least two of them do). Peter K Burian (talk) 00:32, 22 August 2017 (UTC)


 * I do not have access to the full book by Peter Lehr.
 * P.S. When some editor reviews this Talk section because he might provide Feedback Service, he will be so confused by all of the arguments here that he will walk away. No wonder this is not getting much feedback. I don't know what the solution is, frankly. I am losing track of the issues myself. Peter K Burian (talk) 23:15, 22 August 2017 (UTC)


 * , Peter Lehr's name has been mentioned in connection with a book review, not a book. The review can be found here, of a book by Benichou, published in 2000, based on a PhD thesis in 1985. I have claimed in previous discussions that the review only states that it is a "valuable book" but does not critically evaluate it (possibly due to lack of subject knowledge of Peter Lehr). In any case, the review says nothing about violations. A passage from the review that might be relevant is:
 * However, this assertion is not true. The author states in the preface that the archival information he found in Hyderabad was all official in nature and "gave little information regarding actual political developments". The book is still written as if the author had enough information from all sides. I am not sure what you can do about this. We only know of its deficiencies by cross-comparing with other sources. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 01:30, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
 * However, this assertion is not true. The author states in the preface that the archival information he found in Hyderabad was all official in nature and "gave little information regarding actual political developments". The book is still written as if the author had enough information from all sides. I am not sure what you can do about this. We only know of its deficiencies by cross-comparing with other sources. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 01:30, 23 August 2017 (UTC)


 * The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.