User:Fowler&fowler/Kingdom of Mysore FAR

Fowler&fowler's concerns and sources
I came across this article (again) while working on some Colonial India-related articles on Monday. (I realized the next day that I had made a few edits to it in March 2008.)

Mysore is variously a city, a district, and a larger historical region in southern India. In its last manifestation, it is also a major topic of historical study.

Accurate Lead Paragraph
The Chiefdom of Mysore (Kannada ಮೈಸೂರು ಸಾಮ್ರಾಜ್ಯ ) (1399–1761 CE) was a chiefdom of southern India founded in 1399 by Yaduraya in the region of the modern city of Mysore. The chiefdom, which was ruled by the Wodeyar family, served as a feudatory of the Vijayanagara Empire until the empire's decline in 1565. Later, during a period when multiple feudatory rulers claimed independence in southern India, the chiefdom was consolidated. The chiefdom became the Kingdom of Mysore under the Sultans Haider Ali and his son Tipu Sultan. During this time, it came into conflict with the Maratha Empire, the British Empire, the Nizam of Golconda and the rulers of Travancore and Malabar. However, their most well known conflicts were the four Anglo-Mysore wars. Success in the first two Anglo-Mysore wars was followed by defeat in the latter two and ending with Tipu Sultan's death in 1799. This resulted in the British taking over large parts of the kingdom, restoring a five year old Wodeyar child on the throne of the Princely State of Mysore, styling him as a Maharaja, and subjecting him to enough protections to secure subservience. Soon, on account of the young ruler's profligate spending and the Nagar rebellion in southwestern Mysore, the British retook the governance of the princely state in a new Commissionership of Mysore which lasted from 1831 to 1881. Wodeyars were then reinstated and continued to rule the state until Indian independence in 1947, when Mysore was merged with the Union of India.

F&f FAR Post 2
(Fowler&fowler Post2) Although I am staying away from entering into protracted content disputes here, I have to voice agreement with user:Dineshkannambadi when he says that the controversies that trail these scholars should not be followed here, only their footprints on the sands of scholarly time. So, just as Dr. Kamath has international recognition with his one publication on the topic of Mysore listed in Google Scholar, Dr. Romila Thapar too has a few publications here and there listed in Google Scholar, and these publications have been cited a few times by others. Similarly, just as Dr. Kamath's legacy in Ancient India has been covered in the international press, such as in the review, Mis-oriented textbooks, in the magazine Frontline, Dr. Thapar's contributions have been recognized as well, such as in the report, Historians Brown and Thapar Will Share $1 Million Kluge Prize in the Washington Post just a few days ago. Let us keep our focus on the scholarly record. Best regards, Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  14:30, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

F&f FAR Post 3
(Fowler&fowler Post 3) My dear user:Sarvagnya, In response to the Frontline coverage, Dr. Kamath wrote a letter to the magazine's editors titled, The Saraswati river, which provided scientific evidence for the Saraswati River and justification for the appellation, Saraswati-Sindhu Civilization. After the BJP's defeat  in the 2004 Indian elections, the new government led by Oxford scholar Manmohan Singh changed all the text books, consequently, Indian high-school students are no longer learning about Dr. Kamath's  "Saraswati river" in their maps (see page 2 of this online chapter). However, our own Wikipedia, has acknowledged these ideas in the lead of its page Indus Valley Civilization. Fowler&amp;fowler «Talk»  18:10, 10 December 2008 (UTC) (Scratched out some text that doesn't directly answer user:Sarvagnya's question.   Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  21:23, 10 December 2008 (UTC))
 * PS As you will readily see at the end of the letter, Dr. Kamath is the Chairman of the Editorial Committee and Dr. Nagaraju, Scrutiniser of the Standard VIII and IX Social Studies textbooks. Warm regards,  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  18:13, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

F&f FAR Post 4
(Fowler&fowler Post 4) Perhaps there has been some misunderstanding user:Sarvagnya. Nowhere in this second FAR have I said that Dr. Kamath, former Reader in History, Banglore University, is not a significant historian. My point is that just as Dr. Kamath as been honoured by interviews on private websites, such as Kamat.com, where, for example, in his closing remarks, he said, "The volunteers of organizations such as RSS need to rise to occasion to influence young minds into greater values of life," other scholars, like Dr. James Manor have also been recognized internationally. As I have already stated in my first post above, Dr. Manor regards the Wodeyars to have been Chieftains rather than Kings. I have suggested a very actionable plan there as a first step. Best regards, Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  18:32, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

F&f FAR Post 10
(Fowler&fowler Post 10) PS I just noticed that user:Dineshkannambadi changed the name of the mother article of the literature subsection from Kannada literature in the Kingdom of Mysore to Kannada literature, 1600–1900 CE without any notice anywhere on the talk page and with the "minor edit" box checked in the edit summary. This mother article is apparently also simultaneously undergoing a peer review in preparation for an FA drive. Since this change is not uncontroversial, and very much concerns not only the name "Kingdom of Mysore" on the anvil here, but also a subsection of an article in an FAR. I would like to request user:Dineshkannambadi to make no such moves that directly concern this FAR, unless he has gained consensus for them both here and on the talk page of the mother article. I have reverted the move. Regards, Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  21:46, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Modern Kannada literature periodization

 * 1) Quote:"(p. 1716) The modern Kannada literature had dawned, broadly speaking, in the third decade of the 19th century with the publication of Kempunarayana's Mudramanjusha (A chest of seal, 1823), a prose romance which deals with the story presented in the celebrated Sanskrit play Mudrarakshasa in an original manner."
 * 2) Quote:"(p. 167) The Nineteenth Century: The development of a modern consciousness and a modern sensibility as well as of appropriate literary forms for their effective articulation was a long and complex process which started in the early years of the nineteenth century, a process involving challenge and response and continuity and change. ...  The most impressive literary work of the first half of the nineteenth century is undoubtedly Mudramanjusha (The Seal Casket) by Kempu Narayana, also a writer at Krishnaraja's court."
 * 3) Quote: (p. 163) "In this survey, the works produced from the 12th century up to the beginning of the 19th will be considered as belonging to medieval literature."
 * 4) Quote: (p. 166–167) "Translations served to help Kannada literature break away from these traditional forms.  They were first undertaken by missionaries and by administrators in the service of colonial rule.  Both Ferdinand Kittel (1832–1903) and B. L. Rice (1837–1927) translated Christian hymns according to the earlier metrics and the songs of Dasas, but others attempted to translate Christian texts into Kannada so that they could be sung to Western melodies.  In the latter case, they were forced to modify the ancient rhyme schemes and metrical patterns in order to make their poems musically viable.  For the first time in Kannada literature, the ancient rhyme schemes and metrical patterns were given up.  According to Havanur, the modern Kannada short poem came into being around 1838 through the invocation poems translated by Christian missionaries.  Another stimulus to modern Kannada literature came with the need to provide textbooks in Kannada for younger children.  Many translated poems, specifically designed to provide an idiom familiar to the spoken language, were included in these textbooks.  In 1873, the First Book of Kannada Poetry containing poems like "Advice to Young Girls," "Glory to Victoria," and "Monkey's Game," was published.  This poetry was free from the bombast of traditional Sanskrit poetry, while aiming at simplicity and clearness compatible with the spoken dialect."
 * 1) Quote: (p. 163) "In this survey, the works produced from the 12th century up to the beginning of the 19th will be considered as belonging to medieval literature."
 * 2) Quote: (p. 166–167) "Translations served to help Kannada literature break away from these traditional forms.  They were first undertaken by missionaries and by administrators in the service of colonial rule.  Both Ferdinand Kittel (1832–1903) and B. L. Rice (1837–1927) translated Christian hymns according to the earlier metrics and the songs of Dasas, but others attempted to translate Christian texts into Kannada so that they could be sung to Western melodies.  In the latter case, they were forced to modify the ancient rhyme schemes and metrical patterns in order to make their poems musically viable.  For the first time in Kannada literature, the ancient rhyme schemes and metrical patterns were given up.  According to Havanur, the modern Kannada short poem came into being around 1838 through the invocation poems translated by Christian missionaries.  Another stimulus to modern Kannada literature came with the need to provide textbooks in Kannada for younger children.  Many translated poems, specifically designed to provide an idiom familiar to the spoken language, were included in these textbooks.  In 1873, the First Book of Kannada Poetry containing poems like "Advice to Young Girls," "Glory to Victoria," and "Monkey's Game," was published.  This poetry was free from the bombast of traditional Sanskrit poetry, while aiming at simplicity and clearness compatible with the spoken dialect."
 * 1) Quote: (p. 166–167) "Translations served to help Kannada literature break away from these traditional forms.  They were first undertaken by missionaries and by administrators in the service of colonial rule.  Both Ferdinand Kittel (1832–1903) and B. L. Rice (1837–1927) translated Christian hymns according to the earlier metrics and the songs of Dasas, but others attempted to translate Christian texts into Kannada so that they could be sung to Western melodies.  In the latter case, they were forced to modify the ancient rhyme schemes and metrical patterns in order to make their poems musically viable.  For the first time in Kannada literature, the ancient rhyme schemes and metrical patterns were given up.  According to Havanur, the modern Kannada short poem came into being around 1838 through the invocation poems translated by Christian missionaries.  Another stimulus to modern Kannada literature came with the need to provide textbooks in Kannada for younger children.  Many translated poems, specifically designed to provide an idiom familiar to the spoken language, were included in these textbooks.  In 1873, the First Book of Kannada Poetry containing poems like "Advice to Young Girls," "Glory to Victoria," and "Monkey's Game," was published.  This poetry was free from the bombast of traditional Sanskrit poetry, while aiming at simplicity and clearness compatible with the spoken dialect."
 * 1) Quote: (p. 166–167) "Translations served to help Kannada literature break away from these traditional forms.  They were first undertaken by missionaries and by administrators in the service of colonial rule.  Both Ferdinand Kittel (1832–1903) and B. L. Rice (1837–1927) translated Christian hymns according to the earlier metrics and the songs of Dasas, but others attempted to translate Christian texts into Kannada so that they could be sung to Western melodies.  In the latter case, they were forced to modify the ancient rhyme schemes and metrical patterns in order to make their poems musically viable.  For the first time in Kannada literature, the ancient rhyme schemes and metrical patterns were given up.  According to Havanur, the modern Kannada short poem came into being around 1838 through the invocation poems translated by Christian missionaries.  Another stimulus to modern Kannada literature came with the need to provide textbooks in Kannada for younger children.  Many translated poems, specifically designed to provide an idiom familiar to the spoken language, were included in these textbooks.  In 1873, the First Book of Kannada Poetry containing poems like "Advice to Young Girls," "Glory to Victoria," and "Monkey's Game," was published.  This poetry was free from the bombast of traditional Sanskrit poetry, while aiming at simplicity and clearness compatible with the spoken dialect."

Careless or disingenuous?
Dear Michael Devore, I'm disappointed both to see your post here and to see it copied on the FARC page.

I've taken you thus far to be a neutral and fair person, but I am surprised to see you inserting yourself in a situation, where, as a copy-editor, you should know better. You say, for example, "... the delist arguments made in the FAR because a copyedit is needed are not compelling." Who has argued for "delisting" on grounds of poor prose? I can't seem to find anyone. All that people have said is that in addition to issues of poor sourcing and factual accuracy, of lack of comprehensiveness and the presence of bias, it doesn't help the article any that the prose is so shabby. That's quite different from arguing for delisting because the article hasn't been copy-edited.

Many problems in the text that don't fall under bias, citations, or comprehensiveness, are in any case errors that a copy editor will likely not catch. The classic howler (which has since been removed) was, "The economy of the Kingdom of Mysore was based on agriculture, due to the majority of the population being villagers." Fixing the grammatical errors alone there won't do much, since the author has confused cause for effect!

Also, it is disingenuous, in my view, to characterize the FARC&mdash;in which the primary author of the article has been accused of bias&mdash;as a dispute between two equally biased parties which requires intervention by a neutral party (whatever that means). Perhaps you would like to do a Google Scholar search on each of user:Dineshkannambadi's sources and decide for yourself how obscure they are; contrast them then with the results for the major authors who have worked on the topic of Mysore.

I understand that you may have some empathy for user:Dineshkannambadi since you have worked with him for some time now, but as a copy-editor you need to stay above these frays. user:Dineshkannambadi might be a very hard working editor, but the topic of history requires certain skills, not only of accurately paraphrasing a source and of clearly expressing oneself, but also of understanding historical methodology and perspective, skills that, in my view, user:Dineshkannambadi doesn't display on his pages, however much we may admire his hard work and drive in putting them together.

I would like to request that you ask him to remove your post from the FARC. If you would like to add something to the FARC, you should do it yourself. At the very least, you risk your message being misused unwittingly. If you choose not do this, I will be copying this post to the FARC as well. Regards, Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  20:21, 18 January 2009 (UTC)


 * My comments were carefully structured not to take sides in the crux of the debate, and I believe them to be accurate within the scope of a disinterested party with no special knowledge of the subject, to be on point, and to be potentially helpful to those who are concerned, as some were, about the copyedit of the article. Since I do not recommend pass or fail at FACs, and I have no strong feelings on what is kept or delisted at FA (the article quality is the same regardless), I left the decision on whether to repost my comments to the primary party in the FARC interaction: Dineshkannambadi. My remarks clearly cannot not be found to support his basic content position, but do demonstrate a willingness to help out at the article in another possibly problematic area if the factual nature of the content was consensus approved. Various comments related to Delist at the FARC assuredly do significantly remark on the writing style and copy.


 * I prefer that you not imply that I have cast a special regard for Dineshkannambadi's side of the content debate because I "have worked with him for some time now". I do not know Dineshkannambadi any better than I do you. Moreover, I have worked with a number of other editors, several preceding him, although it is true that three of his articles have my highest edit counts. In fact, I would have no problems working on articles on which you are the primary author, as I note that the article you authored and mentioned twice at the FARC currently has its own copy issues. Dineshkannambadi's articles, your own, and all articles, should stand or fall on their own merits.


 * Since you have chosen to suggest in your section title that I have acted disingenuously, I will in turn choose to be blunt in commenting on one aspect of this dispute—in fact the range of disputes—you have had with Dineshkannambadi. Wikipedia is a collaborative project. All work done here should be performed with an eye towards building articles and making them better. The issuance or revocation of FA badges should always remain a weak second to these goals. Despite this, you have begun and continued spending incredible amounts of time fighting with Dineshkannambadi in FAC and FARC, with many accompanying side comments and personal remarks wholly unrelated to fundamental content issues. If you had instead invested most that time in writing quality articles, I have little doubt that you could have been the primary author of as many, or more, Featured Articles than Dineshkannambadi. You spend your time and talents far too cheaply.


 * In closing, you have spread your debate with Dineshkannambadi across multiple pages of Wikipedia. Those would seem sufficient to your task. You are not welcome to further this fight with him, directly or indirectly, at my talk page. Please do not post to my talk page again in this vein. -- Michael Devore (talk) 01:56, 19 January 2009 (UTC)


 * My goals at Wikipedia are not related to writing Featured Articles which are too close to what I do for a living as an academic and which I am well aware I could write very easily if I wanted to. That article, by the way, which you think has its own copy issues, was written in one morning and has not be revised.  I prefer instead to work on small obscure topics and also to keep various forms of nationalism out of the discourse here.  Contrary to what you might think, I don't spend an enormous amount of time on Wikipedia.  My family doesn't allow it.  I don't have anything personal against user:Dineshkannambadi.  To me he is work is simply another example of the regional nationalism that you see on Wikipedia and the distorted histories he produces are no different from other distorted histories I have fought against on Wikipedia.  You are of course entitled to your opinions about my motivations, but you are off the mark.  Meanwhile, I will continue to hold mine that you have been disingenuous.  Regards,  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  04:19, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Statistics for usage "Kingdom" vs. "State" for Mysore
The only reason why you need identifiers is to avoid inadvertently including references to "Mysore state in independent India," the state which later became "Karnataka." If you didn't include identifiers, the numbers in 1 and 2 would become 94 and 2,550 respectively (but that would be incorrect). In other words, the evidence is overwhelming that among scholars the term for Mysore during the entire period 1500 to 1947, but especially the period 1800 to 1947, is "State of Mysore" OR "Mysore state" OR "Princely state of Mysore." Fowler&amp;fowler «Talk»  04:31, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) First, let us consider the time period 1799 to 1947. Among scholarly sources published between 1799 and 1947 which do not mention "haidar ali" or "tipu sultan" (in order to rule out references to earlier events (involving Tipu Sultan or Haidar Ali), i.e. to events of the years 1760 to 1799) there are:
 * 2) 3 that use "Mysore kingdom" OR "Kingdom of Mysore", whereas there are
 * 3) 165 that use "Mysore state" OR "State of Mysore"
 * 4) Among scholarly sources published between 1948 and 2008 which mention "nineteenth century" but not "haidar ali" or "tipu sultan" (again in order to rule out references to events of the years 1760 to 1799), there are:
 * 5) 8 that use "Mysore kingdom" OR "Kingdom of Mysore"; whereas there are
 * 6) 167 that use "Mysore state" OR "State of Mysore"
 * 7) If you allow other identifiers of the years 1800 to 1947 (such as "princely" OR "colonial") and disallow other identifiers of earlier years (such as "eighteenth") the results become even more lopsided. There are:
 * 8) 9 that use "Mysore kingdom" OR "Kingdom of Mysore", whereas there are
 * 9) 336 that use "State of Mysore" OR "Mysore state". You can restrict the last search to the last 25 years (to examine recent publications), the numbers in 1 and 2 above become 8 and 235 respectively.
 * 10) Finally, if you look at the entire time period 1500 to 1947 (using identifiers "sixteenth century" OR "seventeenth century" OR "eighteenth century" or "nineteenth century" or "early twentieth century" or "princely" OR "colonial"), there are
 * 11) 77 sources that use "Mysore kingdom" OR "Kingdom of Mysore", whereas there are
 * 12) 677 sources that use "Mysore state" OR "State of Mysore"