User:Sitush/Common

Castelists
All statements need to be verifiable using reliable sources. So, if you add a person's name to an article called something like List of members of caste X then you will need to find reliable sources that support your assertion that they are of that caste or community etc. If they are still alive, you really should find a source where they self-identify as being members because otherwise it is likely to be a breach of our policy concerning biographies of living people - we cannot assume that they want to be associated with this or that ethnicity and, indeed, there are notable cases, such as Amitabh Bachchan, where the person has explicitly disassociated themselves. Contrary to what is commonly claimed, the last name of a person is insufficient verification. I might be called Nair, for example, but I can assure you that I am not a Nair; and Helen Reddy was not a Reddy. Making an assumption based on their name amounts to original research and this is not permitted. There is also much complexity in naming conventions, as discussed here. There is consensus regarding these issues across many of the caste lists and it has also been discussed at the India Project talk page on a few occasions, such as this one and this.

Castecats
There is a long-standing consensus that we do not categorise biographical articles by caste. For example, see []. - Sitush (talk) 14:37, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

CasteAFDs
Just to save the time of those unfamiliar with the subject area, please note that sources from or before the British Raj era are not considered to be reliable, nor is the "states" series of The People of India (which plagiarises those sources) or the joshuaproject website. Similarly, there is a long-standing consensus that caste-affiliated websites, such as indianrajputs.com, are not reliable, mainly due to their POV-pushing nature. Obviously, open wikis such as jatland.com fail WP:RS also. This is not an exhaustive list of problematic sources but it's a start.

DGG once said this in response to my comment immediately above it. The flaw there is that we report from reliable sources, which Raj era material is not. Hence, we can include mythology etc at articles such as Nair and Yadav but not at some other articles.

Aside from the basic principles regarding older sources, as outlined at WP:HISTRS and regularly mentioned at WP:RSN, the Raj and pre-Raj work suffer from particular problems. For example:
 * Their authors were, almost without exception, administrators rather than historians and anthropologists
 * Many subscribed to theories of scientific racism and/or in their administrative goal tried to pigeon-hole people in ways that did not reflect reality
 * Few could speak the local languages and were reliant instead on interpreters, who often came from the Brahmin castes and had a vested interest in selective interpretation
 * There was little attempt at critical thought, leading to inconsistencies and outright contradictions
 * The British desire for order unleashed a cacophony of competing claims etc as people jostled for position in what was effectively a new society, with parameters defined by the Brits. At the extreme, entire self-identifying communities appeared and disappeared in as little as a decade as they attempted to manipulate the census etc.
 * Census of India prior to independence
 * Sanskritisation - Sitush (talk) 09:06, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

GBooks
Google Books has several issues, among which is the common misconception that because you can see the content that means other people can do also. It ain't necessarily so: other people may only be able to see a "snippet view" or perhaps even nothing at all. This essay provides a summary of this and other problems.

Gyan
Books published by Gyan and their stablemates, Kalpaz Publications and ISHA Books, are never, under any circumstances, allowed as sources in Wikipedia articles. Why? Because: The issue has been discussed on our reliable sources noticeboard before, and the consensus is very clear. You can see a list of the discussions here, and there have also been discussions on numerous article talk pages, at WT:INB and listings at WP:MIRROR. Also here, where some similar books from other publishers have also been caught by the edit filter that was introduced (see further discussion ).
 * 1) they copy info directly from Wikipedia, which would lead to circular referencing;
 * 2) they don't always acknowledge where they're copying info from;
 * 3) they often copy content from one of their own books to one or more others, each time claiming that it is written by a different person and so perpetuate any errors in the original version; and
 * 4) they often copy info from some place (include primary documents); and change it; and don't give any indication why.

As an example of dubious practices, compare: with

Or: with

Or:

with

Montages
A discussion at the talk page of the India Wikiproject in June 2012 saw consensus that montages in infoboxes of caste/community-related pages — whether comprising a single image file or a sequence of separately coded files — are not acceptable. There were numerous policy-based reasons given for this. The discussion can be found here.

As of 29 June 2012, there is a RfC underway regarding this issue - see the discussion here.

All of the above superseded in January 2016 by WP:NOETHNICGALLERIES, which applies everywhere rather than merely to caste-related articles. - Sitush (talk) 16:03, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Scripts
In 2012, there have been several discussions at the talk page of the India Wikiproject regarding use of Indic scripts. Some can be seen here. The consensus remains as per a request for comment that formed an early part of those discussions. Basically, there should be no Indic scripts in the lead sections of articles, even though native language scripts (eg: Arabic) are often to be found in articles that do not relate to India. Infoboxes form a part of the lead as a visual element and they also summarise the article, as does a lead section. There is consensus that infoboxes should be treated as per lead sections. The RfC details can be found via the India project main page here, with some clarification by the closer of the RfC here.

Wikeley
Wikeley's Punjab Musalmans is usually cited without a link, you can find the book here should you need to check things more thoroughly. Compare his writings with those of H. A. Rose, and read the "sources" section of Wikeley's book. Also, note that Wikeley was not a historian/ethnographer etc but rather a professional soldier, and that among his sources is the useless James Tod. The sources page is here, and you may care to note that Wikeley thereafter does not usually mention his sources at all in the text. Aside from the blatantly obvious plagiarism, the latter point means that we have no idea which of those listed is being used for which statements, although I did do some comparative work in 2011 in order to untangle some of it. Of course, academic standards have changed over the years but Wikeley's book was always intended as "a manual to aid army officers in recruiting work" (see this paper) and he is very rarely cited by reliable sources nowadays (see, for example, this search result). In my opinion, he probably should not be used at all, except in articles about him and about Raj military recruitment.

Royalpuffery
In 1971, the constitution of India was amended. The Maharaja and other princes were deprived of their privy purses, the government annuities that had been guaranteed to them both in the constitution and in the covenants of accession whereby their states were merged with the Dominion of India in the 1940s. The same amendment also deprived them of other privileges, such as diplomatic immunity. to the Constitution of India promulgated in 1971, the Government of India abolished all official symbols of princely India, including titles, privileges, and remuneration (privy purses). 1., "Through a constitutional amendment passed in 1971, Indira Gandhi stripped the princes of the titles, privy purses and regal privileges which her father's government had granted." (p 278). 2. Quote: "The princes of India – their number and variety reflecting to a large extent the chaos that had come to the country with the break up of the Mughal empire – had lost real power in the British time.  Through generations of idle servitude they had grown to specialize only in style.  A bogus, extinguishable glamour: in 1947, with Independence, they had lost their state, and Mrs. Gandhi in 1971 had, without much public outcry, abolished their privy purses and titles." (pp 37–38). 3. Quote: "Although the Indian states were alternately requested or forced into union with either India or Pakistan, the real death of princely India came when the Twenty-sixth Amendment Act (1971) abolished the princes' titles, privileges, and privy purses." (page 78). 4.  Quote: "The third stage in the political evolution of the princes from rulers to citizens occurred in 1971, when the constitution ceased to recognize them as princes and their privy purses, titles, and special privileges were abolished." (page 84). 5. Quote: "Her success at the polls emboldened Mrs. Gandhi to act decisively against the princes. Through 1971, the two sides tried and failed to find a settlement. The princes were willing to forgo their privy purses, but hoped at least to save their titles. But with her overwhelming majority in Parliament, the prime minister had no need to compromise. On 2 December she introduced a bill to amend the constitution and abolish all princely privileges. It was passed in the Lok Sabha by 381 votes to six, and in the Rajya Sabha by 167 votes to seven. In her own speech, the prime minister invited 'the princes to join the elite of the modern age, the elite which earns respect by its talent, energy and contribution to human progress, all of which can only be done when we work together as equals without regarding anybody as of special status.' " (page 441). 6. Quote: "The Indian princes survived the British Raj by only a few years.  The Indian republic stripped them of their powers and then their titles." (page 10). 7. Quote: "Indian States: "Various (formerly) semi-independent areas in India ruled by native princes .... Under British rule ... administered by residents assisted by political agents. Titles and remaining privileges of princes abolished by Indian government 1971." (page 520). 8.  Quote: "A monarchy is only as good as the reigning monarch: thus it is with the princely states. Once they seemed immutable, invincible. In 1971 they were "derecognized," their privileges, privy purses and titles all abolished at a stroke" (page 91)