User talk:Namaachi

Draft of new Wiki page for author "Ishwar Sharan" created. Namaachi (talk) 14:33, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

The basic page for "Ishwar Sharan" is completed and should be reviewed by an editor. If the page is found to be acceptable, it can be made public.

Ishwar Sharan (Swami Devananda) is a personal friend of this contributor and is aware that the Wikipedia page has been drafted. He has no objections but cautions that there are persons opposed to his research and views on the St. Thomas in India legend who may oppose the publication of the page. He will contribute a photograph after the page is published. If he does do this, it will be a first for Wikipedia as there are no known photos of him on the Internet (he uses an icon on his websites).

Sharan also cautions that as a Canadian expatriate who lives permanently in India, he has no political affiliations of any kind, or with the Sangh Parivar or other Hindu nationalist outfits. He is an independent Hindu intellectual and author who may be classified as a Hindu activist as he works for the betterment and in the overall general interest of Hindu society in India. Namaachi (talk) 04:28, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Your submission at Articles for creation
 You recently made a submission to Articles for Creation. Your article has been reviewed and because some issues were found, it could not be accepted in its current form; it is now located at Wikipedia&. Please view your submission to see the comments left by the reviewer. Feel free to edit the submission to address the issues raised, and resubmit once you feel they have been resolved. (You can do this by adding the text to the top of the article.) Thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia! Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:19, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

About the photo
This is to clarify that I am the owner of the photo Ishwar Sharan aka Swami Devananda Saraswati and uploaded it to Wikipedia Commons under the username Yatri. If there is further question about the photo's author, let me know here.--Namaachi (talk) 05:14, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Chiswick Chap, thank you kindly for reviewing the article "Ishwar Sharan" and asking for references.

The article has been edited and all references added. Note that there are only two published sources for Sharan's bio-data and opinions: The Interview with Rajeev Srinivasan and the About Us page on The Ishwar Sharan Archive. Both these articles are published in the hard copy of his book, The Myth of Saint Thomas and the Mylapore Shiva Temple, Voice of India, New Delhi, 2010.

If these articles do not constitute third party sources (in that they have been accepted by publisher Voice of India), then there are no third party sources to my knowledge.

--Namaachi (talk) 01:59, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Your submission at Articles for creation
 You recently made a submission to Articles for Creation. Your article has been reviewed and because some issues were found, it could not be accepted in its current form; it is now located at Wikipedia&. Please view your submission to see the comments left by the reviewer. Feel free to edit the submission to address the issues raised, and resubmit once you feel they have been resolved. (You can do this by adding the text to the top of the article.) Thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia! Jarkeld (talk) 04:34, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

The reviewers may note that three third party sources have been referenced in the article under the heading 'Other Contributions' and 'Reviews'. Perhaps I have not made the reference notations correctly. If that is the case, then I can correct the specific mistake if it is pointed out to me.

As for the author's bio-data, the only source is his own published work which I have referenced. As others use his book as a source of reference in Wikipedia articles, so I have used his book as a source of reference. I am familiar with his work and believe that when you reference an author, it is best to reference his own published words.

The Ishwar Sharan Archive is the favoured Internet edition of the third edition of his work. It is the same as the printed version except that the articles are arranged differently. There is also a Google Books edition but it is difficult to reference as it is a PDF file.

I am going to leave this article as I cannot fulfil the reviewers' demands. What is called 'third party verification' and 'notability' are demands with an endless scope if the reviewer doesn't want to accept the references in the article.

My mistake is to state on this page that I knew the Swamiji personally and that he was aware the article was being made. This immediately placed me under suspicion of bias and ulterior motive. In fact I wanted the page created for him for Diwali, and as I know his work well I thought I could do it. Nothing else.

--Namaachi (talk) 11:30, 13 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Namaachi, I'm sorry you feel hurt by the reviewer's actions. I'm sure they're only trying to do the right thing. Trying to make a page in time for Diwali is a lovely thought. The problem here is that Wikipedia has to be neutral and encyclopedic, i.e. every claim in every article should be supported by reliable, third-party evidence. Your Swamiji's book could therefore be used to support other articles as an independent source, but it is only a dependent source for his own article. D'you see? If you can find some small sources from newspapers or magazines that attest to what you're writing, it should be fine. Good luck. Chiswick Chap (talk) 12:12, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Chiswick Chap, you are very kind and encouraging! I do see the point. But except for Sandhya Jain's review in The Pioneer, there are no third party references to the Swamiji or his work. This is not an accident. The Swamiji is not very politically correct and he and the media have been at war over the St. Thomas controversy for 20 years. The result is a total media black-out for his work. So no third party references in the newspapers I'm afraid.

I will try once more in a few days, using Jain's review article as a reference. But I don't think her review is detailed enough to cover his few early life details.

Come to think of it, I do think the demand for third party references is something of an anomaly! Jain will only quote the Swamiji's website, as I have. But she is a third party! Goel's two articles in his book Hindu-Christian Encounters would be more objective. But I doubt there are biographical details; I will have to check.

As said, I will try once more. If it doesn't work out than I will accept the rejection. Thank you again for the kind words. --Namaachi (talk) 13:28, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Outdated draft deleted.

Go to new draft at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_creation/Ishwar_Sharan

--Namaachi (talk) 06:42, 14 October 2011 (UTC)


 * That's much better. I think that could be accepted as it is. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:00, 23 October 2011 (UTC) 07:30, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

A work in progress
Due to Chiswick Chap's encouragement, I have done a search and have found a number of articles in different media that would constitute third party references. I am adding them to the proposed "Ishwar Sharan" Wikipedia article. However Sharan's early life and education are without third party references except in passing, and I must keep the references to his own profile. If I remove his early life profile due to lack of third party references, the article is neutered as everybody wants to know something about an author's life. The references to his early life are minimal anyway as he is a sannyasi and does not like to give out detailed information of his purva ashrama.

There is a profile published by the Voice of India editor as a blurb on the cover of his book. Does that qualify as a third party reference?

Another point for editors to note is that newspaper or magazine articles that were published years ago are often removed from that media's website (reference the many dead links in Wikipedia articles) or appeared only in the print edition. Therefore, where necessary, I have linked them to the copies that have been saved in The Ishwar Sharan Archive rather than the original media website.

I am working on the article for the next few days and would welcome feedback from Wikipedia editors. Suggestions should be specific as general criticisms are not easy to figure out and can be very disheartening. --Namaachi (talk) 04:11, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Paragraph blocked?

During today's edit that last para in section 'Criticism' suddenly stopped appearing when the section was saved. Is the paragraph being blocked? I am willing to remove the paragraph if requested but I should be told about it. Anonymous blocking or rollbacks are very discouraging! For the record the para reads:


 * Sharan also has been threatened and criticized by self-styled Hindu nationalists because he refused to support the godman Nithyananda when his alleged sexual escapades with an actress were exposed by Sun TV in March 2010. Sharan, himself a sannyasi initiated according to Vedic rites, believes sannyasis in public life should be above reproach and that Hindus have to learn self-criticism and admit their mistakes if Hindu society is to regain its old probity and magnificence. ---Namaachi (talk) 04:40, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

The paragraph has been deleted.

There is a problem with saving edits. Paragraphs do not show after saving and a section title 'Other Contributions' is also missing. The material shows in the edit window but does not appear when the section is saved. --Namaachi (talk) 12:23, 16 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Namaachi, there doesn't appear to be anything or anyone in Wikipedia blocking your editing - such a thing would be very odd, at least, but there is no sign of it in the article history. I expect it was a delay on the Internet rather than anything to do with Wikipedia. Chiswick Chap (talk) 12:41, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for that. I am still learning the ropes and very uncertain about the neutrality of editors. The para has been deleted by me as not being really relevant to Swamiji's work but a side issue. Not having enough stuff in the beginning, I now have too much! The other problem of saving edits is technical, my not closing tags correctly. Thanks--Namaachi (talk) 12:53, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

'''I will submit this article for review in a day or two. If anybody has some doubts or suggestions before I do, pls let me know now. --Namaachi (talk) 02:30, 20 October 2011 (UTC)'''


 * Namaachi, I am very pleased to see how far your article has come in this short time - well done for all the hard work. Since you ask for comments, I will say two things:
 * the article seems very solid and thoroughly researched - I believe it will be more than acceptable.
 * many of the references access the same published books. The right thing to do is to create a Bibliography section (in fact, I'll do that for you now), list the books you use - this of course makes the article more obviously well-researched - and then cite the books in footnotes in abbreviated form, ie you just say "Bloggs 2007, page 123" rather than giving the full publication details of Bloggs' book twenty times over. It's quicker, too, once you have it all set up. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:01, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Chiswick Chap, thank you very much indeed! I understand your point about making a bibliography. But in fact I am using two main resources: the Ishwar Sharan Archive--in which the Swami collected all material to support his thesis--and two of Goel's books on Voice of Dharma. Elst references originally print but sourced from The Ishwar Sharan Archive. My point is that I can't give page numbers because on-line references point to articles, chapters, not pages. The News Today site is also an on-line source only. I can add a list of books, but with the reference list as is I can point directly to the article wherever it is (some important articles can only be sourced at The Ishwar Sharan Archive because they appeared in print editions decades ago).

This article is about three or four things that could be separate articles (as I see going through various Wikipedia articles): there is the author and his very basic bio-data who has some strong opinions, then the book itself which is underground but very well known, then the historical controversy which is quite old but flares up occasionally, and lastly the sannyasi who nothing is known about in print and can't be referenced.--Namaachi (talk) 08:59, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I see the bibliography now. Very good. I may add the third edition to it. Thanks.--Namaachi (talk) 09:02, 20 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Good stuff. I've formatted the Biblio so there's only one entry per title.
 * * Another thing - it would be much nicer to wrap all the external links which you cite inline in the text in 'ref' tags so they appear as footnotes. But the article is just about ready to go into main space now. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:52, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

I am losing my connection. Will put all the embedded links into the reference as soon as I can.--Namaachi (talk) 11:11, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

All embedded links are now in the reference section except for four special articles that are also quite readable. I would like to keep these links as they are. Will review this article again tomorrow and make necessary corrections.--Namaachi (talk) 14:49, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

I have added a section for Dr. Nagaswamy as he is an important authority on the St. Thomas issue. Still a few more references to add then I should be finished. All embedded links are now in the reference section.--Namaachi (talk) 06:30, 21 October 2011 (UTC)


 * mmm, I think the Nagaswamy quote is too long (isn't the copyright limit 50 words?) for "fair usage", you'll have to shorten it or put parts of it into your own words (so there are several shorter quotes with your text in between) to keep within the law here. Then I think the article can go live, it is already easily good enough. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:51, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Ok, I will think about the quote. But it is a newspaper item and I don't think copyright applies as I have credited The New India Express. The exact same text also appears on IBNLive.

Yes, I am finished now. I will submit the article tomorrow morning. I also have a photo of the Swamiji which I will try to insert. It can go into the Wikipedia Commons.--Namaachi (talk) 09:27, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Article finished. Not sure how to insert the photo. Will submit the page tomorrow morning. Grateful for your help, Chiswick Chap.--Namaachi (talk) 10:39, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Photo inserted in article. Please formate the page for me.--Namaachi (talk) 11:38, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Article submitted for review.--Namaachi (talk) 07:02, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Your submission at Articles for creation
 Ishwar Sharan, which you submitted to Articles for creation, has been created. Thank you for helping Wikipedia!  Chzz  ► 07:10, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Please continue making quality contributions to Wikipedia. Note that because you are a logged-in user, you can create articles yourself, and don't have to post a request.
 * If you would like to help us improve this process, please consider

A barnstar for you!
You are very kind, Chiswick Chap! Had you not given the encouragement and push, I would not have proceeded to do the work. Does the Wikipedia publisher know the value of having an editor like you on-line?

Two points and then I will go to tell Swamiji the good news for his Diwali--it is a custom here in Tamil Nadu to publish special items on Diwali and this is one such special item.

1. Users who search for "Swami Devananda Saraswati" should be redirected to the Ishwar Sharan page. I am looking at how to do it but without success so far.

2. There will be users, some of them contributors to Wikipedia, who will not be very happy with the birth of this page. We should be aware of this and keep an eye on the page.

That is all. Happy Diwali to you Chiswick Chap and to everybody in the Wikipedia back room.--Namaachi (talk) 08:09, 22 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Namaachi, a very happy Diwali to you too. The key to dealing with possible controversy is strict neutrality and scrupulous provision of inline citations to show authority for every fact - the page is well on the way to that. I have created the redirect as you suggest. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:06, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

About the photo
This is to clarify that I am the owner of the photo "Ishwar Sharan aka Swami Devananda Saraswati" and uploaded it to Wikimedia Commons under my Wikipedia user name Namaachi. The user name has now been corrected to my Wikimedia user name Yatri. If there is further question about the photo's authorship, pls let me know here. --Namaachi (talk) 05:14, 24 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Namaachi, it's no good writing here. The automatic mechanism on Wikimedia commons has noticed that permission was lacking. You have I see now filled in your user name, but their suspicions have been aroused - the ONLY way you can calm them is to send a proper email granting permission, which means you EXPLICITLY assign them a license. You can't do this by writing or deleting anything on either Wikipedia or on Commons.


 * To do it, click on the link below about 'email communication granting permission'. It will give you a form to copy ("I hereby affirm that I...") and fill in with your name and the name of the photo image. Then choose a licence (CC is usual) and email it to the licensing authority, email address below. Do it today. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:41, 24 October 2011 (UTC)


 * ''This file is missing evidence of permission. It has an author and source, but there is no proof that the author of the file agreed to license the file under the given license. Please provide evidence of permission by either providing a link to a site with an explicit grant of permission that complies with the licensing policy or by forwarding email communication granting permission to [mailto:permissions-commons@wikimedia.org permissions-commons@wikimedia.org].
 * This also applies if you are the author yourself.
 * Unless permission is granted, the file can be speedy deleted seven days after this template was added (21 October 2011) and the uploader was notified.''

The Swamiji has sent an email in his name to Wikimedia Commons identifying the photo and granting permission to publish. If this is not satisfactory, we will try uploading the photo in his name. Thanks for your guidance.--Namaachi (talk) 10:30, 24 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I can assure you that the only thing that will work will be sending in a completed copy of the form as explained in the blue links above - not clear if that is what was done. Luckily it is not long. The licensing authority will not accept emails other than on the form. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:49, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the form was used as indicated by you as far as I know. I will check with him though. But I don't know how his email can be verified. He has a public email (bharatabharati@yahoo.in) that is posted on his profile. But again I don't know how that can be verified except from the profile.--Namaachi (talk) 10:59, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

The Swamiji sent the form letter as indicated by you, Chiswick Chap. He has also published the photo on his website The Ishwar Sharan Archive and his LinkedIn profile. This should establish his ownership of the photo. Anyway, the mistake in uploading was mine as I didn't understand the difference between Wikipedia and Wikimedia. If the Wikimedia Commons doesn't accept the photo, the Swamiji will register on Wikimedia Commons and upload the photo correctly himself. Thanks for your guidance. The procedures are confusing for newcomers but we understand the need to get things right when copyright is involved.--Namaachi (talk) 08:45, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Wikimedia has accepted the Swamiji's submission of the photo. So that hurdle has been passed. Thank you for your guidance in making the submission, Chiswick Chap. The Swamiji says he is was not a fan of Wikipedia due to an unfortunate encounter with the Thomas the Apostle page some years ago. But you have changed his attitude with your help and guidance and he is also quite pleased with the new page. --Namaachi (talk) 04:38, 10 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm pleased to have been able to help. I think WP people are aware that the handling of image copyright is confusing - the upload wizard is easier to use than it was but there's still room for improvement. All the best Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:20, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Adding data
I have added the Swamiji's place of birth and his sannyas guru's name to the page as friends feel it should be there. There is no published reference for this information though I can say that I have seen his passport data.--Namaachi (talk) 12:19, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Ishwar Sharan
I've just taken a look at Ishwar Sharan and it is an absolute disaster in terms of Wikipedia's policies etc. Given that you have admitted him to be a close friend of yours, I feel that you should cease editing the article and confine yourself to comments on the talk page thereof, at least until we can bring some sense of order to the thing. Your comments will be answered and, where appropriate, your suggestions would be enacted. It is indubitably biassed, poorly sourced, and badly phrased. I realise that you mean well, but we have to be neutral in what we say in our articles. - Sitush (talk) 02:11, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Nomination of Ishwar Sharan for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Ishwar Sharan is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Articles for deletion/Ishwar Sharan until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on good quality evidence, and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. Sitush (talk) 19:25, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Neutral, eh!
The editor's comments are not neutral. They appear hostile and exhibit bias. He has decided to delete the article and the discussion/editing precess is just a way of getting support for a decision already made.

The Swamiji warned me this would happen. He said that Wikipedia is being used by vested interests as a platform to promote the St. Thomas story and that his view would not be tolerated for long even though it had historical support from the Church Fathers to respected scholars and Christian historians of today (including the Pope who was forced to backtrack his statement because of the furore it caused in Kerala).

The Hindu nationalist angle is just a way to malign and dismiss the Swamiji's thesis. So far as I know he has not involved himself in any kind of politics. He is interested in the historical view and that is clearly stated in the interview he gave to Rajeev Srinivasan.

No, there are no third party references. I said that right at the beginning. On encouragement from Chiswick Chap I located the few third party references available. But the editor smells a rat! He has discovered the authors of these articles may be Hindu nationalists. Maybe it is true and what is wrong with it? Are Hindus not allowed to be nationalists in their own land?

I will not comment on the Ishwar Sharan talk page. The editor has given me no space and has already decided the fate of the article. So let him delete it and be done with the matter. He will get another barn star--he can have mine as Chiswick Chap appears to have made a U-turn and will want the one he gave me back. --Namaachi (talk) 09:17, 24 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Dear Namaachi, I was and remain neutral on questions of nationalism, but that does not stop me from saying I felt very sorry for you yesterday. Actually, no editor has the right to decide the fate of any article (and I don't know what you mean by being given no space - you are as free as anyone to reply to him). It is by the way not wrong to edit an article where you have a point of view, though you have to be careful in that case to represent the facts fairly, and where necessary to describe other points of view also. Articles on nationalists are perfectly possible - there are of course articles on extreme nationalist leaders like Hitler and Mussolini, so there is no censorship in that sense, though the articles were needless to say hotly contested, and are very carefully written and referenced. There's one on Hindu nationalism too, with more on Subhas Chandra Bose and others.


 * The AfD is far from decided: as yet nobody has "!voted" for or against, and the nominating editor is excluded from voting, as it happens. My view (if it's of any interest) is that if it can be shown that Sharan is notable either as a religious leader, or as a nationalist, or indeed as a widely-reviewed book author, then the article should and likely will be kept. Therefore, if you know of references on those aspects, please provide them; you can put them directly in the article, on the talk page, or if you like on my talk page and I'll study them and put them in. Wikipedia, like every place in the world, is full of all kinds of people, but on the whole I think you'll find that decisions are nearly always made intelligently, quietly and fairly, often amidst heated debate.


 * As for barnstars, I gave you one on the proper grounds of hard work and concentration on a Wikipedia article, and I certainly haven't changed my mind on that. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:38, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Ishwar Sharan at AfD, Christianity in India, articles on St Thomas
What I object to most is that the editor has politicised the article when I had been careful to keep politics out. The focus is history and that focus must be kept to be fair to the subject and to Ishwar Sharan. The editor is intent on discrediting Sharan's thesis and exposing some kind of imagined political mafia which he has in fact invented (thus exposing his extreme bias towards Sharan's work and not the real problems of the article which are a lack of third party references). As the article is about author Ishwar Sharan and his book, his opinion of the St. Thomas controversy will naturally have to be described as that is his central thesis.

If you go through the Christianity in India section, almost all the articles treat the coming of Thomas to India as historical fact without supporting references. But this claim is never challenged because, I suspect, there is an agreement among Wikipedia India editors to let the claim pass.

The editor has ordered me not to edit the article again. He wants his politicisation of the article to stand. But I strenuously object to this as politics must be kept out of the article. The Swamiji is himself not political or involved in political activity. His interest is history.

I do not object to the removal of the Pope or Nagaswamy sections as they do not reference Ishwar Sharan. They support his thesis but do not have to do with him directly.

I would like the article deleted. It has been perverted and misrepresents the Swamiji and his work. He told me not to write a Wikipedia article but I didn't listen. I still believed Wikipedia had some fair-minded people in the back room who were interested in facts as far as they can be known as opposed to beliefs and pet theories.

The irony in all of this is that Ishwar Sharan is probably the the top authority in India on the the St. Thomas in India controversy. So he is the one who must be silenced as he is the most dangerous to the pet theories of Wikipedia editors. --Namaachi (talk) 01:21, 25 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Mmm, a messy situation. Christianity in India has however been edited very recently to show scholarly doubts about when Thomas came to India - these doubts go back at least 100 years so Sharan is not alone in thinking the 1st Century start is unproven; and that and other Thomas articles will also certainly be checked and tidied up now to reflect this scholarship. Since you now want the article deleted I think no action is required - it is likely that other Wikipedians will !vote that way. Personally I'd have searched for better sources, always my inclination at AfD. I do hope you will feel that Wikipedia tries very hard to get things right, even when this is uncomfortable, and that creating and improving articles on India remains a worthwhile task. All the best Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:29, 25 January 2012 (UTC)