Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hindustani people


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   redirect to Hindustani. The focus of the arguments for keeping are rooted in a well-intentioned desire to have an article representing an ethnic group of some 400 million people - but it has been demonstrated that there is a lack of scholarly evidence for creating such an ethnic group. Doing so would, therefore, be original research. If it can later be demonstrated that there does exist an academically accepted name to designate this perceived grouping, then there is no prejudice against overturning the redirect and moving this to an appropriate title, but doing so without adequate sourcing is, again, original research and not allowed. Shereth 23:29, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Hindustani people

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No such ethnic group; Hindustani means "Indian"  Maquahuitl talk! 04:45, 18 July 2008 (UTC) == ==Initial comments == == Hindustani also refers to the language group consisting of Hindi, Urdu and its dialects, though that has already been canvassed in the Hindustani language article. There is nothing substantial that adds to that article to form the ethnic group page, as I had to remove a lot of OR. I believe that it should be deleted. Trips (talk) 04:50, 18 July 2008 (UTC) == ==Proposed rewrite == == Hindi peoples
 * Redirect to Hindustani language. Reyk  YO!  06:09, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete As per nomination. There is no ethnic group called Hindustani. Hindustani is synonymous with Indian. --Deepak D'Souza (talk • contribs) 06:09, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
 * actually, "Hindustani people" is more specifically synonymous with "Indo-Aryan speaking peoples of the 17th to 19th centuries". --dab (𒁳) 10:46, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete, alternatively redirect to Ethnic groups of South Asia. --dab (𒁳) 08:29, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep If there are 400,000,000 of these people they are obviously an important ethnic group. The article should remain for that reason.  But maybe the name of the article should be changed.  What is the correct name of the ethnic group that is composed of the people who are native speakers of the Hindustani language that live in the four Indian states of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, and Haryana (as opposed to the other languages of India that are spoken in the other States of India) if it is not the Hindustani people?  Is there another name that is used for these people? Keraunos (talk) 13:32, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment The Han are the largest ethnic group of China. The Anglo-Americans, sometimes called Anglos (English speaking Caucasians), are the largest ethnic group of the United States and Canada.  What is the correct name for the largest ethnic group of India, that is, those who are native speakers of the Hindustani language that live in the four Indian states of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, and Haryana if it is not the Hindustani people? Keraunos (talk) 13:39, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Reply High number is no argument for the authenticity of the concept. The problem is that the concept itself is flawed. In fact, there is nothing like "Hindustani language" itself, in the modern day psyche of either the Indians or the Pakistanis, whether Hindus or Muslims. People identify their mother tongue as either Hindi or Urdu, whilst the fact that both are linguistic standards of what linguists call a Hindustani language is of no concern to the people themselves(This however does not mean that the Hindustani language article should also be deleted).
 * Another fact that is being ignored here is that Hindustani, even if we use it as a cover term for Hindi and Urdu both, is spoken only in the cities. The people of Bihar, MP, UP, Haryana etc. all have their own languages which are commonly perceived to be Dialects of Hindi. They do not believe themselves to be "Hindustani people", the term which for them means "Indian people" since Hindustani means Indian. There is no perception of belonging to a common ethno-linguistic group like other linguistic sub-nationalities of India like Tamil, Bengali or Punjabi nor would you find anything to suggest that on the net.  Maquahuitl talk! 11:03, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Also, we can discuss and debate this all we want here, but the fact remains that unless several reliable secondary sources have used the term "Hindustani people" to refer to the people of Bihar, MP, UP, Haryana, etc. as a single ethnic group, then this whole point is moot. We can't use Wikipedia to invent a new ethnic identity; we can only write articles on what has been reported. --Hnsampat (talk) 13:12, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep and deal with definition problems on the talk page. DGG (talk) 17:13, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep Per Keraunos's well reasoned second comment; the largest ethnic group in a country should still have an article.-- Serviam  (talk)  18:00, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep per Keraunos. 78.146.213.30 (talk) 18:46, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete - As far as I know, the Hindustani-speaking people of the north of India are a mixture of various ethnic groups who all speak various dialects of a common language and are not a single ethnic group. If such a categorization does not exist, then it is not up to us here to invent a new categorization for them. If reliable secondary sources have referred to those who speak the Hindustani language as the "Hindustani people", then (and ONLY THEN) can this article be kept. --Hnsampat (talk) 22:07, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep per Keraunos. Concept is widespread. If reliable sources are produced which show that it is a misconception, that fact can be explained in the article, or article can be merged with south asian ethnic groups. Maybe it could be re-written as a dab page which explains that it is a colloquial term for North Indians, Hindi speakers, or citizens of India, with a link to Ethnic groups of South Asia. It should redirect to Hindustani. &mdash; goethean &#2384; 01:20, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
 * If the concept is widespread, then there should be plenty of reliable secondary sources for showing that "Hindustani people" are a widely recognized ethnic group. However, if that is not the case, then I emphasize again that we cannot use Wikipedia to invent a label for these people or to categorize them as an "ethnic group" when they are not generally recognized as such. Remember, language alone is not enough to make a group of people an ethnic group. For instance, all of the Spanish-speaking people of the world do not count as a single ethnic group; they include ethnic Spaniards, Amerindians, mestizos, etc. To use an Indian example, Gujarati-speaking people divide themselves among Kutchis, Kathiawaris, etc. Language alone does not constitute an ethnic group. So, if we want to categorize all of the "native" Hindi speakers into one group, then there better be some good, reliable secondary sources categorizing them as a single ethnic group known as the "Hindustani people." Otherwise, this article has to be deleted as a violation of WP:NOT and WP:NFT. --Hnsampat (talk) 02:49, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Redirect to Hindustani Language or another relevant title, if not Delete. Erik the Red  2 ( AVE · CAESAR ) 01:29, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment -- Suggested Rewrite: What you people from India seem to be saying is that the people who speak each dialect of Hindi each regard themselves as a separate and distinct ethnic group. You people from India obviously know the situation on the ground better than I do, since I live in the United States!   We obviously want the article to be as accurate as possible.  So how about retitling the article Hindi peoples and then rewriting the article so that each of the Hindi ethnic groups is listed separately.  Here is my proposed rewrite of the article:

The Hindi peoples are a constellation of Indo-Aryan ethnic groups who speak various dialects of Hindi. They inhabit the Indian States of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, and Bihar. As of 2008, they number approximately 400,000,000 human beings.

The Hindi peoples primarily live in that region in northern India, east and south of Yamuna river, between the Vindhya mountains and the Himalayas, where the Hindi language is spoken (this was the area formerly called Hindustan in earlier centuries because it is the region where what linguists calle the Hindustani language is spoken, although today the term Hindustan is generally synonomous with the whole of India). This region consists of the four Indian States of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, and Haryana. People of the Hindi ethnic groups are also found in significant numbers in the city of Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, and in Pakistan (Muhajirs).

The Hindi peoples are divided into the following ethnic groups: (Note: I copied the information from the Hindu dialects article that tells where the people who speak each dialect live.)

Note: Totals for each ethnic group are from the 1991 Census, so the totals add up to less than the estimated 2008 total of approximately 400,000,000.

The Western Hindi peoples:


 * 180 M: The Khariboli people (Those who are native speakers of Standard Hindi+Urdu) —live in the major cities and towns of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, and Bihar.
 * 13 M: The Haryanvi people live in the states of Haryana and Delhi.
 * 6 M: The Kanauji people live in west-central Uttar Pradesh.

The Eastern Hindi peoples:


 * 20 M: The Awadhi people live in north and north-central Uttar Pradesh.
 * 11 M: The Chhattisgarhi people live in in southeast Madhya Pradesh and northern and central Chattisgarh.
 * 2M: The Bagheli people are found mainly in six districts of Madhya Pradesh (Rewa, Satna, Sidhi, Shahdol, Umaria and Anuppur), and also in some districts of Uttar Pradesh like Allahabad and Mirzapur.

The Rajasthani people:


 * 5 M: The Rajasthani people live in Rajasthan.

The Bihari peoples:


 * 45 M: The Maithili people live in Bihar and in the eastern Terai region of Nepal.
 * 26 M: The Bhojpuri people live in the western part of state of Bihar, the northwestern part of Jharkhand, and the Purvanchal region of Uttar Pradesh, as well as an adjoining area of southern plains of Nepal.
 * 11 M: The Magadhi people live in the Magadh area of Bihar state. This area includes Patna, Gaya, Aurangabad, Jehanabad, Nalanda, and other surroundingdistricts. They also live in some areas of Hazaribagh, Giridih, Palamau, Munger, and Bhagalpur, with some in the Malda District of West Bengal.
 * 2 M: The Sadri people primarily live in Jharkhand.

The Pahari people:


 * 7 M: The Pahari (excludes Dogri and Nepali) people live in the lower ranges of the Himalayas from Nepal in the east to the Indian State state of Himachal Pradesh in the west.

Then, later, more information could be added by those of you from India about each of these ethnic groups (their customs, clothing, cuisine, etc.).

I hope this rewrite satisfies the concerns of those of you Wikipedians who are from India. Best wishes, Keraunos (talk) 05:35, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

== ==References == == == ==Additional comments == ==
 * Strong Object Thankfully you yourself accepted that we Indians would be knowing better in this respect, so that we didn't have to bring in that argument here.
 * Unfortunately, you cannot rewrite the article to Hindi peoples either. There is no such ethnic group. The word Hindi to mean a group of people is a defunct term, and it used to mean the same as Hindustani, i.e. Indian (vide "Hindi hain ham, watan hai Hindostan hamara). But if you are so adamant on writing something on the peoples of the states in India where Hindi is the official language, then you can write articles on Rajasthani people (speaking the different Rajasthani languages; it is also a very weak ethnicity), Pahari people (speaking the Pahari languages; it is a strong ethnicity), Bihari people (speaking the different Bihari languages; it is not a very strong identity and has mostly been defined by people from other states of the country. The Maithili identity exists, though, to some extent as a subset of the Bihari peoples.) and Jats (who mainly speak Haryanvi)(which already exists). Unfortunately, there is no such ethnic group called "Uttar Pradeshis" or "Madhya Pradeshis" and nor can you make articles titled Western Hindi people or Eastern Hindi people which are nothing but utter nonsense. Awadhi people and Chhattisgarhi people are debatable; I've found some references on the net referring to Awadhi people. It is probably not because of the identity of the people in India, but rather those in Nepal, who have clearly defined identities of Awadhi, Bhojpuri or Maithili speaking.
 * I am afraid that the basic reason why all this is meaningless is not being perceived by our friends on the other side here, is not coming to them. The basic reason is the definition of all these languages as Dialects of Hindi, officially, even though in reality the cultures of the different areas are different and the languages are also different. As the people come into the cities, they start speaking Modern Standard Hindi(though with a regional flavour) and therefore lose any regional identity within the Hindi belt. Also, since the languages are officially just recognised to be Dialects of Hindi, the states of the belt are not divided on ethno-linguistic lines, as in Southern and Western India, there is hardly any reason for the existence of these identities.  Maquahuitl talk! 12:16, 20 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Concurring objection - While done in good faith, this rewrite does the same thing that the original article does, which is to try to invent ethnic identities or categorizations for ethnicities. I say again now that we should not try to do all of this based on our own perceptions but should instead rely on reliable secondary sources, such as papers and books by experts on Indian anthropology. (Right now, the only source cited is a world atlas.) --Hnsampat (talk) 13:14, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment:Perhaps some of the non-Indian editors need to understand this. If you ask a person Kya aap Hindustani hain?, you are asking him "Are you an Indian Citizen" and not "Are you a speaker of Hindi/Urdu/Hindstani". A person from the south or north east(belonging to entirely differenct race and ethnic gorups) who understands Hindi will also respond affirmatively to this question, beasue you are asking him if he is Indian, not whether he belongs to the ethnic community that speaks Hindi. Nobody says "I am Hindustani" to denote that he is a member of an ethno-linguistic group in the same sense that someone might say "I am a Bengali" or "I am Marathi" or "I am a Malayali". The term Hindustani as applied to a ethno-linguistic group is simply non-existent. --Deepak D'Souza (talk • contribs) 08:51, 21 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment Often people from the majority ethnic group within a major country don’t feel themselves to be part of an ethnic group; they only perceive the minorities to be part of an ethnic group.

In the 1950s the Anglo-Americans in the United States usually didn’t perceive themselves as an ethnic group, they just said, “We’re Americans” (of course they perceived African Americans to be a “minority” ethnic group). But as more and more non-Caucasians have migrated into the United States, now Anglo-Americans think of themselves as an ethnic group.

Before the Communists took over China, the Han used to just say "We're Chinese" but the Communists developed the system of Chinese ethnic groups that recognized the 88% majority Han as but one of 56 different ethnic groups.

In the same way, people who speak Hindi (who constitute about 40% of the population of India), while regarding Bengalis, Marathis, etc. as ethnic groups, may not regard THEMSELVES as an ethnic group, they may just say "We're Indian", but people from outside of India DO regard them as a distinct ethnic group (or group of ethnic groups). Everyone is part of some ethnic group. If one were to create a map of the world and map each of its ethnic groups in a different color, then the Hindi speaking area of Northern India would be one of the major ethnic areas and would be indicated by a different color (or colors if each dialect were colored separately) than the Marathis, the Bengalis, the Oriyas, etc. There cannot be a gigantic black hole in Northern India on the world map of ethnic groups. Would perhaps the correct term be North Indian or Northern Indian?Keraunos (talk) 09:08, 21 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Again the same question. Do they call themselves as Hindustanis? No. We cannot artifically coin new terms that are not used. The job of an encyclopaedia is to report what is, not create new terms. Hindi people may be but definetely not Hindustani people. The term Anglo american is now commonly used, even if it was not in the past. The Han were an ethnic group regardless of whether they called themselves Han or Chinese. I m sorry but I do ont see anything common between Han and Hindustani.--Deepak D'Souza (talk • contribs) 10:54, 21 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Also, to respond to Keraunos' "black hole" point, there is no "black hole" of ethnic identity in North India. There are many ethnic groups in North India. We just don't collectively refer to all native Hindi speakers as a single ethnic group. Just because a group shares a language doesn't mean that they share an ethnic identity. (Sure, the Bengali ethnic group speaks Bengali and the Tamil ethnic group speaks Tamil, but I reiterate my earlier argument of how Spanish speakers include ethnic Spaniards, Amerindians, and mestizos, who all have distinct ethnic identities. There are also the Indian examples of how Gujarati-speaking people include Kutchis and Kathiawaris with their own distinct identites and how Punjabi-speaking people include Jats, Sikhs, Kambojs, etc., who all have their own distinct ethnic identities.) With Hindi, we also have one other issue, which is that all Hindi speakers don't speak the same "language" per se, even though they are all classified as "Hindi speakers." The Marwaris in Rajasthan speak a very different kind of language than the Bhojpuris in Bihar, and yet they are all considered to be "Hindi speakers." The ethnic identities of Marwaris or Haryanvis are quite different from Biharis. And yet this article would lead us to believe that they consider themselves a single ethnic group, with a common language, common culture, common cuisine, and common history. It is a gross oversimplification. And, for the umpteenth time, this whole argument is moot because nobody has been able to produce any reliable secondary sources that actually show all native Hindi-speaking people being categorized as a single ethnic group known as the "Hindustani people", or by any other name for that matter. We cannot cannot CANNOT use Wikipedia to invent an ethnic identity where none exists, just for the sake of categorization. --Hnsampat (talk) 14:12, 21 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Possible ethnic identity related articles from the Hindi-speaking areas (The states of India where Hindi is the official language are- Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Arunachal Pradesh, Delhi)
 * Pahari people of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, speaking different Pahari languages.
 * Different tribes of Arunachal Pradesh, speaking their own Sino-Tibetan languages
 * Marwari people of Rajasthan, speaking Marwari language
 * Weak support for--
 * Bihari people of Bihar and Jharkhand, including Maithili people as a subgroup, speaking Bihari languages
 * Maithili people of Mithila in Bihar, speaking Maithili
 * Rajasthani people of Rajasthan, including Marwari people as a subgroup
 * Awadhi people of Awadh and Nepal.
 * About the language-ethnicity related blackhole argument, it has been answered well. Usually the majority does not define its own ethnic identity, and especially not when it's as a confusing situation as it is in the Hindi belt here.  Maquahuitl talk! 05:18, 22 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment—Including the following ethnic groups as suggested by Maquahuitl is similar to what I proposed on my rewrite:

"(The states of India where Hindi is the official language are- Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Arunachal Pradesh, Delhi)
 * Possible ethnic identity related articles from the Hindi-speaking areas
 * Pahari people of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, speaking different Pahari languages.
 * Different tribes of Arunachal Pradesh, speaking their own Sino-Tibetan languages
 * Marwari people of Rajasthan, speaking Marwari language
 * Weak support for--
 * Bihari people of Bihar and Jharkhand, including Maithili people as a subgroup, speaking Bihari languages
 * Maithili people of Mithila in Bihar, speaking Maithili
 * Rajasthani people of Rajasthan, including Marwari people as a subgroup
 * Awadhi people of Awadh and Nepal.
 * About the language-ethnicity related blackhole argument, it has been answered well. Usually the majority does not define its own ethnic identity, and especially not when it's as a confusing situation as it is in the Hindi belt here."  Maquahuitl talk!

The only question is, what is the overall name that should be used for the cluster of ethnic groups that consists of the 400,000,000 people that are native speakers of Hindi? Apparently in India the word Hindustani means “a citizen of India” and the word Hindi means “a Hindu”, so neither of those words can be used. There must be some word that you use in India to distinguish people who are native speakers of the Hindi language from those who speak Bengali, Marathi, Oriya, etc. WHAT IS THAT WORD? Would it be acceptable to just call the article Hindi speaking ethnicities, and then list those ethnicities suggested by Maquahuitl above? Or would North Indians or Northern Indian be a better title? Keraunos (talk) 10:56, 23 July 2008 (UTC)


 * First of all, all these 40 crore people are not native speakers of Hindi. They are being perceived so just because the states where they live in happen to have Hindi as their official language. And Hindi does not mean Hindu. Hindi just means Modern Standard Hindi. It used to mean, though, "Indian", just like "Hindustani". There is simply no ethnicity to describe these people except for the ethnicities as I suggested, all with separate articles. North Indian, again, is a fuzzily defined identity and Hindi speaking ethnicities again is just a contrived term.  Maquahuitl talk! 04:27, 24 July 2008 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.