Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Indophobia


 * 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 No concensus (default keep). JERRY talk contribs 03:31, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Indophobia

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

See debate at Articles_for_deletion/Pakistanphobia. These definitions have no existance outside of wikipedia. To state that national and communal chauvinism in Pakistan and Bangladesh (or Sri Lanka, Nepal) and discrimination and racism against Indian immigrants in the West is grossly OR. Rather on contrary, the discrimination directed against Indian immigrants in the US & UK is equally directed to Pakistani and Bangladeshi immigrants (indeed, one of the most common slurs against UK Indians is 'paki'). Soman (talk) 16:53, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete Search for Indophobia--one hit, Wikipedia. Blueboy96 16:56, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Strong and Speedy Keep The term Indophobia was coined by American Indologist Thomas Trautmann . Google books shows 77 hits . term is used by academics such as here and here . This is definitely a long-used term in academia. There are many parts of the article that are OR, but the term itself is notable in the context of scholarly discourse, and a cleanup is required, that is all.Ghanadar galpa (talk) 19:21, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Update: I have added some more material regarding Indophobia using references from academic journals that use this term. Please review your decision(s) based on this version.Ghanadar galpa (talk) 21:06, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment: This is an inherent wealth in the English language, namely the ability to create new terms. 'Indophobia' is a term that explains itself, but could fit in wiktionary. That said, still there is no connection between say Kipling's colonial rantings, Nepalese foreign policy, Idi Amin or name-calling in English schools. --Soman (talk) 21:16, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
 * But the term is used in both cases by scholars. There is no connection between Islam and antisemitism and Christianity and antisemitism either, yet the term is used to denote both prejudices. No connection between the Indophobia as described by Trautmann and that touted by Amin is implied in the article. The only thing that is being noted are valid uses of the term to denote anti-Indian prejudices. So long as the term is used multiple times by scholars, it satisfies the requirements of WP:Notability and is not a WP:NEO Neologism (which is a cultural term, not an academic one).Ghanadar galpa (talk)
 * Comment: WP:OTHERCRAP. I would vote delete for both of those articles. --Soman (talk) 21:54, 30 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of India-related deletion discussions.   —Ghanadar galpa (talk) 19:54, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm not saying that they are crap. I am saying that they are valid articles, both of them, and a majority of wikipedians clearly agree. The same reasons that validate those articles validate this one. The reasons being the numerous academics and scholars who have applied the term(s) antisemitism and Indophobia in their respective contexts. One may delete an article on a term on the grounds that it is a neologism and deletionism applies, or that it is not notable. I have demonstrated that neither argument applies here.Ghanadar galpa (talk) 21:58, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
 * My problem with the foo and antisemitism articles is that they reduce antisemtism to just any sort of anti-jewish posture in general. Antisemitism is not merely prejudice against Jews, it emerged as a largely self-conscious political tendency, which produced its own political discourse. Antisemites in Russia, Germany, Poland, etc. shared a common discourse, which both persisted and developed over time. Now, what is the connection between Idi Amin, stereotypes of Indians in the West and Bangladeshi Islamists? --Soman (talk) 22:11, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Care to put up those articles for AfD as well? Money where your mouth is and all that.Ghanadar galpa (talk) 22:18, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
 * (OFFTOPIC for this particular afd)Well, I chose myself when to put proposals for xfd:s myself. The Islam and antisemitism already passed an afd a year ago. I think that those examples are an issue that perhaps should be tackled at a higher level than an afd, requesting a manual of style banning 'x and y' comparison articles altogether.(/OFFTOPIC) That said, feel free to respond to my question, as opposed to responding with a macho challenge. --Soman (talk) 22:32, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
 * You say "Antisemitism is not merely prejudice against Jews, it emerged as a largely self-conscious political tendency, which produced its own political discourse". This is correct. if you read Trautmann's reference cited in the article ie "Aryans and British India", he clearly makes the exact same case for 19th century British Indologists, that it was a self-conscious tendency which produced it's own political discourse. Plus, the Africa refs clearly show the same biases being touted by British colonialists on Indian diaspora in Africa, cultivating such views among the indigenous people's of the region. Liek I said. Would you care to read the cited refs? Some of them are JSTOR papers and, if you cannot access them, I can give them to you.Ghanadar galpa (talk) 22:42, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, colonial authorities of the British Empire had an active cadres of producers of thought for promoting the self-righteousness of the British and denigrating the colonized peoples. This is definately a fact, both regarding India and other colonies. I cannot access JSTOR at the computer i'm using at the moment, but I can go through the texts tomorrow. However, from the way its presented in the article, I do not see link between the 19th century indologist section and the africa section. On the contrary, the prejudices presented appears to be rather different. Please elaborate how you see this. --Soman (talk) 22:54, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
 * How about Anti-Arabism and Sinophobia? Are those crap too?Ghanadar galpa (talk) 22:27, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
 * There seems to be a misunderstand on what WP:OTHERCRAP actually means here. Refering to OTHERCRAP does not imply that any article is, literally, crap. It works in both ways, and gives examples both of flawed arguments for keep votes ('There's an article on x, and that's just as famous as this') as well as delete votes ('We do not have an article on y, so we should not have an article on this.') As per these two cases, both suffer to a large degree of the same problems as this article, but with some differences. Anti-arabism does exist in western contemporary thought, clearly interlinked with Islamophobia, and in popular culture, political discourse on war on terror, etc., one can see and study links between say racial stereotyping of Arabs in Hollywood movies and Western military support to Israel. Some of the 'cultural resistance' against Arab culture, as expressed in some Christian rightwing tendencies in Lebanon and amongst Kurdish nationalists, although that is more vague. However, i'd prune all the iran, niger, etc., passages. As per Sinophobia, I'd prefer a move rather than a delete. Anti-Chinese chauvinism is a notable phenomenon in South East and has a prolonged history there, and is in many ways analogous to European antisemitism. However, I cannot see any links between that phenomon and racial stereotyping of Chinese people in the West. --Soman (talk) 22:44, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree with your assessment of Sinophobia. The thing is that while the Sinophobia article talks about both kinds of anti-Chinese prejudices, it doesn;t draw any links between the two. There is a link between British Indophobia in India and East African Indophobia. A link that Patel documents in his article. There is no such link ebtween any American Indophobia and all this (who put that dotbusters stuff there?). I am amenable to removing such passages. Indophobia in B'Desh is unrelated to all this stuff, but numerous (and I mean dozens) of academics refer to B'Deshi attitudes as Indophobic, whether you and I like it or not. As a result, it falls under the rubric of Indophobia regardless of what we think. As for the US Indophobia part, I say scrap that para. I got no objections. It's all vaulted OR. A similar case may be made for Pakistan para too.Ghanadar galpa (talk)  —Preceding comment was added at 22:50, 30 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete On similar lines to Pakistanphobia. I also agree with Soman that there is WP:OTHERCRAP where neologisms and strange comparisons (like in the above two examples) are used to attack particular ethnic or religios groups. It has almost gone beyond the point of absurdity. GizzaDiscuss  &#169; 22:01, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Who is being "attacked" in this article? I'm puzzled by such a statement.Ghanadar galpa (talk) 22:25, 30 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Strong Keep Indophobia is the negative of the popular term Indomania. See sources such as and . Darrowen (talk) 00:08, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep. While the term "Pakistanphobia" might be a neologism, the term "Indophobia" finds plenty of mentions in scholarly papers and books. utcursch | talk 11:35, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep, possibly move uner a neutral and descriptive title, Anti-Indian sentiment. `'Míkka>t 17:52, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep, a notable term Shyamsunder 22:34, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep, a notable term --D-Boy (talk) 05:41, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
 * comment: in what sense is it a "notable term"? JSTOR has been mentioned here, but a search of JSTOR indicates that (with two lonely exceptions from 1972 and 1977, both about Uganda) all uses are in reviews of Thomas Trautmann's Aryans and British India (1997). That seems to make it a NEOLOGISM - people picked up and ran with Said's use of "Orientalism"; there's no real indication that "Indophobia" is (yet) used independently of discussions of Trautmann. Certainly the phenomenon is notable - but might a "rename" not be in order? --Paularblaster (talk) 23:27, 2 January 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.