Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Hindutva propaganda

Interesting
With the passage of time, Wikipedia is becoming more interesting, and the community is becoming sometimes highly charged with emotions rather acceptance of the reality that we have joined hands (or gathered) to create encyclopedic contents, and not emotional contents. --Bhadani (talk) 05:31, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I am sure that the administrator/s interested in the contents in any way shall display the grace of not exercising their administrative tools, but shall allow other administrators to decide the issue. Allowing the AfD to run its full course will not make English wikipedia collapse like the house of cards. --Bhadani (talk) 09:55, 1 April 2007 (UTC) Let people do as they wish, I do not care. --Bhadani (talk) 16:52, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

No rape please

 * No rape please. --Bhadani (talk) 17:45, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Not Interesting, Just Farcical
After the AfD filing at 2007-03-30T15:07:13, consider this timeline


 * 1) 2007-03-30T20:41:25  votes to Delete.
 * 2) 2007-03-31T11:20:40  votes to Move.
 * 3) 2007-03-31T12:36:03 Scheibenzahl  posts an omnibus edit of the article.
 * 4) 2007-03-31T15:06:09 revert by me, fifth of the series, restoring status quo ante.
 * 5) Discussion on my Talk page with Scheibenzahl follows, during which:
 * 6) 2007-03-31T15:43:54 Scheibenzahl changes vote to Delete.
 * 7) 2007-03-31T16:57:11  Bakasuprman reverts article to Scheibenzahl's version.
 * 8) 2007-03-31T18:57:42 critique, with vote to Delete by  -- of Scheibenzahl and Bakasuprman preferred version, specifically the paragraph already discussed on my Talk page!

This sets off a "debate". But, just what is supposed to be debated here? The version according to the people who want the article deleted? Sheesh. rudra 18:03, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
 * See WP:OWN if you cant understand that articles can be edited by anyone at any point in time. Baka man  22:07, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Ah, so! This includes sabotage by delete-voters for the "benefit" of others who might see the article later, and vote accordingly?  How delightful! rudra 22:20, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
 * That is the point of a wiki. Any page can be edited by anyone at any time. Glad to see you have understood the basic reality of wikipedia or wikiality (actually wikiality is not topical). Baka man  23:40, 2 April 2007 (UTC)


 * The whole content itself, see WP:OWN. Somewhere in there are 5-6 of your edits as well. Baka man  21:02, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I count 3 reverts, one botched self-revert, one edit to fix the botch, and one addition of references wiped out by your revert. Net contribution: zero.  And your  point was? rudra 22:00, 1 April 2007 (UTC)


 * @rudra - Even if couple of lines that I quoted at the start of my 'critique' were added by somebody who voted delete, it still doesnt change anything. The rest of the article only gets worse when the 'cherry picking and quoting verbatim' part arrives.  It gets worse and worse and worse.  And for saying this, I am now part of the Hindutva 'pov brigade' eh?  All, just because I voted delete when you voted keep.  huh.  Sarvagnya 21:12, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, but this is getting more and more surreal. Much if not all of your critique was predicated on the (effective) contention - of the article as you saw it - that all Hindutva scholarship is/was propaganda.  But this was Scheibenzahl's and Bakasuprman's version of what they thought the article should be saying (and aperfectly executed "joejob" if I may so).  The version before Scheibenzahl's edit carried no such sweeping generalization.  It  basically asserted that propaganda exists and proceeded to substantiate that.  Now, if you want to argue that there is no propaganda at all, or that it is insignificant, by all means do so, but please be sure that the parameters of what you want to debate actually fit a reasonable description of the article's aims.  Thanks. rudra 21:42, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Therein lies the problem, Hindutva is a political movement, not some sort of alien race infiltrating our schools. Most of the bone of contention in NCERT was Muslim invasions, which have been documented as destructive by many (A.L. Basham, Alain Danielou even some parts of Wolpert), not the OIT/AIT/AIM which is Witzel's field. Btw, Nanda is a PhD in biotech so she in not quotable on politics or history. The article is a jumble of a large sum of irrelevant nonsense which hardly discusses Hindutva but makes a point to talk about Nanda's long rants on how she hates Hindus. Baka  man  21:55, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Infact calling us "Hindutva POV-brigade" when you have no evidence to link us to any major Sangh Parivar organization would be a great example of personal attacks and mudslinging. Baka man  21:17, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Mudslinging? Oh my.  rudra 04:23, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
 * This whole 'Hindutva'(sic), 'saffronisation'(sic), 'sangh parivar'(sic) etc., are neologisms that are a direct spin off of mostly politically motivated POV of BJP's opponents. Wikipedia has no business legitimising them and giving them a pseudo-scholarly aura and sanction.  Kak is not to BJP or the Sangh Parivar(sic) what Anton Balasingham was to the LTTE.  Stop this nonsense.  Sarvagnya 22:27, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
 * if this is the case, I wonder why Wikipedia sees so much blatant abuse by pro-Hindutva editors, while I still have to see any trolling perpetrated by anti-Hindutva communalists (yeah, so there was, poor soul, no question the result of a concerted propaganda campaign by the united Marxist anti-BJP forces of India). I would love to believe poor Hindutvavadis are just the victim of anti-Hindu propaganda, but the only people making fools of themselves by trying to sell pathetic and blatant propaganda on Wikipedia happen to be pro-Hindutva. Anti-Hindu conspracy or no, the article in question isn't based on India-based Marxist media outlets, it is based on academic publications. Refute it by citing other academic publications if you can, but stop trying to conduct the debate on-wiki. Remember, Wikipedia is about verifiability, not truth. Even if it was TRUE that people in India were chatting away in purest Sanskrit in 26,000 BC, if academia doesn't recognize this, it will not make a difference to Wikipedia, even if you had a personal revelation from Shiva himself telling you it was so. dab (𒁳) 15:39, 2 April 2007 (UTC)


 * So Hindutva is some monolithic conspiracy huh? You are merely mirroring Guru Witzelji's  tedency to deflect any crticism with shrill and paranoid accusations of Hindtvaadis. I daresay BJP doesnt give a fuck for Witzel or Kak or any two bit scholar who tries to posture himself as pro-Hindu/anti-Hindutvadi. Stop picturing yourself as some sort of Wiki-saviour defending Wikipedia from those stupid nationalist zealot wogs. Except for certain User:Hkelkar i see no Hindutva trolling here. The India-Pakistan ArbComm VOTED to ban Pakistani nationalists but now you are construing it as some sort of Indian 'patriot' case. As for Rajput, it didnt even have anything to do with Hinduism or Hindtva. Dab you may be a Sanskrit wiz and I respect you for your knowledge and interest in Indian history and culture. But I cant say wether you have any empathy for these topics.  Amey Aryan DaBrood&#169; 18:19, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

i have no interest in carting Hinduism's antiquity back to 26000 BC. Nor do I care for a revelation.. be it from God Shiva or from the s/o God. I also couldnt care less what academia has to say about either's antiquity.

The fact of the matter, however, is that Kak and co are not representatives of 'Hindutva'(sic) whatEVER the hell that is supposed to mean. They hold no authority as far as Hindus are concerned. And you tell me that when it comes to history, they are quacks. Attributing to Hindus any quackery on Kak's part is like attributing to the catholic church all of Dan Browne's research. The only difference is that, there, we have an authority which disowns Dan Browne while here we dont have any single authority(person or organisation) to either own or disown Kak and his theories.

I only want to point out the following.


 * Stop gratuitous use of 'Hindutva' especially when you are not even able to define it in black and white.
 * Attribute Kak's 'quackery'(if that is what you want to call it) to Kak and Kak alone. Not to BJP or Hindutvavaada or Hindutvavadi or NDA or Sangh Parivar or any of your chosen villains.  You dont attribute Witzel's views to Harvard or his publisher or to the company he keeps.  Do you?  You dont club Witzel and Parpola and Sokal and all like minded 'scholars' under one fuzzy neologism.  Do you?
 * And if you have academic sources to discredit Kak's theories, do it by all means. But keep your commentary and linguistic flourish out. It only shows that you have an emotional investment in all this.  Being an admin and an editor for as long as you've been, you should know better than to write articles with a personally invested tone.
 * Witzel and Sokal, because they arent writing encyclopedias, have the liberty to hit below the belt and 'rub it in'. But an encyclopedia doesnt afford us those liberties.  As editors of an encyclopedia, we are expected to maintain decorum and be a little more dispassionate about what we write.  Its almost as if you're itching to have a go at Kak yourself.  If that is what you want to do, please find yourself a blog or simply go find Kak.  I guess he lives somewhere in the Louisiana area(USA).
 * As far as any suggestions I could give, you could probably, for a start, stop dubbing all this 'Hindutva' and go with something like 'Revisionist/alternate history of Hinduism' or 'Revisionist/alternate Indology' or 'Revisionist/alternate Indological research' or something like that. Sarvagnya 17:30, 2 April 2007 (UTC)


 * If you are making the claim that it has nothing to do with political Hinduism, you are, of course, going to be laughed out of court.
 * If you are claiming that it is streams of political Hinduism independent of the RSS or the VHP, fine. Except that that's not what the quoted sources seem to suggest. However, the link to organised political Hinduism should be stated. "Revisionist" is delightful, yet not nearly accurate enough.
 * If you are angered by the contempt felt for some of these people by certain editors, I apologise for your distress. However, that has nothing to do with the actual contents of the article, so I suggest you get over it. Hornplease 21:54, 2 April 2007 (UTC)