Talk:India Against Corruption

Concerns

These are reviews of the current version of the article, and not of "what should be", "what could be" etc.

1. Infobox data: In the infobox, Arvind Kejriwal has been mentioned as a "key people". Should we mention in bracket that he is a former member (this is based on what we have in the article now).
2. Notable members: There is a list of "Notable members" in the article. It is unclear (in the article) whether they had a "formal membership/registration procedure". Is "Members" the right word here? Or something like "participants", "activist" "workers" may be used?
3. The popular movement is distinct from a pressure group campaigning for Right to Information that bears the same name. — it is in our lead. I am facing difficulties to find where it has been discussed in details in articles body, hence, it might be "unsourced" claim.
   What is meant by "Pressure group" here?
4. Those involved with the IAC core committee eventually diverged to form the — unclear. Article mentions, some people stayed even after the split.

Tito☸Dutta 22:54, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Tito, my suggestions re the points you raised would be the following:

1. Remove the infobox completely. Infoboxes are not obligatory and should not be used where they create confusion or over-simplify. Trying to force what appears to be a loose coalition of activists with no organization or formal governance apart from a "core Committee" into a formal organization like Greenpeace or UNICEF (for which {{Infobox organization}} was intended) is counter-productive.

2. Remove the list of "notable members". It adds nothing, and is simply a source of arguments and unreferenced drive-by additions. Where there are reliable sources linking a person to the movement's activities in a significant way, those people should be covered as prose within the article itself.

3. Remove The popular movement is distinct from a pressure group campaigning for Right to Information that bears the same name. from the lede. Given the paucity of reliable sources available concerning its present activities (if any) and the apparent contradiction with the quote from the Hindustan Times at the end of the "Divergence" section.

4. Change the sentence in the lede: Those involved with the IAC core committee eventually diverged to form the Aam Aadmi Party and Jantantra Morcha. to something like:

Divisions amongst key members of the IAC's core committee eventually led to a split within the movement. Arvind Kejriwal left to form the Aam Aadmi Party, while Anna Hazare left to form a replacement campaigning group, Jantantra Morcha.

In that respect, I'd also change the heading Divergence to Split.

Voceditenore (talk) 06:26, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

• Thank you for replying. #1, #2, I agree. good suggestions. #3 If that line is removed, the article becomes only on the movement, the IAC editors are trying to change the article about "an organization" (founded in 2007), I have not studied it still, that needs to be mentioned in the article, at least in a hatnote. #4 -- okay. Thank you once again. --Tito☸Dutta 06:36, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

• Long-term solution Tito, so far, there are zero reliable, independent, secondary sources to support the claim that it was founded in 2007. Ditto their other claims. Note that even the Hindustan Times refers to their "owning" the IAC as of September 2013 simply as a claim. So no, that doesn't belong in the article until/unless such sources can be found. Your statement If that line is removed, the article becomes only on the movement is absolutely key here and leads to my suggestion for more long-term solution. My suggestions above are simply an interim solution. This article plus 2011 Indian anti-corruption movement and 2012 Indian anti-corruption movement are all unfortunate consequences of recentism and various groups of activists seeing Wikipedia as yet another arm of social media to promote their cause. In the long term all three articles should be merged (with considerable pruning of all three) into 2011 – 2012 Indian anti-corruption movement. Note that there is already a long-standing proposal to merge the 2011 and 2012 Indian anti-corruption movement articles. This article could be a subsection of that merged article. Such a major restructuring would take a lot of work. Perhaps a task force of WikiProject India could take it on. It needs experienced editors thoroughly familiar with the appropriate Indian sources and an ability to write coherent and concise prose. Voceditenore (talk) 07:26, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

• That is a wonderful post. It shows both your expertise and your knowledge about this subject and Wikipedia guidelines and policies. I was not following their replies and discussions so far.
  Correctly or incorrectly, by "India Against Corruption", news papers, medias etc. mean the movement that gained momentum in India in 2011-12.
  Now, they may have an organization with same name and it might be a brand name/generic name type of error as well. But, it needs to be verified.
  About merging, I feel, this IAC should be the main article, but, that can/should be discussed in details later. --Tito☸Dutta 08:15, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

• I agree with Voceditenore's suggestion that we have a single article focused on the larger story of the 2011-2012 movement, which would include the involvement of IAC as well as that of other groupings and the part played by some individuals even as those groupings changed. Merging those descriptions into an article about IAC would produce a much more awkward result, subsuming other narratives into the story of the IAC, viewing events from a single perspective and even omitting material as irrelevant to the subject of IAC. NebY (talk) 09:23, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

• This merger has been my proposal for a very long time and I've been working on all three articles to achieve that end. That has involved, and likely will still involve, removing a lot of copyvio as well as the usual fluff. If the IAC pressure group want an article about themselves then, as said umpteen times in the past, they'll have to demonstrate notability. - Sitush (talk) 12:49, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

• Agree with Voceditenore Remove The popular movement is distinct from a pressure group campaigning for Right to Information that bears the same name. Further it is only there claim that the Hindustan Times of 3 September 2013 Published The group, which now runs — and claims to own — the IAC, mostly comprises Right to Information (RTI) activists. This should be removed.Further whether Veeresh Malik is notable puts that He is a Co-convenor and co-founder of the India Against Corruption anti-corruption movement.Now cannot find a source outside there own website.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 19:59, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

The IAC organisation exists and there are more sources that could be used to verify this. None that I've ever seen actually confer notability sufficient to justify a separate article but they do verify. - Sitush (talk) 20:11, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Eg: page 130 of this, an official paper of the Rajya Sabha. - Sitush (talk) 20:25, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

IAC organization will fail notability for now did search but did not find anything notable that will pass notability .Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 20:36, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Which is why we have consistently prevented this article from being hijacked by that organisation. That is not the same as saying that the thing should not be mentioned in order to avoid confusion. What I'd really like to pin down is whether they are in fact a registered NGO. - Sitush (talk) 20:38, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Per this discussion so far, I have provisionally changed the lede along the lines suggested. I have also removed "along with Team Anna" from the lede. It was problematic for a number of reasons, but primarily because it implies that IAC=Team Anna, which is not strictly true, at least according to the sources. I have also renamed the "Divergence Section" to "Internal split" and made a more precise redirect from Team Anna. I have also made some slight tweaks to the "Internal split" section to bring it more into line with what the sources actually said. For ease of comparison and discussion, see this diff showing the changes I made. Voceditenore (talk) 09:24, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

• Update: #1, #2 mentioned above  Done. --Tito☸Dutta 05:33, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Specific concerns

1. populist in the lede and elsewhere. This word is misused, often as a perjorative for demagoguery . It should be replaced by the organization's own description "people's movement".
2. The 2 suggested links for "Further reading"
   1. Hensman, Rohini (September 2011). "Converging agendas: Team Anna and the Indian Right"
   2. Megwanshi, Bhanwar (5 September 2011). "India: The Communal Character of Anna Hazare’s Movement" - ought to be deleted immediately, as they do not relate to "India Against Corruption" but Anna Hazare's JLPB campaign/s and Hazare's earlier campaigns.
3. The lede's Divisions amongst key members of the IAC's core committee eventually led to a split within the movement is incorrect. (A) There's no hard evidence that there was ever a "split" within the movement, or (B) That the IAC's core committee ever disagreed. I believe the true position is what the IAC has disclosed on its official website/s, viz. that Mr. Arvind Kejriwal's NGO Public Cause Research Foundation was hired in 2010 by IAC's "Core Committee" to launch a new campaign exclusively against CWG-2010 scams in IAC's name, and that this campaign was soon terminated by IAC Core Committee on 9/Dec/2010 when this new activity of PCRF got enlarged and infiltrated by right wing persons affiliated to the communal Jana Sangh's successor party the BJP. Sotyam Eba Joyate (talk) 05:56, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

• Per 1 and 2, I have removed the descriptor "populist" altogether, primarily because "populist" is an inaccurate label which ≠ "people's", but also because it is unnecessary. I have removed the "Further Reading" section with Team Anna and the Indian Right and India: The Communal Character of Anna Hazare’s Movement because although they specifically mention the IAC, they are opinion pieces from a particular political standpoint, not relevant for improving or referencing the article. However, they do contain references to potentially reliable sources, hence I'm linking them here on the talk page. As for 3, your assertions are not supported by the reliable sources, all of which call it a split, splinter, within the movement, amongst the leaders of its core committee etc. The official website of the group now claiming to own the IAC brand is not a reliable source for the assertions you want to replace them with, and in fact, is an even worse "opinion piece" than the other two I removed. Its "History" section is an incoherent rant. It's fine to put that construction on events for your members on your website. It is not a reliable source for this article. Voceditenore (talk) 07:05, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

• For #3 I am referring to a specific paragraph No. 3 here. The referred details of the substantial payment/s from IAC to PCRF are contained in the audited balance sheet/s of the PCRF which can be accessed at PCRF Official website. As these are internal matters between IAC and PCRF, they are hardly likely to be of general interest or published in 2nd.ary sources for such routine matters where the respective parties were admittedly well known to each other. At the same time there is no absolutely no evidence to show that any of the IAC's Core Committee members ever split from IAC, if you differ perhaps you could list their names. A neutral encyclopedic statement would be that Arvind Kejriwal's "team" left the IAC campaign to pursue politics. In fact PCRF is now merged within Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party as per [1]. I have no comment on the "History" section of IAC's website because I observe that IAC has a distinguished editorial board to whom your opinions are better directed. Sotyam Eba Joyate (talk) 08:52, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Links

<I've blanked this previously collapsed section per Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/India Against Corruption sock-meatfarm. Wikipedia will not host threats and groundless attacks against individuals. Bishonen | talk 11:24, 19 October 2014 (UTC).>

Blocked by an admin. Might I suggest any further posts by sock/meat puppets simply be reverted and the sock told to request an unblock from the original account? That way, the community can place conditions on the potential unblock (e.g., no attacks on Sitush). --NeilN ^{talk to me} 14:28, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

I've manually archived the old, bloated, and sock-filled "discussions" to Talk:India Against Corruption/Archive 3 so that we can start afresh. And indeed, some progress has been made. I have collapsed the recent lengthy list of links and off-topic comments by the now blocked "new" user. My approach had been to treat the "new" editor courteously, since initially he/she appeared to be attempting a more reasoned and constructive discussion instead of casting aspersions on other editors and hinting at legal action. Unfortunately, it soon degenerated into the usual modus operandi of this group. It's probably is a good idea to revert suspected sock/meat puppets on sight, until one of them goes through an unblock procedure. However, unless it is a clear BLP violation or act of vandalism, I'm reluctant to revert it myself. Voceditenore (talk) 18:21, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

It was obvious to me that was a sock. There are a lot of changes going on that look wrong to me but not much I can do about it from here. - Sitush (talk) 02:59, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Well, yes it was also obvious to me from the outset that the editor was a member of the group, although possibly not the same person (under multiple names) who had made the extensive legal threats and carried out the harassment. Hence, I was willing to give some rope. However, there were features of the editor's later discourse (which I won't go into) that made it obvious that it was (or had become) a shared account. As I said, the changes I made were only provisional. Sitush, which ones do you think should have further changes or be reversed? None of it is writ in stone. Voceditenore (talk) 05:31, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

India against corruption Name Current status

India against corruption name was in dispute and we do not want to advance any self published claim as per WP:BURDEN. Remove the self claim of IAC published in Hindustan Times. It is better to leave it out of the article.We go by Wikipedia:Verifiability, not truth. WP:RS sources list Anna Hazare as the founder Washington Post mentions Arvind Kejriwal .

• Anna Hazare claims 'India Against Corruption' name, Arvind Kejriwal says will oblige:NDTV
• Anna Hazare claims IAC's name, Arvind Kejriwal says he will oblige:India Today
• How the Anna Hazare movement was born:Rediff
• India’s anti-corruption guru awarded $100,000 prize in Vancouver:Vancouver Sun
• India’s anti-corruption movement aims to galvanize democracy:Washington Post Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 16:18, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

While I agree re removing the claim, note that Sarbajit Roy (the "National Convenor" quoted in the Hindustan Times) currently redirects to this article, given that independent notability of the subject could not be established. Now that the claim is removed, that page needs to be taken to AfD. Otherwise the redirect simply re-asserts the claim. See this discussion for background. Voceditenore (talk) 17:42, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

We could still record here that Roy now styles himself national convenor of IAC; that much appears verifiable.[2] Whether it's worth including, whether it would be helpful to some readers, I'm not sure. It might serve to clear up any confusion. NebY (talk) 18:11, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

It will not clear up any confusion because Roy's IAC is not the same as the popular movement. - Sitush (talk) 18:14, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

The claim in both the Hindu and in Hindustan Times are self made claims or statements issued by the IAC and Veeresh Malik claim by IAC editors to be the founder of the co-founder of the India Against Corruption anti-corruption movement which cannot be verified outside there website and self published sources. Unless one is writing in the article the movement and the organization are different and this can sourced with Third party sources not verifiable whether this group existed before the movement and Anna Hazare is the founder do not find Roy or Malik's name anywhere. It will only add to confusion if we add Sabajit's claim as this article is about Anna Hazare's movement.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 18:32, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Exactly. And I've said for ages that Roy is not notable, so AfD shouldn't really be a big deal. The problem that the organisation has consistently faced here is that its tendency to operate as an "underground" body and its repeated creations of numerous so-called "official" websites etc work against it from a notability perspective. - Sitush (talk) 18:51, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

On Talk:Sarbajit_Roy I've requested an edit to nominate the redirect for deletion. Stuartyeates (talk) 19:08, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

Stuartyeates, I changed the edit request template on Talk:Sarbajit Roy to the more appropriate {{Edit protected}} and added a link to this section for background. Pinging Drmies and Bishonen who have previously protected and/or performed edit requests to Sarbajit Roy. Voceditenore (talk) 06:56, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

Voceditenore, Stuartyeates, I've put full protection on for a week. In my continuing saga of harassing Drmies... his mother wears wooden combat boots in Mississippi mud. :) Bgwhite (talk) 05:42, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

Who is Vidyut Gore ?

BRD query: How is Vidyut Gore of relevance to this topic ? Aghore (talk) 06:47, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Basically an anti-corruption activist with some non-prominent link(s) to the IAC group but the naming of one person in a See also list does give WP:UNDUE weight. As I observe I was the one who reverted that I'll concede that. The remaining see also to Corruption in India is perhaps a more valid link to a related topic. Thankyou. Djm-leighpark (talk) 07:34, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. IMHO, "Corruption in India" is something different from the India Against Corruption movement, which was political at its core. Aghore (talk) 11:22, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

Oh yes. We've had problems with IAC in the past. Doug Weller talk 18:59, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

@Doug Weller ... you're an oversighter, but its unclear from your statement what the problem is: An far as I can currently

• Concensus of removal of link to Vidyut Gore. Agreed and actioned. {Done}}
• See also link to "Corruption in India" topic ... I'm leaning somewhat to retention ... related topic and leads to to corruption in other countries (amazingly not apparently for the UK... at least not that I can find! Quite often I'm not a fan of see also entries but "Corruption in India" seems a good background link here. While I'm pushing for retention it not a life for me; I'm inclined to believe @Aghore is possibly against retention but again I feel not absolutely bothered.
• As oversiter would you prefer removal of this section with its edit summaries from the talk page (or archiving of section content)? I'd probably lean in favour of that especially if Aghore agreed.

.... if there's any other issue I can help with let me know. Thanks. Djm-leighpark (talk) 00:00, 13 February 2020 (UTC) (Any other article issues might to better on a new section).Djm-leighpark (talk) 00:02, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

@Djm-leighpark: by yes I meant that IAC was political at its core. By problems I meant harassment and threat by people claiming to be part of IAC, see Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/India Against Corruption sock-meatfarm. I don't see any problems that would require Oversight or revision/delete. These are the first posts to this talk page since 2018 when I reverted a ramp, and before that none since 2014. I've no opinion on the issue of a link. Doug Weller talk 08:17, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Although I am mildly against retaining "Corruption in India", it is not worth wasting time on. Aghore (talk) 17:41, 24 February 2020 (UTC)