User:Fowler&fowler/Indian independence movement

Here is the gist of the problem, as I see it. The India page (like many country pages) is the focus of potential edits that are deemed idiosyncratic by a consensus of scholarly opinion. It is my view that what user:Rueben lys is trying to add to the history section of the article constitutes such a idiosyncratic edit, and, consequently, must not be allowed. The (India) page's history section is currently highly compressed, with exactly two sentences devoted to the Indian freedom struggle.

“ During the first half of the twentieth century, a nationwide struggle for independence was launched by the Indian National Congress and other political organisations. Millions of protesters engaged in mass campaigns of civil disobedience with a commitment to ahimsa, or non-violence, led by Mahatma Gandhi. ”

User: Rueben lys feels that this is a one-sided description of the Indian Freedom Movement, which apportions all the credit to the Indian National Congress (INC) and Gandhi, and all action to that taking place in the first half of the twentieth century. He would like the history section to state that the independence struggle began in late 19th century and to include the contributions of other people and movements, in particular that of the Indian National Army (INA), Subhas Chandra Bose, and some revolutionary movements; in addition, he would like some events of 1946 (like the INA trials and the Bombay mutiny) to be mentioned as well.

(I am of course aware of the irony of crafting thousands of words in the defense of two sentences, but I feel that the principle is important; I also foresee similar disputes arising again if we don't clarify some issues.) I have some sympathy for user:Rueben lys's point of view. For example, had I written the two sentences quoted above, they would likely have read:

“ The nationalist freedom movement in India began in 1885 with the founding of the Indian National Congress. Although many political leaders played roles in the movement, the major direction was provided by Mahatma Gandhi and his movement of mass civil disobedience based on non-violence. ”

However, I feel that there is no room in a concise history for the people, organizations, and events that user:Rueben lys wants included. Moreover, I feel there is wide consensus among scholars that the two "mainstreams" in the Indian freedom struggle were the Indian National Congress founded in 1885 and the All-India Muslim League founded in 1906, and leading ultimately to the partition of British India and to the independence for both India and Pakistan. In user:Rueben lys's formulation, however, the mainstreams seem to be "Non-violent" (represented by Gandhi) and "Violent" (represented by assorted revolutionary groups).

An overview of my sources

I have limited my secondary sources to books published either by recognized university presses (e.g. Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press), or by academic publishing houses like Routledge. (See: What is a reliable source?) For my tertiary sources, I have described one signed article each from the History sections of the "India" pages of Encyclopaedia Britannica and Encyclopedia Encarta. (See WP:PSTS.) These, I believe, are the best tertiary sources one can get: not only are they written by experts, but the context of their articles—the history section in an India page—is exactly the same as ours.

In contrast, when user:Rueben lys says he cites Britannica, he is really citing from the article, "Indian National Army," (INA) in the Britannica Student Encyclopaedia. The main EB does not have an article on the INA. Not only is this Student Encyclopaedia article a short (2 page) one written by the Britannica editorial staff, but it is also a "specialty" article, in which you would expect to find references to the article's subject. These kinds of citations, however, confer neither the "notability" nor the "absence of undue weight" needed for inclusion in a "general" overview article like India.

Tertiary Sources: Signed Articles in Britannica and Encarta

In his signed article on "Modern Indian History" in the 2007 Encyclopaedia Britannica, historian Stanley Wolpert of UCLA devotes 19 long pages to the Indian freedom movement, but has just this to say about Bose:

In contrast, the INC and the Muslim League are covered in decisively greater detail:

Similarly, in his signed article, "Movement for Freedom" Archived 2009-10-28 at the Wayback Machine in Encyclopedia Encarta, historian Philip Oldenburg, of Columbia University, devotes 16 paragraphs to the Indian freedom struggle:

Again, there is no mention of Bose, INA, Bhagat Singh, or any other militant. The only reference to "extremism" in the modern sense, is indirectly to the Ghadar party (a radical party founded by Sikhs who were denied immigration to Canada), "A small, mostly Sikh revolutionary movement appeared briefly in Punjab." The overwhelming portion of the text (19 pages in Britannica and 16 paragraphs in Encarta) is devoted primarily to the Indian National Congress and secondarily to the Muslim League.

Secondary Sources: Academic Histories and Research Monographs

Bar chart (based on eight university text-books listed in collapsible box) showing the proportional references to various people and topics in these text-books.

Pie chart based on eight university text-books (listed in collapsible box) showing the proportional reference to various people and topics in these books.

Academic Histories of India

This is not just the view of these two historians, it is also the mainstream view. Here are twelve (searchable) standard histories of India that are used in university courses worldwide. As the search results (in the collapsible box below) indicate, the topics that user:Rueben lys would like included (i.e. "revolutionaries/terrorists/extremists," "Bhagat Singh," "Subhas Bose," "Indian National Army/Azad Hind Fauj," "INA trials," all displayed in boldface) are given little coverage in these books. In contrast "Gandhi," "Jinnah," "Nehru," "Indian National Congress," "Muslim League," Tilak," "Patel," Satyagraha, Non-violence, "Non-cooperation," "Civil disobedience," ... have many more pages devoted to them:

Of course, one can find narrow-focus monographs devoted only to Bose or the INA, but producing a citation from such a monograph (as I have already stated above) doesn't make the subject of the monograph notable for a compressed Wikipedia history. However, and in contrast, if the standard histories bestow only cursory attention to some topics ("revolutionaries," Bose, "terrorists," INA, INA trials, ...) then it does become a sign of their non-notability.

Histories of the Indian independence movement, partition, end of empire

In addition, to the general histories listed above, I have also compiled a list of more focused monographs on the Indian independence movement as well as research monographs, whose focus is on other contemporaneous topics (in this case, people or events in India during the first half of the 20th century). (The rationale for including the latter type of monograph in the list is the following: if the monograph spends many pages on Gandhi, even though he is not the principal subject, it does so because Gandhi, as a notable contemporaneous figure, infiltrates the circumscribed lives or events of the book's focus. The more notable events and topics therefore show up even in books whose principal topic is only obliquely related to them. Compressed in the box below, is a list of both kinds of monographs, which are all searchable on amazon.com. I have added the search results; the number in the parentheses (as before) indicates the number of pages in which that person or topic appears.

Lists of notable topics/events

I feel that the sources—both secondary and tertiary that I have listed—make a strong case that the topics of user:Rueben lys's interest are not notable enough for inclusion in any compressed (Wikipedia-like) history of India. Even if we had a few more sentences (say, four or six, instead of the current two), I don't see how his topics would merit inclusion over the others that are deemed more notable. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:05, 29 August 2007 (UTC)