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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Sam Manekshaw/archive3

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was archived by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 22 January 2024 [1].

Sam Manekshaw

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Nominator(s): Matarisvan (talk) 16:44, 12 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about Sam Manekshaw, one of the only two people to be promoted to Field Marshal rank in India, and the army commander during the 1971 war who executed what was arguably India's biggest military win ever. I've worked on the suggestions from the last two FARs in 2017 & 2018, and look forward to finally taking this article to FA status. Matarisvan (talk) 16:44, 12 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

  • Avoid sandwiching text between images/templates
  • I've disabled the wrap text around image option, will that do? I'm not quite sure because I'm new to this vocab, but I guessed you meant there should be no text wrapped around. And what should I do for the templates?
  • Got it, apologies for the confusion. I've followed UC's comments below that the convention is to have right wrapped images and not alternate between left & right wrapping. Is this alright?
  • See MOS:ICON. If the icons are kept, they all need tags for the original designs.
  • Done.
  • My bad, I did not understand that you were referring to copyright tags, I assumed you meant original sources. All of these works have the copyright tag, varying from CC 4.0 to CC Attribution Non Commercial. But I may have confused what you mean by tag again, so could you please confirm?
  • MOS:ICON refers to the inclusion of icons in the article - I'm not sure your current usage is consistent with that. With regards to copyright tags, what we need is to make sure there is tagging to account for all relevant copyrights. For example, File:Field_Marshal_of_the_Indian_Army.svg has a CC tag representing the copyright of the uploader, but the source design is original enough to potentially qualify for copyright protection, so we need a tag for that as well. Compare for example File:Insignia_USA_Army_2nd_Cavalry_Regiment_V2.svg: it has tags for both the design and the version uploaded. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:42, 16 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have removed the icons. Most military biography FAs don't seem to use icons even when they are available. The MOS does not mention usage policies for military articles where icons play a big role, but removing them seems to be the best course of action for now. I have retained the flags though, but I'm not sure if this is the right course to take. While scrolling through the list of military biography FAs, I could not find many people who had seen their country's status change. As such, I've followed the example of the articles on Sudirman and Gottlob Berger, where their country's flags have indeed been displayed.
  • Suggest adding alt text
  • Done.
  • Don't use fixed px size
  • Done.
  • File:Badge_of_12th_Frontier_Force_Regiment.jpg needs a tag for the original work
  • Done.
  • This does seem to be original work. I have uploaded the public domain image from the National Army Museum and replaced the old icon with it.
  • File:The_Owl_-_The_logo_of_DSSC,_Wellington.png: source link is dead; which of the rationales in the Indian tag is believed to apply?
  • The source link is not accessible on your device and most devices because its HTTPS certificate has expired. Highly unusual for a government website, but I've added the Archive.org link. Will that be alright?
  • Great coincidence on this one - it has just entered public domain. It was [published in 1964] and thus is copyright free as Indian law has a copyright period of 60 years.
  • I'm not quite sure about how the URAA would apply here. The article on the URAA says it doesn't apply to works copyrighted by foreign governments or their institutions, it also doesn't apply to countries the USA has a copyright treaty with. Both conditions are true here. Would you agree? Removed this icon. Matarisvan (talk) 10:45, 17 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • File:Lt._Gen._Manekshaw_as_Eastern_Commander.jpg: the given source does not appear to be the Indian government - why is the given tag believed to apply?
  • Added the appropriate source.

Nikkimaria (talk) 06:28, 13 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

UC

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I'm afraid I'm a little way off a support here, at the moment. A few general (sorry) points stick out at the moment:

  • I am not a fan of the centre-aligned images; they take up a lot of vertical screen space and demand attention that I'm not sure they really deserve. I can't think of another FA biography (admittedly, not having done more than a cursory look for one) that breaks the usual convention of right-aligned images with text wrapping around. What Nikki was talking about earlier with sandwiching was having an image on the left and another on the right at the same point, creating a "sandwich" of text which doesn't fully reach either the left or right margin.
  • Changed all images to right-aligned. Is this alright?
  • Similarly, the pullout quotes are journalistic rather than encyclopaedic; there's a case, sometimes, for them, but we generally avoid it in FAs. There needs to be a very clear WP:DUEWEIGHT argument for giving them such disproportionate prominence vis-a-vis the material around them, and I can't really see one at the moment.
  • Would you have the quote with the call on Pakistani forces to surrender removed as well? The other quotes are not really necessary, I agree, I have removed them.
  • The argument needs to be made on the basis of encyclopaedic value: it's fairly short, but is it regularly referred to in sources as an important, successful or historically significant text? If so, that should be discussed somewhere in the article. Otherwise, has anyone used it to discuss M's character in a way that it would be helpful for readers to be able to refer to the original? UndercoverClassicist T·C 19:17, 17 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • The content of the quote is discussed in the next paragraph. The quote is from a radio broadcast which broke down the morale of the opposing army and made them take the decision to surrender even though their government hadn't permitted one.
  • Some sections are very short ("War of 1965" caught my eye) and don't seem very comprehensive: M. may have advised against attacking East Pakistan, but we don't find out that India chose to follow that advice, or that they largely did so due to Chinese pressure rather than deference to their general.
  • India did follow that advice, though there is no official admission of this. There were no attacks on East Pakistan. Chinese pressure would not have had any impact as the conflict was fought in the winter and China did not have the abilities to deploy its troops in winter at that time.
All of that might be true, but I'm not sure the substantive point is affected. UndercoverClassicist T·C 19:17, 17 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I can not find any other reliable sources, so I will unfortunately be removing this section.
  • The article could do with a look over for MOS etc: why, for example, is Manekshaw Centre in italics? I've made a couple of copyedits for straightforward typos or mistakes.
  • Removed italics.
  • There's quite a lot more MoS material that needs attention: punctuation, contractions, capitalisation (as an example, ranks are only capitalised when they're with someone's name: so Major Singh was a major in the Indian Army. UndercoverClassicist T·C 19:17, 17 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have made changes to this effect. By contractions, I believe you mean abbreviations? Went through all such uses and added expansions or short forms, whichever was missing. Not sure where the punctuation is lagging though.
  • The "Legacy" section reads to me as a grab-bag of things named after M. -- did he have any impact on the Indian Army at all, as to its organisation, culture, doctrine...? Has there been any scholarly work as to whether he was, bluntly, any good? Compare for instance the way the FA on Sudirman handles the same section.
  • I have added details on Manekshaw's impact on Doctrines, procurement, counter insurgency, triservice ops. I thought these details were too technical and thus had not put them in here.
  • I like the concept, but the actual execution needs a bit of work. At the moment, I'm not seeing criterion 1a (prose), 1b (comprehensiveness) or 1c (sources) met here: on those latter two points, the sections still cover ground very lightly, with few specifics, and some of the sources are primary, being internal to the Indian military rather than academic: this is not great, given how good national militaries are at mythologising themselves. UndercoverClassicist T·C 19:17, 17 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • On the sources, the only one which is minutely military related is the book by Major General Sukhwant Singh. I don't think he mythicizes the army though, if you go through the pages cited he is more critical than appreciative. As to the other sources, all of them are published by researchers. I think you are worried about the citations of the Indian Defence Review and the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses. The names suggest they are a part of the military, however they are independent organisations and the citations are taken from the peer reviewed journals published by them. However, I've still added more sources, especially from the Pakistani Defence establishment, which is the institution least likely to flatter the Indian Army. For the prose quality, I don't think it can be improved further without it being objected to for not being encyclopedic. For comprehensiveness, more details will be too technical and the length might get flagged.
  • Parts of the article -- particularly the section Politically motivated sedition trial -- seem to suffer from a lack of WP:NPOV. The text here overwhelmingly presents the charges as baseless, but cites no source which does so. Details like Lt. Gen. Daulet Singh, known for his integrity point the reader towards a conclusion which is so far implied rather than referred to a source.
  • Added some sources here. Are more sources needed? I have added accounts of the people directly involved in the inquiry and an external source published by a researcher.
  • Sources are added, but the POV remains; all we have are allegations and a predictable denial: there's no real discussion of the facts, their impact, the effect of the case... in other words, c1b (comprehensiveness) seems a way off. UndercoverClassicist T·C 19:17, 17 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • The main allegation is mentioned, that is, retaining the pictures of British officers and the Queen. I should have added the reason for the trial being closed, which I have done.

More line-by-line stuff, to which I might add later on:

  • Having already commanded troops at the divisional, corps and regional levels: seems fairly trivial; don't Very Senior Officers generally hold more junior posts first? It would be more odd for a FM not to have commanded a division.
  • This was filler, removed.
  • Chetwode is mentioned only once, and never introduced.
  • This mention was a leftover from a bunch of paragraphs on the IMA which were not relevant here. Removed.
  • Manekshaw proved to be witty during his stay at IMA and went on to achieve a number of firsts: the first graduate to join one of the Gorkha regiments; first to serve as the chief of the Army Staff of India; and first to attain the rank of field marshal: this material seems oddly placed, coming as it does quite substantially before he's done any of that; moreover, I'm not sure how impressive it is for him to be the first IMA graduate to commission into a Gorka regiment when there hadn't been any IMA graduates before he commissioned at all.
  • This choice of phrasing was incorrect on my part. The Gorkha regiments were the most elite units of the British Indian Army, and still have the same status in the British & Indian armies. King's Commissioned Indian officers had only been assigned to the Gorkha regiments in small numbers. Thus a new graduate, that too not from an academy in England, getting to join the Gorkha regiments was a big deal.
  • Removed this statement, I would have had to add a lengthy note to explain this and it's not that notable.
  • The phrase "avoided political correctness" in the post-retirement section reads as a euphemism, and is pretty unhelpful: do we mean that he made a point of being sexist, racist, etc?
  • Should have been "did not avoid political confrontation". Will change.
  • I meant to say that he did not hesitate to get into political confrontations if the Army's welfare was at stake. Rephrased as such.
  • More generally, there seems to be more to say in that section about his controversies: the part about his funeral implies that these were more serious than we've credited. We say that the Indian government denied that anything untoward had happened -- they would, wouldn't they?
  • Not really. The ruling party when Sam died was famous for ignoring the army. The funeral of KM Cariappa, the only other field marshal ever, was not attended by the civilian establishment, the only representative was a minister of state, not even a full cabinet minister. The ruling party then believed there could be a coup at any point of time and thus they understaffed and underequipped the army. Sam's salary arrears were not even paid for multiple decades till another party came to power. But I cannot put this in, it would be too controversial. What should be done instead?
  • As always with these things, we need to say what, and only what, has been said in reliable sources: if these things are true, they will certainly have been written about.
  • I have added a source which identifies the reason to be governmental apathy/distrust.

UndercoverClassicist T·C 11:48, 13 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi UC, thanks for looking into this one. I am afk at the moment, I will make the changes you recommend and respond to your points in the evening. Looking forward to working on this one. Matarisvan (talk) 12:30, 13 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
UndercoverClassicist I have made the changes you recommended.
Thank you for your work. Most of my concerns remain, unfortunately, which leads me to oppose the nomination in its current state: I think the article really needs to go back to the peer-review drawing board and have some work done before coming to FAC. I would suggest finding a mentor or reviewer who can give the article a really good look for prose quality and MoS compliance, and perhaps someone who knows the subject matter well to advise on comprehensiveness. Suggest that the military history WikiProject would be a good place to start: you might wish to take the article through their A-Class Review process after it has been improved and probably peer reviewed. UndercoverClassicist T·C 19:17, 17 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I did have the article go through peer review and many of the concerns you flagged are remnants of what the PR spotted. This article has already been through A class review, so I think any shortcomings can only be addressed through an FA review. I did try to get editors who had done FA, GA or A reviews for this article to join the peer review, but did not receive any response. Which is why I think getting this article to FA level can only happen as part of an FA review.
  • This process has indeed been of great help. The concerns raised here were ones I would never have thought of due to my bias. That said, I have implemented your recommendations, perhaps a little too extremely. Which is why I believe you should take another look. Matarisvan (talk) 18:47, 18 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I've kept an eye on the article throughout: I can see that you've made improvements, and think the article is going in the right direction. With proper support and continued progress, there's no reason why it can't make an FA. However, this process is about establishing whether it currently does meet the FA criteria, not to work on it until that point: I hope it's clear enough from the above, and indeed from the reviews below, why I don't think it's there yet. UndercoverClassicist T·C 20:09, 19 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Harrias

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At the moment, I feel I have to oppose this nomination, based on some broad stroke MOS points:

  • The In popular culture section is unnecessary in its current form; it is not written in an encyclopaedic form "Sam was portrayed", "He's mentioned" and comes across as trivia.
  • The MOS you linked to suggests an "In popular culture" section only be added if the citations are subject matter authorities. Which is why I've switched up the references as per the MOS guidelines and rewritten the section.
  • The Awards section is completely unreferenced.
  • Added a reference.
  • I think only the 2nd Lieutenant rank is not referenced in the table, though a citation is provided in the "Indian Military Academy" subsection of "Early life". However, the rest of the ranks do have full citations to either the authoritative biography or to the government release which notifies the change in rank. As for the table's accessibility, I'm not quite sure what part you are referring to. There are no colors used, the caption is appropriate and the table is not overly complex. Matarisvan (talk) 12:52, 17 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "as laid out in MOS:DTT" Harrias (he/him) • talk 13:09, 17 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Are you referring to the badges in the first column for each rank? I have added the alt text for them. Everything else seems to be fine: there are no column headers in the middle of the table, colors aren't used, headers seem alright, there are no nested tables, the table isn't complex. I had forgotten to put in a caption but I have added one now. Matarisvan (talk) 10:00, 18 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose from Airship

Here because of a request on my talk. A quick skim of the first section's prose alone shows numerous issues that need to be fixed. See for example:

  • Excess repetition of words ("Amritsar" is mentioned six times in the opening eight body sentences)
  • Inconsistent referrals (the jumping from "Sam" to "Manekshaw" is presumably intended to help differentiate the males of the family, but in fact does the opposite)
  • Choppy and recursive sentences (the second paragraph has an average sentence length of 12 words, portions such as "Manekshaw then asked his father to send him to London to study medicine, but his father refused as Sam was not old enough. His father was already supporting Sam's elder brothers, both of whom were studying engineering in London." could easily be combined.
  • A lack of clarity ("Manekshaw's parents had left Mumbai in 1903 for Lahore. Hormizd had friends there and was going to start practising medicine." where is "there"? Lahore or Mumbai?)
  • Odd layout (his sibling's careers are discussed before we have reached his childhood, which includes a digression into their education)
  • A general unencyclopedic tone. I know that's not very helpful, but phrases such as "Manekshaw proved to be witty during his stay", "was mischievous and high-spirited as a boy", "a thriving clinic and pharmacy" etc. seem more suited to a work of popular history than an encyclopedia article.

In summary, I suggest this nomination be withdrawn, and that the numerous issues outlined (see also UC and Harrias above) be worked on. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 19:04, 19 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

SC
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