text:
Talk:India/Archive 1

Aryan invasion theory and Hindustan

 * The India page needs to be clipped. It's 31 KB in length, almost the safe upper limit suggested by wikipedia for editing.(32KB) Nichalp 19:15, Apr 6, 2004 (UTC)
 * Will someone tell that Lord Surya to stop playing around with the Aryan invasion theory?

 * Nichalp: You know, wikipedia is set up so that you can address me directly. I would, indeed, maintain that it is you who are playing, since presenting only one side of a contentious issue like the Aryan Invasion Theory is blatantly biased. Also, in your careless edits, you left it looking like "there are two views" 1) AIT/AMT and .... nothing. So, I would ask you reconsider your stance on the nature of my edit of the Aryan Invasion Theory, for as the name implies, it is not fact, and thus all relevant points of view should be represented.

 * I did not write about the Aryan invasion theory nor do I CLAIM to be an expert on it. Now you may have done your PHD on it, it's not my problem, you are free to contribute. I am not biased for/against the AIT. If you noticed, the previous edit that I made did not omit the 2 theories, only shortened it. (The previous edit was an error, I admit). However, the history on the main page is supposed to be BRIEF, get it? Your articles on the Aryan/non Aryan theories are certainly NOT brief. In a 5000 yr Indian history, the AT, need not be so elaborate, especially since it already has a pretty detailed article. Create an AMT article for the other theory. Anyone who is interested in reading it, may click the link(s). Its their option. I don't know why you have to get so agitated on the AIT/AMT, insisting a long para needs to be there on the FRONT page. Wikipedia has a very good way of adding new pages. Use this:  to add your knowledge instead of it being on the front page. Nichalp 20:04, Apr 7, 2004 (UTC)

"There are two prevailing theories about the early history of India. One is the commonly accepted Aryan Migration/Invasion Theory, first propounded by the German historian Max Müller in the 19th century . It avers that around 1500 BC, the influx of Aryan tribes from the northwest of India and to some extent their merger with the earlier inhabitants resulted in the classical Vedic culture. see Aryan Invasion Theory."

Didn't leave out the other theory? I think you may have forgotten this. Secondly, no need to be condescending about my PHD. My most recent edit added two lines or so to describe the other theory that your 'culling' left out. I was not debating AIT/AMT either, I was presenting both points. Note that I have not discussed it and I am quite aware of how to use Wikipedia. --LordSuryaofShropshire 21:02, Apr 7, 2004 (UTC)

 * As for the name Hindustan, I don't know whether you have lived in or been to India, but it is commonly used. Hindustani is the term used for a mix of cultures that was achieved primariy in North India between Mughals(Muslims) and the local Hindu populace, especially in music, but also in arts like literature and painting (a blended language that is commonly spoken in India, mixing Hindi and Urdu, is called Hindustani). The song, "Sare Jahaan Se Acchaa, Hindustan Humara; Bulbulein hain hum iski, gulsitan humara" (Better than all other lands, our Hindustaan; we are singing birds here, in this our rose garden" is one of the most popular patriotic songs that Indians sing today. It's written largely in Urdu. Thus, I think you should avoid being so condescending in regards to my edits and instead reevaluate why I made them, while, by the way, maintaining the Wiki sanctity of NPOV. --LordSuryaofShropshire 20:15, Apr 6, 2004 (UTC)

 * I am an Indian citizen and have lived all my life in the wonderful city of Bombay. Your lord highness does not take the opportunity to check my user page. You seem to take me to be a fool explaining what Hindustani means. You also fail to research more on my past edits. I NEVER, have edited anything regarding the term Hindustani. I don't know why you are telling me the difference. I did not delete the word Hindustan. Think, do you seriously feel that Iqbal's lines needs to be on the main page? In my latest edit, I don't think I deleted your continuity theory, did I? So how can you blatantly accuse me of a POV?Nichalp 20:04, Apr 7, 2004 (UTC)

"' India was also known as Hindustan (the land of the Hindus) till its independence.'"

This was how the page looked after your revision as of 19:26, April 6th, 2004. I was not arguing with your taking out the Iqbal, which is why I never put it back in. I simply corrected what you left there. It reads basically that India stopped being referred to as Hindustan in 1947 whereas it has continued to be a popular and well-established name. Hence, I corrected you. Try to look back to the edits I was discussing. --LordSuryaofShropshire 21:03, Apr 7, 2004 (UTC)

 * I'll add that I don't mind your streamlining of the page at the expense of extra material, but my edits were done in order to rectify gross errors that were left on the page in the wake of your culling. Slim is good, wrong is bad.--LordSuryaofShropshire 20:19, Apr 6, 2004 (UTC)

 * Well if you want really are willing to streamline the page, you would agree that all your superflous matter would be better suited in a sub article. (Plus in your  previous edit you have added more data.) I'm sure the average reader is not interested in what Iqbal said on the main page of India.Add it in Hindustan, Iqbal etc. Culling is reqd to keep the page size within limits. Gross errors you say...? Nichalp 20:04, Apr 7, 2004 (UTC)

See above for why you're off-base. Once again, I have consistently been NPOV and simply corrected your edits when they violate NPOV or blatantly misrepresent information. I responded to you only when you condescended to obliquely reference my playing around with AIT. Lastly, I have lived in Mumbai too, (went to Cathedral), which is why it surprises me that you could have left such a woefully inaccurate statement about Hindustan, in your own carefully supervised edit, go. --LordSuryaofShropshire 21:03, Apr 7, 2004 (UTC)

PS I am interested why you are so encaptivated with the Aryan theories? Nichalp 20:38, Apr 8, 2004 (UTC)
 * I think that you need to get back to your roots. Take a walk down the streets in India. 'NOBODY refers to India as Hindustan. Watch a cricket match, watch the news, or any Indian soap. Hindustan isn't referred to anymore. After India's independence India became a secular republic. This is why the term Hindustan was dropped. (I'm sure its mentioned in the ICSE syllabus.) As far as I know, my statement on Hindustan is accurate. I don't know who you know, still refers to India as Hindustan.
 * I was editing the length of the page, I admitted yesterday that I accidently omitted the line. You overlooked this point. But you have added unnecessary material to the para. These are only theories, there is no need to give an 6 line intro about it.
 * I did not drag Iqbal and Hindustani into this, you did.
 * You contributed a lot to the AIT, that's why I wryly mentioned the PHD.
 * I left the edits as it is on the 6th, presenting both facts.
 * I said you were playing around because you bloated the page, not for corrections.

 * Nichalp: you know something? You started off this whole 'dialogue' with backhanded comments and an attitude that you know everything. First off, I've already quoted the section where you obviously leave out both views of the AIT. YOu just put ait/amt, not the continuity. If bloating means one sentence, then your idea of how much material is warranted on this page is lopsided.

 * Secondly, plenty of people I know in Mumbai, in Kolkata, call India Hindustan. When I was in Cathedral, we sang "sare jahaan se accha" whenever a patriotic event was in the offing. Politicians and musicians, students and the general North Indian populace all use the term Hindustani. I'm quite in touch with my roots, thank you very much. But my head isn't stuck in the mud, so my purview isn't relegated to a small stratum. Lastly, I did bring in Iqbal to make a point that Hindustan is a term still commonly used in reference to India. I'm quite aware we're secular, but Muslims and Hindus alike still utilize the term. Ever heard of JAI HIND? Everyone says that in India! Maybe you and your little coterie of Mumbai friends don't, but most Indians do. Lastly, your being smart-alecky about the AIT is only indicative of small-mindedness. I am not on either side mainly because I have strong opinions for both. I want a balanced page on my country to represent both views. You failed to do that, so I stepped in. This has gone on long enough Nichalp. I really couldn't care enough about your parochialism to answer any more of your posts. Jai Hind! --LordSuryaofShropshire 21:37, Apr 8, 2004 (UTC)

 * AFAIK, the term Hindustan is not that much used except that it is used by Advani and few others. Moreover, it is widely used in the context of Hindu-Muslim sentiments. I have also noticed that the term is bit popular among NRIs. --Rrjanbiah 06:02, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

 * I too think the same. Hindustan is used more in the arts - songs, literature, films, etc. And NRIs come to view India mainly from Indian films, so that could explain something. Also the Pakistani media and govt. refers to India as Hindustan I guess. Jay 09:46, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

 * You know, I must admit that, unfortunately, both sides of this argument are based on hollow anecdotes. I claim that I know plenty of people who use Hindustan, and I also bring up the point of the common term "Jai Hind". I have lived in India, visit there, and have friends from all over the country, so my perspective is not NRI, which is a cheap way of dodging a question. You, on the other hand, claim that only politicians use it and that as a term for the Indian nation its use is rather more of an artistic appelation. Who's right? Do you have polls? Do I? No. I think more research is neccessary before I denounce your viewpoint or before you denounce mine. Both are currently without evidence. Let us, then, gather some before continuing with vaccuous pronouncements of certainty. --LordSuryaofShropshire 13:18, Apr 9, 2004 (UTC)

"Hindustan" in Government-Supported and Private Sector Industries

 * 1) http://www.hindustancopper.com/ (Hindustan Copper, which, by the way, "Public Sector Enterprise under the Ministry of Mines, Government of India.")
 * 2) http://www.hindcables.com/ (Hindustan Cables Ltd; Gov't of India undertaking)
 * 3) http://www.hindpaper.com/ (A Government of India undertaking)

 * 1) http://www.hindustan-motors.com (Hindustan Motors, which, by the way, produces a popular car called the Hindustan Ambassador)
 * 2) http://hindustanpetroleum.com/ (HP Hindustan Petroleum)
 * 3) http://www.hindustancollege.com/ (Hindustan College ring of South India)
 * 4) http://www.hindustantimes.com/ (Hindustan Times; well-known newspaper)
 * 5) http://www.hindustan.org/ (Indian community website)
 * 6) http://www.hp.co.in/ (Hindustan Platinum)
 * 7) http://www.hindbook.com/ (Hindustan Book Agency)
 * 8) http://www.pencilsindia.com/ (Hindustan Pencils Ltd.)
 * 9) http://www.hindustanglassbeads.com (Hindustan Glass Beads Co.)
 * 10) http://www.hal-india.com/ (Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd.)
 * 11) http://www.hccindia.com/ (Hindustan Construction Company)
 * 12) http://www.hindpaper.com/ (Hindustan Paper Co. Ltd.)
 * 13) http://www.hindustanradiators.com/ (Hindustan Radiators)

So, as we can see, Hindustan is far from being erased from the public sentiment. Even colleges in Chennai are called Hindustan, and government supported companies created post-Independence are called and have retained the name Hindustan. It is ingrained in the popular consciosness. I'm not going to list all the companies named after Jai Hind, or talk about Jai Hind College, or talk about the fact that Jai Hind is just as popular in India as God Bless America is in the States as a patriotic slogan, if not more so. --LordSuryaofShropshire 13:41, Apr 9, 2004 (UTC)

Oh yes... and one more point... the Army of India's slogan and its most popular signoff for official missives and notices is "JAI HIND." It is the rally cry that jawaans use all the time. --LordSuryaofShropshire 13:49, Apr 9, 2004 (UTC)

 * LordSurya, you forgot about HCL (Hindustan Computers Ltd.). By the way I've just added most of the above names in List of Indian companies; too many red links though. Jay 06:18, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

 * Oh cool... I didn't even know we had one of these in the offing... I'll sloooooowwly ;) start work on the nasty-looking red... we can add some household names like Godrej.... Tata is obviously uber-important, as well as people like Birla.... --LordSuryaofShropshire 15:43, Apr 10, 2004 (UTC)

Hindustan in Popular Sentiment
I've got six words: "Sare Jahaan se accha, Hindustan humara" Who's going to argue that this isn't one of India's most popular national/patriotic songs ever, especially based on the Ravi Shankar melodic line? It's sung in schools, in functions, everywhere. 'Nuff said. --LordSuryaofShropshire 13:47, Apr 9, 2004 (UTC)

Nichalp 19:36, Apr 9, 2004 (UTC)
 * I REPEAT, Hindustan is not used to refer as India as a specific country. If you have Pakistani leanings, then that's not my problem. Any company is free to use any term as their title. It does not mean that its a substitution for the word India. Hindustan may be in the back of people's minds but it is never used as a DIRECT substitution for India, which is what you cannot understand. That's what I am trying to explain to you. What is your problem with the sentence "India was also known as Hindustan till independence?"
 * Jai Hind was coinded before independence. Unless you are a hippocrate like Bal Thackeray who insists on changing names, it would be foolhardy to change Jai Hind to something else.
 * Similarly sare jahaan se accha would be obtuse to change it to sare jahaan se bharat . Patriotic songs of past eras will never change lyrics, and you justifying them as a means of substituting it for Hindustan/India is ludicrous.
 * You and your clique of cronies are living in a time warp, going back to the 1940's where you believe that every one on the road out here uses phrases such as "I am leaving Hindustan to go to England" OR "Hindustan is Shining".
 * Have you travelled to places in India other than Bombay or Calcutta to justify the Hindustan angle all over India?
 * I said I wasn't an expert in Aryan theroies in my first reply, you overlooked past replies.
 * I REPEAT AGAIN, you brought the Hindustan(i) angle.
 * And why do you keep mentioning your school?

Nichalp: You are completely out of line. I have been in many places all over India. Your excuses and rebuttals simply smack of denial. I mention my school because your "pakistan" comments are rife with 1) bigotry, 2( self-justifying indianess. I have already proven my point. Hindustan is in wide use all over the country, by people in the south and north, no one's stopped using it, and it is used in reference to all of India, otherwise South Indians wouldn't use it. Sare Jahaan se accha, Hindustan humara. If it weren't appropriate, people would have stopped singing it. Jai Hind. If it weren't appropriate, people would have stopped saying it. Your idea that somehow because it was coined before Independence and thus it hasn't changed is wrongheaded and nonsensical. If people had a problem with it they would have dropped it. It's in use, and you're turning rude and launching ad hominem remarks is merely indicative of your own insecurities, nothing to do with me. I don't know what your problem is, but Jai Hind! and I'm done talking with you because you've crossed lines of civil and intelligent discussion, ignoring salient points and pandering to what is obviously a huge issue on your own part. --LordSuryaofShropshire 20:10, Apr 9, 2004 (UTC)

 * Out of line?, I need not waste my energy on the issue of Hindustan as you fail to comprehend the reality that is existant today. Comprendes tu, s'il te plaît! I have supported the crux of my point on Hindustan in my previous reply. You corroborate your views with tangential illustrations that are really obscure ... perhaps you'll find a better word for obscure. I have nothing against Hindustan, mind you, if you feel that I am holding something against Hindustan, your sadly mistaken. I wish you remain focused on the point instead of dragging South Indians and Jai Hind et.al. into the picture. It's the Pakistani media that's fuelling the Pakistan-Hindustan idealogy these days mind you. I haven't given excuses nor I am insecure. I have given apt examples to suppport my point, whereas you are the one groping about in the darkness searching for vague examples. Mentioning what you did in school is unwarranted in this context. Granted, people still recite "sare jahaan .." because it is a patriotic song, I think you misuderstand my point, and feel that I am saying that the term Hindustan is erased from public memory. How untrue! (See my previous reply on Hindustan). Of course I am aware that the term Hindustan will never be erased just like Peking, Siam etc. Take any school text book (except the history book) and search for the phrase Hindustan; let me know the results if you wish. Next, Its obvious that Hindustan is used for the whole of India, I don't recall me ever saying that it needs to be referred to as a part of India, so thats another point of yours being off key. Also take a look at 2 replies above by rrjanbiah & jay about the term Hindustan decaying. If you don't believe me, at least take a closer look at their opinion.

PS. Before you vanish with a huff as you threaten to, please enlighten me as to what your call sign means. Nichalp 16:23, Apr 10, 2004 (UTC)

--

Nichalp: il n'ya pas du quois a mois. You are fond of high pronouncements but you'll note that I've listed plenty of companies and instances of governent sponsored use of the word Hindustan to describe the national interest. As it is, Hindustan is not used to refer as India as a specific country (your quotation) is off-base. Before you accuse me of groping in the dark, I suggest you look at my citations. Look, there's no point in further ratiocinating about the possible atavism of this term and its gradual atrophy since that is not supported by popular sentiment and its current use. I know plenty of Indians in India and abroad who will frequently make reference to the nation state as Hindustan. Your 'Pakistan' conspiracy theories are without subtantiation. I hope that, perhaps, this issue may be left an issue and not devolve into character attacks such as your unfortunately bigoted remarks about Pakistan and Advani.

My name means I am एक विदेशवाला हिन्दुस्तानि | --LordSuryaofShropshire 00:50, Apr 11, 2004 (UTC)

 * If you want to juggle with companies even I can mention names such as Bharat Electronics, BHEL etc. As far as the Jai Hind phrase is concerned, "Bharat Mata ki jai". Why is it that the Indian army is known as BHARATYA sena, vayu-sena etc.? Why do we say Bharatiya naari? Juxtaposing Bharat and Hindustan clearly finds Bharat to be way, way ahead of Hindustan, much to your chagrin. I have noticed that you DO like to throw dirt around. Clearly I did not mention Advani's name nor have I mentioned Hindustan(i). But you allege that I did. This clearly shows the volume of frustration you are experiencing, you have my sympathies. I am not bigotic and I rebut that it is you who is dogmatic. As far as the Pakistani angle on Hindustan is concerned, watch PTV for a change. Just for the record, I have interacted with many Pakistanis and hold nothing personal against them. Stop being cynical by disregarding other's views outright, and I do not mean specifically my own (I can corroborate with paradigms). A far as rudeness is concerned, you are no angel to comment on it neither are you God's gift to this world to comment on intelligence.Nichalp 19:04, Apr 12, 2004 (UTC)

 * Dearest Nichalp, I never launched ad hominems and you did. Simple as that. I did not criticize you or your intelligence, but the issue at hand. This is an argument that has long outlasted its worth. If you see the India page, I have amended the sentence to correspond with your and others' concerns. I hope we can leave this at a close, and perhaps work together amicably on other projects in the future, such as Mumbai or other India-related topics. I am very fond of our correspondence and treasure it as a putative baptismal rite in the ways of Wikipedia debate. God bless our souls. --LordSuryaofShropshire 21:10, Apr 12, 2004 (UTC)

Let's set the ad hominems aside. I agree to leave it at a close. I also noticed the status on the main page and thank you for the same. I shall reply to you later. TRUCE DECLARED Nichalp 20:05, Apr 13, 2004 (UTC)

 * Your opinion on Hindustani may be right. But IMHO, the term Hindustan is used in two contexts: 1. brandname, 2.to refer to India. As I said earlier, the second meaning is not at all or less used. The second meaning won't come into your mind, unless you read this type of historical articles or just heard __someone__'s speech. The first meaning is bit widely used. Yesterday, I talked to a guy from Hindustan College; I asked the reason behind the college name, he said 'it's just a name; again I asked whether it has any link to Hindustan==India, he immediately said "are you mad?". I know a tiny hardware shop named Hindustan workshop--which is run by a muslim guy. My *biased* opinion here is: if someone refers India as Hindustan, he must be a perverted politician or an absolute ignorant. This is my final word on the topic. You may continue your arguments with Nicholas or do some research. EOD. --Rrjanbiah 04:33, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

 * So fine, it's used as a brandname for India. It's still referring to the country. Asking the opinion of one student from a college means nothing. Are you now being bigoted against Muslims? Also, your value judgement on people referring to India as Hindustan as being politicians or absolute(ly) ignorant are irrelevant to the discussion. People, whether stupid or not, still use the term. This includes movies, brandnames, and casual discussions by many apparently stupid Indians, whether living in India or abroad. --LordSuryaofShropshire 16:55, Apr 12, 2004 (UTC)

We have reached a truce on the Hindustan matter. I wish to state that this topic has outlived its purpose an we shall not be replying to any more posts in this regard. Nichalp 19:53, Apr 13, 2004 (UTC)

Hindustan in Popular Sentiment: Part Deux
लन्दन देखा, पैरिस देखा लन्दन देखा, पैरिस देखा और देखा जापान मैकल देखा, एल्विस देखा सब देखा मेरी जान सारे जग में कहीं नहीं है दूसरा हिन्दुस्तान, दूसरा हिन्दुस्तान, दूसरा हिन्दुस्तान

What is Vadishwala? Perhaps you mean "Ek Videshwala Hindustani". I still see no link to LordSuryaofshropshire. Nichalp 19:15, Apr 12, 2004 (UTC)

 * Dear Nichalp, Update your font settings and you'll see the ee-kar fall into place. --LordSuryaofShropshire 21:03, Apr 12, 2004 (UTC)

 * Pub. Notice. Nichalp and I, the current and former Mumbaikars, have decided to lay this vitiating and cyclic debate to rest. Like catacombs of some minor skirmish in an unknown land, may this once lively weave of rebounding verbiage be archived, left for some supremely bored wiki-progeny to mull over in distant years, wondering at how such fierce argument could possibly fizzle so quickly into shaant samaapt. --LordSuryaofShropshire 20:00, Apr 13, 2004 (UTC)

Four Major Cities
I replaced the four major cities, which someone cut out. They are not only the four largest but also four most well-known capital centers of India and if we're mentioning nations that surround India we should surely mention its major metropolises in the same breath. Also, there's no chart or section on the page which properly highlights them, so culling for size might be done differently. --LordSuryaofShropshire 20:24, Apr 9, 2004 (UTC)

 * Largest India city is mentioned in the table. So is the capital of India. For other cities, please refer to the demographics sub heading. Agreed that it's not going to save much space, but it pushes relevent data from immediate focus such as the table. Plus I'm not done with the reduction of file size. I hope you do delete it and add it under demographics. {Nichalp}

My question is about four cities, not the largest. It is acknowledged that India's four urban hubs are Mumbai, Dilli, Chennai and Kolkata, so they should be mentioned. To talk about them is more important than mentioning every single neighboring body of water and nation external to India. --LordSuryaofShropshire 18:24, Apr 10, 2004 (UTC)

Good edit.--LordSuryaofShropshire 21:14, Apr 11, 2004 (UTC)

Can somebody write about Economic reforms in India ?? -kesava --- Like the rest of South Asia, India has stagnated economically since independence in 1947, while countries in nearby South-East Asia and East Asia have made remarkable strides in wealth creation.

Actually, Sri Lanka started privatizing, and opening up it's market, in the late 1970s, and India was not far behind. Now, even the communist parties talk about how to make this transition well (though they're still opposed, in principle).

and India was not far behind.

Yeah, just 23 years. -- Gyan

But look at the impact the economic reforms made in the past 12 years(1991-2003) !! Living standards of the Bourgeois(or the Indian middle class) have been improving consistently. Education is receiving more attention. Chief ministers of the states are on a constant mission to attract more and more FDIs to their respective states. India (especially states like Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Gujarat) is undergoing a silent socio-economic revolution. -- kesava

Is the Indus Valley cradle of the ancient civilization mentioned in the article now part of Pakistan?

 * It comprised a large area, falling in present day India, Pakistan and even (IIRC) Afghanisthan. -- Arvindn

India used to be a great colonial master herself, the days of the Mauryas.

I'm not familiar with this: Who was a colony of whom?

 * In the days when mighty empires like the Mauryas, Guptas, etc. ruled present-day India, they colonised other smaller kingdoms not only in but also outside present-day India. Many of those empires included vast regions of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Myanmar, etc. The above are examples of North Indian empires. The Chola Empire (South Indian) colonised territories as far away as the delta of the Ganges and the Malacca Strait in SE Asia.

 * This took place between 500 B.C to 500 A.D. Later India was invaded by Mughals starting ~1000 A.D and the British starting ~1600 A.D.

Since Transnational Issues has grown out of its dark CIA past, it should be put on its own page. However, I think Transnational Issues of India is kind of cumbersome. Any ideas? - Eean

I hear the part about nonviolent indepence is incorrect. Anyone know anything about this?

 * The independence movement was largely, though not completely non-violent. (Most of the violence was directed against the Indians.) However, independence was mostly the result of the fact that after WW2 Britain was so weakened that the colony became more of a liability than a prize.

 * "Netaji" Subash Chandra Bose formed the Indian National Army to fight the British with the help of the Japanese & Germans (without much success except in creating more awareness about the need of independence) in direct contrast to Mohandas Gandhi's non-violent methods.

-

"The Republic of India, located in the south of Asia, is the second most populated country in the word and is the world's largest democracy with about a billion people and a thousand plus languages."

Whoa, a thousand languages is a *lot*.

I see a page here http://www.sanyal.com/india/indlang.html "325 recognized Indian languages" and here http://www.abhishek.mybravenet.com/languages%20of%20india.htm "India's schools teach 58 different languages. The nation has newspapers in 87 languages, radio programmes in 71, and films in 15."

Can anybody help sort this out?

 * Hmm. From http://www.censusindia.net/results/eci11_page3.html

It may be important to note that innumerable mother tongues are returned at every census. For example, in 1961 and 1971 censuses the total number of mother tongues returned was around 3,000, in 1981 around 7,000 and in 1991, these were more than 10,000. These vast raw returns need to be identified and classified in terms of actual languages and dialects to present a meaningful linguistic picture of the country. This operations of linguistic identification of raw mother tongue returns or linguistic rationalization and classification, produced a list of rationalized mother tongues in each census: For example, the list produced in 1961 had 1652 mother tongue names, in 1991 it was 1576. These 1576 rationalized mother tongues were further classified following the usual linguistic methods and grouped under appropriate languages. The total number of languages so arrived at was 114 in 1991 Census.

-

Re India/Religions:

Does anybody remember anything about the (legendary?) early Christian communities in India? (Saint Thomas ???)

 * What's legendary? There's the current Mar Thoma church and the Malankara (which I believe are closely related but not the same). Try a google search on the above two names. (ps, it helps to put a date on a query. And it looks good to sign it.) Imc 22:10, 28 Jan 2004 (UTC)

- Could someone please add the official long name (likely "Republic of India/Bharat") in Hindi (in the Devanagari script) to the table or alternatively post it here? Thanks. -Scipius 19:44 Feb 16, 2003 (UTC)

Done. With one problem. In the ending of the Devanagari name "ज&#2351", the vertical line in the letter &#2332 sdoes not exist. Instead the part to the left is joined to the last letter. But, I can't find the Unicode combination to represent this "half" letter of &#2332 -- Gyan

 * Thanks a bunch, Gyan. I unfortunately can't help you with your problem, as I can't even get the Devanagari fonts to display (it's all ???? in my browser, Mozilla 1.2.1). Any tips on how to get Westerners to see the correct fonts? Changing the browser's character coding didn't appear to work. Also, could you please add a romanisation of the name below the Hindi name, conform e.g China or Russia? -Scipius 21:49 Feb 23, 2003 (UTC)

 * I added the transliteration. Note that one letter in the second word doesn't have an equivalent sound in the Roman alphabet. So, it remains an approximation. I tested the page on 3 browsers on my computer: Opera 7,Netscape 7,IE 6 and it worked fine in all. Any font with a Unicode character set should do. Gyan 02:12 Feb 24, 2003 (UTC)

 * It doesn't seem to work in Mozilla for some reason, even though Chinese and Japanese unicode characters do show properly on other Wikipedia pages. Mkweise 02:58 Feb 24, 2003 (UTC)

 * Displays fine for me in Mozilla 1.2 / Win2k. It's going to depend on the fonts you have installed; the Indian scripts are much less likely to be installed by default. --Brion 03:58 Feb 24, 2003 (UTC)

 * OK, I installed a font from http://www.alanwood.net/unicode/fonts.html#devanagari and now I see it. Previously I just had the XDVNG package, which is what most Sanskrit web sites use, but apparently it doesn't support unicode. I wonder whether I should add the font link to the page somewhere? Mkweise

 * In Unicode (which is what we use in Wikipedia, I presume) the Devanagari group has no separate characters for half-ज, etc. ज् must be converted to half-ज by the software that renders the text, e.g. browser.

 * Similarly I thought the spelling हिन्दी used in http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special%3AMaintenance (or for that matter http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special%3AMaintenance which cannot be accessed nowadays (by me) was wrong but the Unicode document says even this twiddling of ह and ि must be done by the software that renders.

 * Hence I have added ् (halanth, called VIRAM in Unicode) to the official name in India.

- The boundary as shown in the map is not recognised by the Govt. of India and many Indians in general. The region in Kashmir under Pakistani control is viewed as part of India. The map shows the region under Chinese occupation. So what's wrong in having text telling the there is some region shown as part of Pakistan in the map but claimed by India?

 * Nothing. Checking the history log, it appears that the text that previously stated this got lost in the process of completing the template. Sorry about that, though the text was a bit too long as it was. I've added a new text below it, I hope it is to your satisfaction. -Scipius 21:49 Feb 23, 2003 (UTC)

And currently the Deputy PM (Prime Minister) does a lot of the job the PM is supposed to do (like signing treaties). So I think we should make a mention of him. -- Paddu 04:01 Feb 21, 2003 (UTC)

 * If so, then mention this particular function of the Deputy PM, briefly, in the Politics section of the page. The table is used for both the head of state and the head of government (or for a union of the two). I'm assuming that the Deputy PM is not in fact the head of government, though if his function is more considerable than in most political systems it should certainly be mentioned. -Scipius 21:49 Feb 23, 2003 (UTC)

 * I should mention that this isn't a formal transfer of duties. It just happens to be the current cabinet's arrangement. That's all. I don't think, as such, it has any place in a NPOV encyclopedic article. Gyan 02:12 Feb 24, 2003 (UTC)

Official Languages
Isn't English an official language of India? It is not mentioned: Hindi is and also "14 nat. languages". English is not a native language but is official, isn't it? Marco NevesMarco Neves

--

In regards to the population of Muslims, I think it is questionable whether or not India has the second largest population of Muslims. No definitive figures exist in regards to the Islamic populations of India and Pakistan, but it is generally agreed that the two have similar numbers. Therefore, I think it is incorrect to definitively claim that India has the second largest population of Muslims. It might, but it might not.

DigiBullet 20:38, 28 Jan 2004 (UTC)

 * India today (According to the CIA factbook) has the third largest Muslim population in the worlld (As the article correctly claims now). I am not sure no definitive figures exist is a right claim. These governments do have a census system, and at least in India, one's religion is documented. So, there is a definite system in place to gather the statistics.Chancemill 08:36, Feb 5, 2004 (UTC)

-

&lt table &gt tag

can someone please remove the tag present on the top of the page near the flag?

Kashmir in the map
I don't think there's anything wrong with "originally of India", meaning allocated to India in the partition. -- Arvindn 12:33, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

 * I personally would agree with you, but Pakistan claims that the acession to INdia by HAri Singh was forged and/or illegal, and that Kashmir was thus never legally part of India. Thus saying it was originally part of india inherently invalidates another POV. --Mishac 12:37, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

 * original could refer to pre-partition. current edit is fine though. --Rj 15:34, Feb 22, 2004 (UTC)

Mostly nonviolent resistance to British colonialism under Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru led to independence in 1947...

It would be good if the names of the other stalwarts like Patel, Tilak, Lajpat Rai & Rajaji were added here Bhanu 07:01, Feb 24, 2004 (UTC)

where did the word 'bharat' come from?
 * see List of country name etymologies. Jay 18:32, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * As far as my knowledge into legends go, it is the second mention in the article (the-son-of-Dushyanta) that seems to be correct. Chancemill 15:10, Mar 8, 2004 (UTC)

hey thanks folks

shouldnt some mentioned be made of the many dead people during partition, and the migrations cross border between pakistan and india?
 * Definitely ! Although much of it can be covered in the article Partition of India. Jay 14:36, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Thank you to the Wikipedia community for this article and for the open-use policy. I've used this particular article on my daughter's Web site. (If I haven't given proper credit or have made incorrect use, I would appreciate being informed.) - Steve Smith
 * Thank you Steve for stopping by. I went to the link you mentioned. Looks good and proper to me :) Jay 14:36, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Hindustan

 * Hindustan is a commonly used term in India. Since the government is secular, Hindustan is not an official title, like Bharat. However, "Sare Jahaan Se Accha, Hindustan Humara" and slogans like "Jai Hind" are far from having been dropped, and in fact are very much alive. In the interests of NPOV, we should not act as if this is not the case. Hindustan and Jai Hind have much more to do with the nation-state than land of Hindus. --LordSuryaofShropshire 21:39, Mar 26, 2004 (UTC)

Map bait
The following line has been a long-time favourite of anon users, intentional troublemakers and righteous contributors :

"Map shows parts of Kashmir claimed by India, but controlled by Pakistan, as part of Pakistan."

It gets changed to :

"Map does not show parts of Kashmir belonging to India, but controlled by Pakistan, as part of Pakistan."

And then gets changed back and so on. Can there be a different way to word it so that it doesn't appear to be a bait. Something that keeps everyone happy. Jay 14:11, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * What happened to the map? I don't see it on the page. Moncrief 06:05, Apr 2, 2004 (UTC)~

What about this: " The two sections of Kashmir that lie divided between India and Pakistan are shown as being part of the country that controls the region in question." or some such permutation... I know it's wordy, but you get the idea. --LordSuryaofShropshire 20:45, Apr 2, 2004 (UTC)

 * How about: "Border with Pakistan shown based on Line of Control." Arvindn 03:18, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Much Better idea, Arvind. Nice. --LordSuryaofShropshire 03:46, Apr 3, 2004 (UTC)

 * Hey Arvindh, should we have this version of the map? It is not the official Map of India. Aren't we supposed to put a map which INDIA claims? As this page is about India.

Summarizing
This page could be reduced slightly (only slightly) be cutting a paragraph or two off the history section and summarizing the culture section into a length that does not need subheadings. Any info contained here should be at Culture of India too. This page is supposed to summarize that one. --Jiang 00:29, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Indian territory
Does this page really intend to link to a page regarding Native Americans in the US? Niteowlneils 19:55, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

 * Obviously not. --LordSuryaofShropshire 20:33, Apr 15, 2004 (UTC)

Religion in INDIA: caste
If we're going to label Hinduism as 'caste' and vice versa, we're not being faithful to reality nor NPOV. It has also to do with the nature of society and feudalism in communities that were justified by caste prejudices incorporated into religion, much like Divine Right in feudal Europe. Also, it is well-acknowledged that there does exist great caste prejudices in many non-Hindu communities in India, certainly not all, but enough that it is not merely a 'status symbol.' Also, major movements in Hinduism have, since before Buddha, been against caste. So to define all of Hinduism as embedded in caste while ignoring its history of vedanta, yoga, tantra and bhakti movements galore, is in my mind irresponsible and inaccurate. Let us discuss further. --LordSuryaofShropshire 20:31, May 6, 2004 (UTC)

 * I know casteism is a curse, unfortunately it has crept into other religions in India which abhors it. You are right in pointing out that caste is a part of Hindu society. A lot of Goan Catholics (see any matrimonials) do brazenly proclaim that they are Brahmin Catholics, inspite of the Church against caste.

Unfortunately the Indian government, officially banning casteism, still has reservations for castes. I also wish to seek further opinion: Can a hindu marriage be sanctified by a priest who's a non brahmin? Are all Hindu priests necessarily Brahmin? Nichalp 19:00, May 7, 2004 (UTC)

 * Well, just to clarify convention. Technically, anyone who is a Hindu priest is called a Brahmin. But of course, there is the caste. People differentiate between a practicing Brahmin and one of the Brahmin caste. Unfortunately, yes, Brahmins (priests) are usually culled only from the Brahmin caste. --LordSuryaofShropshire 21:03, May 7, 2004 (UTC)

 * Just to add to LordSurya's response, in many villages in Tamil Nadu, there are no Brahmins left; because of, among other reasons, the Dravidian movement, the Brahmins have all migrated to cities. Lots of village temples thus have priests who're not Brahmins. I wouldn't be surprised if this were the case in many other regions. Ambarish Talk 22:13, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

 * Casteism hasn't crept into other religions as someone has mentioned above and in the main page. It is just that people retain or are forced to retain their caste affiliations even after conversion to other religions. KRS 03:18, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

 * You are quite wrong KRS. Just recently there was an uproar in Kerala because Christian converts barred lower-castes from their church and refused to let them in. No one was forcing them to do anything. In the same way, many Hindus do reject casteism and many Hindu movements from years ago reject caste categorically. --LordSuryaofShropshire 05:11, May 8, 2004 (UTC)

 * No, I am right as the incident you bring out itself shows - you are talking of converts, so obviously, even after changing their religion, the caste affiliations are either proudly retained or used as a means of supression in case of upper castes or are being thrust upon on lower castes; also lower caste converts retain their caste identity for benefits- for example Dalit Christians. That covers the exact meaning conveyed by my statement. The issue here is not Hinduism, but Hindu society, or rather, Indian society that is largely determined by Hindu practices. Indian society and culture should be seen as one including Muslims, Hindus and Christians, they are definitely no different. There is an Indian consciousness that separates Indian Christians or Muslims from their counterparts elsewhere. My edits in Indian society convey this clearly. KRS 06:31, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

 * I submit you are right. Nicely made points and changes. --LordSuryaofShropshire 22:59, May 8, 2004 (UTC)

the lodhi dynasty are pukhtun afghan, not turkic. there are some other inaccuracies as well.

Why is the Hindi being removed from the India article?
Why is the Hindi in the India article meaning "Republic of India" being removed? WhisperToMe 05:01, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

 * 1. It is totally irrelevant here, 2. The word "India" doesn't have any relation to "Hindi" as "Japan" vs. "Japanese" or so, 3. The page is also available in Hindi

It is standard practice to give the names of countries in their own official language. john k 05:21, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

 * So...it is ok to add all the national languages (List of national languages of India) here???

The other languages are basically official languages for different Indian states, aren't they? So it would make more sense to list them in the articles on those states than in articles on India. English and Hindi are the two official languages of national administration, so it makes sense to give the name in Hindi, but not in the other languages, in this article. john k 06:02, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

 * Strictly speaking, all languages should be listed or removed as all the languages important. And it is much awkward to see translation, transliteration and explanation everything there. And it is skeptical, how many people call India as Bharat Ganarajya as stated here. Just do a Google search and all the sources linked to the Wiki and clones--no other pages or sources.

I'm not sure what you're getting at. As an official language, Hindi has a status different from that of the other national languages. It would also be impracticable to list 18 different names. So what's wrong with just giving the English and Hindi? john k 06:43, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

 * Not sure, whether you read the previous reply or not. And couldn't understand it is the place for language or usage evangelification as no other pages refer such

Alright, I'm not sure if you read my previous reply. I have no idea what you're talking about. English and Hindi have a status in India which is above and beyond that of the other national languages. It would be impractical to list 20 different names in the box, and not very useful. As such, it makes sense to just list the English and Hindi names, and no others. This is not about Wikipedia promoting Hindi - it is about acknowledging the already existing fact that Hindi is an "official language" of India in a way that the other languages are not. Beyond that, I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. john k 07:31, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

 * Yes, I understand... you're discussing without knowing what I'm talking about or what the topic is about

Next time, Rjyan, use four tildes (~) after your name to identify yourself. Another thing is that you've got to prove that we do know about the topic we are discussing about. I'm siding with John on this one. Many languages are spoken in India, but they are purely regional - only Hindi and English have national status, so only they get to be featured on the India table. WhisperToMe 21:57, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

Well, I think it's a bit more complicated than that. Various other languages have some sort of quasi-official status, and are the official languages of individual Indian states, but they are not used by the national government. I think it would be fair to say that they should, at least in theory, all be located here. But that would be deeply awkward. Given that Hindi enjoys a special status, I find it hard to see why it should be excluded simply because it's impractical to use all 22 languages, or whatever. john k 23:16, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

 * Let me add my two paise's worth. India has 18 national languages, and User:John Kenney, they're not necessarily official languages of states (Sanskrit), nor are all official state languages automatically national languages (Bhojpuri, for instance). However, as John Kenney and User:WhisperToMe point out, Hindi has a constitutional status different from the other languages, and English has a still different status. This has actually long been a very contentious issue, especially in Tamil Nadu (from where both User:Rrjanbiah and I originate), where a lot of folks believe Hindi has been imposed upon them (see, for instance, http://www.thedmk.org/hindi.html). I happen to agree, but I believe Wikipedia should report facts, and the facts say Hindi is the sole official language of the nation, while English is quasi-official. Thus, I think the Hindi text should stay. BTW, Rrjanbiah, even if (hypothetically) the status of the 18 languages were the same, it doesn't mean all 18 languages should feature in the article. Look at South Africa, for instance. Ambarish | Talk 23:17, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

 * India has different "official" languages with different uses. Two are in national governmental use (they can get listed) - 16 others can be adopted by individual states but are not used nationally! Hindi, while not spoken by the majority of the people in your area, is a language used all throughout India. Only languages used all throughout India get listed. Regional languages, e.g. what is used in Tamil Nadu shouldn't get listed. South Africa is different - all of the "national languages" get the same status, and all are listed in the South Africa article, though only three are in the table.

And even then, this isn't a reason to delete the Hindi in the first place! WhisperToMe 23:25, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

There is no reason to remove hindi. Though it is not true that hindi is spoken throughout India, it has to be admitted that hindi is an official language of India in a sense that the other 21 are not.(Totally 22 languages are recogniased by the Indian Government. Bodo, Dogri, Maithili and Santhali are recent additions). Technically there are three different levels of recognition fo languages. English was to be the sole official language till 1965 when it was to have been replaced by Hindi. However, it could not be done and both hindi and english are recognised. Hindi is the official language and English the associate official language. The other 21(Assamese to Urdu) are recognised languages and are in official status below English and Hindi. THough personally peopple may feel that this is special treatment to hindi, it is the present situation in India and that should be reflected in the page. So the name in hindi need not be deleted. Whether it is right or wrong on the part of Indian Government is not the issue here. Kartheeque 05:21, 27 May 2004 (UTC)

The South Africa page, has the country named in all 11 official languages PBS 13:25, 28 May 2004 (UTC)

 * Indeed, yes. The point I was trying to make above that it's not necessary (nor would it make the article readable) to have 22 different lines in 22 different languages in the infobox on the right. Ambarish | Talk 15:52, 28 May 2004 (UTC)

 * As Kartheeque explained, unlike in South Africa, the languages in India operate on different levels. Only two are at "national level". The other 20 are languages which individual states are allowed to declare as individual languages. WhisperToMe 17:21, 28 May 2004 (UTC)

 * I think we agree that there should be English and Hindi alone in the article. However, you're wrong about the status of the 20 other languages. See my explanation above - the 20 national languages have nothing to do with state languages of individual states. Ambarish | Talk 18:47, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

 * From: List of national languages of India
 * "Additionally, it classifies a set of 18 scheduled languages which are languages that can be officially adopted by different states for administrative purposes, and also as a medium of communication between the national and the state governments, as also for examinations conducted for national government service."
 * It does have to do with the states. WhisperToMe 05:12, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

 * Thanks for the references, WhisperToMe. IMO, the words quoted above aren't saying anything at all - "can be officially adopted" neither means "should be adopted" nor does it mean "only these can be adopted". To cite an example, Bhojpuri and Marwari, not part of Schedule 8, are official state languages of the states of Bihar and Rajasthan respectively. Sanskrit, part of Schedule 8, isn't an official language of any state, nor is it used for any sort of day-to-day communication whatsoever. Ambarish | Talk 22:11, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

 * The same article says that those two languages, Bhojpuri and Marwari, are largely spoken in those areas, but have no official status. If it is proven that they do have official status, then maybe we should edit that article. WhisperToMe 16:35, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Indian Army
Currently the link Army links to a page which starts The Indian Army was the British backed and led army in India I think disambiguation is needed.PBS 13:25, 28 May 2004 (UTC)

 * Right. Modifications done Nichalp 19:24, Jun 5, 2004 (UTC)

Languages recognized by the Indian Constitution
According to the official Indian website http://indiaimage.nic.in/languages.htm

There are around 18 languages recognized by the Indian Constitution.

So where does this come from: Hindi, in the Devanagari script, is the national language; 21 other official languages are recognised in Schedule 8 of the Constitution.

Ok, I got it. http://indiacode.nic.in/coiweb/coifiles/Schedules.htm the Eighth Schedule lists 18 languages. In order:

Languages 1.    Assamese. 2.    Bengali. 3.    Gujarati. 4.    Hindi. 5.    Kannada. 6.    Kashmiri. 7.    Konkani. 8.    Malayalam. 9.    Manipuri. 10.    Marathi. 11.    Nepali. 12.    Oriya. 13.    Punjabi. 14.    Sanskrit. 15.    Sindhi. 16.    Tamil. 17.    Telugu. 18.    Urdu.

--Ankur 15:46, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Discussion before adding
Please discuss any changes and additions in the talk page before adding. The page is already reaching 32 KB and any info added should be something indispensable. KRS 14:40, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * The person who is adding on to the society section, let's discuss here before adding. Rhetoric or specific individuals are unsuitable here- for eg...everyone follows Gandhi's non violence, reviewing globalisation under Manmohan Singh, etc., Society evolves over a period of time and individual agency is not the sole determining factor.KRS 14:44, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Periodisation of "History of India"
Actually the periodisation of Indian history as ancient, medieval and colonial or modern, etc., is considered today as too simplistic. This periodisation dates back to colonial historiography and current attempts are to deconstruct this and use only chronology and not value loaded terms such as 'ancient', 'medieval', etc.,Or even not use a definitive narrative structure at all! KRS 17:58, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * --It may be too simplistic. However, most viewers of India's page can easily associate with ancient being BC, medieval as circa 1000 AD onwards (with the arrival of Islam) and so on. It is better to stick to simplistic lines than to have a whole lot of chronological events. Nichalp 20:01, Jul 6, 2004 (UTC)

Early India
With regards the theory that there was no aryan invasion in early India. Is there any external link to such a theory where I can read more about it? ¶ nichalp 19:12, Jul 8, 2004 (UTC)

 * * http://www.hindunet.org/hindu_history/ancient/aryan/aryan_frawley.html is quite POV, but an interesting read nonetheless.
 * * http://www.sulekha.com/expressions/columnsbyrating.asp has a bunch of articles by Rajiv Malhotra that might be relevant. Ambarish | Talk 19:36, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Babur
Babur did not invade India per se. He attacked the Delhi Sultanate repeatedly weakening it. The final parting shot of the Sultanate ended with the Battle of Panipat. ¶ nichalp 19:10, Jul 10, 2004 (UTC)

Geography
The sentence India is strategically located in Asia, straddling important trade routes doesn't seem to fit in. First calling a country strategically located somehow doesn't seem right, and I doubt whether it is in fact. Second, I don't think that it straddles trade routes. As far as I know people came to India for spices, other natural resources, textiles, etc., Anyway, straddling means probably on a cross roads or somethng like that, say like if something is on the Silk route. I removed the sentence with an edit summary comment. It has been added without a clarification. Any comments? KRS 14:37, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

 * India is strategically located. South Asia links West Asia, the East Asian and the South East Asian nations. Ships coming from the Suez Canal (and vice-versa) usually make a port of call in Indian shores before proceeding to Eastern Asia. Similarly, many flights from Europe towards Indo-china region, SE Asia and Australia do cross India (or make a costly detour). One of the major reasons why India so badly wanted Kashmir was because of its extremely strategic and sensitive location (China, Central Asia, India, West Asia thro' Afghanistan) ¶ nichalp 19:39, Jul 14, 2004 (UTC)

Spirituality and Worship in India
Especially directed towards User:Rrjanbiah - I have lived in India and spent long periods of time in many areas of the country, in villages and cities (Mumbai, Kolkata, etc.) Just in Kolkata there are literally thousands of people who make quotidian trips to Kalighat and Bhoothnaath (Shiva temple), in Mumbai the same goes for the Mahalaxmi temple and certain Mosques too. Major temples like Shri Jagganath Mandir in Puri receive worshippers every morning 365 days a year even though they're not in major cities. You may feel smart by saying you're 'reverting fiction', but the only thing fictional about your change was your pretence of authority. A common sight in cities all across India is the small altar set up on the road, and roadside areas in city outskirts or towns frequently have small temples (no bigger than will admit a single body in the edifice). And trees? I mean, Hindus are famed for the fact that they will convert the lower portion of a tree trunk into a standing murti, adorning it with flowers and doing puja there, a representative iconolatry of the local mother goddess or, with coconuts, for Vishnu. You don't seem to like this, but religion is a major part of Indians' lives, whether Muslim or Hindu or otherwise, and it's quite a major aspect of its culture. I realize Nichalp and company are working hard on reducing the size of the page, but things like this do define the ethos of India, as much as music, bollywood films and IT tech do. So I don't know your personal antipathy towards the facts, but please try to present a cogent argument for your ill-advised deletion. --LordSuryaofShropshire 16:23, Jul 15, 2004 (UTC)

 * No discussion with fiction writers. *thread plonk* --Rrjanbiah 04:58, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

 * I feel the lines about spirituality should have been re-written instead of classifying it as fiction and removing it. I agree with the spirit of the spirituality facts that were mentioned in the article. Jay 08:05, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Society
LordSuryaofShropshire: Your edits in the section are too long and sometimes not fitting within the context. I see that you have reverted the edits of Rrjanbiah who reverted yours. I have rewritten it based largely on my earlier edit incorporating some of your additions. My reasons...

1. This secton is on society, you have removed a reference to multicultural society and replaced it by long sentences on religious practices. This does not fit here and I have removed them. Even if you want to add it in the religion section, it should be more neutral and shorter with an encyclopedic style and not a literary one. By your own admission you are verbose, and if you notice all your edits, many people spend lots of time pruning them down.

2. I have incorporated the sentence on the rural/urban by 1)removing the references to the metropolitan cities which is not germane to the issue and repeating these city names everywhere makes the article long an readabilty suffers 2)removing the data on 90 percent population is rural- this is totally wrong and far from the truth.

3. Again, in the third para you have written long complicated sentences about the changes in society and the rural urban difference. All that is required here is just to introduce the pressing issues in India. Detailed discussions can come in a separate article.

Please keep in mind that this page is already around 32kb and try to add only something essential to the understanding of India without which the understanding would be incomplete.

Please discuss the issue here before you again revert. Others who feel strongly about this please respond. KRS 10:06, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

 * Since writing the above, I have incorporated the spirit behind your edits partially in religion and partially in society when it infringes there. If you write about the roadside temples, in order to be secular you also have to write about the loud church singing/ choir on Sundays, the Muharram processions and so on.... So I have just rewritten the idea as a rich and colourful practice with underlying spirituality. I hope I have covered all the territories you have touched upon. KRS 10:32, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Rrjan.etc.. You are an ass. KRS: You claim that 9/10s of the country is NOT rural? Explain this shocking claim of yours. As for the religious section and secularism, you're becoming ludicrous. Loud singing is common to all religious denominations, but what is unique are the roadside temples. This is not a question of trying to favor one religion over the other. Let's not be childish. India's one of few countries that's needing to make legislation limiting the existence of roadside murtis in places across the country. I also appreciate your comments about my writing, but I never removed the cultural section. That was someone else. --LordSuryaofShropshire 16:33, Jul 16, 2004 (UTC)

 * I asked around and most people believe rural population is at about 70%. I'll try to get a precise figure, but the incredulity to express about the preponderance of Indian population's being rural is odd.--LordSuryaofShropshire 16:34, Jul 16, 2004 (UTC)

 * By the way, as for the detail and length of the article, you fellows need to find a golden mean between slicing down and being non-specific (i.e. boring) and over-detailed. --LordSuryaofShropshire 16:40, Jul 16, 2004 (UTC)

 * LordSuryaofShropshire, this is the third time we are having a conflict wherein whenever I make any criticism of your edits you resort to personal comments or unfounded adjectives in justifying your edits.

 * When I actually wrote removing the data on 90 percent population is rural- this is totally wrong and far from the truth you have reacted by saying the incredulity to express about the preponderance of Indian population's being rural is odd . What sort of a retort is this? Where have I committed that India is not largely rural? I didn't give figures because I don't know, and if I don't know I don't commit. But I know that you are way of the mark and thats what I have said.  Anyway you have changed your stance after making a sweeping statement like You claim that 9/10s of the country is NOT rural? Explain this shocking claim of yours.  This means that you react instinctively, without even pausing to consider that maybe you could be wrong and that other people could be right.

 * You wrote As for the religious section and secularism, you're becoming ludicrous. Again, this is an instinctive knee jerk reaction without any attempt at rational explanation to a carefully worded statement I have made. Is it ludicrous to insist on balanced representation and cutting down details?

 * You wrote Let's not be childish. How is that germane to the argument? This and you're becoming ludicrous are blatant comments aimed at the person rather than the subject. I have requested you to be polite in the past. Unfortunately you don't seem to take heed.

 * I see that you show a pattern of insulting personal remarks, though I must objectively say that you have been light on me. However, even that is too much for me to tolerate. On my part I cannot retort in a similar vein. The only thing I can do is to try and hope to avoid the paths you tread in wikipedia- which is going to be really difficult considering the many India related edits both of us make. KRS 18:36, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

 * P.S Actually the 90 percent rural figure is shocking, even if you defend by saying that you were only 20 percent off the mark. But I didn't use unfounded words like "shocking" and "claim" or "you are ludicrous" did I, I just said way off the mark. If when I have been polite, you react like this, imagine what your reaction would have been if I had used such comments at you. Keep this in mind in future and review what you type after some time before submitting it for saving. KRS 18:36, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Rural-urban Population
Here is the data from the 2001 census
 * http://www.censusindia.net/press/pr200701.html
 * http://www.censusindia.net/results/rudist.html

QED KRS 19:04, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

 * KRS: I thank you for the sanctimonious reprisals you're aiming at me, but I do believe you're being childish regarding the secularism issue, for instance. Muslims and Christians don't have a widespread habit of setting up religious shop on the roadside, and it was an interesting note about India's picturesque religious background. By talking about choir-singing, which is not a visible part of the Indian scene, you're only catering to a misplaced sense of balance, as opposed to real secularism. Secular means not letting religion dictate decisions regarding society, or not favoring one. No one's doing that here. That's why I said it's childish. As for the population thing, you're the one who was reactionary: "this is totally wrong and far from the truth." Nonsense. I worked from a general understanding of a great preponderance. If you're reading the English, you'll see that your freak-out about the figure implied that nothing of a majority populace is rural. So relax.

 * As for your broad generalizations of my comments to others, you're out of line. I've always given good reasons for changes I render in pages, whether India-related or otherwise, and I'm glad you're chary of editing the same pages as me because it doesn't seem like you're amenable to dialogue and rather take a singular stance from which you preach to others about how they write or work without taking your own editing into account. I added bits about roadside murtis because it's interesting and real; your edits are leaving the page so vague and colorless as to give it no color. We speak about names and events and yet one reads the page and gets nothing. You have to be Indian or have been there to get a feel for anything. Encyclopedia articles don't have to be literary, but that doesn't necessitate their being numb. " Indians are tolerant and secular" yes very true but they're also deeply religious. There's nothing wrong with this. If you want to balance the page don't just remove the mention of a jerry-rigged temples and mention the uniqueness of the water-bridge mosque off of Worli-sea face in Mumbai, or the Lotus-shaped Ba'hai temple in the North. Try to learn how to change a page for the better rather than making attacks on me, unprovoked, coming off the bat and levying all these charges of bias and verbosity. Just concentrate on yourself. --LordSuryaofShropshire 19:47, Jul 16, 2004 (UTC)

 * Excuse me, my discussion pertains to your reactions in the talk pages and not to any content as such. You are deliberately turning it into a discussion on content. I don't think you want to understand what I am trying to say. I think any discerning reader of this talk page will come to the correct conclusion. Thats it from me. KRS 20:03, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * I support and second your statements KRS, see your talk page. ¶ nichalp 20:36, Jul 16, 2004 (UTC)

 * Pardon me, but your discussion went private first by clipping my joke about my own verbosity from my user page (which had nothing to do with encyclopedia-articles) and applying it to my edits on the India article. Therefore you had every intention of implying content. You are deliberately wriggling out of your own statements. I have already understood what you are saying, which is why I responded. For instance, I understood your comment about keeping the page bias-free, which is why I made a proposition about highlighting India's spirituality in a realistic and interesting way. Thus, if someone reads this page, they will see a whole lot of superfluous blabber (from both sides, I will admit) and wonder why this couldn't have been kept down to a few sentences. I'm glad that's it from you, so you can rest your fingers and keep your ludic comments about my writing to yourself. --LordSuryaofShropshire 20:10, Jul 16, 2004 (UTC)

Lets try separate out content-related discussions and person-related debates. Personal debates are best held at user-talk pages. Jay 11:56, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Indian or British English
Look, yaars... I believe this is quite simple. But permit me to intrude upon your kind indulgence by explicating my platform. Indians most assuredly have an elevated form of written English, often utilizing phraseology that lingers from the British colonial past. However spoken English, by and large, is indelibly stamped with the influence of local Indian culture and has very much developed its own flavour. This I have determined from many discussions with my cousin-brother, only. Thus, I have changed the Trivia bullet to say that the Indian English spoken in India is based on British English. I don't see how either side of the debate could want much more here. --LordSuryaofShropshire 06:47, Jul 21, 2004 (UTC)

User:24.200.191.208's edits
Getting very annoying how much this fellow's changing the page, most often with long liturgies to Indira Gandhi which should go on her article page, not the summary 'India' article. I've messaged this person twice but he/she is just (obviously) ignoring, so I would hope people could look out for him/her.--LordSuryaofShropshire 16:13, Jul 21, 2004 (UTC)
 * I agree totally. The guy is too lame to create an account for himself, to participate in discussions. No point in messaging the person as he probably has a dial-up access wherein his IP address is dynamically allocated. ¶ nichalp | [[User talk:nichalp| Talk ]] 19:39, Jul 21, 2004 (UTC)

adding to History section
Just a request. The history section is now a skeleton of its former self and not providing a context for India makes the whole page incomplete. Could someone/ whoever is responsible please flesh it out either restoring parts of the earlier matter or rewriting it shorter?(Am refraining myself because am currently indisposed and can't get into edit wars or heated discussions) KRS 16:57, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * Maybe I am telling something that may be obvious- actually too much cutting down has occurred and with lots of editors,many anonymous, the thread has been lost and the transformation in my opinion does not seem to be for the better. KRS 17:09, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Lock the page
I propose that the India page be locked for a couple of days. Our anonymous editor is going too far with his/her careless edits. He/she can use the time to create an account instead and discuss India related talk. Surya, KRS and others, what do you think? ¶ nichalp | [[User talk:nichalp| Talk ]]

 * I am not averse to a temporary block. No matter the differences, often deep, expressed amongst and between editors here, I feel a commendable job has been done in keeping the controversy largely off of the actual article page and on talk pages, where it belongs. Perhaps we may consider a notice requesting active but unregistered users to consider getting a name to facilitate the carrying through of complex group projects such as the 'India' article has become. --LordSuryaofShropshire 21:13, Jul 22, 2004 (UTC)

 * Please do not lock. Reverting vandalism is much easy and so locking won't be the solution. Moreover editing is a pleasure and please allow others to get that spirit of Wiki-ing. And please do not threaten anyone who is willing to edit/contribute. --Rrjanbiah 05:03, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

 * I guess we could also just get a sysop to target whoever's vandalizing. --LordSuryaofShropshire 05:11, Jul 23, 2004 (UTC)

 * Locking IP is easy but it is against to the Wiki spirit, IMHO. Also, I could see 3 different anonymous users: 1. From Delhi, 2. From Canada, 3. From Switzerland. --Rrjanbiah 05:22, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

 * If anonymous editors make changes to improve the page, nobody has any problem with that. But if he/she writes his thesis on Nehru and Indira and makes arbitary changes without discussion, for 3 days in a row; then it would be better the page be locked so that s/he can take the time off to learn the intricacies of the functioning of Wikipedia. ¶ nichalp | [[User talk:nichalp| Talk ]] 18:59, Jul 23, 2004 (UTC)

Map caption
I fail to see how the "Official Indian Map" has any relevance here. The only disclaimer we need is to mention that the only parts of kashmir under indian control are colored in (an perhaps mention what else is claimed but not controlled). How is this not NPOV? --Jiang 09:57, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)

 * The article is about India. The map--which is CIA version (or Wikipedia version) is quite illegal in India. So, you must explain what is POV???--Rrjanbiah 10:26, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * We don't have the official Indian map as part of the GFDL so far. Anyways, it is relavent as Kashmir was usurped by Pakistan, the UN does not recognise Pak to be the legit. rulers of their occupied teritory. ¶ nichalp | [[User talk:nichalp| Talk ]] 20:16, Jul 26, 2004 (UTC)

Just because it's an article on India doesn't mean we should follow an Indian POV. By saying this is not an official Indian map (i.e. by mentioning the "official Indian map" at all), the caption gives precendence to official Indian maps because it implies the CIA map is somehow erroneous. Please cut the crap about Kashmir being "usurped by Pakistan". There is no room for political debates here.

What is POV about simply stating that the map doesn't recognize claims and only colors in what each country controls? That's how we've dealt with the China map - it's short and simple. --Jiang 23:25, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)

 * No one's saying Pakistan usurped Kashmir or DIDN'T usurp Kashmir. It is neutral and gives more information than the 'control' option. It is better on all counts. The China map option may be simpler but it doesn't capture the breadth of the issue while this method does at the same time maintaining NPOV. --LordSuryaofShropshire 02:13, Jul 27, 2004 (UTC)

I've rewritten the caption and preserved the information given. I think this sets a more neutral tone. --Jiang 06:39, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Rrjanbiah, every single country has a CIA map, and in no other country do we mention directly on the page that the map comes from the CIA. So is every country article on wikipedia "nonsense"? The image description page is the place for the source, not the caption. The fact that the map shown is not government produced is already implied. --Jiang 17:49, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

 * Unfortunately, Jiang, you seem to want to class this map with all others, whereas it's clearly (along with perhaps the Israel-Palestine situation) the most fiery map-geographical debate in recent historical memory. I'm not on Rrjanbiah's line, not quite at least, but I do think there needs to be more balance. You are not attaining NPOV status on this by removing all mention of Pakistan and shifting bias to, with the new wording, what looks like a silly national claim against the rest of the world. That's bias as well. Here are the two main (more or less) contenders:

 * "Only territory under effective Indian control is coloured as part of India. The Official map of the Government of India, as well as most maps produced in India, colour in all of Kashmir as part of India, per Indian claims."

 * The above map is not the official Indian map; it is a CIA version which distinguishes parts of Kashmir claimed by India, but controlled by Pakistan, as part of Pakistan (see also: Kashmir Map Issues). For the official Indian map, see Official map of the Government of India.

 * Now, you're claiming that the former is somehow 'clean' and the latter more biased. Here's the problem with such an assumption. By not mentioning either the source of the map or Pakistan, one gives the map seen on the screen Wikipedia's tacit nod of extra approval, almost as if this map is "so correct" that one needn't site the ''POINT-OF-VIEW" from which it stems, which is the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States of America. Also, by removing Pakistan's mention, one needlessly deprives the reader of important information that gives, in fact, more objective a view of the situation than expurgation would. Lastly, if someone talks about the 'size of the page' or the aesthetic blunder created by adding three more lines of text, especially on a topic as sensitive as this, they need to start culling elsewhere on the page. For all these reasons, 1) that the point-of-view of the current map, established by citing on the caption itself its source, is paramount for NPOV, 2) that Pakistan and India's rivalry over the land is prime and, 3) the addition of this information will make naught a shred of difference to aesthetic wants, I am using the following admixture of the two possibilities:

 * The above map, a CIA version, colors in as a part of India only areas (specifically in Jammu and Kashmir) under effective Indian control. For the rendering as per Indian claims, see the official map of the Government of India. Refer also to Kashmir Map Issues for a discussion regarding Indian, Pakistani and Chinese claims, with consequent effect on cartography, in the Kashmir area.

 * I know I'm in for criticism, but let's keep this discussion fruitive. --LordSuryaofShropshire 19:09, Jul 27, 2004 (UTC)

Jiang, this is a very sensitive issue. As a third party you may not be able to grasp the sensitivities about Kashmir in the two countries. The UN not recognising the Pak claim is a fact, not fiction (as it not mentioned on the India page, so there's no need for further discussion). I don't see any harm in pointing out the official Indian map, since the current CIA map does not depict the exact boundaries of Kashmir, or even the exact shading of the portions administered by China, Pakistan and India. ¶ nichalp | [[User talk:nichalp| Talk ]] 20:42, Jul 27, 2004 (UTC)

I see how my version was slanted against the Indian claim in favor of the status quo. I find ordSuryaofShropshire's version an impovement over the old. But a few points to make: 1) If the Indian rendering of the map is mentioned, why not mention the Pakistani rendition for the sake of balance? 2) Kashmir does not point to commentary on the contentious mapping of Kashmir, but to a small number of links all with an Indian POV; it is not a "discussion" as the caption implied and should either be made into one or delinked.

When we are faced with a POV map, then the best solution is to fix the map itself. Let's add hashmarks and labels to the disputed region as has been already done for Aksai Chin. Once this is done, we and not the CIA can claim to be the source. --Jiang 23:58, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

 * As I mentioned earlier, we don't have a better map which depicts the 3 administered regions of Kashmir, and the ceasefire lines between them. I don't think the CIA map suffices in this respect (drawing over the map). Yes, the kashmir map issue has to be written as it is insufficient. However, there is no need for the Pakistani rendering. That would be more approriate on the Pakistan page. ¶ nichalp | [[User talk:nichalp| Talk ]] 20:41, Jul 28, 2004 (UTC)

I don't see what's wrong with drawing over the CIA map. How does it not suffice? Can you be more specific as to what problems adding labels and hash marks will cause?

As for listing the Paki claim, doesn't NPOV entail citing all POV's? By not citing the Pakistani POV, we favor the other POV's. We shouldn't be following a particular POV just because it's the subject of the article. --Jiang 01:00, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

 * I think NPOV is being mixed up here. NPOV entails not espousing a particular POV, not making fastidious mention of all available POV's. Also, when multiple POV's are central to the argument, there should of course be mention enough that the information is readily available. The Pakistani claim, in pursuance of such protocol, has been cited, it merely has not had full explication (as in details of its boundary line) in the caption itself. Note that the Indian policy of full and inherent claim to Kashmir has not been mentioned, nor Pakistan's 'dispute' opinion, only the more vague notion of 'claim to land' sans explanation. Links to all countries and the Kashmir dispute have been included for easy access to such succulent morsels regarding the territorial quibbling. I feel anybody looking at this caption, in my opinion, would not be led to embrace any single view (being that they would yet be ignorant of them having had only brief introduction to the broader dispute) and would assay to explore the aptly proffered links that, praise Jesus, are encompassed within the few words of the caption itself.

 * As for the appropriateness of the map itself, it seems the best option in a tough situation. Official views don't really count here since we are perforce clouded in regard to whose regent claim is to be honored above the other. international opinion (currently the 'effective control' view), Indian or Pakistani? Maybe I should break out my crayons... --LordSuryaofShropshire 19:14, Jul 29, 2004 (UTC)

India's border dispute with China is not just related to only the Aksai Chin. Some more areas in 3 other states are also claimed. Pakistan also disputes the Sir Creek border in Gujarat. (But that's not central to this discussion). What I want to state is that the exact border of Kashmir has to be drawn (before 1947). Now part of the region that was Pakistani held territory was ceded to China, and it is imperitave that it is mentioned on the map. Unless we have a really good graphic artist, I think the map will be soiled with too much detail in the Kashmir region (for such a small map, that is). The words claimed should be omitted and replaced with administered to make it a NPOV. I don't have any objection if the map is altered in an asthethic an neat manner. ¶ nichalp | [[User talk:nichalp| Talk ]]

The map deals with India, I don't see any reason why Pakistan should be mentioned. If we reinforce the Kashmir map issues article with a NPOV, it should suffice, as readers wanting to learn more can click that link. The Pakistan national television shows the map of Pakistan with the Indian administered Kashmir as a part of Pakistan. The other private Pak channel shows the CIA version. As far as the Pakistani version is concerned, it is still unclear as to where their exact boundary claims currently lie. ¶ nichalp | [[User talk:nichalp| Talk ]] 20:50, Jul 29, 2004 (UTC)

Are the discepancies small enough so that the exact claims can be left ambiguous, given the low resolution of the map?

More urgently, we need to have some commentary on [#Kashmir Map Issues] as opposed to a couple POV links. It can probably a section in the same article. Any of you to the task? --Jiang 07:32, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I'm much sick of the moronic troll on the map caption issue. Unfortunately, I'm quite busy now and will clarify more points sometimes later. In short, 1. equating coloring and controlling is total wrong as no one (CIA, UN or anyone) ever visited the "controlled" parts and did "draw" the map, 2. this is CIA version--which was changed year to year (there is no POV here), 3. god only knows what they've depicted--colored or what they meant "line of actual control" or the claimed part falls in China or Pak, etc, 4. no one here says official Indian map is better or worse--but says the differences and issues, 5. you can't "fix" the map as you don't know what is under controll and not; you can't draw the map here in Wikipedia for the issue the existed so many years, 6. CIA version != official Indian version; so why should you push your bullshit POV on readers by providing only a CIA version without mentioning the issue and differences. --Rrjanbiah 05:01, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

 * I'm not sure what you're trying to prove by saying there's no "line of control" or that the CIA doesn't really know where it lies. What do you think the Central Intellegence Agency is there for? So far, you are not making much sense.

 * I asked you 1) What is the relevancy of the official Indian map in a section of the Geography of India and 2) What was POV (or what you now call "bullshit POV") about the modified versions. You have not managed to answer either of them.

 * I remind you again to please read No personal attacks and take the advice there to heart.--Jiang 07:32, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Reorganization
Also note that each section here is intended to be a summary. The history and culture sections are way too long. Please move some of the content to the more detailed articles. --Jiang 09:57, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)

 * Each and every sub heading has the bare minimum required. If you have any suggestions on what exactly needs to be deleted please share it with us. ¶ nichalp | [[User talk:nichalp| Talk ]] 20:17, Jul 27, 2004 (UTC)

The subheadings in history and culture are not needed. Each of those mini sections can be shortened to a couple sentences with the link being part of these sentences. --Jiang 01:00, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

 * On hindsight, yes the history section can do with some clipping. However the culture section, although it is long, provides interesting reading on matter which forms the very core of India. It is these nuggets of information that really define India. Each subheading has just an average of 3 lines and should entice a reader to learn more, if necessary. ¶ nichalp | [[User talk:nichalp| Talk ]] 20:29, Jul 30, 2004 (UTC)

Academy Award
I am unhappy with the wording of Satyajit Ray winning the Oscar. It would seem that the Oscar is the only worthy award in the cinema realm and other awards are not up to the mark. I think it needs to be reworded. ¶ nichalp | [[User talk:nichalp| Talk ]] 19:53, Aug 5, 2004 (UTC)

 * That's a fair statement. But his special place in world film shouldn't be lost in the amendment. --LordSuryaofShropshire 04:59, Aug 6, 2004 (UTC)

AIT and DNA tests
Look... this is a summary article on important aspects of Indian culture. Unfortunately, much of this is fodder for controversy. As for the AIT, it is clearly written that most people side with the older, evolved idea of a Migration. Rrjanbiah: you clearly have not even deigned to attempt to understand my objections to the inclusion of the supposedly 'definitive' mitochondrial DNA tests. I don't think the tests in and of themselves are POV. However, they are presented as if they are the only DNA tests ever conducted on Indians to determine the possible ingress of non-native peoples into India. There have been similar studies done with different groups (often larger sample sizes) from different areas of India that 'reveal' (I quote it because I'm not stating this as fact, but representing the opinion of another: NPOV) that mixing of races could not have taken place four thousand years ago and yielded gene pools as they are today. You need to realize that these tests, based on the groups taking them, have been 1) undertaken differently and 2) had their results argued with different conclusions. Essentially what I'm saying is that these tests are neither ground-breaking or unique and they do not 'close the door' on the debate, since they are being argued with tests done in similar frameworks.

The issues are dealt with in-depth in the AIT article, whose link is clearly given right underneath the Early India section for people to access. Also, as I said before, the paragraph clearly states that most people choose to stick with the evolved Migration theory understanding and the other continuity theories are newer. Please stop trying to forward your own agenda with a claim to impartiality when the evidence proffered represents only one side of the equation: mitochondrial tests are not new, and their 'results' and argued conclusions are as varied as the combined number of theories on AIT, AMT and Continuity Theory. --LordSuryaofShropshire 05:32, Aug 14, 2004 (UTC)

Hi LordSuryaofShropshire,

You stated that "There have been similar studies done with different groups (often larger sample sizes) from different areas of India....."

Please give references for these 'similar studies'. Without references a statement is not scientific but just a claim of POV.

The bibliography for some of the works that support the Aryan invasion theory, and which are also the latest are:

 * Spencer Wells; 'The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey', Princeton University Press, January 2003

 * 'Written in blood'; New Scientist vol 170 issue 2291 - 19 May 2001, page 17

Water Fish 07:36, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * Water Fish -- The great Aryan theories form a fraction of Indian history. It should not be added to the main India page as the page is anyways quite large. Add it in the relavent pages. ¶ nichalp | [[User talk:nichalp| Talk ]] 20:27, Aug 14, 2004 (UTC)

 * Waterfish: while you're busy forwarding your agenda you don't attempt to balance your own views by intelligent examination of anything contrary to your platform. Just read page three of this study and follow the rabbit: ; also worth seeing is this . There's plenty more, but I'm not your school teacher. Find it yourself.
 * Anyway, this is all 'academic,' as Nichalp (and I earlier) said: this is not appropriate to a summary India article and should be discussed in a neutral fashion on the ''Aryan Invasion Theory article page. Peace --LordSuryaofShropshire 05:18, Aug 15, 2004 (UTC)

Nobody is forwarding agenda except those who delete passages before having a discussion. Deleting a statement before discussion is POV as it would be deletion on the basis of the opinion of a single person.

The pdf paper that you linked is written by Kivisild; M.J Bamshad; and others. (1999) and I am very much aware of it.

Scientific research keeps on evolving and the very same author published another paper later in (2001) stating that the upper caste of Indian population is European-caucasian in origin.

You can get the paper here:

Bamshad M., Kivisild T., et al; (2001) Genetic evidence on the origins of Indian caste populations, Virus Research 75(2): 95-106, Jun.

Here is the link to the Pdf file of the paper written by the same research team in (2001):

They have written in their discussion:

"Our results demonstrate that for biparentally inherited autosomal markers, genetic distances between upper, middle, and lower castes are significantly correlated with rank; upper castes are more similar to Europeans than to Asians; and upper castes are significantly more similar to Europeans than are lower castes."

A review of that work is given in the New Scientist: * 'Written in blood'; New Scientist vol 170 issue 2291 - 19 May 2001, page 17.

You wrote "There's plenty more, but I'm not your school teacher. Find it yourself."

The purpose of an encyclopaedia is to make a comprehensive collection of knowledge with references and bibliography, so that people may not spend time searching for information and sources. Those who contribute to an article have to give references or bibliography wherever required. Telling a reader 'find it yourself' defeats the very purpose of an encyclopaedia, besides being rude which could be overlooked. Water Fish 07:04, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * Waterfish: I do believe you're forwarding an agenda and all I'm saying is that there are plenty of people who dispute the mitochondrial dna evidence or, more importantly, draw completely different results from it. I'm not telling readers to look for the info themselves, by the way: read what I write and understand it. The Aryan Invasion Theory article is referenced right underneath the Early India section and has a full discussion of all of the points of view. The aims of an encyclopaedia, which you so exhaustively described, have been fully met. Remember, an encyclopaedic article also needs to be on-topic, and going into divergent claims about the AIT is not germane to the issue. --LordSuryaofShropshire 20:57, Aug 16, 2004 (UTC)

LordSuryaofShropshire, your belief that I am forwarding a cause is a personal point of view which cannot be proclaimed as truth. I have based my statements on latest empirical research by well established genetic researchers. I have also given links to the scientific works written and published by them in excellent journals of genetic research.

you wrote: "all I'm saying is that there are plenty of people who dispute the mitochondrial dna evidence or, more importantly, draw completely different results from it. I'm not telling readers to look for the info themselves,....."

Please give the bibliography to the scientific papers of latest works which draw completely different results, and which are published in well established journals of genetic research. Besides the legitimacy of interpretation largely remain with the research team that collected the data in their own rigorous methodology. It is very easy for others to interpret it in different manner. However that is not valid as long as they do not collect data in a more rigorous manner.

When you state a view held by others it is important to substantiate it with empirical research that supports that view. Until you can do so those statements by others are just opinions and does not have the legitimacy of perspective/s that have empirical backing.

you wrote: "Remember, an encyclopaedic article also needs to be on-topic, and going into divergent claims about the AIT is not germane to the issue."

adding a single line about the latest research is not diverging from the topic, rather giving a direction to the latest approach to a certain topic, which is the very purpose of an encyclopaedia. Water Fish 02:06, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * As I said, I'm not here to argue fine points of the AIT debate with you. As with most historical debates the evidence of different groups is not pure fact, and even science allows for flexibility in the most hallowed of laws. Being the most recent research group with data is not a privileged position of infallibility. Just because this is the most recent paper does not give it any more validity than other studies conducted in the last few years. Regardless, there are many who would disagree. But beyond this, since I know you will whine for some papers, there is the fact that this debate is for the Aryan Invasion Theory article. It is already clearly supplied as a link and it seems that you're having a tough time accepting this. The purpose of this page is, as others who do, I believe, support the Aryan Migration/Invasion Theory, agree, is not to start placing banners for one point of view. I think this conversation is about done. Since you're so eager to talk about this research, try clicking on this link: Aryan Invasion Theory and giving it a whirl.

--LordSuryaofShropshire 03:43, Aug 17, 2004 (UTC)

AIT for and against
We have a page that goes in to the details of the arguments for and against Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT). Looking at that page it is not possible to say that the question has been settled one way or another. So let's just inform the reader of that on the main page and let it upto her/him to research more on this topic if interested.

Harisheldon

 * I agree!!! Rrjianbiah and waterfish... you have to understand that I frankly don't have a view on the Aryan Invastion Theory as of yet. In general, I believe in the modified form, that a migration of influential peoples into the subcontinent effected a major change in the socio-political landscape. However, I've often contributed balancing factors to the discussions of AIT, both on and off the India page, in order to foil what seems to be a rather fanatic attempt to assert one view, one view alone, and force all others to accept it. I thought the point of modern libertarian politics and ideology, which secularists and right-wingers alike tout, was to encourage discussion and not to quash people unneccessarily and/or unfairly.

 * Here, we have a simple case... the truth has been amply represented. The paragraph gives a full and uninhibited view of the modern theory, the Aryan Migration Theory, representing it as an alteration of Mueller's original Invasion Theory. Even Romila Thapar agrees with what's on the page right now, and most of the politically-motivated indigenous-theory people dislike her, though I would quickly add that not all people who support the continuity theory are politically motivated or Hindu activists. It's sad that the only ammo people have is the childish ad hominem approach. For instance, Rrjanbiah says "pseudo-patriotic" in reference to my edit. What's wrong with you? It really sounds like you're an elementary school kid. Try to understand that this is not about embracing one view, but, as Harisheldon concurs, allowing the reader to decide for him or herself what view to espouse. We give both theories, we mention that most people believe in Migration/Invasion Theory, and mention that there are those who would disagree. If we had to say which view the India article itself espouses, it would the migration theory, based on its presentation! Finally, we supply a link immediately thereafter that goes to the Aryan Invasion Theory article and expatiates at great, great length the nature of opposing views and their differing studies which, for all their finality and definitiveness, have never proven absolute in their refutation of the opposing side; this includes waterfish's most recent study. Please try to be reasonable, intelligent, and objective, and don't allow yourself to lapse into petty squabbling and immature name-calling. This is an encyclopaedia article, amateur though it may be, not a playground. --LordSuryaofShropshire 16:20, Aug 17, 2004 (UTC)

 * Although personally I think the recent debunking if the AMT/AIT is hogwash, (how else did we get Sanskrit so closely related to Latin?) it (the new theory) was mentioned in the Times of India a year back. Normally I'd jump to question the authenticity of the claims, but since I read it long before I joined wikipedia, the new theory cannot be wished away unless conclusive evidence disproves each and every point of the new theory. Surya:, I'm interested on how you got Romila Thapar to read this page and agree with you ;) ¶ nichalp | [[User talk:nichalp| Talk ]] 21:21, Aug 17, 2004 (UTC)

 * One: it is possible for the linguistic connection to have gone out of India, so the Sanskrit-Latin connection doesn't debunk the continuity idea. However, admittedly, it makes more sense that the Aryan peoples originated around where modern Iran is, since the Central Steppes of modern-day Russia make little to no sense whatsoever. Secondly, Romila Thapar herself proposes that neither were the Aryans a distinct race, but a conglomeration of peoples linked by similar socio-religious beliefs, nor was their ingress into India a violent conquering but rather a gradual migration inwards with subsequent and (relatively) harmonious blending with indigenous peoples. Racial characteristics played practically no part in the influx. Lastly, I am glad that you, among few, have seen the light: we cannot be politically one-sided. As I've said perhaps six times before to the others, the paragraph on the AIT/AMT theory looks pretty neutral to me, and if its objectivity is questioned, it would easily be seen to lean towards the AMT. --LordSuryaofShropshire 23:49, Aug 17, 2004 (UTC)

Map of India
Hi everyone I have made and uploaded this map. The idea is based on Indian map used in Encyclopedia Britannica. The encyclopedia marks the different regions of J&K as A,B,C and explains what it means. I am inviting discussion on the topic. Is it appropriate, not just Indian view? I'll work more on it after we have a consensus. Needless to say I'll add other countries, city names, islands, etc later. Even the colours will be changed. The main issue that needs to be discussed is political correctness. With the ultimate aim to remove the CIA version which is not in accordance with the UN version PDF --Ankur 23:28, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * I applaud your move. The UN version sounds like a much better alternative, and a key explaining the breakdowns of sections sounds like an idea that will possibly put to an only somewhat troubled rest the issue of the map caption. However, in spite of your intention to upgrade the map to reflect boundaries and major city names, I must profess the quality of the map is not nearly up to par when compared to the CIA map. How to deal with the issue of quality? Is there a way to (legally) meld the CIA map and the principles of the UN one? --LordSuryaofShropshire 23:52, Aug 17, 2004 (UTC)

I just checked the CIA map. I think it is possible to change that map. The problem is that I am no expert at making vector images and I am sure GIMP is not the right software for that. In fact I am not even sure if a vector image manipulation tool is needed to make maps. So if a map equivalent to one from CIA world factbook is to be drawn its better to get someone else from Wikipedia to do the job for us. Let us assume we have someone who can do the job for us (maybe I can do it.) The main thing is what exactly should we draw. The map here is not in accordance with UNO. This map is more in accordance with the Encyclopedia Britannica (EB) map (except for AksaiChin.) The EB map has Indian boundary in bold, the LOC is dotted, the LAC is dotted too except that the Indo-China border is dashed, finally strips of peach and brown are used to show land under Pakistani and Chinese control. While the UN map (ruefully I got the hang of it after I had made the Indian map) is right here for you viewing. I have taken screen-shot of the pdf file the link to which is given in the previous discussion. Finally no matter what map we accept it can never be in accordance with what the Govt. of India wants. So I am sure someone will still want to add a long text explaining "this is not official go here..." Oh wait!! You are talking about legal issues in modifying the CIA map. That's perfectly legal all work by US Govt. is in public domain I think. So no problem with modifying that map. In my personal opinion anything is better than the CIA map. --Ankur 03:33, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * [Troll]But, beware! Those international cops may sue you and call you a terrorist;)[/Troll] --Rrjanbiah 08:23, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I've got a link to the UN map of Kashmir PDF. The map is not endorsed by UNO. The map shows what according to India is international boundary as provincial boundary. The LOC is marked separately. The entire map is in the same colour and no distinction is made between India administered or Pak administered Kashmir. --Ankur 03:50, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * Bravo Ankur, it looks Ok to me, but you've forgotten the Andamans and Lakshawadweep Islands. Also just below the Aksai Chin region, can you make out a slight bulge in Kashmir? Part of that too is under Chinese occupation. PS The UN does not make maps of India and Pakistan. ¶ nichalp | [[User talk:nichalp| Talk ]] 19:21, Aug 18, 2004 (UTC)

 * That is a good map Ankur. Nice Job. --LordSuryaofShropshire 15:32, Aug 19, 2004 (UTC)

Jai Hind and Politics
Nichalp: A couple of things (civil discussion, s'il vous plait)... The Hindustaan name, given without any context and only mention of its 'uneven use' is made to look like a phrase that has currency with only Hindus, due to the name, or at best is split down the middle. However, Jai Hind is a good example of a phrase that is popular with practically everybody. With information like this, people see the picture much more fully, without major waste of space, and don't go away with a skewed sense of the reality of the situation. I realize I'm getting into old territory, but I reread the page everyday and of all the changes this excision is the most biased. I don't think it 'unbalances' the three names at all. Hindustan is the most controversial and for that reason has more issues surrounding it. It's also made clear that it's not technically official, while India and Bharat have equal status, so equilibrium does not seem threatened. My main point is for NPOV here; please share thoughts.

Politics is a central aspect of history. I don't know why you're creating this artificial barrier in a page this small. I say artificial not because it doesn't exist, but because the overlap is so great that removing mention of Congress and BJP and the major ramifications of their central government status from the history section seems very odd. Separation between nitty-gritty politics and history is only feasible in large books or tracts, or when one deals with specifics of political science, as opposed to general thematic history. No history of a country, as you would agree, I'm sure, is complete without some discussion of its politics. Politics in India, the party system, the former (and perhaps continuing) dominance of a party older than the nation itself and the challenge presented by a new, major national political force is huge. So, in an attempt to compromise, I have added a small paragraph in the Politics section, after the technical, non-specific sections. I would challenge complete removal, though not major editing down, simply for the reason that this deserves mention. Anyone interested, say, in the United States of America, would want to know about the fact that the only two major parties with primary roles in gov't are the Democratic and Republican parties. It's very similar in India. --LordSuryaofShropshire 15:32, Aug 19, 2004 (UTC)

 * The origin of name serves the purpose to let readers know the alternate names of India. "Jai Hind" does not expand to Jai Hindustan. Mentioning such a phrase is inappropriate. Finer points can be mentioned in the main article. A reader at first glance gets the idea that Bharat is the offical Hindi name for India. After reading about Hindustan, he gets the impression that Hindustan is another term that points to India, though not an official or widespread one. If he is interested in knowing why this case is so, he may read more. Lending undue weight to a name should be avoided. 'Mera bharat mahan' is an equally popular name.

Anything that happened in the past is history. The same arguments of mentioning politics, can be countered that the Jan Sangh parties were the first to form a non congress govt in the 70's or that the Rao govt opened up its markets leading the way for economic reforms. The history section is a summary of events that have shaped India. The emergency has made us wise to dictatorship misuse, wars have led to the fourth largest military nation, the revolt of 1857 also had its reprecussions. Mentioning who's at the helm isn't much to go about in a summary. ¶ nichalp | [[User talk:nichalp| Talk ]] 20:21, Aug 19, 2004 (UTC)

 * First of all, "mera bhaarat mahaan" is not even close to Jai Hind. The standard army slogan is Jai Hind. Just do a Google search: "Jai Hind" and "mera bharat mahan" and for the former you get over 13,000 and the latter less than 1,000. Clearly different. And yes, the Hind does translate to Hindustan, since it's an abbreviation. You're saying that USA doesn't translate to United States of America. That's faulty logic. And it's not undue stress, as I pointed out before, it's implying that the word Hindustan, whether in short form or not, does carry national currency in certain regards. As it is now it's POV to a fault.

 * As for politics and history, the things you spoke about are not nearly commensurate to BJP - Congress. The Jan Sangh parties did not establish a lasting Opposition party on a national level like the BJP. Rao's economic moves have been matched by similar moves by other governments on the economic front. However, BJP's stand in government has not been matched. India's been absolutely shaped by the politics. The BJP and Congress party opposition has taught us that Coalition politics is the sole way to gain control of federal government and it distinguishes Indian politics from that of the other major democracies of the world. It's worth a note. --LordSuryaofShropshire 20:53, Aug 19, 2004 (UTC)

 * One, If "Jai Hind" expands to Jai Hindustan, then "Jai Hindustan" as a phrase would also be equivocal. But such a phrase - Jai Hindustan is not heard throughout the country. Jai Hind does not warrant as a vote for Hindustan. The sub-article deals with the names of India and its basic origins. By mentioning phrases irrelevent to the origins, does not augur well and hence I have removed it. A google search on Bharat throws up more links than Hindustan. The term "Jai Hind" was coined by SC Bose before India got independence. At that time the word Hindustan had a much larger usage than today. We have already had a discussion about this and it is longer in anyone's interest to rekindle old flames, especially since the section was untouched for so many months. I have excided the phrase and added it in the main article.

 * I objected to politics being mentioned in the history section. The current addition is fine although it is too long and will need summarising. The Jan Sangh may have not lasted for a full term but, they were the first to knock the Congress party off the pedestal, so their mention is relavent. Rajiv Gandhi was the first PM to start breaking the shackles that India was bound to. But the actual credit to the opening up of the economy, which is in no way a secret, goes to Manmohan Singh when he was FM. Because of his hypermetropic policies, the BJP found it much easier to build on it and credit its success on reforms. So by only mentioning BJP-Congress in recent years, it does make it one sided when the past governments are concerned. ¶ nichalp | [[User talk:nichalp| Talk ]] 19:56, Aug 21, 2004 (UTC)

Categories
At the bottom of the page, 6 categories are mentioned. However while sifting through the page code, 5 are mentioned, the 'States and terr. of India' being the redundant one. Any ideas on how this phantom category exists? ¶ nichalp | [[User talk:nichalp| Talk ]] 20:33, Aug 21, 2004 (UTC)

 * I believe the phantom category appears because of the template, which contains Category:States and territories of India. older ≠ wiser 23:09, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Number of official languages - inconsistent!!
I noticed several inconsistencies in Wikipedia articles about the number of official languages in India - in most places, it says that India has 18 official languages other than Hindi and English. However, the information table on India in this article (the big table at the right top) mentions the official languages as Hindi+English+13 others, making 15 in all (that number is seriously wrong). The article on Tamil mentions the number of official languages as 22. I am confused - I remember that we had 19 official languages; I also remember that Rajasthani and Hindustani were added to the list, but I am not sure of the exact number now; I tried to look this up on the Internet, but found similar inconsistencies. The CIA Fact book mentions the total number of 16 (Hindi+English+14), but says that Hindustani is not official (I am not sure if this was really made official and the info on the CIA fact book is outdated, or if it is not official).

In any case, we should establish some consistency - it may not be possible to visit all articles where this number is given, but we definitely need get the number right on this article (especially the information table that gives the number as 15 - that is obviously wrong). --ashwatha 02:05, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Well, Urdu and Hindi are both considered "Hindustani" - Since the term is no longer used, Hindustani isn't counted. WhisperToMe 02:14, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * Thanks - but that still doesn't clear the confusion completely; in fact, the article mentions (in the languages section) that the number of official languages is Hindi+English+18, while the table mentions Hindi+English+13. As mentioned above, other Wiki articles vary upto 22. --ashwatha 03:31, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

AFAIK, 22 is the correct number (including English and Hindi). --Rrjanbiah 06:20, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * Manorama Year Book 2003 lists 18 "officially recognised languages" and 1652 mother-tongues. The 18 are: Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu. Hindi is the official language, and English the associate national language. This should settle the debate. ¶ nichalp | [[User talk:nichalp| Talk ]] 19:21, Aug 27, 2004 (UTC)

Probably they might be wrong. Few languages have been added recently. Moreover Hindi as national language and English as _associative_ language info is wrong, AFAIK --Rrjanbiah 04:34, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * The two most recently added languages, to my knowledge, were Nepali and Konkani, both represented in the Manorama list above. This looks fine. --LordSuryaofShropshire 05:43, Aug 28, 2004 (UTC)

 * I don't think that Manorama will give false information. The last time the official languages were updated were in 1992 and yes, Konkani, Manipuri and Nepali were added. Hindi was designated as the official language during the drafting of the constitution & English as the 'associate language' or the language of the Union for all official purposes. It was to be replaced in 1965 but till date, no scheduled time frame has been declared for its elimination. ¶ nichalp | [[User talk:nichalp| Talk ]] 19:50, Aug 28, 2004 (UTC)

 * Try this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:India/archive_2#Languages_recognized_by_the_Indian_Constitution and this http://www.mid-day.com/news/nation/2003/december/72086.htm http://indiaimage.nic.in/languages.htm

 * Since Hindi is one of the languages in the Manorama list of 18 languages, shouldn't the info table say that we have Hindi, English (+17 others)? Right now, it says Hindi, English (+ 18 others). A reader would get the impression that we have 18 languages in addition to Hindi and English. It should be 17 - I have made this change. --ashwatha 03:50, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * Yes your right, its my error. I oversaw that. ¶ nichalp | [[User talk:nichalp| Talk ]] 19:51, Aug 31, 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps and  ? --Rrjanbiah 05:15, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * I stand corrected. Your data is more recent than mine. ¶ nichalp | [[User talk:nichalp| Talk ]] 19:51, Aug 31, 2004 (UTC)

Allow me to throw in my 2 cents. Article 343, Chapter 1 of the Constitution of India decrees that "(t)he offical language of the Union shall be Hindi in Devanagari script". The Act also provides for  "Continuance  of English  language for  official purposes of the  Union   and  for  use  in  Parliament." So clearly, the only official language of India is Hindi with English as an associate (for lack of a better word) language.

 * The Eighth Schedule of Articles 344(1) and 351 of India on Languages cites Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu (18 in total) as Regional languages of the Union.
 * So, minus Hindi, there are 17 official regional languages, 1 official language and 1 associate language. AreJay 17:00, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

 * The mid-day link above is dated to Dec 2003. It mentions the newest updates. ¶ ɳȉčḩåḽṗ | [[User talk:nichalp| ✉ ]] 20:10, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)

English was an official language until until 26th January 1965, according to the Constitution of India, after which it was to be replaced by Hindi totally. However after that date, The Official Languages Act 1963 provided for the continuation of the use of English, in addition to Hindi. See http://164.100.10.12/cgi/nph-bwcgi/BASIS/indweb/all/secretr/SDW?M=1&W=actid='196319' However I do not find the word associate language mentioned in the Act, it must have been coined elsewhere or is unofficial?

Another huge development which seems to have gone unnoticed is the addition of several languages to the Eight Schedule by the The Constitution(Ninety-second Amendment) Act,2003 It added Bodo,Dogri,Maithili,Santhali. http://indiacode.nic.in/coiweb/amend/amend92.htm That Indeed brings the number of Official languages mentioned in Schedule 8 of the Consitution to 22. These sites are of the Law Ministry, so I think they should be considered to be accurate! --Hecticbug 21:53, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Featured Article
I have nominated this page in the FAC list. ¶ ɳȉčḩåḽṗ | [[User talk:nichalp| ✉ ]] 18:49, Sep 5, 2004 (UTC)

Voting
Why isn't anyone voting for this page in the FAC? Is this article so bad that it should not be featured? ¶ ɳȉčḩåḽṗ | [[User talk:nichalp| ✉ ]] 20:50, Sep 10, 2004 (UTC)

Map Issues (again)
I really don't see how the notion that stating the map has an "incorrect depiction of the boundary status" is NPOV. Where did the concept of "correctness" originate? I also don't see why creating unnecessary amounts of white space in the states in territory section is preferable to floating the image left and why not putting see also items in bullet point form is preferable.

The CIA map caption was a big lie. Kashmir#Map_Issues does nothing to adequately decribe the situation. As a matter of style, we shouldn't be linking to the middle of other articles - dont do it! --Jiang 21:12, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Please do what you can about the whitespace, and float. ¶ ɳȉčḩåḽṗ | [[User talk:nichalp| ✉ ]] 20:05, Sep 11, 2004 (UTC)

Yep, Jiang's version is NPOV. WhisperToMe 04:41, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Okay, I protected this page. I am tired of this edit war. Let's get this whole thing clarified for good right here right now. -_- WhisperToMe 05:25, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

And again, I side with Jiang's edits. WhisperToMe 05:26, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Jiang's version was fine with me. I also don't see why my compromise version was reverted. But it doesn't look like Rrjanbiah is willing to discuss the issue nor is he willing to accept compromise. Sigh... →Raul654 05:31, Sep 11, 2004 (UTC)
 * Then shall we place an RFC on him if he refuses to go by what the rest of us say? WhisperToMe 05:38, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * I have left him a message on his talk page asking him to discuss the matter here. Let's wait to see what he does. →Raul654 05:40, Sep 11, 2004 (UTC)

This user has also failed to discuss at Kashmir. My position there is that the CIA map is irrelevant and can only be mentioned as an example. Regarding the compromise version, linking to the middle of an article (Kashmir#Map_Issues) is bad form. That section is so short that we can keep whatever information we need contained in the caption or in a footnote at the bottom of the page. --Jiang 05:46, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * I'm OK with that. →Raul654 06:25, Sep 11, 2004 (UTC)

Indian's must be sleeping at this time, so you gota wait :-) --Ankur 19:12, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

 * No, he's been back and reverted me a Kashmir. I guess he doesn't want to negotiate with "terrorists". :-) --Jiang 02:01, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure if the current version of the "States" image caption will work. In its current form, it will attract a lot of edits and vandalism once the protection is lifted. How about this as a footnote?
 * The current map does not address the boundary status of Jammu and Kashmir. The present map depicts the region currently administered by India after a United Nations ceasefire froze Indian and Pakistani held territory in 1948. A subsequent border dispute between India and China are are also unresolved in the eastern part of Kashmir.

¶ ɳȉčḩåḽṗ | [[User talk:nichalp| ✉ ]] 20:16, Sep 11, 2004 (UTC)

 * I'm not sure "does not address the boundary status" is an accurate description since it depicts the Line of Control. --Jiang

---

 * I made an attempt at this around a month ago but it did not work well. No one seemed interested. Anyway, based on CIA's map I have completed (almost) map of India partly based on an idea from Britannica.

In my PO view this map is better since it shows Indian claim as well as actual control. It is easier to write:

...the red part is claimed by India and administered by China and the Green part is claimed by India administered by Pakistan...

This or anything similar is a better statement than:

...This CIA version is stupid and baseless and is based only on political motives etc...

I have already written quite a bit about this map here (please do read): Talk:India/archive_3 Though the image in the archive page is new the talk is about the previous verion of the image. If you people are satsfied I will complete the map. Otherwise no point wasting time on it. And please do not tell me I missed a city in the north east or you do not like the colours. Those things can be done as soon as the idea of the map is approved. If you still dont get it - I want the CIA version removed. --Ankur 11:12, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC) Personally I feel blocking edits on the page was going over the top. You exercised your power immaturely. You could have warned first. I wanted to add something today. Well, but you guys go through a lot of this stuff maybe you know better

 * Ankur: that is a fabulous-looking map and I believe it's a great way to both have our cake and eat it too. I would remind you that "Kolkata" is spelled with one 'o' and two 'a's (it's not "Kolkota", especially since that phoneticization isn't even right, let alone standard). Damn, another thing, it's Calcutta (not Culcutta). Aside from that, I think this map should (when completed) replace the current one. Its use would negate the need for convulted and contentious captions.--LordSuryaofShropshire 17:32, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)

 * Oh, also, I believe "Chennai" is spelled, always, with two 'n's, not just one. peace --LordSuryaofShropshire 17:35, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)

 * Last thing... Would it be too much to parenthesize "Ganga" next to Ganges, since it is overwhelmingly spoken of as Ganga when in one is in India? So, it might look like Ganges (Ganga) or even Ganga (Ganges) (the latter might make more sense based on the pattern established by other city names).--LordSuryaofShropshire 17:38, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)

 * Nepal, Bangledesh, and Bhutan should not be colored the same color as India. →Raul654 17:36, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)

 * Nepal, Bangladesh, and Bhutan aren't the same color as India... India's yellow and they're light greyish-mocha.--LordSuryaofShropshire 17:39, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)
 * I hope that was a (bad) joke. I just checked the RGB values - they're almost identical (253/230/187 vs 233/217/184). So they don't just look almost the same here, but they'd look the same anywhere. →Raul654 17:47, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)
 * It was indeed a (bad) joke ;) --LordSuryaofShropshire 18:55, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)

I've gone in and fixed some of the issues I mentioned. What do you guys think now? →Raul654 18:02, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)

 * Ok guys, now if we get Jiang and Whipsertome's bit on this map, I can start on making corrections. If you guys can work on Gimp files I will give you the .xcf files. Since I have stored spellings, color fills, rivers, boundaries etc at different layers. Modifying that will be easier. I want to make two versions. One got for thumbnails and one good (more cities rivers etc) in its complete glory. I make a hell lot of spelling mistakes so mistakes are expected - but I will make amends. --Ankur 18:48, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Great map Ankur, I wonder who told you that we were not interested in your map? Keep up the good works. Plus it looks nice and colourful. Here are some minor chages perhaps you can carry out? Keep it up! ¶ ɳȉčḩåḽṗ | [[User talk:nichalp| ✉ ]] 19:31, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)
 * V Imp: Latitudes and longitudes are absent. Please add.
 * Change the spellings of Ahmedabad, Panaji in addition to Surya's list.
 * Prefer to see Chandigarh, Guwahati.
 * Jiang will not be amused to see China out there. The correct reading should be People's Republic of China
 * Thar should read as Thar desert & Deccan as "The Deccan" or "Deccan Plateau."
 * The generally accepted cartography conventions state that a coastal city must have its name in the waters. In other words Mumbai and Chennai are correct, but Kochi and Vishakapatnam are slightly off target.
 * Is it possible for you to darken the islands?

 * I have no objections. Actually, I'm fine with just "China", but maybe include the label "Tibet" in the same gray font as "HIMALAYAS". Also, the red LOC and LOAC boundary is hard to see on the red background of China - try to find colors that contrast and make it bolder. --Jiang 20:39, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

 * Ok guys, I am starting the work on this map. Longitude, latitude, scale, etc all... and especially spellings. I will colour it again (same colours as Raul's) so that the colour fills do not overlap boundaries. I did add Tibet at first but removed it (I wondered if someone will object - even if I add Tibet only as a geographical location.) I will add Tibet in Light Grey in itallics like Thar, Leh, Deccan etc. All changes suggested will be incorporated.

 * Since I will label two maps one for detail and one for thumbnail. Please make sure I do not miss any major river, peak, city, etc.

 * For the thumbnail version of the map I will just add one more city Guwahati in NortEast. Now I must move on the most important part i.e. labeling. Kindly see more of this discussion (if you are interested) at the talk page of the map. Keep your discussion here limited to the international issues. Thanks a LOT for your constructive comments. It will be a while before I finish the map. --Ankur 00:15, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I've made most changes that were suggested. The new image is up. Thanks again for your inputs. Now I expect you guys to come up with a suitable caption for this image, so that it can be used. :-) --Ankur 10:18, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Indian Archipelago
I found one article that links to "Indian Archipelago", and I think I've heard the term before. Would it be appropriate to create that as a redirect to here, or is it a specific region within India? Thanks. -- Creidieki 00:55, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I am not sure what Indian Archipelago means but I think you are talking about Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Maybe the redirect should go there. The islands are to the south-east and are administered by the Centeral Govt. They are too small to be given status of state : Andaman and Nicobar Islands. --Ankur

 * I've never heard of the term Indian Archipelago. It is not used out here, perhaps you could point us to the article, so that we may find out the exact locations it refers to? ¶ ɳȉčḩåḽṗ | [[User talk:nichalp| ✉ ]]

National Stock Exchange
I think NSE is head quartered in Delhi and that it has offices all over India, not just Mumbai (http://www.nse-india.com/content/equities/eq_vsats.htm). Correct me if I am wrong, else remove the claim that Mumbai is home to NSE. -- Sundar 09:28, Sep 20, 2004 (UTC)

 * NSE is not HQ in Bombay, and I have removed the offending phrase. Also here is no need to mention the NSE, as the BSE is regarded as India's primary stock index, both in India and abroad. ¶ ɳȉčḩåḽṗ | [[User talk:nichalp| ✉ ]]

China or People's Republic of China
It's clear from context that we're referring to the political entity, the nation-state, of China, and not the civilization. Secondly, the sentence looks retarded with that big long name in it and all other countries, in comparison, using common-parlance nomenclature. No one's running around calling the nation-state of India "Republic of India" in every article and, besides, the link for China points to PROC anyway. I've already registered my disagreement for this naming convention at the page Jiang cited (see India:Page history). --LordSuryaofShropshire 04:26, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)

 * Ive responded on the relevant page. Please do not change the naming conventions without consensus and insert your preferred format in the interim. Current rules say either its "People's Republic of China" or "PRC" because we are referring to a specific government. --Jiang 05:08, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

 * My personal understanding is that the term 'China' refers to PRC & ROC (Taiwan). I do not suscribe to the fact that they are independant nations. As my understanding goes it is "one country two governments"; The mainland being a communist govt. & Taiwan being a capatilist state. Taiwan is governed as a 'province' not as a country. I think it is alright to mention the exact full name of the nation-state at least once in the article to clear any disambiguations (ie. until both governments unify, whenever that may be). ¶ ɳȉčḩåḽṗ | [[User talk:nichalp| ✉ ]] 19:02, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)

 * I have changed it to China (PRC) so as to clarify without making the sentence look like shit. --LordSuryaofShropshire 19:05, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)

Whether they're separate states or separate governments, it was the communist entity, the PRC, that was fighting the Indians. If you don't want to spell it out, then the abbreviation is "the PRC". "China (PRC)" blocks the flow of the sentence since we dont usually say both. --Jiang 19:18, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

 * No. Not really. When one says China (PRC) it's perfectly clear what one's saying and noone uses an article with a parenthesized abbreviation. I've adapted my position to yours and now your nit-picking. When one reads the sentence it takes a quarter the time to say that section without the overweight description of the nation. Besides, people's republic of China is spelled out in lugubrious full in the beginning of the article. --LordSuryaofShropshire 19:23, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)

- Of course China (PRC) is clear, but no one says it that way. it's either "the People's Republic of China" or "the PRC", not "China PRC". If the whole thing is already spelled out once, then the initialism will do for the second mention. That's how it's been done ever since some people decided to separate PRC from China. --Jiang 19:29, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

 * No, that's how many Chinese people and some of the more fastidious historians trying to accomodate these subtleties do it. Well-respected journals, papers and academic studies will not constantly write "People's Republic of China" (just take a look Newsweek, the New York Times, or watch a newscast on CNN). At most, they will mention it once and then proceed to refer to it as China. As for China (PRC) and China (the PRC), the latter looks retarded and only people freaking out about the nomenclature do that; it's not a universal practice by any stretch and therefore trying to impose eccentric rules upon a sentence that is straining to be somewhat readable, if not elegant, is a sad thing to do. This is eminently clear and is not clumsy. --LordSuryaofShropshire 19:33, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)

This is the wrong page to be arguing about naming conventions. Current convention is either "the People's Republic of China" or "the PRC". It is "China (PRC)" that is eccentric. --Jiang 19:39, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I believe that we should go with "PRC". WhisperToMe 19:42, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

 * No... Forcing people to constantly say "People's Republic of China" or, as a mean-spirited condescension, "the PRC", even when saying China is understood through context to be the political PRC entity, is eccentric and irrationally nationalistic and is defined as eccentric because it's a new-fangled practice that goes against the grain of an established and above-all reasonable norm. By the way, I will discuss this here since it applies to this article. --LordSuryaofShropshire 19:46, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)

 * China (PRC) seems odd. If I were to expand the following (saying it aloud or otherwise), it would read "China---People's Republic of China". ¶ ɳȉčḩåḽṗ | [[User talk:nichalp| ✉ ]] 19:58, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)

 * Only some strange, whacked-out computer would expand it as that. Any individual with a grasp of English strong enough to read Wiki-articles will understand that it refers to the entity known as the people's republic of china. The definite article is understood since there's no other people's republic of china to understand here. People say "USA", not "the USA". This is not a difficult concept. --LordSuryaofShropshire

I don't see how this article can be an exception to the established naming conventions. As far as the naming conventions are concerned, it's either "PRC" or "People's Republic of China". You should see that I've ignored your arguments favoring the use of "China" on purpose. What is relevant is how this either adheres to the naming conventions or deserves exception. We can discuss this on the relevant page and then we might get somewhere. --Jiang 20:24, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

 * It's funny that Nichalp's strange observation served to highlight something interesting... one sees PRC but reads People's Republic of China, the 'of' being understood. In the same way, one sees China (PRC) and understands China (the People's Republic of China). The naming convention has been observed adequately and for that reason I feel your current objections are without merit and casuist.--LordSuryaofShropshire 22:09, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)

 * I don't know what your quibbling aims to achieve. As an encyclopedia, a certain set of rules have to be followed to maintain balance. Citing of and the when a country's name is in question; what are u implying, should it be tUSoA and PRoC? The thing that Jiang is trying to mention is that if there are two (or more) entities to the claimants of the same name, a disambiguation has to be carried out. ¶ ɳȉčḩåḽṗ | [[User talk:nichalp| ✉ ]] 20:21, Sep 16, 2004 (UTC)

 * "China (PRC)" is not a way which people who speak the English language abbreviate the country. WhisperToMe 22:30, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Look, if you want the convention to be different, go argue it out on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Chinese). As I said there, NPOV considerations outweigh stylistic considerations. China (PRC) is a totally unprecedented name, which, to me, is even more awkward than just "PRC" or "People's Republic of China". --Xiaopo ℑ 23:03, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)

 * No the naming convention, though contorted, is fine. As for China (PRC)'s being unprecedented, I would reply that a "foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." The full name has been used earlier in the article, the context of what China refers to amply implies the PRC and PRC is in brackets. --LordSuryaofShropshire 23:29, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)

It never ceases to amaze me how often that Emerson quote is misused on WP. ;-) But this isn't about consistency at all. It's about the fact that China (PRC) is just bad style. "The PRC" is how second mentions are done, and to me, sounds a lot better than "China (PRC)". --Xiaopo ℑ 23:50, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)

 * It never ceases to amaze me how often people say 'quote' instead of 'quotation'. This is about consistency. "Please don't change the set convention." is essentially what you're saying. It may seem better to you, but there's no consensus on an issue that you're applying your own subjective values to. I am reverting your edit since now you're quibbling about style when the PRC satisfies the frankly ridiculous naming convention while the China clarifies what it is. Most people don't know what PRC is nor do they care whether China chooses to call itself the People's Republic since most countries (including Bangladesh and Pakistan) have similarly wrong names.--LordSuryaofShropshire 00:55, Sep 16, 2004 (UTC)

You'll find, m'lud, that "quote" is an acceptable synonym in informal contexts for "quotation". Go check out Merriam-Webster, please. . If you want "PRC" to be clearer, then you can expand it to the "People's Republic of China", even though it's been mentioned earlier in the article. All together, four people (including me) have opposed "China (the PRC)", so please don't make any more changes unilaterally. You'll find that "most people" are not as ill informed as you might suspect, and have a fairly good idea of what the PRC is from context -- just like they know about the PLA, ETA, NATO, etc. --Xiaopo ℑ 01:39, Sep 16, 2004 (UTC)

Okay, so I edited it to remove mention of the state names whatsoever. I don't particularly like this solution, but I hope it's an acceptable compromise. --Xiaopo ℑ 01:50, Sep 16, 2004 (UTC)

As the "China" here refers to political boundaries, the state should be labelled "PRC" or "People's Republic of China". WhisperToMe 20:51, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

See also syntax
The "See also: [whatever]" is wrong syntax. It should be "See also": [whatever]. Ref: Boilerplate text. Similarly with [Main article:] ¶ ɳȉčḩåḽṗ | [[User talk:nichalp| ✉ ]] 19:27, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)

 * the entire "main article" line should be italicized, as is done for all country articles. --Jiang 19:33, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

title: Talk:India/Archive 1