Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hindu rajputs

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was DELETE. Nobody seems inclined to argue that this isn't a POV fork, and the debate is ongoing at Talk:Rajput. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 17:56, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Hindu rajputs

POV fork of Rajput (currently protected from vandalism) and History of Rajputs.

Simply more bad behavior by "Shivraj" (203.101.53.247 (talk · contribs)/203.101.51.191 (talk · contribs)/203.101.54.165 (talk · contribs)/203.101.54.143 (talk · contribs)/203.101.50.154 (talk · contribs)/203.101.54.195 (talk · contribs)/203.101.51.164 (talk · contribs)) who is bent on inserting anti-Muslim text into the Rajput article. — goethean ॐ 18:00, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

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  • Wiki admins please see the discussion page on rajputs. Gothean and other muslims have been repeatedly asked to provide written evidence for there edits against hindu rajputs. Close to a week has gone by and they are refusing to give us bibliography of any books or written evidence. They have the opinion that unless there version of history is accepted by hindu rajputs it is POV. Evidence and good scholarship is not there forte. -Shivraj Singh
  • Comment I'm leaning toward delete, but I don't know enough about the ongoing debate to vote. Of note is that the original page Rajput is protected and NPOV is disputed. --Reflex Reaction 18:52, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
Reading some of the comments it appears that Shivraj is pushing a single point of view that multiple users contest, including Goethean, the founder of Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias in religion. As it reads now, I don't think that the Rajput article or the Hindu rajputs is very good but that doesn't qualify it for AFD. Because it is a relatively unknown and extremely controversial topic, I do not think that it will garner many votes except for those involved with the debate. If and when the debate at Rajput is satisfactorally resolved then this article can be relisted again. --Reflex Reaction 23:03, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete. I'm willing to trust Goethean's judgement, and this has all the earmarks of a POV fork. I'm willing to be convinced otherwise, but spare me an essay, please. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 23:47, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Man in Black: I am not sure if I have put my point across well. I have created the article from a multitude of books which have been written by eminent historians of yesteryears and modern times. Gothean himself and his friends have been reverting the edits WITHOUT providing a single piece of documented evidence to support there work. And he now admits that he has no citations to prove his and his buddies beliefs. I have cut and pasted what he wrote on User:Dmcdevit's page below. Some of the authors I referenced are:
James Tod: Annals and antiquities of ancient Rajasthan
Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan; or the Central and Western Rajput States... (Hardcover) by James Tod, William Crooke (Editor) Book Description Relates the history of the Central and Western Rajput states of India; edited by William Crooke. 3 volumes. classic on early Rajasthan (amazon.com) Product Hardcover Publisher: Trans-Atl (1994) Language: English ISBN: 8170691281
Prof Dashratha Sharma: Early Chauhan dynasties: A study of Chauhan political history, Chauhan political institutions, and life in the Chauhan dominions, from 800 to 1316 A.D
Product Details Publisher: Motilal Banarsidass; 2d rev. ed edition (1975) Language: English ISBN: 0842606181
Dr. LS Rathore : The glory of ranthambore
Jodhpur university press, Jodhpur (India) First published in 1990
Richard D. Saran and Norman P. Ziegler: Mertiyo Rathors Of Merto, Rajasthan: Select Translations Bearing On The History Of A Rajput Family, 1462-1660
Select Translations Bearing on the History of a Rajput Family, 1462-1660 Translator Saran, Richard D. Annotations by Saran, Richard D. Hardcover Edition: Series#:51; Michigan Papers on South and Southeast Asia (Hardcover) 772 pages Publisher: University of Michigan Press ISBN / EAN: 0891480854

Shivraj Singh 01:05, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Then, by all means, resolve the dispute at Rajput instead of creating a POV fork. The more I read into this, the more I see that no effort has been made to make this anything but a duplicate of an existing article, with a certain POV being advanced. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 01:25, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
Resolving the dispute was my intention too on the rajput discussion page. I requested the "other side" to provide a list of books which they used to revert my edits. A week has gone by, they have been pretty vocal and active, but no evidence has been forthcoming. See the section "Talk Facts" on the rajput discussion page. What I wonder is how come no body is asking these guys to come up with supporting evidence? Shivraj Singh 01:31, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
Have some patience. In any case, making a POV fork isn't allowed. Resolve the disputes at Rajput; don't try to bypass the page protection by making a fork. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 01:38, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
I have been waiting patiently for one week now. I am happy to answer any questions that people have on my writings. But what perplexes me is that nobody is asking these muslims, who are reverting my edits to provide any citations. Does everyone here completely beleive them? If so why is it? -- Shivraj Singh 17:46, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Reflex Reaction,

I have tried to discuss on the talk page because some muslim users were constantly reverting my edits on rajput page. Then I requested the page be protected and also asked these users to provide evidence for there edits. It has been close to a week and they have chosen to not provide any evidence. So what should be assumed in such a circumstance?

The books from which this article is formed are very welll researched books on rajput history written by eminent historians. No one , even on rajput discussion page has provided a single counter evidence to what is written by the following authors.

James Tod did more then 20 years of research when he was living in Rajasthan in 1800's and then published the momentous "Annals and Antiquities of ancient Rajasthan". This is the only book which covers in great detail the history of rajputs. Before him and since him such a comprehensive book has not been published.

Other books I cited were by Professor Dashratha Sharma who took into account quite a few stone writings of various chauhan kings throughout there dominion and also took into account numismatics and the history works written in native Indian languages by the authors of that era. e.g Prithvirajvijay, Hammir MahaKavya etc.

Third book is by an existing professor at Jodhpur university who spent a lot of time researching the Indian works on the life of Hammir and then published has work in English.

These authors are not known to westerners who any way tend to rely more on muslim historians who tend to be very biased towards there kings.

On the rajput discussion page I pointed out how biased muslim historians are even today. MJ Akbar who is a very educated man and a journalist from India published a book recently called "shades of swords" in which he lists the wars of muslim kings but completely glosses over the severe defeats Ghori suffered in Gujarat in 1178 at Kayadara and later at Taraori in Haryana in 1191. And there are many more omissions.

Reason we have so much acrimony because muslims have been fed one version of the history by there historians in which there kings are shown as superhumans and rajput kings were shown as pushovers. Reality is far too different as many historians have pointed out. I presented a complete bibliography which they have managed to delete also. (I am in the process of collecting the publishers etc for these books in the bibliography. I am travelling and am away from my library but I will gather all the info by COB friday).


-Shivraj Singh

PS: User Goethean is an extremely biased hindu hater. Here is an example:

Gothean has been selectively removing hindu responses from the wiki talkpage on rajputs. He is calling himself a moderator but I let the post from raja(who happens to be a muslim), where he talks about insecurity of faith, sit there on the talk page for more then 24 hours. Goethean was nowhere to be found. Then someone called me a moron and Goethean was still on snooze. Finally I responded to raja and then Gothean woke up instantaneously and started deleting stuff. When I ask him to explain this duplicity in behavior he remains silent. See the difff below. Raja is a muslim user who made an assertion on insecurity of faith and then I responded.

  1. cur) (last) 18:55, 26 October 2005 203.101.51.164 (→Talk facts)
  2. (cur) (last) 17:56, 26 October 2005 Goethean (→Hindu Rajputs)
Your arguments would be more respected if you signed in as a user, learned wiki formatting and stopped using ad hominem attacks and perhaps sockpuppets. I do not agree with everything that User:Goethean has done, but he is familiar with the rules and conventions of wikipedia, even though it he may have broken some of those rules. From reading the comments you should be more familiar with Wikiquette. If you would like to discuss further contact me at my user page and I would be glad to help you. --Reflex Reaction 20:13, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
Point well taken Reflex_Reaction. I have created an account. As I have repeatedly stated we should ask Goethean and his friends to provide us documentary evidence for there edits. Since I have already requested them multiple times for this info maybe somebody else asking might have better cooperation from them. The response I have gotten from a user on the other side of this discussion is "Again why should we? Who cares?". I suggested to him this is not an answer and he has been vocal about other things but no citations. Please see rajput discussion section "Talk facts". -- Shivraj Singh 01:39, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Goethean admits he and his buddies have no evidence

Please look at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Dmcdevit and the heading Rajput. It is the 20th heading.

Hi there. I believe that it was you who protected the Rajput article. In the pursuit of resolution of the dispute, I would like to add some text to the article. Unfortunately, it has not been approved by all parties, but nonetheless, here it is:

Some see the Rajput varna as including followers of all four major religions of the sub-continent: Hinduism, Islam, Christianity and Sikhism. Others dispute the claim that non-Hindus can be Rajputs, seeing the Rajput identity as comprised primarily of participation in Hindu religious rites and the Hindu caste system rather than one of ethnic heritage.

This would replace the last sentence of the "Definition" section. Unfortunately, at this point, we don't have citations to back up the attributions. Thanks! — goethean ॐ 18:23, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

-Shivraj

Rajputana is not my area of expertise, but I know how to find info. I searched my Questia account for recent books on Rajputs and came up with three, with are listed on the talk page for Rajput. There were many more. Shivraj is using four books, one of which is an old primary source, two of which are local Indian productions (and possibly Hindutva-slanted), and one reputable academic text of limited scope. I know enough about India, and communal violence in India, to know that Shivraj is pushing an extreme Hindu POV. What I've skimmed of the books I found on Questia suggests that Goethean and the other editors are correct in seeing the question in shades of grey, rather than Shivraj's simplistic black-and-white narrative. Identity is not a simple matter, and especially so in India. Please don't let this POV fork stand. Zora 07:14, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Zora. Richard Saran is from the west so his work is reputable and these other professors are "possibly hindutva slanted"? Have you read these books to arrive at this conclusion or is it a prejudice? I have personally communicated with Richard Saran a few times and he has sent me good amount of material from his personal collection which helped me trace my genealogy back to Rao Sheoji of Marwar. Let us see how Richard did his research (He told me this when I spoke to him). He went to India and translated marwari/dingal manuscripts of rathore kings in a particular time window. Then he got the genealogies of various rajput clans from Manohar Singh Ranawat of Sitamau, who is a direct descendant of Maharana Pratap, and is also a protege of Raghubir Singh the ruler of Sitamau. Raghubir Singh is an eminent historian and wrote the life of Durgadas Rathore which is present in my bibliography. It took Richard and Norman couple of decades to bring there work out i.e painstaking research over a very long period of time.
Prof. Dashratha Sharma and Dr LS Rathore researched works like HammirMahaKavya, Prithiviraj Vijaya, PrithvirajRaso and various stone inscriptions in rajasthan and numismatic evidence and after many dedicated years of research published there respective works. To trivialize them as "hindutva.." is bad scholarship.
I have not mentioned just four books. Please see the Reference section of this page.
You claim you know India and communal violence there. Then you use sweeping generalizations of shades of grey and black and white. I want you to be very precise and point out what is anti muslim or hindutva POV in my post on this page.
What is astonishing on this wiki is I have provided a complete bibliography from which I formed this article and yet I am the one who is being accused of pushing POV, being a hindutva wadi and anti muslim. When these muslims reverted my edits and I asked them for supporting citations they refuse to provide even a single piece of documented evidence and yet they are not considered POV pushing, or just clueless about rajput history. I asked them 5 precise questions on the rajput talk page and I asked them to provide citations so that we can engage in a logical discussion but I received a blank and nobody is bothered here ? What am I missing? -- Shivraj Singh 17:19, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

It has nothing to do with Hindutva.

In the same light, if one were to look at history, with the statement of "pronounced anti-Muslim agenda" then the enitire History of the Jewish people during the holocaust of Worl war 2 can be viewed as a "Pronounced Anti-german, anti-european, anti-christian agenda". To deny what has happened will only further divide and embitter communities.

In this discussion, Shivraj Singh is citing references and making attempts for individuals on this site to see the reality of the situation and the claims being made without foundation. Shivraj is not working with very few books, since a study in any ASouth Asian Studies department will provide you with a huge list of books that narrate the atrocities committed in the subcontinent by the Islamic invasion. Its not about being anti-Islamic, its just about what happened as recorded by Islamic historians who happened to be quite amazing in their prcise accounts of what happened and how they crushed and destroyed the inhabitants of India.

Irfan Husain, a Muslim and a freelance columnist from Pakistan has observed:

”While historical events should be judged in the context of their times, it cannot be denied that even in that bloody period of history, no mercy was shown to the Hindus unfortunate enough to be in the path of either the Arab conquerors of Sindh and south Punjab, or the Central Asians who swept in from Afghanistan.

The Muslim heroes who figure larger than life in our history books committed some dreadful crimes. Mahmud of Ghazni, Qutb-ud-Din Aibak, Balban, Mohammed bin Qasim, and Sultan Mohammad Tughlak, all have blood-stained hands that the passage of years has not cleansed. Indeed, the presence of Muslim historians on their various campaigns has ensured that the memory of their deeds will live long after they were buried.

Seen through Hindu eyes, the Muslim invasion of their homeland was an unmitigated disaster. Their temples were razed, their idols smashed, their women raped, their men killed or taken slaves. When Mahmud of Ghazni entered Somnath on one of his annual raids, he slaughtered all 50,000 inhabitants. Aibak killed and enslaved hundreds of thousands. The list of horrors is long and painful.

These conquerors justified their deeds by claiming it was their religious duty to smite non-believers. Cloaking themselves in the banner of Islam, they claimed they were fighting for their faith when, in reality, they were indulging in straightforward slaughter and pillage. When these warriors settled in India, they ruled as absolute despots over a cowed Hindu populace. For generations, their descendants took their martial superiority over their subjects for granted. "... And a substantial number of Pakistani Muslims are secretly convinced that they are inherently superior to the Hindus. One irony, of course, is that contrary to their wishful thinking, the vast majority of Muslims in the subcontinent have more Hindu blood in their veins than there is Arab, Afghan, Turkish or Persian blood. Many of the invaders took Hindu wives and concubines."

Reference: Demons from the past - By Ifran Husain - dailytimes.com.pk

Thus from here you can see that this is not about being Anti-Islamic, however denying what has happened, or simply denying th holocaust of the subcontinent will not win people's minds in favour of Islam, instead it will further create an feeling of animosity since in this discussion alone their has been a lot of denial of the truth.

Furthermore, Rajput is a strata of the hierarchial system of the Hindus, and for a Muslim to claim to be part of the Hindu Hierarchy clearly violates the beliefs and tenents of Islam, however here we find the convinience of claiming what one wishes to from a Pagan/Kafur faith and yet claiming to be a Muslim, there is an oxymoron.

VS Naipaul, we all know is a Noble Laureate and even he can see what Shivraj Singh is trying to state:

Sir Vidiadhar S. Naipaul (1932 - ) Nobel laureate, He is the author of several books including Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions Among the Converted Peoples, Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey, and India: A Wounded Civilization. He has said: "India was wrecked and looted, not once but repeatedly by invaders with strong religious ideas, with a hatred of the religion of the people they were conquering. People read these accounts but they do not imaginatively understand the effects of conquest by an iconoclastic religion."

"India became the great land for Muslim adventurers and the peasantry bore this on their back, they were enslaved quite literally. It just went on like this from the 11th century onwards."

Vidiadhar Naipaul summed up the situation well. He said, "In art and history books, people write of the Muslims "arriving" in India as though they came on a tourist bus and went away again. The Muslim view of their conquest is a truer one. They speak of the triumph of faith, the destruction of idols and temples, the loot, the casting away of locals as slaves." Reference: Economic Times - http://www.economictimes.com/today/30poli04.htm

And even Islamic texts state what happened:

The temple of Somnath, which is not very far from Dwaraka, is dedicated to Lord Siva as Nagnath or Nageshwar Mahadev, and enshrines one of the twelve ‘Jyotirlingas’ which according to the Puranas manifested themselves as columns of light in different parts of the country. The magnificent temple that stands there now is a replica of the original temple. The 13th century Arab source refers to the glories of the temple thus: "Somnath - a celebrated city of India situated on the shore of the sea is washed by its waves. Among the wonders of that place was the temple in which was placed the idol called Somnat. This idol was in the middle of the temple, without anything to support it from below or to suspend it from above. It was held in the highest honour among the Hindus, and whoever beheld it floating in the air was struck with amazement..."

Reference: Sultan Alau’d-Din Khalji (1296-1316), in Tarikh-I-Firuz Shahi

And another article for you by another muslim Rizwan Salim:

" It is clear that India at the time when Muslim invaders turned towards it (8 to 11th century) was the earth's richest region for its wealth in precious and semi-precious stones, gold and silver, religion and culture, and its fine arts and letters. Tenth century Hindustan was also too far advanced than its contemporaries in the East and the West for its achievements in the realms of speculative philosophy and scientific theorizing, mathematics and knowledge of nature's workings. Hindus of the early medieval period were unquestionably superior in more things than the Chinese, the Persians (including the Sassanians), the Romans and the Byzantines of the immediate proceeding centuries. The followers of Siva and Vishnu on this subcontinent had created for themselves a society more mentally evolved-joyous and prosperous too-than had been realized by the Jews, Christians, and Muslim monotheists of the time. Medieval India, until the Islamic invaders destroyed it, was history's most richly imaginative culture and one of the five most advanced civilizations of all times.

Look at the Hindu art that Muslim iconoclasts severely damaged or destroyed. Ancient Hindu sculpture is vigorous and sensual in the highest degree-more fascinating than human figural art created anywhere else on earth. (Only statues created by classical Greek artists are in the same class as Hindu temple sculpture). Ancient Hindu temple architecture is the most awe-inspiring, ornate and spell-binding architectural style found anywhere in the world. (The Gothic art of cathedrals in France is the only other religious architecture that is comparable with the intricate architecture of Hindu temples). No artist of any historical civilization have ever revealed the same genius as ancient Hindustan's artists and artisans.

Their minds filled with venom against the idol-worshippers of Hindustan, the Muslims destroyed a large number of ancient Hindu temples. This is a historical fact, mentioned by Muslim chroniclers and others of the time. A number of temples were merely damaged and remained standing. But a large number - not hundreds but many thousands - of the ancient temples were broken into shreds of cracked stone. In the ancient cities of Varanasi and Mathura, Ujjain and Maheshwar, Jwalamukhi and Dwarka, not one temple survives whole and intact from the ancient times.

It is easy to conclude that virtually every Hindu temple built in the ancient times is a perfect work of art. The evidence of the ferocity with which the Muslim invaders must have struck at the sculptures of gods and goddesses, demons and apsaras, kings and queens, dancers and musicians is frightful. At so many ancient temples of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, for example, shattered portions of stone images still lie scattered in the temple courtyards. Considering the fury used on the idols and sculptures, the stone-breaking axe must have been applied to thousands upon thousands of images of hypnotic beauty.

Giving proof of the resentment that men belonging to an inferior civilization feel upon encountering a superior civilization of individuals with a more refined culture, Islamic invaders from Arabia and western Asia broke and burned everything beautiful they came across in Hindustan. So morally degenerate were the Muslim Sultans that, rather than attract Hindu "infidels" to Islam through force of personal example and exhortation, they just built a number of mosques at the sites of torn down temples-and foolishly pretended they had triumphed over the minds and culture of the Hindus. "

" I have seen stones and columns of Hindu temples incorporated into the architecture of several mosques, including the Jama Masjid and Ahmed Shah Masjid in Ahmedabad; the mosque in the Uparkot fort of Junagadh (Gujarat) and in Vidisha (near Bhopal); the Adhai Din Ka Jhonpra right next to the famous dargah in Ajmer-and the currently controversial Bhojshala "mosque" in Dhar (near Indore).

Hindu culture was at its imaginative best and vigorously creative when the severely-allergic-to-images Muslims entered Hindustan. Islamic invaders did not just destroy countless temples and constructions but also suppressed cultural and religious practices; damaged the pristine vigor of Hindu religion, prevented the intensification of Hindu culture, debilitating it permanently, stopped the development of Hindu arts ended the creative impulse in all realms of thought and action, damaged the people's cultural pride, disrupted the transmission of values and wisdom, cultural practices and tradition from one generation to the next; destroyed the proper historical evolution of Hindu kingdoms and society, affected severely the acquisition of knowledge, research and reflection and violated the moral basis of Hindu society. The Hindus suffered immense psychic damage. The Muslims also plundered the wealth of the Hindu kingdoms, impoverished the Hindu populace, and destroyed the prosperity of Hindustan."

" Gaze in wonder at the Kailas Mandir in the Ellora caves and remember that it is carved out of a solid stone hill, an effort that (inscriptions say) took nearly 200 years. This is art as devotion. The temple built by the Rashtrakuta kings (who also built the colossal sculpture in the Elenhanta caves off Mumbai harbour) gives proof of the ancient Hindus' religious fervor.

The descendants of those who built the magnificent temples of Bhojpur and Thanjavur, Konark and Kailas, invented mathematics and brain surgery, created mindbody disciplines (yoga) of astonishing power, and built mighty empires would almost certainly have attained technological superiority over Europe.

It is not just for "political reasons" that Hindus want to build grand temples at the sites of the (wrecked) Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, the Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi, and the Mathura idgah. The efforts of religion-intoxicated and politically active Hindus to rebuild the Ram Mandir, the Kashi Vishwanath Mandir, and the Krishna Mandir are just three episodes m a one-thousand year long Hindu struggle to reclaim their culture and religion from alien invaders.

The demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya on 6 December 1992 was just one episode in the millennial struggle of the Hindus to repossess their religion-centered culture and nation. Meanwhile, hundreds of ancient Hindu temples forsaken all over Hindustan await the reawakening of Hindu cultural pride to be repaired or rebuilt and restored to their original, ancient glory.

Reference: What the invaders really did - By Rizwan Salim - hindustantimes.com - December 28, 1997

Thus it is not about anti-Islam, not at all, many muslims know what has happened and they feel bad, thus it brings about a feeling of forgiveness and a chance for understanding, however, it seems, that here it is a complete Anti-Hindu situation with an attempt to subvert and distort the truth. I have yet to see one of my muslim colleagues claim I was anti-Islamic simly because I spoke about the truth and historucal fact.

I hope I have been of some assistance.

Dr. Chauhan Gorkhali 10:13, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.