Wikipedia:Featured article review/Political integration of India/archive1

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

The article was kept 12:22, 15 December 2007.

[edit] Political integration of India

[edit] Review commentary

Notified WT:IND

Fails 1c (ie., not enough refs from reliable sources, major part of the article is unsourced). Another concern is comprehensiveness - not enough detail about the Northeastern states, for example. Issues related to integration of some of the northeastern states still linger and are at the heart of some of its problems and need to be treated in more detail. Sarvagnya 08:05, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Sarvagnya, please follow the instructions at the top of WP:FAR to notify involved editors and relevant WikiProjects, and follow the samples on other FARs to post the notifications here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:23, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

The involved editor has left and locked his page. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 07:44, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, and that's a big problem here. Because he had this book from which most citations of the article are given, and the rest of the article is based on that book(s). I don't know if there is anybody else involved in wikiproject India in possession of the book. The book was used as a reference all through-out the article. --Dwaipayan (talk) 19:31, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

As far as I can see, this is precisely the problem with the article. It relies entirely too much on that one book, and as a result has a number of gaps and inaccuracies. For example, the Standstill Agreements were critical documents in the accession process, but the article makes no mention of them whatsoever, save in reference to Kashmir. The Covenants of Merger used to create big states from small princely statelets should also be at least be mentioned. All this is probably because the principal source used focused on Patel's role, and therefore did not dwell on the elements of the accession process where he did not participate. V.P. Menon's book, which is a far more relevant source, is only used in passing in one reference.

More fundamentally, the article thoroughly ignores the fact that the integration process did not begin upon independence, but well before that, during British rule itself. Integration was always a big Congress project, and the British Government toyed with it on and off, coming up with the Federal Scheme of 1930, for example, which would have integrated all of India - including British India and the princely states - under one government (it was only the outbreak of the second world war that caused this to be abandoned). Ian Copland's work discusses these project, and their position within the overall process of integration of India, in great detail. Again, because this article relies entirely too much on a description of Patel's role, it misses this altogether.

Finally, the end peters out altogether. It seems to me that the article isn't quite sure what it's trying to do here. Is the article principally about the integration of princely states into India, or is it about the broader process of forging a national identity? The references to the reorganisation of states and seccessionist movements are really only relevant if it is the latter, but at present the focus of the article seems to be on the former, with these just being tacked on as a footnote, which doesn't really work. If we're going to look at the latter, we'll need to focus on the extent to which regional identities both presented problems to be overcome in acheiving political integration, and tools that were used to further political integration, and focus a little more on regions such as the North-East. We'll also need to broaden the article's treatment of seccessionism - much of the Government's policy on this point, including the 16th Amendment to the Constitution, was shaped by the Tamil secessionist movement led by the DMK, which doesn't even merit a mention at the moment.

Notwithstanding this list, I think the article's problems can be fixed with relatively little effort and the article kept as an FA. But it will require looking at a whole lot of other sources, and not just the source that was originally used to write the article, and it will need some level of consensus on what exactly the "integration" the article's title focuses on is supposed to be - the one-off integration of princely states, or the wider ongoing project of what we often call "national integration". -- Arvind 11:22, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Arvind, what do you exactly mean by the ongoing process of national integration? This article focuses on the political integration that took place around the independence of India. If you mean by "ongoing project" the process of controlling several dis-integrative movements (Khalistan etc), I don't think that comes under the purview of this article. Yes, it does need sources. Are you in possession of the sources you talked about/or any other sources. Those will be extremely helpful to save the FA status of this article.--Dwaipayan (talk) 02:52, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

This article focuses on the political integration that took place around the independence of India.: No, it doesn't. Read the last three sections of the article. The article covers the reorganisation of states, the Punjab problem, Sikkim, seccessionism in the North-East, the creation of new states in 2000, the Telengana movement - all of which have nothing to do with the political integration that took place around the independence of India. They deal with what you say is "beyond the purview of this article". So, either we decide that the article should focus only on integrating the princely states into India - in which case we take all this out - or we decide that it should have a broader focus, in which case we talk about how successive governments dealt with the problem of creating a national identity and controlling secessionist movements.

I have access to Ian Copland's work, and I think I have a copy of VP Menon's book lying around somewhere. It is my intention to work on adding info from them, and from other sources, over the coming week. -- Arvind 13:40, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I was wrong. The article has broader focus. Can you please go ahead, adding references and trying to save the article?--Dwaipayan (talk) 15:58, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

(unindent) I'm working on it - the past week's been a bit busy at work. I'm about half-way through reworking the bit of the article dealing with the integration of the princely states. But I really have no idea what to do with the rest of the article, though. Should the article deal with Goa, Pondicherry, Sikkim, secessionism, regionalism, etc., or should it stick to dealing with the princely states? The status quo - where the article deals haphazardly with a few random aspects of these issues - isn't really something we can stick with, but which way should the article go? -- Arvind (talk) 13:21, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

imo, the article should deal primarily and largely with the events leading upto the consolidation of princely states into India and then the subsequent reorganization of the states based on linguistic demographics. A section should also deal with the slo-mo restructuring that keeps happening every now and then with states being split to form new states (chattisgarh etc etc..), creation of new UTs etc.,. A section should also be dedicated to discuss the political, sociological and other(if any) impact that the integration (ie., consolidation of princely states under one political entity + reorg of states) had in the decades that followed. Here, the various khalistan, northeast, dmk secessionism etc., issues can be dealt in as WP:SS way as possible. Sarvagnya 23:50, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Just an update, so people don't think this has gone dead - I'm very much working on the article, and I hope to post a revised version which addresses most of these concerns by the end of this week. -- Arvind (talk) 12:40, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are comprehensiveness (1b) and referencing (1c). Marskell (talk) 14:39, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

• Comment I've now made several rather substantial changes to the article. The article now deals only with the process of integration and the issues that arose therefrom - so it deals with the seccessionist movements in Kashmir, Tripura and Manipur, but not Punjab or Tamil Nadu, because the latter had nothing to do with the integration of the princely states or colonial enclaves into India. I've significantly expanded on the article's description of the integration process, because it was brief to the point of being misleading (for example, the privy purses had nothing to do with the initial instrument of accession as the article used to claim - they were provided as compensation for merger and the loss of princely prerogative). This's increased the size considerably, but I think this is necessary to address the issue of comprehensiveness, and at approximately 8500 words, it's still within the guidelines of WP:SS. I've also added a section on modern critical perspectives, which strikes me as being essential for encyclopaedic coverage. I believe this should address all issues raised thus far and should ensure that the article is kept, but I'd like to hear other views. Also, assistance with proofreading and polishing up the language would be welcome. -- Arvind (talk) 23:28, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, my changes have been reverted without any explanation by User:Bharatveer, right back to the version that started this process. I've asked him to explain, but I'm not interested in getting into a revert war so I have not reinstated my changes. The version I'd worked on is here. -- Arvind (talk) 11:19, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

• Fixes needed.
  • Almost every section heading starts with "The"; see WP:MSH. Why does Fast-track integration: Merger Agreements have a capital A? Can the section headings be shortened?
    • I've removed most "the"s (the three that remain are justified, I think) and shortened the headings. -- Arvind (talk) 10:37, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Copyedit needs, sample sentence:
    • The termination of paramountcy would have in principle have meant that all rights that flowed from the states' relationship with the British crown would return to them, leaving them free to negotiate relationships with the new states of Indian and Pakistan "on a basis of complete freedom."
      • Hm. I suspect I am constitutionally incapable of writing short sentences. I would be quite grateful for help from other editors on copyediting. -- Arvind (talk) 10:37, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
        • It not only needs to be shorter, it has a grammatical error; can you get someone to run through the text? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:50, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
          • Thank you very much for your help with the overlinking. The copyeditor's league seems to be backlogged, but I'll ask on the India Wikiproject. Sundar has already copyedited two sections. -- Arvind (talk) 09:51, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Lots of WP:OVERLINKing, see WP:MOSLINK and also lots ofWP:MOSDATE linking issues, full dates should be linked, sample edit:[1]
    • I've fixed the date issues, but I'd like it if someone else could take a look at the overlinking. -- Arvind (talk) 10:37, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Can anyone find a way to work the bolded title into the first line, per WP:LEAD?
  • I will ask Brighterorange (talk · contribs) to fix the endashes on the page ranges in refs.

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:19, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

• Also, please consider the use of named refs (see WP:FN) to reduce the lengthy citation list and combine like refs into one line. Sample:[2] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:07, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I've combined all the duplicates I could find. -- Arvind (talk) 10:37, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.