Talk:History of Pakistan/Archive 4

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Regarding the dispute

I don't know if the dispute is still ongoing, but several Indian editors have insisted that pre-1947 history should not be included in this article. Their rationale is that since Pakistan was not a country back then, all the pre-1947 history of the region that now encompasses Pakistan should not be in this article. If you all direct your attention to History of the United States, you will notice that the article dosen't begin the story from the year 1776, rather from much earlier. So please, think about how ridiculous your arguments are. It would be criminal to not include the history of all the provinces and territories that are Pakistan today in this article. Zaindy87 07:47, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I completely agree with you Zaindy. The example I have always given in this dispute is my home country of the United Kingdom. The Romans ruled a large part of Britain for several centuries even though they originated in Italy. It would be ludicrous to claim that only the Italy article should be allowed to mention the Romans. In the same vein of thought, it is perfectly valid to discuss the various kingdoms, empires etc. that covered all or part of the modern territory of Pakistan even though Pakistan did not exist at the time. Green Giant 15:56, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
If you have any reasonable arguments (other than giving examples of other wikipedia articles committing similar blunders or making entirely irrelevant comparisons), you're most welcome to put them forward. Regards, deeptrivia (talk) 20:57, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
Don't get me wrong Deeptrivia, I opposed the silly-tricks brigade which tried to claim Pakistan was an ancient entity, when quite clearly it is no more than 60 years old, maybe stretched to 77 years as a concept. However, you cannot ignore the fact that history took place in the areas which today form Pakistan. It's perfectly valid for the Harrapan/Saravati-Sindhu/Indus Valley Civilisation to get a mention in both the India and Pakistan articles. Don't forget that Wikipedia often needs precedents exactly like the one Zaindy came up with. I'd like to see you try to convince the editors at the United States article that they shouldn't include pre-1776 history in the article. Green Giant 21:29, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
The content on ancient and neolithic eras in history of the United States is limited to one rather short section and the 200 years of very influential colonial prehistory is reasonable short as well. This despite the fact that the US has been around far longer than Pakistan. More than half of the content of this article is about eras when the Pakistan wasn't even a remote possibility. That's a good example of undue coverage. It's basically a Pakistani POV fork.
Peter Isotalo 22:57, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
Similarily I think this article should focus on the main topic and not get too entrenched in history that is presented in more relevant articles but a couple of paragraphs should make general mention of various periods up to the Raj with wikilinks to take them to the relevant articles. The main starting point however should not be 1947 (independence), 1940 (Lahore resolution), 1933 (the proposal of the name) or even 1930 (Allama Iqbals speech). It should start at 1906 with the founding of the Muslim League. Like it or loathe it the League was the major proponent of Pakistan even if originally it was in favour of a united India - and it would be absurd to begin anywhere else. Roughly I propose the article should keep the lead section and everything from section 8.3 (The British Raj) onwards. Green Giant (talk) 02:18, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
I agree. I haven't been proposing that no mention of the pre-1947 be made, but am mostly concerned with the focus of the article. History up to the beginning of the 20th century should be covered by a few lines in the lead. History until 1940 could be another section. Then there could be further sections covering 1940-1947, and a much more extensive treatment of modern history. deeptrivia (talk) 04:19, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Refocussing and raising the standards

It is a crying shame that this article has lost it's focus and is filled with numerous detailed sections on periods of history covered elsewhere. I propose this article be refocussed away from an extensive prehistory and more towards a modern history. We cannot just sit idly by and wait for it to be slowly truncated to the relevant sections. There are about 35KB of useful text buried beneath 50KB of prehistory. If readers wish to know about Mehrgarh or the Kushans, then they should be pointed to the relevant articles and not have it detailed here. The vacous arguments about whether these sections fit in Pakistan or India is pointless as it is covered in the History of India article whilst the History of the Republic of India is entirely about events from 1947 onwards. The focus of this article should be on the independent history of Pakistan and the events which lead to independence. I know there are a few purists who would like to see only post-1947 events detailed but a proper treatment of this topic has to include why Pakistan was formed. The founding of the Muslim League is the most relevant starting point for this purpose because it is the single most important organisation behind the Pakistan movement. Given the extensive debate above and the inertia that has produced, I am going to remove all the sections up to section 8.3 (British Raj) except the lead section which needs refinement. Green Giant (talk) 16:25, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Your quote: "The vacous (sic) arguments about whether these sections fit in Pakistan or India is (sic) pointless as it is (sic) covered in the History of India article whilst the History of the Republic of India is entirely about events from 1947 onwards." This is a long ongoing dispute. Your late arrival to it doesn't give you any more license to unilaterally remove content than anyone else before you. Please first read the talk page of the History of India page as well as this talk page, before you insinuate again that the pre-1947 material is covered in the History of India article. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:48, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
Please read the "To do list" at the top of the Talk:History of India page, which says:
  • Please pay attention to the following approach (as discussed in the talk page):
1. Give more importance to events that were wholly centered within India's current day boundaries, or had a majority control of Indian territory. (eg Hoysala Kingdom, Mughal dynasty)
2. Give less of an importance to kingdoms that overlapped into India and had less of a bearing (eg Indo-Greek Kingdom)
3. Remember this article is supposed to be a summary, so we can choose to retain only the core events that shaped the country.Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:56, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I didn't arrive late in this debate - I was one of the main contributors involved in raising Pakistan to featured article status in 2006. I have actually read the very lengthy debates and been involved in them - I have also seen the inertia this has produced. The articles on History of the Republic of India and History of Bangladesh are national histories and correctly concentrate on the post-1947 and post-1971 histories respectively, whilst History of India is a history of the subcontinent in general and is focussed on the overall history but refrains from going into post-1947 history. The topic of this article is the history of Pakistan, not the history of Mehrgarh or the IVC or the Kushans because the relevant articles already cover this material. I am more than aware of the importance that some Pakistanis attach to the arrival of Muhammad bin Qasim or to the Mughal Empire but there is an infobox sat near the top with all the links a reader needs. If we are to take the current approach then perhaps we should also include the history of the Pakistani region right back to the Hadean era and what species of dinsoaur may have lived there? The crucial issue here is whether the IVC is more relevant to the history of Pakistan than the Muslim League? The obvious answer is the Muslim League. Green Giant (talk) 17:30, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

You may have contributed to the Pakistan article, however, you haven't to this article. (See this history website, type: History of Pakistan, and wait for a few seconds; you have half a dozen edits, which I'm guessing are all recent ones.) But that aside, please take a look at the History of Bangladesh page, if you think it concentrates on the post-1971 history. Fully two-thirds of the article is about the pre-1947 history. Will reply to your other points later. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:44, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

So your basis for reverting me is that I have only made 6 edits to this article? The number of edits made is not always a reliable indicator of the contribution of an editor. Quite often I make changes in one go that some editors might do in several edits. Please tell me you are not going to defend the current state of this article because you made 185 edits out of 1300+ total edits to the article? I have just as much of an interest in this article as anyone else - considering I have made 262 edits to Pakistan, as well as numerous edits to related articles like Qaumi Tarana, Karachi, Port of Karachi, Historical regions of Pakistan, and Divisions of Pakistan. I could understand your stance if this was a recently featured article but I doubt it would stand up to even good article standards at the moment. I will concede that the Bangladesh history article is very unfocussed and that is certainly something that needs attention. It does not however detract from the fact that this particular article should be focussed on the modern history of Pakistan and not the ancient history covered by more relevant articles. When an uninformed reader looks at the current state of the article they are more than likely to get the impression that Pakistan has existed for thousands of years. I am not averse to mention being made of the fact that parts of the IVC and other civilizations did cover parts of modern Pakistan but I am opposed to 50KB of coatrack text covering the essential points. As you pointed out with the todo list from History of India, we need to focus on the core events that shaped the formation of Pakistan - i.e. the Muslim League, Jinnah, Iqbal, Rahmat Ali, the Pakistan Resolution etc and not the IVC or Mehrgarh. Green Giant (talk) 18:37, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I misspoke, what I meant was not type: History of Pakistan, but Talk:History of Pakistan. There too you had half a dozen edits, when I wrote that. In other words, you are not someone who has taken part in this discussion either on this talk page or on the Talk:History of India page, your credentials notwithstanding. Any major change like deleting half the article, needs to be discussed first, especially by someone who has not been party to previous discussion. That is why I reverted your edit.
As for your points: a) I don't disagree that this article needs to be improved and that the first half needs to be summarized more, b) I think the question of what the History of Pakistan should include is more complicated (setting aside, for the moment, the argument of nationalists in both Pakistan and India, and setting aside also what the secondary and tertiary sources say). Since I have only brief snatches of time today, let me just say that Peru and Indonesia, both FAs, are both good models for Pakistan. They are both relatively recent nation-states, especially the latter, and the names too are relatively recent: Peru goes back to the 16th century and Indonesia to early 20th century. Both have histories that are shared with other modern nations (Ecuador, Malaysia, resp.) Yet, their history sections/pages, Peru#History (and History of Peru) and Indonesia#History (and History of Indonesia) don't hesitate to discuss the early history. After all, the name "India" only goes back to the 5th century BC, so IVC or the Vedic Period shouldn't really be a part of the History of India. Again, without getting into complicated historiographic discussions, I think it is better to be inclusive, as user:Ragib has stated earlier on this and the History of India pages. There is no reason why the History of Pakistan shouldn't include (and stress) Mehrgarh, IVC, Achaemenids, the Indo-Sassanians, Indo-Greeks, Muslim sultanates in Sind, Baluchistan, in other words, histories that are relevant to the region that comprises today's Pakistan, even if the name "Pakistan," and the most direct history of the nation-state that goes under that name, is relatively recent. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:11, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
As I have said before on this and other pages, what is needed is a History of South Asia time-line page similar to History_of_the_British_Isles. Notice that the British Isles page has histories both by Geography and by States. If there is a page like that for South Asia, the History of India page would not be needed. There would just be three modern histories of Republics of Bangladesh, India and Pakistan and before that there would be the History of the British Indian Empire or History of the British Crown Colony of Ceylon, or Mehrgarh, or Indus Valley Civilization, etc. that would be indicated in the time-line. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:55, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
Here is another beautiful timeline: South Asia: A Timeline of Art History. If someone could do this on Wikipedia, with links to the individual articles, it would be great. I would do it myself, but time line seems to require some kind of programming: see the Timeline history of the British Isles. Does anyone know how to do this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fowler&fowler (talk • contribs) 22:13, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
PS Please ignore the question I asked about the timeline template. I figured out how to create one. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:27, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I apologise if I seemed a little offhand with my earlier message, but I am eager to break the inertia on this article. It was a little too bold of me to delete the top part but essentially that is the first hurdle in improving this article. Ever since we improved Pakistan, I have been meaning to focus here but I have had a mixture of real-life commitments over the last year or so. However, I now have a lot more time and I am determined to trim the ecxess fat from this article. As to your suggestions, that is exactly what I am proposing - three relevant and precise national histories plus separate articles to cover the Raj, Mughals, etc. I just find 50KB to be absurd when the actual modern history covers about half that. Speaking from a neutral position I can only say that the relevant starting point has to be 1906 because uninformed readers will want to know why Pakistan came into existence as opposed to remaining part of a united India. Topics like the Muslim League, Iqbal's speech and the Lahore resolution are inextricably linked to the foundation of Pakistan. I am also opposed to any sections covering history before that point apart from a mention in the lead section and obviously that big infobox near the top. Green Giant (talk) 03:40, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Note: I've removed the portions of the "To do list" on the Talk:History of India, that were neither official policy at WP:HoI, nor the result of any reasonably comprehensive discussion elsewhere. F&F has agreed in preceding discussions that putting up a pre-/ancient/medieval history of the post-1947 political entity "Pakistan" (as opposed to cultural/geographical entities like Punjab , Balochistan or Indian subcontinent) is misleading. Moreover, it comes at the expense of limiting the content on the actual "history of Pakistan" to a couple of tiny sections, with no other possible article to cover it. I also fail to understand on what basis is the compartmentalization approach (based on Radcliffe's 1947 line) proposed by user:Ragib called the inclusive approach, when it appears to be exactly the opposite. Also, at the risk of being repetitious, there are obvious problems with phrases such as "the region that comprises today's Pakistan", since the there is no basis to delineate the disparate parts of the current territory of Pakistan as a "region" other than 20th century politics (other than as parts of the a lower resolution region, the Indian subcontinent), which is irrelevant while discussion earlier history. It is important to understand that it's not only the name "Pakistan" that is "relatively recent", but the whole idea of putting some Indo-Aryan (half of Punjab, Sindh), and some Iranian (half Balochistan, half Afghania) regions together as one entity separate from other parts of Indo-Aryan and Iranian regions, is "relatively recent", with little significance to pre-20th century history. This contrasts with some other history article examples. Also, note that we have no reason to object to an article on the Natural history of Australia covering 100s of millions of years, although the name is no older than the 18th century. My objection to putting old history on this article is not merely due to the fact that the name didn't exist before the 20th century, but is also informed by the cultural, geographical, political and socio-economic aspects. There should be at least one good reason to define the current territories of Pakistan as a region for which a pre 20th century history could be written. deeptrivia (talk) 04:11, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
To user: Green Giant: I think the History of the modern nation state of Pakistan should really begin with the Muslim social movements of the second half of the 19th century and the 1871 Census of British India, when areas of Muslim majority were first identified, not just with the founding of the Muslim League. See my sub-page: Muslim Social Movements, Syed Ahmed Khan, Muslim League 1870s-1906. That said, I will, however, not agree to the removal of the pre-1870s material. Reduction, yes; but removal, no. I think it would be fair to reduce it, so that it (the pre-1870s material) is a third of the article. Until such time as a comprehensive History of South Asia timeline/article is written and the History of India and the History of the Republic of India are merged, I will not support any removal of content. Also, I think user:Tombseye should be included in this discussion, since he had a major role both in earlier discussion and writing. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 08:39, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
As far as the 19thC social movements I would agree that they should be included but I think for the pre-1870 history there should be mention of that in the lead and maybe 3-4 paragraphs in the main sections at most. In fact I don't see it needing to be any larger than the first four paragraphs of Pakistan#History. However I don't agree that we should wait for the timeline to be finished as any material deemed necessary can always be recovered from the previous versions of the article. Green Giant (talk) 09:18, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
To user:Green Giant: Now I am even more confused. The Pakistan#History is quite detailed for a country article, and has been fairly stable since January 2007 when I first took a look at it. It refers at the very top to History of Pakistan. Most people, when they read a compressed history in a country page, and then click on the actual History page expect to find more details. Imagine, then, their surprise upon seeing the first four paragraphs of the country page history repeated (or only minimally expanded), but the last four balloon to fill up the whole article. How is an average reader, who is not privy to the various ideologies that battle on these pages, going to make sense of this? The bottom line for me is this: Wikipedia is written for readers, not for editors. An average reader who clicks on the history of a country, expects to see the history of the region that forms the country, not just the history of the nation state[citation needed]. While I agree that the current version is lop-sided in one direction (ancient), your proposed version is lop-sided in the other direction (modern). I think there is a happy medium (ancient:modern::1:2) that would provide the best information with the best emphasis. That I can sign off on. Anything less, in my view, by way of ancient history, especially in light of Pakistan#History, would require an RfC. And we've already had a few of those, all inconclusive. Here is my proposal. Why don't we reduce the pre-1870s text so that it is one-third of the article length? Once that is done, we can discuss the emphasis one more time. (I should add that I have no ax to grind: I have added very little text to this article, with the exception of Mehrgarh and the lead: most of my edits have involved removing POV statements, and adding pictures and maps.) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:13, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
You are right, but when the Pakistan article was featured in March 2006, the history section was shorter - it has since mushroomed to about double it's original size, partly because some of the history has been sneaked into the Pakistan#Government_and_Politics section. That is one of the issues I intend to challenge and address very soon before a featured article review strips the article of it's star. However, I see your point about readers expecting something more detailed but I don't feel too much emphasis should go on pre-1870 events. I know it seems restrictive but we should be focussed on the events leading up to independence and the history since then. Green Giant (talk) 11:43, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

The Islamic history from the 8th century onward has to be included in this article, as it is important to modern day Pakistan. The bulk of Encarta's history on Pakistan is devoted to Muslim rule. [1] Also Encarta mention's "Pakistan’s cultural identity is traced to the centuries of Muslim rule in the region". The goverment of Pakistan mentions that "its foundation was laid" in 711. [2] One of the reasons that Pakistan was created was because Hindus and Muslims have two different histories. these people are heroes in Pakistan. they have roads, ports, missiles named in their honor, to remove them from the article is ludicrous. Noor Aalam (talk) 16:24, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Certainly I am not opposed to a paragraph or so but the current but this article has to concentrate on the events which directly lead to the formation of Pakistan. As it stands, there are six sections on Muslim empires but each of these has one or main articles which are appropriate places for this level of detail. Those six sections fomr about 20% of the article already. I can see the temptation to include extensive sections on these empires because the point of both the Muslim League and Pakistan is how to define the Muslim identity. Yes these rulers are extremely popular in Pakistan but it does not change the fact that it was the Muslim League which pushed through the creation of Pakistan. Green Giant (talk) 19:08, 21 November 2007 (UTC)