Talk:Voice of India

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[edit] Neutrality

This article appears as if it has been written by someone who is heavily prejudiced against the publishing company. To my knowledge, it is not as vehemently communal and "against minorities" as it has been made out to be. Some of the books published are scholarly written and worthy of acclaim. - Ravichandar84 10:15, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

such as which ones? If you have favourable academic recensions of any VoI books, by all means do add them. --dab (𒁳) 13:18, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP:ATT

Please note: 'factual errors' need to be cited as errors, and marked as disputed, if they are based on reliable sources. Note further: a partial list of publications is not considered standard in publishing house pages. We link to author pages; those link to book pages. Note finally: the 'heavily' is a direct quote from the Pseudoarcheology book. Please try and cite your changes, rather than deleting relevant information from mainstream, reliable sources. Hornplease 09:46, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

seeing the nature of the firm as a lobbyist platform rather than a bona fide publishing house, it may make sense to include a list of publications. dab (𒁳) 10:07, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

The author of this page, believes that publishing a book, which disputes the nature of the aryan invasion theory is a crime...I am rather surprised that a general introduction to a publishing house can be described in such contempt especially in a wiki NPOV scenario.

That the work of VOI stands vindicated today is evident from the opinion of respectable authors like Trautmann and Bryant (who recently published the Indo Aryan controversy) who have given genuine academic platforms to outline the debate. Trautmann in Aryans and British India himself concedes that it was an uncritical reading of the texts with ample text torturing which allowed a racist conception of the aryans vs the native to crop up in the first place. But K D Sethna, a disciple of Sri Aurobindo, and a polyglot had even a quarter of a century ago, in his "The problem of aryan origins" published by Aditya Prakashan arrived at the same conclusion.

Sita Ram Goyal has given almost unimpeachable evidence of destruction of more than 80,000 temples in India during the Muslim rule in India. Richard Eaton could not even scratch the surface of his thesis in his so called peer reviewed article ubiquitously quoted by a pathologically infested breed of scholars.

Finally, the publications are not subsidized. I recently purchased K D Sethna's problems of aryan origins and it cost me Rs. 500/- which is at par with Cambridge and Oxford titles in India.

It is amply clear that whoever wrote that article has not actually critically gone through the contents of VOI's profound literature, some of which is available online. Considering that, he or she is not entitled to write an article on the same by relying exclusively on secondary and obviously biased sources. The neutrality of the article stands disputed simply because he has failed to quote the other side being represented; and the quantum of criticism unleashed goes against wiki's sound maxim of not allowing criticism to overwhelm the fundamental subject content. The diatribe is both virulent and stems from personal bias. The entire article relies on second hand evidence from enemies of VOI to figure their agenda; worse their official mission statement is nowhere found.

Regards, Saurav —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.162.48.1 (talk) 18:54, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] website

voi.org has been down for a few days. It used to be hosted by http://www.airband.com/ (Carrollton, Texas). dab (𒁳) 10:14, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] section not verified

  1. "may be biased and inaccurate"
  2. "not emigrant", the two have lived abroad, according to their WP biographies,
  3. Frawley, Klostermaier are "not New-Agers"
  4. Bhagawan Gidwani is not known to be a supporter of Nationalism —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Doldrums (talk • contribs) 06:37, 4 April 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Point of View Tag

Please try to abide by the wikipedia policy of neutrality This is an encyclopedia, and as such should be a place for facts. I know little about the subject which is why I've tried to draw attention to the article to see if we can get help. If I have to be honest, the subject probably doesn't merit an article, It appears to be a vehicle for criticism, something which wikipedia is not. We should try to clean up this article, removing the bias and ensure that it has a Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. SallyBoseman 22:12, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi Sally, Voice of India is not a huge publishing company, but probably notable enough to have an article. But the editors who are owning the article are using it as a vehicle for criticism, as you point out. My impulsive edits, which you reverted, were trying to balance the criticism - criticism which is being presented as fact, but are only allegations from a couple of people. Allegations are generally unencyclopedic when made by a few individuals (with Conflict of Interest at that), unless perhaps they are kept in the criticism section, and are made by extremely notable, or reliable neutral parties. I appreciate your attempt to draw editors who are entirely uninvolved with the much larger controversy that this article is part of (see Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Hindutva_propaganda). If editors who are entirely neutral could wade into this, I for one would appreciate it. Cheers, ॐ Priyanath talk 22:36, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi, Wikipedia is not a place for political or religious disputes to be aired, nor is it a forum for anyones opinions. Wikipedia is an Encyclopedia. Let us try to come up with a neutral POV article stating what the Voice of India is and why it is notable enough to deserve an article within Wikipedia. I think we need to either radically shorten the page to remove bias and anything without a neutral POV.SallyBoseman 12:59, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Category:Controversies? Category:Criticisms? Category:Debates? This isn't an on-wiki controversy, it's a real world socio-political controversy spilling over into scholarship, and we are reporting on scholars protesting bad faith pseudoscholarly publicity stunts. Wikipedia is indeed a vehicle to elaborate on political disputes and conflicts (have you ever taken a glance at Israeli-Palestinian conflict? At all? dab (𒁳) 22:28, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
I have, but this page is supposed to be about a publishing company, there are very few facts on this page, just selected quotes, point scoring and invective, the NPOV is one of the cornerstones of the encyclopedia, without it wikipedia has no value. I'm glad you mention the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it is a well researched, on topic article and the non POV material that does appear on it is debated on the discussion page and some sort of consensus is reached, I repeat - this is supposed to be an article about a publishing company, it should be short and factual.SallyBoseman 01:11, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
well, more people have been working on that for longer. Nobody said this article is finished. Since we are debating on the discussion page: what do we have so far? There is this publishing company, owned by a well-known author of political titles in the Muslim vs. Hindu row in Indian politics, and it has put out a dozen titles or two of historical revisionism. Recently, academic reviews, which so far had ignored the company for being obviously outside their scope, have felt compelled to distance themselves from anything that might pretend to be "scholarly" about all this. That's pretty much the long and short of it, and the article does reflect that situation. You are most welcome to either add aspects we are missing, or edit the existing material for clarity and flow. The problem with the quotes is, anyting other than verbatim quotes will be nuked by our resident VoI representatives as "illegal synthesis". If you can paraphrase the gist of all this in simple prose and keep it stable, I'm all for it. dab (𒁳) 19:56, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Response to accusations

The quote from Witzel and Farmer makes an accusation against seventeen named individuals, in addition to VOI. Every one of those individuals deserves a response, not just Shendge. Perhaps better to find a quote that only maligns VOI, and then there would be no need for a response to each of the seventeen personal attacks. ॐ Priyanath talk 13:29, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

we are quoting W&F as criticizing VoI, not Shendge. If you want to discuss the criticism and the reply over at Malati Shendge, feel free to do that. Especially since Shendge didn't defend VoI, but objected to her name being listed in such unsavoury company. dab (𒁳) 13:51, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV concerns

Really what is on with this article? There is absolutely no NPOV and seems to be written by someone with practically an agenda. I have tried to rewrite this article with an NPOV, but each time my edits are reversed. Please, someone of other editors or some other guys, look over this article. To note, the introduction is written too negatively, and there is only a criticism section. Not even once is the Voice of India stand and views on the issues involved are even mentioned. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 164.100.12.40 (talk) 10:29, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

the problem appears to be that no independent reviewer has anything positive to say. Since this is essentially a propaganda outfit, it is essential that the introduction states this up front. Reviewing the article, I find that it may not be appropriate to discuss details of the internet domain holder in the lead. Also, the "criticism" and "list of publications" sections may better be presented in reverse order. The "Voice of India stand and views" is stated up front for better or worse: to contradict in print, "scientifically", the Indo-Aryan migration theory. This stated intention to be "scientific", meaning peer-reviewed, does invite academic opinion on the enterprise, which is unanimously negative. I am sorry, but "NPOV" does not mean we have to represent pseudo-scholarship as anything else than pseudo-scholarship. --dab (𒁳) 11:34, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
As far as independent reviews are concerned of the works of Voice of India, the less said the better. As can be seen from even the section of critcism in this veryt aarticle, it consists more of ad hominem than anything else. Whether this is a propaganda unit is not is more about opinions than anything scientific. To quote just one example, the Indo-Aryan question is far from settled, and both sides can marshal enough evidence to support themselves. Hence calling one of the sides propagandist, may be OK for the oppposing side, but far from suitable for an encyclopedia. Again calling Voice of India propagadist is too simplistic. They do have authors of repute like Shourie, Goel and a former director of the ASI writing for them. Finally, even the worst of criminals does deserve a fair hearing. Sadly, this article is far from being fair. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 164.100.12.40 (talk) 19:12, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Partial list of publications


[edit] Gerard Heuze

A neutral source for VOI criticism could be Gerard Heuze:

Gerard Heuze: Ou va l'Inde moderne?,p.91. In this context, Heuze mentions Voice of India several times.

[edit] Major anti-VOI POV

This article has major POV problems, mainly it seems because of Hornplease (talk · contribs) and Dbachmann (talk · contribs). About 90 percent of the article is purely negative, with extensive quotes by Michael Witzel and Bergunder, and only one single pro-VOI quote. It is even in the categories Propaganda in India and Historical revisionism (political). This article is also related to WP:BLP policy because of the authors.

Why do articles like NS Rajaram contain links to Voice of India and even Biblia Impex in the See also section? He has not only published there. I also don't put a link the publishing houses of Noam Chomsky to his article, or even a link to the Frontline magazine in the Michael Witzel article, because he published there.

I have added a little balance with this quote, but it does little to balance this extremely POV article:

The Greek Indologist Nicholas Kazanas, in a reply to Witzel, wrote: "One wonders too at the relevance of his next rather irrational comment: “Ironically, many of those expressing these anti-migrational views are emigrants themselves, engineers or technocrats like N S Rajaram, S Kak and S Kalyanaramam, who ship their ideas to India from US shores”. What indeed has this absurd statement to do with facts and evidence?… Then, it continues in the same tone of irrelevance and contempt, forgetting how many Universities and Journals spend enormous funds on useless hypotheses and ostracise all non-immigrationists: “They find allies in a broader assortment of home-grown nationalists including university professors, bank employees, and politicians (S. S. Misra, S. Talageri, K. D. Sethna, S. P. Gupta, Bh. Singh, M. Shendge, Bh. Gidwani, P. Chaudhuri, A. Shourie, S. R. Goel). They have even gained a small but vocal following in the West among "New Age" writers or researchers outside mainstream scholarship, including D. Frawley, G. Feuerstein, K. Klostermaier, and K. Elst. Whole publishing firms, such as the Voice of India and Aditya Prakashan, are devoted to propagating their ideas”. Here two further points are worthy of note: first, Prof Witzel obviously does not know what “New Age” writers are; second, the whole passage has the shrill tones of McCarthyism or any totalitarian dogmatism (and censorship). Instead of emitting such strident emotional cries and witch-hunt slogans, Prof Witzel and his followers had better re-examine their unfounded linguistic assumptions and recall the words of Edmund Leach, who was neither an Indian nationalist technocrat, nor a New-Age writer, but a solid, mainstream pillar of the academic establishment.[1] Librorum Prohibitorum (talk) 12:51, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

it's a self-declared propaganda outfit, I don't know what you want. Kazanas is not an "Indologist". I suggest you write an email to M Witzel if you want to discuss his views with him, this is a Wikipedia talkpage. "Librorum Prohibitorum", you are obviously a returning edit-warrior. I suggest you let us know your former username so we'll know if there are any standing restrictions against you. dab (𒁳) 13:09, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
I will comment later on the "neutrality" of this article. I found it funny that you called me a edit-warrior, when the only one who was making reverts until then was you. Funny, on which policy do I have to say random months old details to a random user whom I met randomly. I'm making a new start and never had any disputes with you. If somebody had a dispute with me before, then it will be obviously clear for that person, and there again theres no reason to say my months old account publicly, but I could email it to that person (unnecessary). But since I don't want to spend the rest of my wikitime with disputes, I hope I'm finished soon with disputes. I want to make it a point to edit less than a couple of days per year and I can't do this with ongoing disputes. Librorum Prohibitorum (talk) 11:46, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Neutrality to be fixed

  • The categories Hindu nationalism | Propaganda in India | Historical revisionism (political) are all categories from the pov of Michael Witzel and Bergunder cited in the article. This is not the pov of the Hindus, or of most of the VOI authors. Elst said that Goel wrote in defence of Hinduism, not of Hindutva.
  • supportive of Hindu nationalist sentiment and political ideology. see comment above
  • is allegedly "heavily subsidized". The lead is not the place for allegations
  • Together with Aditya Prakashan,... These are two separate companies. As I understand it, the Aditya was just Goel's normal book business, which he did for a living, not like the VOI, which he did after his book career.
  • Goel's intention in creating his publishing house was to contradict in print, 'scientifically', the Indo-Aryan migration theory. I would like to see the comment by Goel himself. It is strange, because Goel has never written a book on this.
  • Website. This article is about the publishing house. There is not the slightest indication that the website is directly related to the publishing house. Even on articles on websites, Wikipedia does not state the owner of the website.
  • He points out that most authors have no appropriate subject-specific study to show for themselves. This is only Bergunders opinion, but the sentence says that Bergunder is correct. It must be written: Bergunder alleges...
  • Partial list of publications. This section was only added as a filler, to make the criticism appear as less. No other publishing house article lists the publications.
  • 90 to 95 % is purely negative. This is not for what the Neutrality policy was written for. Solution: put at least the equal weight in quotes of Hindu and pro-VOI quotes in the article.
  • Why was the Kazanas quote removed? Kazanas wrote this in reply to Witzels criticism of Kazans, and if Kazanas was good enough to be criticized by Witzel (whois qouted extensively in the article), then it should also be good enough to report on Kazanas verifiable reply.
  • Why do some authors like Frawley have the VOI link in the See also section? Librorum Prohibitorum (talk) 12:09, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
  • stop implying that there is a "Hindu" view on this. Not all Hindus are confused crackpots or political extremists. There is a "Hindu nationalist", or a "Hindu religious right" view, but this cannot be passed off as "the Hindu view".
  • you fundamentally misunderstand WP:NPOV. We duly report the opinions of independent academics, and the replies by involved authors. NPOV means that if there is wide consensus on something, it will be given appropriate weight in the article. It appears that VoI is universally considered a Hindutva propaganda outfit. This isn't even disputed by those involved. If you can cite dissenting opinions, by all means do that. Just sanitizing an article according to your personal preference without supporting your opinion with independent and notable sources isn't acceptable. If you don't like mainstream opinion on some topic, you'll just have to live with Wikipedia featuring it regardless: there is nothing you can do about it, because that is what Wikipedia is built for. You may consider writing an article at Wikinfo, which is built to present topics from a "sympathetic point of view", which appears to be what you are aiming for here.

dab (𒁳) 09:58, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Wow what an unbalanced article, seems some POV Nazis have made an effort to dig up all the criticism they could find about Voice of India to present a POV, posing as objective, to readers of the article, obviously to influence opinion.Nambo (talk) 08:48, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

"influence opinion" is the entire purpose of a propaganda enterprise like VoI. Wikipedia, on the other hand does not aim to "influence opinion" other than by reporting on opinions. If you have more positive notable, independent, third party perspectives on VoI, by all means quote them. I frankly cannot imagine you'll find any independent, third party sources that would categorize VoI as anything else than the communalist propaganda outfit it plainly is, but you are free to prove me wrong. Thanks for the "POV Nazi" btw. The only "POV Nazis" I can see are the subject of the article (I mean, wth, they go as far as founding an entire publishing house just to push an unacademic fringe theory. That's rather advanced pov-pushing). We cannot conjure up redeeming perspectives on a subject if they simply aren't held by anyone. dab (𒁳) 08:55, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I am frankly surprised an experienced editor like yourself makes such a generalizing conclusion on the entire works published by Voice of India. I believe the Indigenous Aryan theory is unlikely, though that is but a small part of the works published most of which are solid in their argument structures and logical reasoning, with a minority of authors making truly outlandish claims. There are underlying illogical prejudices present if you definitively write off any pro-Hindu organizations as communalist propaganda outfits, which I'm sure you would call Hindutva organizations as well.Nambo (talk) 10:52, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

again, this isn't about "pro-Hindu" vs. "anti-Hindu". That's just what they would have you believe, just like biblical literalist Christian fundamentalists will have you believe that you are "anti-Christian" if you don't buy their crackpot views on evolution. My conclusion is based on the sources cited. Again, you are free to add other notable, independent, third party sources to change the picture. dab (𒁳) 11:00, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
There is some history to this that Bergunder doesn't really cover, but becomes clearer if you look at (a) the publication dates (and subject matter) of the various books, and (b) the rocky relationship between Ram Swarup and Sitaram Goel on one side and the Sangh Parivar on the other. It is not correct to say that VoI was intended to be an outlet of Hindutva (here, == Parivar) polemics. However, over time VoI was effectively hijacked for precisely that purpose. And, the AIT/AMT furor has become a tail wagging the dog. rudra (talk) 18:02, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Michael Witzel has no idea of politics or he wouldnt't be allying with marxists. He is well within his rights as a linguist and historian to criticize and ridicule opposite views; but the spin he gives to politics in India are so damn laughable. Similarly, the Hindu nationalist position is highly multifaceted and it cannot be reduced to the so called crackpot theories. I am afraid such crackpot racism exists only in the hands of editors like you who make a living out of this dreadful business of abusing Hinduism and its votaries. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.162.48.1 (talk) 19:04, 7 May 2008 (UTC)