I came across this article (again) while working on some Colonial India-related articles on Monday. (I realized the next day that I had made a few edits to it in March 2008.)
Mysore is variously a city, a district, and a larger historical region in southern India. In its last manifestation, it is also a major topic of historical study.
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In my cursory read I noticed three things about the article
My spur-of-the-moment assessment at that time was that the primary authors of this article had committed a continuum fallacy of blurring the distinction between chiefdom, principality, petty kingdom, independent Kingdom, and princely state. Mysore, which was each of these entities but at different times, was being referred to—for the entire time period—as "Kingdom," which it really only was during the period 1761 to 1799. (For example, it was only in 1610, that the Wodeyar rulers of Mysore (town) managed to conquer the fort at Seringapatam 20 miles away. See map here. Mysore region is in yellow, Mysore town is at the lower end of this region.) I was perturbed by the infobox as well, since it at least had the appearance of historiographical revisionism: not only was the Hindu dynasty of the Wodeyars, which is normally not the focus of historians, being given a long tenure (of over 500 years), but also the two Muslim rulers of Mysore, Haider Ali and Tipu Sultan, the overwhelming focus of historians, were being recognized only in parentheses and as "de facto" in the text. (I became more perturbed later when I realized that the Wodeyars had links to Hindu nationalism, in particular to VHP or the World Hindu Organization, whose first chairman in the late 1960s was the Wodeyar ex-ruler of Mysore. I should add that I don't mean to imply that the article is deliberately slanted because of Hindu nationalist sympathies of any of its authors, but that Hindu nationalist revisionism is a legitimate issue in the recent historiography of Mysore.) I made a post, which I later wished had been more polite, on this article's talk page. The primary author of this article user:Dineshkannambadi, replied in a few hours, however, the replies did not address my concerns adequately. (See my post on talk page and reply.) I made one more attempt, where I was more specific (see one more attempt); however, that didn't elicit any response from the primary author. I next searched the literature myself. In a few hours on Monday night, I managed to collect a large number of supportive references that contradict many of the assumptions of this article. Moreover, the list of authors of these references include some of the best-known historians working in the fields of early-modern or modern India. (i) List of authors. (ii) Evidence for the statement: Mysore was more or less a chiefdom until 1610, that from 1610 until 1761 either a principality or a petty kingdom, or both, but was not unambiguously independent supra-local entity. See supportive evidence. (iii) Evidence for the statement: Haider Ali and Tipu Sultan were rulers of Mysore (without the use of any qualification, such as "de facto"). See evidence here. (iv) Evidence for statement: After Tipu Sultan's death in 1799, the Wodeyars were restored by the British in a puppet sovereignty; in particular, the British took the state back between 1831 and 1881, and that this entity is usually called a princely state, not a kingdom. See evidence here. Although, the lead does now refer to it as a "princely state" as well, it had not done so until my edits of March 2008. See for example, Wikipedia pages for the other, larger, states: Hyderabad state, Princely state of Kashmir and Jammu. (v) A little later, I also became aware of some possible ideological issues related to this article: (a) the connections of the Wodeyars to the Hindu right, and (b) the "revised" views of Tipu Sultan and Haider Ali constructed by some Hindu nationalist historians in the 1990s. Please see this section for the evidence. After I posted the sources, the primary author user:Dineshkannambadi made a post, Dinesh's sources; however, I felt that it didn't address my concerns either. |
My concerns |
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I want to say at the outset that I am aware that a lot of hard work has gone into this article. However, I feel that the article has some deficiencies. Here are my concerns:
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List of authors who have published on the topics covered in Kingdom of Mysore |
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Sources for nature of Wodeyar "rule" up to 1761 |
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Note: "Wodeyar" is sometimes spelled "Wodiyar," "Wadiyar," or "Wadiar."
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Sources for Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan (1761 to 1799) |
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Note: "Wodeyar" is sometimes spelled "Wodiyar," "Wadiyar," or "Wadiar."
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Sources for Wodeyar "rule" 1799 to 1947 |
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Note: "Wodeyar" is sometimes spelled "Wodiyar," "Wadiyar," or "Wadiar."
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Neologism and Other Princely States on Wikipeida |
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Princely states in India were not referred to as "Kingdom of ...." In fact, other Wikipedia pages for the princely states do not use "Kingdom" in their page name. The use of the appellation "Kingdom of Mysore" to Mysore state during the years 1799–1947 is consequently a neologism and violates Featured Article Criterion 1 (c). Here some examples of other princely state:
The primary authors of this FA need to explain why the Kingdom of Mysore alone should get this special dispensation. |
Sources on ideological issues related to Kingdom of Mysore article |
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Note: "Wodeyar" is sometimes spelled "Wodiyar," "Wadiyar," or "Wadiar."
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Assessment of sources by Fowler&fowler: |
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There are a total of 166 footnotes (counting repeats) in the article; of these, 75 belong to (a) lead and the first three sections: History, Economy, and Administration, and the remaining 91 to (b) the remaining two sections: Culture and Architecture. In group (a) 45 footnotes refer to one book: Kamath, 2001 (see below), 11 to Chopra et al, and 7 to Pranesh. None of these books, in my view, would belong to a standard bibliography for this topic. The single exception is a minor reference to a book of Burton Stein. I should add that Group (a), i.e. the lead and the first three sections (History, Economy, and Administration) are my areas of concern. Most of the remaining footnotes in group (a) are to facsimile reprints (actually, in these examples, likely xerox prints) of books published anywhere between 50 and a 100 years ago. These books have the tell tale "title page" printed in late-20th century type, followed by hundreds of pages in late 19th century type! However, the citations (and likely the books themselves) don't provide the publication year of the original, only of the reprint! This is inexcusable in any Wikipedia article, let alone an FA. For example, in the first example below, a dated reference, whose last edition was published in 1921, is masquerading in this article as a relatively modern reference published in 1982! These books, I might add, are not being used as primary sources, as they sometimes are by scholars, but as secondary sources!
This is a facsimile reprint of the a book published in 1921; see also more publishing details in the Nepal National Library. Notice that the publisher has taken the liberty of changing the title of the book, "A History of Kanarese Literature" (as shown at the top of the even numbered pages) to the more modern, " A History of Kannada Literature" (as shown in the title page and the book ISBN information). This in turn has been reduced to simply "Kannada Literature" in the citation itself!
Although this source is listed as being published in 2004, it is in fact a facsimile reprint of a 1911 edition brought out by a publisher that has in recent years had been publishing many older works (sometimes illegally) in India. Here is a reference to the original 1911 edition. No acknowledgment is made on the Kingdom of Mysore page that this is really a 1911 publication! Notice though that the introduction is dated 1911, so it would be difficult to not notice that something doesn't quite add up.
The same problem here. This too is a facsimile reproduction of this 1934 book. No acknowledgment is made of this publication's earlier (1934) provenance on the Kingdom of Mysore page. It simply appears as a 1988 publication! (As an aside, notice in the above 1934 link that the author died in 1936. The author's copyright, which in India is valid for 60 after the death of the author, would have expired in 1996; however, the book was published in 1988. I can't say for sure, but my guess is that the publication was illegal in 1988. I've noticed other more glaring violations by the same (and other) publishers in India.)
The above book is a reprint of the 1980 edition. The book has not been reviewed in any journal that I could find in any of the databases. The publisher is little known even in India. I had an acquaintance in India call the publisher in Bangalore, and they said the book is now used in colleges and high-schools in the state of Karnataka (new name for Mysore) and sells for approximately Rs. 65 ($1.50). They bring out a new "edition" every year, which is more or less a reprint.
This book too has not been reviewed in any journal that I could locate. The publisher is better-known in India than Jupiter Books, but it too mostly publishes text-books, not scholarly works (which are published, for example, by Oxford University Press (India), Penguin (India), or Macmillan (India). In addition, it is not clear if the 2003 edition is a reprint of the 1979 edition or a new edition (since the ISBN refers to the 1979 edition).
A Ph.D. dissertation submitted to the Department of Music, Bangalore University, and published in Bangalore by a local (i.e. not India-wide publisher). It is referenced seven times in the History section.
This is a pioneering (but very much dated) history of South India published over 50 years ago. Here are two reviews:
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Here the details about the Wodeyar "rule" between 1714 and 1904, a period of 190 years:
Years of child or teenage rule: 1714 to 1722 (8 years); 1734 to 1748 (14 years); 1766 to 1768 (2 years); 1772 to 1776 (4 years); 1776 to 1786 (10 years); 1799 to 1815 (16 years); 1881 to 1884 (3 years); 1894 to 1904 (6 years); In addition, there are the years of the Tipu Sultan's interregnum 1786 to 1799 (13 years), which, in any case, from 1786 to 1796 would have corresponded to Chamaraja Wodeyar VIII's ages 12 to 22 (when the latter died). And the years of British Administration 1830 to 1881 Total period of Wodeyar child, teenage, or non- rule = 4 + 14 + 2 + 4 + 10 + 13 + 16 + 50 + 3 + 6 = 126 years. Thus during the 190 years from 1714 to 1904, a full two thirds were ruled either by Wodeyar children or teenagers, by Tipu Sultan or by the British. In short by people other than the Wodeyars. Please don't bring up the technical difference between adulthood (18) and end of teenage years (20); it doesn't substantially change the computation. Please also don't bring up WP:OR, I have plenty of sources that attest to the years of Wodeyar non-rule between 1714 and 1904. If you add to that the years of Haidar Ali's "de facto" rule 1761 to 1766 (5 years) and 1768 to 1772 (4 years), it becomes 135 out of 190 years, we can say that 70 per cent of the time from 1714 to 1904 a Wodeyar was not in control of the "Kingdom of Mysore."
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Until late August 2007, the Kingdom of Mysore page was a short article and it had no references; however, it was ideologically more balanced and more in consonance with the work of scholars who have worked on Mysore. The page had several history sections consisting of:
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“ | The Chiefdom of Mysore (Kannada ಮೈಸೂರು ಸಾಮ್ರಾಜ್ಯ ) (1399–1761 CE) was a chiefdom of southern India founded in 1399 by Yaduraya in the region of the modern city of Mysore. The chiefdom, which was ruled by the Wodeyar family, served as a feudatory of the Vijayanagara Empire until the empire's decline in 1565. Later, during a period when multiple feudatory rulers claimed independence in southern India, the chiefdom was consolidated. The chiefdom became the Kingdom of Mysore under the Sultans Haider Ali and his son Tipu Sultan. During this time, it came into conflict with the Maratha Empire, the British Empire, the Nizam of Golconda and the rulers of Travancore and Malabar. However, their most well known conflicts were the four Anglo-Mysore wars. Success in the first two Anglo-Mysore wars was followed by defeat in the latter two and ending with Tipu Sultan's death in 1799. This resulted in the British taking over large parts of the kingdom, restoring a five year old Wodeyar child on the throne of the Princely State of Mysore, styling him as a Maharaja, and subjecting him to enough protections to secure subservience. Soon, on account of the young ruler's profligate spending and the Nagar rebellion in southwestern Mysore, the British retook the governance of the princely state in a new Commissionership of Mysore which lasted from 1831 to 1881. Wodeyars were then reinstated and continued to rule the state until Indian independence in 1947, when Mysore was merged with the Union of India. | ” |
Dear FAR reader: Since the first FAR had quickly spiraled into a lengthy content dispute, I will make only this one post in this second FAR. (I assuming that you have either already read My concerns, referred to above, or will soon do. That's where the meat of my criticism is.) In the History, Economy, and Administration sections of this featured article, the college text-book, A Concise History of Karnataka from Pre-historic Times to the Present, by historian Suryanath U. Kamath, has been footnoted 45 times (counting repeats) among a total of 57 footnotes (also counting repeats). Earlier, I had been dismissive of Dr. Kamath's book. However, I now realize my assessment had been premature. I would like to apologize to the FA's primary author user:Dineshkannambadi and also take this opportunity to both give the general FAR reader a flavor of Dr. Kamath's work and propose an actionable idea.
So, there is strong evidence that Dr. Kamath is a widely known historian, and I welcome user:Dineshkannambadi's use of Dr. Kamath's widely used Karnataka college textbook in this History FA, and again extend my apologies for my earlier rush to judgment. However, I feel that this Featured Article might also benefit from the views of other historians who too have publications in international journals. These scholars, some of whom appear in my list of scholars include James Manor. Dr. Manor has 17 publications listed in Google Scholar and he too is internationally known. In his paper, "Princely Mysore before the storm," Dr. Manor states that until 1761, the Wodeyars were "chieftains" who had only "claimed control over the southern and eastern parts" of Mysore. (To preempt any misinterpretations, I should like to clarify that "only claimed control over" is not the same thing as "claimed control over only.") Since user:Sarvagnya had in an earlier post so wisely stressed the word "actionable," I was wondering if we might not turn Dr. Manor's ideas into action and thereby make them actionable. In particular, I was wondering if in the infobox for the period 1565–1761, we—as the FAR community—might consider the changing the current title, "Independent Wodeyar Kings" (see here) to: Independent Wodeyar Kings/Wodeyar Chieftains Claiming Control Over Territory. I feel the new title will be more inclusive of scholarly opinion. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 16:57, 9 December 2008 (UTC) |
(Fowler&fowler Post2) Although I am staying away from entering into protracted content disputes here, I have to voice agreement with user:Dineshkannambadi when he says that the controversies that trail these scholars should not be followed here, only their footprints on the sands of scholarly time. So, just as Dr. Kamath has international recognition with his one publication on the topic of Mysore listed in Google Scholar, Dr. Romila Thapar too has a few publications here and there listed in Google Scholar, and these publications have been cited a few times by others. Similarly, just as Dr. Kamath's legacy in Ancient India has been covered in the international press, such as in the review, Mis-oriented textbooks Archived 2007-09-16 at the Wayback Machine, in the magazine Frontline, Dr. Thapar's contributions have been recognized as well, such as in the report, Historians Brown and Thapar Will Share $1 Million Kluge Prize in the Washington Post just a few days ago. Let us keep our focus on the scholarly record. Best regards, Fowler&fowler «Talk» 14:30, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
(Fowler&fowler Post 3) My dear
user:Sarvagnya, In response to the Frontline coverage, Dr. Kamath wrote a letter to the magazine's editors titled,
The Saraswati river
Archived 2005-03-29 at the
Wayback Machine, which provided scientific evidence for the Saraswati River and justification for the appellation, Saraswati-Sindhu Civilization. After the
BJP's defeat in the 2004 Indian elections, the new government led by
Oxford scholar
Manmohan Singh changed all the text books, consequently, Indian high-school students are no longer learning about Dr. Kamath's "Saraswati river" in their maps (see page 2 of
this online chapter). However, our own Wikipedia, has acknowledged these ideas in the lead of its page
Indus Valley Civilization.
Fowler&fowler
«Talk» 18:10, 10 December 2008 (UTC) (Scratched out some text that doesn't directly answer
user:Sarvagnya's question.
Fowler&fowler
«Talk» 21:23, 10 December 2008 (UTC))
(Fowler&fowler Post 4) Perhaps there has been some misunderstanding user:Sarvagnya. Nowhere in this second FAR have I said that Dr. Kamath, former Reader in History, Banglore University, is not a significant historian. My point is that just as Dr. Kamath as been honoured by interviews on private websites, such as Kamat.com, where, for example, in his closing remarks, he said, "The volunteers of organizations such as RSS need to rise to occasion to influence young minds into greater values of life," other scholars, like Dr. James Manor have also been recognized internationally. As I have already stated in my first post above, Dr. Manor regards the Wodeyars to have been Chieftains rather than Kings. I have suggested a very actionable plan there as a first step. Best regards, Fowler&fowler «Talk» 18:32, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
The Library of Congress call number provided by user:Dineshkannambadi for the book, A Concise History of Karnataka from Pre-historic Times to the Present is for the 1980 edition. For the last ten years, the book has been published in yearly revised editions by Jupiter Books, Bangalore, India. It is one of these revised editions (2001) that has been used by user:Dineshkannambadi for his citations. I had an acquaintance in India call Jupiter Books, and it turns out that the yearly revised editions do not have any ISBN information. I tried to look for other book information numbers such as LCCN, however, searches for the publisher in both the Library of Congress On-line Catalog and the Copac Catalogue turned up empty. In fact, when I searched in IndCat: The Online Catalogue of Books in Indian Universities, I couldn't find anything published by "Jupiter Books, Bangalore" in the libraries of Dr. Kamath's own Bangalore University (Select tab "Books" in IndCat, select Bangalore University in the menu on the left; select "publisher" in pop-up window, and search for "Jupiter Books, Bangalore.") So, I am not sure how best to deal with this conundrum pointed out by user:Mattisse. It is possible that I searched too narrowly, for, when I expanded the search to an unfettered Web Search for "Jupiter Books" AND "Bangalore" AND "Wikipedia," I found 769 links for this publisher. An even wider search for "Jupiter Books" AND "Bangalore," however, produced only 89 links, of which 75 were Wikipedia-related links (perhaps they removed the mirror sites). In either web search, user:Dineshkannambadi's other Wikipedia articles appeared in good measure, and I offer him my compliments. Best regards, Fowler&fowler «Talk» 21:23, 10 December 2008 (UTC) |
The Architecture section of Kingdom of Mysore is longer than either its Economy section or its Administration section. The section has five paragraphs and 21 citations (numbers 134 to 142) (counting repeats). These 21 citations are to the following works:
Are these citations appropriate in a History FA? Fowler&fowler «Talk» 18:00, 11 December 2008 (UTC) |
After my post of 11 December 2008 (Fowler&fowler Post 6), user:Dineshkannambadi asked for a day or two to change some of the sources used in the Architecture section of this History FA that covers the period 1399–1947. It bears pointing out that the new sources consist entirely of three tourist travel guides (one with advertisements). These are:
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(Fowler&fowler Post 10) PS I just noticed that user:Dineshkannambadi changed the name of the mother article of the literature subsection from Kannada literature in the Kingdom of Mysore to Kannada literature, 1600–1900 CE without any notice anywhere on the talk page and with the "minor edit" box checked in the edit summary. This mother article is apparently also simultaneously undergoing a peer review in preparation for an FA drive. Since this change is not uncontroversial, and very much concerns not only the name "Kingdom of Mysore" on the anvil here, but also a subsection of an article in an FAR. I would like to request user:Dineshkannambadi to make no such moves that directly concern this FAR, unless he has gained consensus for them both here and on the talk page of the mother article. I have reverted the move. Regards, Fowler&fowler «Talk» 21:46, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
(unindent) Yes, I do understand that it is about this article; however, I am suggesting that when such a name change involves issues related to the FAR (and explicitly discussed in My concerns (#5)), it should be discussed on Talk:Kannada literature in the Kingdom of Mysore first and should be mentioned in the FAR. user:Dineshkannambadi, you have done similar things before that are not transparent and that subtly distort the FAR process. In the FAR Talk Page, I have already complained about your adding content to posts that have already been replied to. I believe such a page move similarly clouds the picture. What, after all, will an independent reader of My concerns (#5) think if they find both the content of the literature section as well as name and content of the mother article changed. Such a change should be communicated to the FAR participants, as user:Docku also stresses above. Since I subscribe to 1RR, I will, however, not revert user:Sarvagyna's revert move. Regards, Fowler&fowler «Talk» 23:39, 16 December 2008 (UTC) |
If the FAR has nothing to do with the sub-articles, perhaps user:Dineshkannambadi would like to explain
Please see A record of the creation of this page and its name changes for more details. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 21:07, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
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Dear Michael Devore, I'm disappointed both to see your post here and to see it copied on the FARC page.
I've taken you thus far to be a neutral and fair person, but I am surprised to see you inserting yourself in a situation, where, as a copy-editor, you should know better. You say, for example, "... the delist arguments made in the FAR because a copyedit is needed are not compelling." Who has argued for "delisting" on grounds of poor prose? I can't seem to find anyone. All that people have said is that in addition to issues of poor sourcing and factual accuracy, of lack of comprehensiveness and the presence of bias, it doesn't help the article any that the prose is so shabby. That's quite different from arguing for delisting because the article hasn't been copy-edited.
Many problems in the text that don't fall under bias, citations, or comprehensiveness, are in any case errors that a copy editor will likely not catch. The classic howler (which has since been removed) was, "The economy of the Kingdom of Mysore was based on agriculture, due to the majority of the population being villagers." Fixing the grammatical errors alone there won't do much, since the author has confused cause for effect!
Also, it is disingenuous, in my view, to characterize the FARC—in which the primary author of the article has been accused of bias—as a dispute between two equally biased parties which requires intervention by a neutral party (whatever that means). Perhaps you would like to do a Google Scholar search on each of user:Dineshkannambadi's sources and decide for yourself how obscure they are; contrast them then with the results for the major authors who have worked on the topic of Mysore.
I understand that you may have some empathy for user:Dineshkannambadi since you have worked with him for some time now, but as a copy-editor you need to stay above these frays. user:Dineshkannambadi might be a very hard working editor, but the topic of history requires certain skills, not only of accurately paraphrasing a source and of clearly expressing oneself, but also of understanding historical methodology and perspective, skills that, in my view, user:Dineshkannambadi doesn't display on his pages, however much we may admire his hard work and drive in putting them together.
I would like to request that you ask him to remove your post from the FARC. If you would like to add something to the FARC, you should do it yourself. At the very least, you risk your message being misused unwittingly. If you choose not do this, I will be copying this post to the FARC as well. Regards, Fowler&fowler «Talk» 20:21, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
The only reason why you need identifiers is to avoid inadvertently including references to "Mysore state in independent India," the state which later became "Karnataka." If you didn't include identifiers, the numbers in 1 and 2 would become 94 and 2,550 respectively (but that would be incorrect). In other words, the evidence is overwhelming that among scholars the term for Mysore during the entire period 1500 to 1947, but especially the period 1800 to 1947, is "State of Mysore" OR "Mysore state" OR "Princely state of Mysore." Fowler&fowler «Talk» 04:31, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
Here is a history of how the FAR/FARC saga has unfolded (in my recollection).
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