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Former featured articleMahatma Gandhi is a former featured article. Please see the links under Article milestones below for its original nomination page (for older articles, check the nomination archive) and why it was removed.
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June 1, 2005Featured article reviewKept
February 17, 2006Peer reviewReviewed
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On this day... Facts from this article were featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "On this day..." column on March 18, 2004, March 18, 2005, January 30, 2006, March 18, 2006, January 30, 2007, March 18, 2007, January 30, 2008, January 30, 2009, January 30, 2011, January 30, 2013, January 30, 2014, and January 30, 2018.
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Untitled

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 24 January 2022 and 13 May 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): M.HernandezFer (article contribs).

Move discussion in progress

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There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Gandhi (disambiguation) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 21:47, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Gandhi's last fast in January 1948

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@Capitals00 and Abhishek0831996:

Later tonight, I will be adding a different, and more comprehensive, version of the disputed lead sentences on Gandhi's last fast in Mahatma Gandhi, which will be supported by different sources, all published after 2022 by internationally recognized university presses. I will put up an "inuse" sign before I make my edits, which will not take me more than half an hour. I trust that you will not make any edits to the lead during this time, let alone revert my edits, as you did here and here respectively. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:52, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I would urge you to discuss your edits here and show how your sources address the dispute over this false claim per WP:CONTEXTMATTERS since you are talking about repeating the same edit which was already refuted at Talk:Mahatma Gandhi/Archive 18#Discussion. Capitals00 (talk) 01:42, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
They are not the same edits. Again, please don't interrupt when the "inuse" sign is in place. I have warned you twice. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:32, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've rephrased the content that had proved controversial earlier. All the sources I have used are scholarly ones from 2022 or 2023.
In addition there are some 30 mostly scholarly sources I had collected earlier
You will see that the interpretation that Gandhi had attempted to compel the Indian government to pay out cash assets owed to Pakistan was not a fringe view. It had been a part of the lead for quite a few years until it was removed last year. I was not able to pursue that matter diligently as RL beckoned. Admin @Abecedare: had offered to lend a hand, though not in an administrative capacity, but very likely also had RL calling.
I note that this interpretation has been there in Dominion of India in the section on Gandhi's murder and a section or two before. @DrKay:
Pinging also @Randy Kryn: for a Gandhian resolution and @Ealdgyth: for a historian's take. Pinging also @RegentsPark: and @Drmies: for wisdom.
I have taken the in-use sign down. Thank you @Capitals00 and Abhishek0831996: Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:40, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, there are many things that are falsely attributed by high quality sources not only to Gandhi but also to other giant figures like Lincoln, Voltaire and many others. But we cannot use such misinformation on Wikipedia because it is very necessary on Wikipedia to evaluate credibility a debunked claim. No matter how much you ignore it.
This misinformation has been debunked by many reliable sources such as [1][2][3][4] and more. Anyone can access this fact check of this misinformation from Deutsche Welle.
You haven't provided any sources which have addressed the debunking of this claim thus you need to stop edit warring to restore your preferred sentence. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 09:08, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Your first source is
Can you present this in cite book format with a specific quote as I have done throughout. At least two of your sources are newspapers, one not even in English. Are you suggesting they compare with Joya Chatterji’s new book published by Yale University Press in November 2023, which I have cited in the lead? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:19, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In other words historians typically debunk the claims of other historians or scholars published in scholarly sources not claims published in newspapers. Chatterji was the editor of Modern Asian Studies for many years Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:34, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Instead of discussing the technical details about these sources, can you discuss their content? I would urge you again to discuss how your sources address the dispute over this false claim per WP:CONTEXTMATTERS. Capitals00 (talk) 02:46, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

F&F, I'm sorry, but what am I supposed to see in this huge edit? What's being debunked? What sentences were disputed? Nor do I understand the three edits starting on 21:29, 11 August 2024‎. I usually trust you as an editor, but you're dragging me into something I have no knowledge of. I'm an administrator and I prefer, in such cases, not to get involved in content disputes. But I also don't understand why Abhishek makes this revert or why Azuredivay makes this one. Drmies (talk) 12:34, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It is not that complicated Drmies, or at least it didn’t used to be. What had been place was similar to the last paragraph of Dominion of India#Settling the refugees, that is until Abhishek0831996 and some other editors appeared here out of the blue last summer and began to edit war based on the logic that modern Indian historiography had not addressed some claims published in dubious sources. They wore us down My edits became more complicated because I was trying to appease them in order to make progress Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:53, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
PS I pinged you Drmies not about the content but for some wisdom about how not to get bogged down in the face of a combination of fringe views and WP:Civil POV pushing
Totally ok If you don’t want to get involved Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:05, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Apologies. I owe you answers to some implicit questions. The edit of 21:29 11 August was a mistake. That is why I immediately self reverted. The 21:35 edit was the correct one. Why did I make it? I came across some sources, notably Joya Chatterji’s new book, which stated unambiguously that a goal of Gandhi’s last hunger strike was compelling the Indian government to pay money owed to Pakistan.
There were other new sources. In my edit of 21:35 I was attempting to add the deleted content supported by the new sources I say deleted because if you read the version both Abhishek0831996 and Azurejay have reverted to, you’ll see there is a cognitive break after “when Gandhi was 78.” Missing there is the reference to Gandhi’s actions, wrt Pakistan and Muslims that might have created the belief among some
Hindus Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:50, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
PPS The other thing is that if you Drmies are perplexed by my edits then I have obviously done a half-assed job. The either/or construction is meant to summarize two schools of thought: those who think Gandhi attempted to pressure India’s government about Pakistan in no uncertain terms) and those who think his stated aims were only about restoring peace but the government felt pressured because they didn’t want a 78 year old icon’s death laid at their doorstep.
It is possible that this sort of detail doesn’t belong to the lead and a more summarized text is needed. I’ll attempt something later today Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:27, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
WP:CANVASSING is not allowed and you are supposed to gain consensus since you are talking about repeating the same edit which was already refuted at Talk:Mahatma Gandhi/Archive 18#Discussion.
You still haven't found any source which would go against the refutation of this false claim.
The source source cited by Abhishek0831996 is very clear. As such, this false claim cannot be entertained. Pretending that Wikipedia does not care about fact-checking will not work. Capitals00 (talk) 02:46, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I see that Fowler&fowler does not have the benefit of community consensus supporting the proposed addition. If a case can be made that a large capital transfer from India to Pakistan was among Gandhi's aims, the case should be treated in the article body as a minor viewpoint held by some observers, not summarized in the lead section. Binksternet (talk) 03:52, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Binksternet: It is not a proposed addition. It had been in the article's lead for ten years when some editors who had nary an edit in this article sniped the sentences out of house and home last summer.
I had rewritten the lead and the first few sections in the summer and fall of 2013, see here, soon after the FA India had successfully cleared its FAR. I had written most of the text in India as well, including all of its history section.
  • See also the talk page discussion of September 2013 of this page where I refer to the rewriting.
  • Not only is this a much viewed page, it is also much edited. So its not like my edits could have been swept under the rug. Over the years since, the article and with the reference to the cash transfer in the lead was edited by admins and historians alike e.g.:
Gandhi's 150 birth anniversary when India made its second WP:TFA
  • The page and the reference to the cash assets was there when other admins (who edit South Asia pages) such as RegentsPark, Abecedare, SpacemanSpiff, and Titodutta and historian Rjensen made their edits.
  • Last summer I didn't have the time to take these editors on. Admin Abecedare tried but in my view these editors proved too slippery. Frankly, I don't know what made them collect on this talk page. I can guess in light of India's conservative national politics, but I'll get into trouble.
Gandhi's insistence on the money transfer was the major reason for his assassination, not a minority viewpoint. I have already given the list of 30 sources referred to above. Here's are two very recent ones:
  • Joya Chatterji, FBA, Professor of South Asian History at the University of Cambridge, winner of Los Angeles Times Award in History 2024, says in:
  • Chatterji, Joya (2023). Shadows at Noon: The South Asian Twentieth Century. Yale University Press. pp. 642–643. ISBN 978-0-300-27268-0. Arriving at a mutually acceptable division of the assets (and liabilities) of British India proved challenging. In the matter of giving to Pakistan its share of the common pool of resources, India's Home Minister Vallabhbhai Patel deployed India's considerable advantage – physical control over the assets – to impose hard bargains on Pakistan. Even after India agreed, in December 1947, to accept Pakistan's claims to a portion of the public finance and the cash balances, Patel still refused to transfer any monies. It was only in January 1948, after Gandhi undertook his last fast to compel the government of India to honour its commitments, that Patel reluctantly release monies to Pakistan. (As we know, Gandhi paid with his life for taking Pakistan's side on this issue.)
  • Partha Chatterjee, historian and anthropologist at Columbia has this to say:
  • Chatterjee, Partha (2022). Chatterjee, Partha (ed.). The Truths and Lies of Nationalism as Narrated by Charvak. State University of New York Press. The frenzy of communal violence in Punjab at the time of partition and the subsequent conflict with Pakistan over Kashmir vitiated public opinion in northern India. Recognising the mood, senior leaders of the Congress, including Vallabhbhai Patel and Rajendra Prasad, pushed for a hard line against Pakistan. It was decided to suspend payment of Pakistan's share of the substantial reserves in pounds sterling left behind by the British. Gandhi, who had moved to Delhi in September 1947 to stop the communal violence there, urged the Congress leaders to end their enmity with Pakistan, declaring that he belonged to both India and Pakistan. To press his point, he went on a fast in the middle of January demanding that the money that rightfully belonged to Pakistan be released. A few days later, the government relented. That is when Nathuram Godse decided to kill Gandhi.
I respect you Binksternet (from your participation at the Kamala Harris talk page), so I'm a little surprised at your post. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 06:24, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
PS Vallabhbhai Patel, mentioned above, is today's Hindu nationalist hero. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 06:28, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Regardless of this TLDR, the fact remains the same that you are simply citing sources that have only made passing mention of a claim that has been found to be false by numerous reliable sources. Nobody has disputed this fact so far. As such you should refrain from edit warring. Azuredivay (talk) 08:15, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's your problem, you don't read. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 08:18, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And apparently take pride in it. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 08:21, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Azuredivay: Which textbooks published by major university presses have refuted the claim that compelling the Indian government to transfer the partitioned monetary reserves to Pakistan was one of the goals of Gandhi’s last hunger strike? What academic journals was the textbook reviewed in per WP:HISTRH, WP:HISTRW? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:06, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You have mentioned Lars Blinkenberg but he noted "the list specifying these conditions did not mention the transfer of money to Pakistan". Are those sources cited above are not reliable enough? To me they appear to have been published by accomplished authors and reliable publishers. Do you have any sources that had responded to the fact check? Azuredivay (talk) 12:04, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Please quote fully. LB says Gandhi was not convinced and he felt—like Mountbatten and Nehru—that the agreed transfer to Pakistan of a cash amount of Rs. 550 million should be implemented despite the Kashmir crisis. Gandhi started a fast unto death, which was officially done to stop communal trouble, especially in Delhi, but 'word went round that it was directed against Sardar Patel's decision to withhold the cash balances' Only because of Gandhi's interference, which was soon to cause his death, Sardar Patel gave in and the money was handed over to Pakistan By what interpretation does he not say Gandhi's fast was meant to indirectly pressure the Indian government to pay up? It was in the article for 11 years, until you guys began to edit war last year with Teesta Setalvad leading your charge. Seriously? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:06, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You agree that it "was officially done to stop communal trouble". Thus whatever "word went round" doesn't matters. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 04:18, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What policy says that we must place blind reliance on the "official narrative"? TrangaBellam (talk) 10:16, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We need to find undisputed information backed with quality sources in order to dispute an official narrative. However, nobody has found any so far to dispute the claim in question. In fact the claim itself has been debunked by various reliable sources. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 12:19, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Break 1

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F&F, Chatterji's latest notes that the Harappan Dancing Girl is in some museum in Pakistan. Now, as much as the handful of inaccuracies do not detract from her brilliance, I doubt that you will strive for our article on the sculpture to be updated out of a (misplaced) reverence for her! In other words, it will be helpful if you refrain from overusing argument from authority and try to find some primary and secondary (than tertiary) sources on the issue since quasi-respectable sources appear to have challenged the longstanding view. TrangaBellam (talk) 18:46, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Fwiw, I can ask Chatterjee if he had "verified" the reason of Gandhi's fast (though his personal correspondence would not qualify RS) but I am pretty certain that he didn't. Unless a particular aspect is integral to the argument of one's scholarship, scholars almost-always reproduce from other authoritative works; Chatterjee's book spans centuries of S. asian history—from Assam to Kashmir to Kerala—and it would have been implausible for him otherwise. So, Chatterjee likely relied on one of those 30 (authoritative) sources that F&F flags and now, we are witness to a form of citogenesis.
One can obviously cite all sort of policies to justify such an approach but we will be doing our readers a disservice. Ofcourse, if F&F has some source which deals with the question of Gandhi's fast in-depth — with references to primary sources— and reaches the conclusion that they believe to be true, that is different. TrangaBellam (talk) 19:00, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sumit Sarkar's magisterial Modern India drops a quote "You are not the Sardar I once knew" (p. 375; edn: 2014) while discussing the topic; Gandhi supposedly said it to Patel, aggrieved at his withholding of Pakistan's legitimate share of the spoils of Partition. This quote has been reproduced in Arnold's biography of Gandhi—in the same context—and countless other sources. I also believe that this conversation has been the ONLY[a] source—directly or indirectly—for almost every scholar who has linked Gandhi's fast with Patel's withholding of the due payments alongside . (I implore F&F and others to prove otherwise.)
Now, where does this quote come from? Sarkar does not provide any sourcing and is clever in his wording - "Gandhi is said to have remarked". So, this quote originates from Michael Brecher's Nehru: A Political Biography (OUP; 1959; p. 383) and Brechter's source, in turn, was an eyewitness who wished to remain anonymous. Brecher's book was published in 1959 and was widely read in India; that nobody chose to renounce the narrative can be taken to mean that the informer was truthful and to be honest, it was not very out-of-character for Gandhi to behave in such a manner.[b] But at the same time, it has been over six decades since the book was published and almost all contemporary documents having been declassified, I wonder why the "four-men Cabinet delegation" who met Gandhi to have him convinced of the merits of Patel's arguments—per Brecher's informer—did not leave any paper-trail for future scholars to discover!
Summarily, this needs somewhat more nuance (see Sarkar's strategic framing for one!) than the binary approach that has dictated the discourse so far. However, I do think F&F's arguments carry far more weight (than Azuredivay's and others') and the lead ought to be restored, as much as I cannot agree with his approach to this discussion. TrangaBellam (talk) 19:41, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
After more than a decade of actual events, "an eyewitness who wishes to remain anonymous" is dubious just like the whole account itself. This account contradicts everything that really happened. Now see this:
  • Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru said on 15 January 1948 regarding this connection between Gandhi's fast and 55 crore transfer: "That fast, of course, had nothing to do with this particular matter, and we have thought of it because of our desire to help in every way in easing the present tension." This is cited from the source from that time.
  • This is cited by Professor Raghuvendra Tanwar who has analysed this whole matter in his 2006 book. He noted: "Prime Minister Nehru was naturally the first to state that even though Gandhi had been consulted on the issue, the decision to transfer the cash balance to Pakistan had nothing to do with his fast. The Prime Minister also said: 'we have come to this decision in the hope that the gesture in accord with India's high ideals and Gandhiji's noble standards will convince the world of our earnest desire for peace'."[5]
He concluded: "Looked at carefully each of the seven main issues was only an attempt by Gandhi to restore the confidence of the Muslims who had been traumatized. None of the points even remotely referred to the transfer of the cash balance to Pakistan." [6]
  • Take a look at this Time magazine article from 26 January 1948. It states: "Vallabhbhai Patel left town for a few days. During his absence, the Indian government agreed to reinstate a financial agreement with Pakistan, a step which Patel had blocked only 48 hours before."
It also notes: "Not until the fifth day of his fast did Gandhi list the specific conditions under which he would break his fast. Moslems, he said, should be guaranteed freedom to worship, travel, earn a livelihood, keep their own houses. After Gandhi had gone without food for 121 hours, 50 Hindu, Moslem and Sikh leaders gathered at Birla House, to pledge themselves to meet his conditions."
That means the payment to Pakistan was released well before Gandhi mentioned his conditions and Patel was not involved in releasing the payment. As such, it is totally misleading to claim that Gandhi fasted for the release of the payment and there was no meeting which involved Patel before releasing the payment.
The source above I provided also says that the payment was released on 15 January while Gandhi listed his conditions for ending the fast on 17 January. None of his conditions mentioned the payment.
  • Also see Recording the Progress of Indian History, p. 254, by Professor Saiyid Zaheer Husain Jafri from 2012. He wrote: "Only a tiny section of Maharashtrians brought up in a particular school of thought were vehement critics of Gandhi; they accused him of showing partially to Muslims, and of favouring Pakistan by his fast coercing the Nehru Government to transfer Rs. 55 crore to Pakistan, and finally killed him. In reality, according to C. D. Deshmukh the then Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, has recorded that the amount transferred was legitimately due to Pakistan."[7]
That said, the claim in question is entirely incorrect and has been rejected since the beginning contrary to your assumption. You should also read fact check of this misinformation from Deutsche Welle and also from The Quint.[8] There is no reliable source that has questioned the debunking of this claim. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 04:18, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There is nothing in policy that suggests Nehru—or other politicians, for that matter—need to be accepted at face-value; politicians are not expected to be paragons of truth, he had every reason to downplay Mahatma's views on the cash-transfer, and Tanwar does not even consider these aspects? I have no idea about the relevance of Jafri, much less its reliability.
To me, what happened was really simple. Gandhi launched a fast which was premised on restoring communal harmony but the precise objectives were not delineated at the outset. In the meanwhile, the withholding-of-payment to Pakistan cropped up and Gandhi made it one of his supplementary causes—again, very par for him—but it was quickly resolved within a couple of days. So, when the time came for mentioning the conditions for breaking his fast, the non-payment issue had long-become a non-issue and (hence) finds no mention.
A couple of "fact-check" articles by DW and Quint—who seem to be unaware of both Brecher and Das—do not count against multiple established academic sources. TrangaBellam (talk) 10:05, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
India was withholding the payment much before this fast was started. Gandhi stopped his fast on 18 January and was assassinated on 30 January. However, Pakistan complained as of February 1948 that they got no payment. Pakistan's Finance Minister Malik Ghulam Muhammad stated that "while the Government of India were operating on their share of the cash balances they had asked the Reserve Bank of India not to credit the Pakistan Government with Rs. 55 crores of the cash balances that belonged to the Pakistan Government."[9] It is evident that the payment thing does not was not any motive of Gandhi at all or else it would have found mention everywhere if not at least on that Time Magazine article. Sources do not mention it. Instead they treat them as two unrelated events.
There is no evidence to prove Nehru otherwise. I also cited secondary source, not just primary. It would not make any sense to give credence to a more than decade later faulty anonymous account which is contradicting even the most basic details concerning events.
The original source of this incorrect claim was not that Brecher's anonymous source but Nathuram Godse who is not reliable at all. Those who have fact-checked this claim have accurately pointed Godse its creator. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 12:19, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Abhishek0831996: India had not officially announced that it would not honor the commitment it had made about repatriating the cash balances to Pakistan until a few hours before Gandhi made his announcement. Patel had made an announcement in mid December about the agreement India and reached with Pakistan (this included the cash balances). In a press conference on 12 January, he announced along with India's finance minister that the Indian government would not return the cash balances. Gandhi became aware of it, went to Mountbattens to ascertain that this indeed was the case. Mountbatten, agreeing, added, "It is independent India's first dishonorable act." Gandhi let it be known to Mountbatten that he felt ashamed. Later that evening during his prayer meeting Gandhi made the announcement. The Mountbattens, Lord and Lady, were the first people to visit Gandhi. They already knew about the fast. Hold on. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:03, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ghosh, Tushar Kanti, ed. (January 13, 1948). "Patel Replies to Pakistan Minister's Charge: Non-Implementation Of Financial Agreement, Kashmir Issue Likely to Destroy Basis of Pact". Amrita Bazar Patrika (A.P. feed). Vol. LXXX, no. 13. Calcutta and Allahabad: Nirmal Ghosh. pp. 1, 2, 4, 8. New Delhi, January 12, 1948 India's Deputy Prime Minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel at a Press Conference here to-day, said, 'India cannot reasonably be asked to make a payment of cash balances to Pakistan when an armed conflict with its forces is in progress, and threatens to assume an even more dangerous character.' Sardar Patel described the conflict in Kashmir as likely to destroy the whole basis of the financial agreement and endanger other parts of the agreement, such as arrangements for taking over a debt, and division of stores. The Deputy Prime Minister, who was addressing the Press Conference jointly with the Finance Minister, Mr. R. K. Shanmukham Chetty, was replying to the Pakistan Finance Minister's charge of non-implementation by India of the financial agreement recently arrived at between the two Governments at Delhi. Sardar Patel asserted that right through the negotiations with the Pakistan Government, he had made it clear to the Pakistan Government that the discussions held were not confined to mere partition issues, but covered Kashmir, refugees and other important evacuation matters as well. The Finance Minister Mr. R. K. Shanmukham Chetty, told the conference that the Government of India had not given any instructions to the Reserve Bank regarding the transfer of any amount from 'our cash balances' to the credit of the Government of Pakistan. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:10, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ghosh, Tushar Kanti, ed. (December 11, 1947). "Division of Assets and Liabilities: India Pakistan Discussion, Agreement Reached on All Outstanding Issues". Bi-Weekly Amrita Bazar Patrika (A.P. feed). Vol. LXXIX, no. 91. Calcutta: Nirmal Ghosh. p. 1. New Delhi, December 9, 1947 ... Sardar Patel said, "I wish to make a small statement in connection with the discussions that were going on between the two Dominions on the question of division of assets and liabilities and other allied questions. I am glad to say that there has been complete unanimity (cheers). ... Complete agreement has been reached on all these issues. No reference will now be made to the arbital tribunal and those already made will be withdrawn (cheers). The major issues on which the agreement has been reached are: 1) Division between the two dominons of cash balances of the undivided Government of India as on August 14, 1947. ... Kashmir Question: He knew that there was considerable anxiety in the House and outside about main question that gives us trouble, namely the question of Kashmir. That question was not before the Partition Committee and it was not part of this reference.] Patel's announcement in December. Note the firm intent
Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:07, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Abhishek0831996: There is no chance that Nathuram Godse was the originator of the cash-balance-hypothesis. Herbert Reiner Jr. grasped Godse's shoulders at a few seconds after the shots rang out at 5:17 PM on 30 January 1948, spun him around so he could be disarmed, and then held him firmly until the police took him away. Edgar Snow mentioned the balance-of-payment connection in the Saturday evening Post on July 17, 1948. Godse did not get to give his account at the trial until December 1948. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:41, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
He had been toying with the idea of fasting, it became firm only because independent India had committed its first dishonourable act (Mountbatten's phrasing for the cash balances). He repeated that long after his meeting with Mountbatten. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:22, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
See the Hindustan Times publication on 13 January 1948. They are treating these two events as separate from each other. But it is not difficult to find people who would have confused both of those events to be intervening with each other.
That said, whether Godse was the originator of the claim or not is not relevant since it was not difficult to mix up these two events with each other. However, I would add that, to say we would know what Godse believed only after November 1948 is not meaningful. It was reported on May 1948 that, "on being questioned by the police, allegedly said that he had assassinated Mr. Gandhi because he felt the latter's utterances and policies were contrary to Hindu interests".[10] Godse's trial started on 28 May.[11]
Madanlal Pahlwa who threw the bomb at Gandhi on 20 January has said "but our intention was only to convey the message to Gandhi that Pakistan did not deserve Rs 55 crore."[12] This proves that it was not only Godse who believed so. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 13:56, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@TrangaBellam: These are the hazards of writing a 600 page book! In Joya Chatterji's defence (she's female, btw) I can think of two things: a) I read somewhere (was it William Dalrymple's review in the Guardian?) that the book was part hard history and part stream-of-consciousness autobiography. It is possible she was talking about the Dancing Girl of Mohenjo-daro of her childhood. As you probably know, before India's independence, the statue had been loaned by the Lahore museum for an exhibit in New Delhi with the understanding that it was to be returned. But circumstances, which included the accelerated pace of British withdrawal after Mountbatten's arrival in early 1947, and Indian recalcitrance (led by Dharma Vira, an ICS man) caused it to remain in India, but without much public awareness. Compounded with this was the existence of a second Dancing Girl, a poor replica, in the museum in Karachi or Mohenjo-daro. Eventually after India's victory over Pakistan in 1971, Indira Gandhi during her peace talks with Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto offered to return one of the two artifacts--Dancing girl which had no clothes on and Priest King which did. Bhutto, aware of the Islamic orthodoxy he was to countenance upon his return from Simla, chose the PK. So, long story short, it is possible that well into Joya C's adulthood in India, the Dancing Girl's location might have been murky. b) Joya Chatterji is not a art historian and we are not citing her for the dancing girl. But she has staked every ounce of her being on the Partition. It is very unlikely that in the decades of reading and editing hundreds of journal submissions, listening to seminars, directing graduate students she would not be aware of the political goals and ramifications of Gandhi's last fast which was Partition-related whether in the matter of cash balances or religious violence. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:01, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Correction: After the exhibition in Delhi, the exhibits (I now seem to remember) went to an exhibition in London organized by Mortimer Wheeler. Dharma Vira might have ensured that they went back to India, and not to Lahore, which by then was in Pakistan. I am hoping that Aparna Megan Kumar's UCLA thesis on some of these matters will soon be published. She has been awarded a Getty fellowship for writing it. (@Johnbod: might be interested to know, or might already know.) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:37, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Dancing Girl - the above is not quite correct. Our article says "After excavation at Mohenjo-daro in 1926, the Dancing Girl and the other finds were initially deposited in the Lahore Museum, but later moved to the Archaeological Survey of India headquarters at New Delhi, where a new "Central Imperial Museum" was being planned for the new capital of the British Raj, in which at least a selection would be displayed. It became apparent that Indian independence was approaching, but the Partition of India was not anticipated until late in the process." I think the move to Delhi was sometime in the 1930s. The source is Singh, Kavita, "The Museum Is National", Chapter 4 in: Mathur, Saloni and Singh, Kavita (eds), No Touching, No Spitting, No Praying: The Museum in South Asia, 2015, Routledge, PDF on academia.edu You may remember the story by one involved that (from Priest-King (sculpture)): "The statue was only returned to Pakistan after the 1972 Simla Agreement between Pakistan and India, represented by their heads of government, respectively Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the President of Pakistan, and Indira Gandhi, the Prime Minister of India. According to a Pakistani archaeologist, Gandhi refused to return both the Priest-King and the other most iconic Indus sculpture, the Dancing Girl, a smaller bronze sculpture also found at Mohenjo-daro, and told Bhutto he could only choose one of them.[1] So the dancing girl and priest-king spent the first Independence Day together in London (not in the articles, but I think this is right), before being sent back to where they had arrived from, namely Delhi. The Indo-Pak division of objects in Delhi was then a prolonged process, involving dividing necklaces etc. Johnbod (talk) 02:43, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you @Johnbod:. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:17, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  1. ^ Tunio, Hafeez, "With King Priest 'in hiding', Dancing Girl yet to take the road back home", 16 July 2012, The Express Tribune
@TrangaBellam: I agree about more nuance and the binary framing. I will think about this more carefully.
As for Brecher, it is true that some historians (e.g. Percival Spear in one of his books) does cite Brecher but it was for the emotional scene and possibly that remark, but not for fact of compelling Patel to get off his high horse of blocking the return of the cash balance. That latter was known from the get go, i.e. from the days following the assassination. There were a lot of foreign reporters there that fateful evening: Robert Turnbull of the NY Times, Richard Stimson of the BBC, Edgar Snow of the Saturday Evening Post, and Vincent Sheehan, an American acolyte of Gandhi. They probed the various actors furiously in the days following assassination and ferreted out the information. I'm pretty sure Snow (the famous author of Red Star Over China of a decade before, wrote a longish article about this. I have it somewhere. Hold on. Also pinging @Abhishek0831996: Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:20, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Snow, Edgar (July 17, 1948). "The World's Queerest State". Saturday Evening Post. 221 (1): 24, 25, 120, 121, 122. :::The most important government buildings, arsenals, mints and other permanent installations were in parts of India now held by the Indian Union, but Pakistan got her share of everything else. That included the earmarking of 750,000,000 rupees out of India's cash balances. Much of the division remained theoretical, however. It took Gandhi's January threat of a fast unto death to get Vallabhbhai Patel to part with a large installment of cash-balance payments due to Pakistan. The postindependence breakdown in transport also halted the transfer to Pakistan of her share of other spoils of the partition—especially military stores and equipment, after hostilities began in Kashmir. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:27, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    PS And Edgar Snow was a serious writer. His Red Star Over China, left me in a daze for half the summer before college. He had interviewed both Gandhi before the assassination and Nehru after. In-depth writing, a counter, for example to those who say that Nehru was a floozy, ... a male version. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:31, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It is not true that Gandhi's forcing the hand of the India government over the cash transfer was not known until much later. It was known among some India-watchers or Indianists in the West. Indians in India were more cagey about it because it made Patel look bad. He had already been blamed for insufficient security around Gandhi, especially after the bomb explosion of the week before. In fact, a former neighbor of mine, Herbert Reiner Jr., who was also there that evening and grabbed (i.e. captured) Godse made a note of the slack security when he arrived at Birla House that evening. More later, but here's something
Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:44, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It has been already confirmed above with the TIME's article from 26 January 1948,[13] four days before assassination, that Patel was not involved with regards to the release of the payment because he was away from the office at the time. Those saying otherwise are not providing any basis.
It is wholly misleading to claim "India had not officially announced that it would not honor the commitment it had made about repatriating the cash balances to Pakistan until a few hours before Gandhi made his announcement".[14] On January 1, "India withhold part of Pakistan's share of cash balances amounting to 55 crore rupees." And by January 15, the "Government of India decide to release Pakistan's withheld share of cash balances".[15] There is mention of Gandhi's fast here. Capitals00 (talk) 20:10, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Capitals00: Again, India did not officially acknowledge it had decided to withhold the cash-balance, until Patel spoke in the press conference on January 12. That is why I have cited the Amrita Bazar Patrika source in which any one can read the actual newspaper with the headlines: on the right is Patel's announcement of the afternoon, and on the left is Gandhi's announcement of the fast at his prayer meeting in the evening.
Who is saying Patel released the money himself? "Part with" in Edgar Snow's phrasing is idiomatic language for stopping being the main obstacle in the agreed-to return. The money in any case was released at the direction of the Finance minister R.K. Shanamugam Shetty, and even then took a long time to go through the Indian Central Bank's procedures to appear in Pakistani hands, but Patel was the main obstacle in the path of the settling of the cash balances.
His presence in Delhi or departure in a huff, had little to do with the money going or not going. He told Gandhi, he would not be an obstacle. The rest of the Cabinet voted to return the money. Pakistan may have hoped that an announcement of December 9 1947, in which Patel sounded confident and definitive would be honoured in three weeks by the New Year and they probably complained about it. But there was NO Indian acknowledgement of the intent to dishonour the agreement until Patel's announcement. Jinnah's papers are not a proof of Indian intent, only Pakistani fearfulness, despair or mounting cynicism. Patel did not make an announcement in Pakistan. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:43, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Capitals00: Again: the best source you have of the official Indian announcement to dishonour the earlier pledge to transfer the cash balances are the Jinnah archives in Pakistan? Nothing Indian? So, let's have what the Jinnah archives say, what page number, date, year, and author. Let's have the details. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:05, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Who has written the Time magazine article? Otherwise, a short article without a byline is generally not considered as reliable as longer ones Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:15, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Fowler&fowler V. busy rn and too many replies to read; will come back in a day. Btw, when I wrote I can ask Chatterjee if he had "verified" .., I referred to Partha Chatterjee of Subaltern Studies fame whose The Truths and Lies of Nationalism as Narrated by Charvak you had cited in your defense and who is an acquintance of mine. TrangaBellam (talk) 10:12, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@TrangaBellam: I apologize for the misunderstanding. There's no value in that verification, as we already know from Edgar Snow's article of July 1948 that Patel was the stumbling block. What is more important for me is the fact that the authors chose to mention this, i.e. its notability. And I'm thinking more of my list of 30 slightly older references, of people such as Barbara D. Metcalf and Thomas R. Metcalf (who don't name Patel, but do mention cash balances) or Susanne Hoeber Rudolph and Lloyd Rudolph (who do mention Patel) whose introductory textbooks are more widely read than is Partha Chatterjee's. When this fact is mentioned by authors who have had, in addition, leadership positions in professional associations, given hundreds of talks or seminars, had dozens of graduate students, and their text-book is cited in hundreds of google scholar references, it speaks to the notability of an attribution. That is my understanding of WP:TERTIARY, WP:SCHOLARSHIP (citation counts) and WP:HSC. This is where the buck stops for me. We can't engage in OR ourselves. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:57, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
PS @TrangaBellam: I cited both J. Chatterji and P. Chatterjee as examples of recent (i.e. post-pandemic) scholarship, in part to counter my interlocutors offering the excuse, "We've already heard that." The more reliable examples remain the 10 text-books in the group of 30 above. I'll probably copy them in a subpage and link them here soon. I do have to thank you for your perceptive remark about "You're not the Sardar I knew," and will keep on the look out for it. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:13, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Time Magazine article is reliable and accurate. Patel was in Bhavnagar, not in Delhi, when payment was announced on 15 January.[16][17]
1 January also appears to be correct. Mushirul Hasan writes: "The Government of India informed the Pakistan Government that as they were helping the invaders of Kashmir, a part of Indian territory, 'it is not possible for India to supply the cash and military stores which may only be used in war in Kashmir against her'. (HT 1 Jan 1948)"[18]
The actual opposition to the payment happened even before that. It was on 22 December 1947, when Patel wrote to R. K. Shanmukham Chetty that, "As you know, now the Cabinet has decided that no payment should be made until the Kashmir question has been settled. I shall let you know when, in accordance with this decision, payment can be made to the Pakistan Government.[19] Anyone else who was in the government and also Gandhi surely knew about it since December. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 13:56, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I'm fairly sure that this was discussed and "settled" sometime in the past. I guess that discussion is linked somewhere above but it would be helpful if someone can add a link to that discussion and also state clearly (and succinctly) what the opposing views are. Other than that, shouldn't we be looking for histrefs rather than trying to figure out who said what by examining news stories from that period? (Apologies if I've misunderstood things but the content above is too long)RegentsPark (comment) 19:27, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  1. ^ Last I checked, the notoriously pro-Patel Durga Das had probably mentioned something on similar lines too but his works post-date the source of this quote and have rarely been cited by scholars.
  2. ^ I believe the latest round of "debunking" has more to do with the politics of making Gandhi's politics palatable—though in good faith—to the increasingly-majoritarian sentiments in India, than some quest at empirical accuracy.

Article full protected for 10 days

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I really don't understand why edit warring is running parallel to a discussion. In any case, I have reverted everything back to 10 August without regard to the content of all the intervening edits, because that date appears to precede the recent disruptive activity. ~Anachronist (talk) 15:38, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Anachronist: You are welcome to lock down the article, but the disruption began in the summer of 2013. The sentence about Gandhi's purpose in his last hunger strike had been in the article for 11 years. You yourself edited the article during those 11 years as did a dozen other administrators. That doesn't mean that you supported the edit, but that had been an issue, you would have locked down the article much earlier. I had been away for the majority of the time since last summer. It was never resolved. Admin user:Abecedare tried to help, but the sources of these editors are so outlandish, and their responses so tone deaf (meant only figuratively) to Abecedare's gentle questioning, that all progress ground to a halt. See my statement: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Edit_warring#User:Fowler&fowler_reported_by_User:Capitals00_(Result:_) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:21, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not involved in the content here, or in any content dispute. I think I've averaged one action per year on the article, and they have been maintenance edits and protection actions. ~Anachronist (talk) 17:16, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Lede

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In the lede, there is a current sentence that states "The belief that Gandhi had been too resolute in his defence of both Pakistan and Indian Muslims spread among some Hindus in India." I understand where this sentence is coming from, but most readers won't. The sentence as written makes it appear that Gandhi was in favor of the partition of British India and creation of Pakistan, which he was not. I would propose changing this sentence to "There developed a Hindu nationalist opposition to Gandhi's advocacy of nonviolence." The text Religious Nationalism Hindus and Muslims in India, authored by Peter van der Veer and published by University of California Press, supports this point, stating:

Gandhi's political articulation of this theme brought him into conflict with other Hindu nationalists at the height of Hindu-Muslim conflict during partition. His assassin, Nathuram Godse, a Brahman from Maharashtra, declared in his trial that "I firmly believed that the teachings of absolute ahimsa as advocated by Gandhiji would ultimately result in the emasculation of the Hindu community and thus make the community incapable of resisting the aggression or inroads of other communities, especially, the Muslims." This statement is quite interesting, given the fact that Gandhi had always argued that nonviolence (ahimsa) was the solution of the emasculation of the Hindu nation under colonial rule.

In view of these facts, I would recommend that the sentence as it stands now, either be removed completely, or modified as per my suggestion. Thank you, AnupamTalk 21:13, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Request for comment (RfC) on Mahatma Gandhi's last hunger strike

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When describing Mahatma Gandhi's last hunger strike (or "fast-unto-death") undertaken on 12 January 1948, should we say that in addition to stemming the religious violence (or restoring the peace):

  1. "the fast also sought to pressure the Indian government to pay out1 cash assets owed to Pakistan?" (Note: 1: pay out = pay a large sum of money from funds under one's control.)
    1. (both in the lead and the relevant section)
    2. (in the relevant section, but not in the lead)
  2. "the fast also sought to indirectly (or implicitly) pressure the Indian government to pay out cash assets owed to Pakistan?
    1. (both in the lead and in the relevant section)
    2. ( in the relevant section, but not in the lead)
  3. "the fast also caused (or led) the Indian government to pay out cash assets owed to Pakistan."
    1. (both in the lead and in the relevant section)
    2. (in the relevant section, but not in the lead)
  4. Make no mention of cash assets in this context anywhere in the article.
  5. "In the months following, Gandhi went on hunger strike several times to stop the religious violence. The last, begun in Delhi on 12 January 1948 when he was 78, also aimed to restore to Pakistan its share of cash assets of undivided British India. The fast was an important factor in the Indian government's decision to pay out the assets during a time when India and Pakistan were engaged in a war over the disputed territory of Kashmir."
    1. (both in the lead and in the relevant section)
    2. (in the relevant section, but not in the lead)

Please choose one of: 1(1), 1(2), 2(1), 2(2), 3(1), 3 (2), 4, 5(1) or 5(2). Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:13, 22 August 2024 (UTC) Corrected with addition of "also" and removal of parentheses earlier. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:13, 22 August 2024 (UTC) Option 5, a variant of option 3 was added (added later at 00:46, 23 August 2024 (UTC) after discussion here and here) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:46, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]


Fowler&fowler's NPOV explanation of the background

This is a challenging RfC, but given Mahatma Gandhi's importance in a range of Wikipedia subject areas, it is important for us to rise to the challenge. Here is the background:

Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated on 30 January 1948. On the 13th of January, he went on a hunger strike to achieve some goals. These goals very likely had what Freud might have called both manifest content and latent content, i.e. what Gandhi announced publicly and what he implied through back channels or by other means. Most scholarly sources consider the accomplishment of the latent goals to be the more notable of the two. Some even say it was his finest hour.

So what were they? The British Indian Empire had just been partitioned into a largely Hindu India and a mostly Muslim Pakistan on 14–15 August 1947. It was a time of great violence on the subcontinent, cataclysmic violence. Hindus and Muslims were slaughtering each other in the hundreds of thousands, if not the millions. The partition or division was not just of land, but also the military and treasury. India as the primary successor state not only received the capital, New Delhi, the offices of government, but initially also all the cash reserves in the treasury. Out of these cash reserves, India was required to hand over Pakistan's share in a timely fashion. The Indian government seemingly dawdled. By late October, war had broken out between the two countries over Kashmir and the conservatives in the Indian government wanted to leverage the cash strategically. There was popular support for this. Gandhi, who was not the part of any government, let it be known that the money was the undivided British India's, and the Indian government as its caretaker had to to relinquish what was Pakistan's share. How he let it be known and even whether he let this be known (i.e. whether he was simply assumed to have felt so, given his long life of high morality) is the million dollar question. Gandhi soon went on a hunger strike, and the Indian government not long after agreed to give Pakistan its share. This in turn enraged many Hindu nationalists, one of whom, shot Gandhi ten days later. So, whether or not Gandhi "pressured" the Indian government, directly or indirectly, the fast was notable not only as an example of his morality but also because it may have led to his death.

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:20, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Here are my sources: User:Fowler&fowler/Gandhi's last hunger strike: sources. ( If someone can fix the Wiki error in "quote" in the Monographs section, I would be grateful. ) Finding these sources has been one of the most enjoyable things I have done on Wikipedia.

For nearly 10 years, the lead of the Mahatma Gandhi article said, "The last of these (fasts), undertaken on 12 January 1948 at age 78, also had the indirect goal of pressuring India to pay out some cash assets owed to Pakistan."

Here are some samples: 2 October 2013, 10 July 2014, 12 January 2015, 15 August 2016, 12 January 2017, 28 May 2017, 2 October 2017, 26 July 2018, 9 October 2019, 14 December 2020, 30 September 2021, 25 July 2022, 26 March 2023, with nary an edit dispute or war during this period.

Today, the scholarly sources are more or less unanimous in asserting that Gandhi did indeed compel the Indian government to give up the cash, whether or not he explicitly came out and said, "Pay up," or words to that effect. In other words, "indirectly" is not needed.

Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:30, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Survey

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  • 3(1). Since, based on the sources, it is unclear whether or not this was an explicit requirement of Gandhi's fast, it is clear it was not the primary requirement. Therefore 1 and 2 are not well supported. However, India did apparently pay up partly or wholly because of the fast, so 3 is well supported. Finally, regardless of its significance in the actions of the then Indian government, since the payment is an important factor in the dislike for Gandhi amongst the right wing Hindus, this needs to be said in both the lead as well as in the body. Therefore, we cannot not say this and that excludes option 4. --RegentsPark (comment) 14:38, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Note following the addition of option 5: I prefer 3(1) because it is the more parsimonious description of the events. There is insufficient evidence that the repayment was an explicit demand (on Gandhi's part) and, imo, we should stick to the simplest description when the actual facts are fuzzy. For these reasons, I don't support option 5. RegentsPark (comment) 00:20, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • 4. Indian government had officially denied such a link between the fast and the due payment for Pakistan.[20][21] It has been conclusively proven that the fast was not related to the payment also by the fact-checkers.[22][23][24][25] Reliable sources have clearly mentioned that Mahatma Gandhi made a number of speeches throughout January 12 - January 18, but none of them mentioned the payment. Similary, the top sources of that time also made no mention of this fast being related with the payment but treated the both as two different events.[26][27] If you are going to mention the fast then it will require the mention of India's official position and also the fact-checking that has been done many times over this topic, but it would be undue since Wikipedia is itself not for fact-checking and this claim has been ignored by most of the scholarly sources have written about Gandhi thus it is not really important. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 15:12, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • 1(1): It adds to the greatness of this leader; by not mentioning it, we would be doing him an injustice as Wikipedia editors, and in good conscience, I would not want to do such a thing. Sheriff | ☎ 911 | 15:27, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • 3(1), though I could live with 2. Numerous scholarly sources above mention the transfer as a an indirect result of Gandhi's last fast: not mentioning it does not appear to be an option. The !vote for 4, above, appears to completely ignore those sources, and also we give the Indian government's position no weight on Wikipedia; as such it has no basis in policy. The !vote for 1 immediately above mine does not provide sources in support. Vanamonde93 (talk) 16:06, 22 August 2024 (UTC) Slightly amended. I have reviewed F&F's sources. It appears to me that the majority of them describe the payment as a desired outcome, but not necessarily as the explicit motivation for the fast. As such, I prefer the more qualified wording. Vanamonde93 (talk) 16:16, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • 4 I looked more into this after it was mentioned above that Gandhi's fast ended on 18 January, but in February 1948, Pakistan's Finance minister Malik Ghulam Muhammad stated that they still hadn't received any payment.[28] I found that Pakistan had lodged a complaint to UNSC about India withholding the payment and then India had announced that they would release the payment. "Pakistan side was represented by Sir Zafrullah Khan, the Foreign Minister. The Security Council started hearing the complaint on January 15 , 1948. [...] Pakistan replied to Indian complaint and also lodged counter - complaint requesting the Security Council to ask India to fulfil all agreements as to division of military stores and cash balance."[29] This is confirmed by UN's own document.[30] It preceded India's announcement to release the payment. It should be noted that these sources have made no mention of Gandhi's fast. To claim that Gandhi's fast was responsible, which has been also rejected by India and the independent observers, is absolutely misleading. Azuredivay (talk) 16:18, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • 4 - I was thinking of supporting 3(1) but it is also inaccurate. The alleged link was never established; it was rejected. Neither the due amount to Pakistan was ever made available when Gandhi was alive, let alone his fast having caused the release of it. CharlesWain (talk) 17:40, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • 3(1)ish (5(1) see discussion below), much like S Marshall. The weight of sources show it needs to be mentioned, the question is how it is mentioned. I like how Marshall worded this, and any disagreement among academics about the details can be mentioned in the body of the article. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:00, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • 5(1), as per discussion below.—S Marshall T/C 16:10, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • 5(1) is the preferred formulation per below discussion. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:53, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • 4, unless better, more inclusive, and NPOV options are offered, this shall be my position. The options here presuppose that the disbursement of cash arrears to Pakistan was amongst the primary, avowed objectives of Gandhi's fast, yet in the discussions that had ensued last year over this same question, which I was a party to, and where this issue was most comprehensively discussed by a wider group of editors, a third-party 3O, citing excerpts from Ramachandra Guha's scholarly monograph on Gandhi, Gandhi: The Years That Changed the World, unequivocally established the fact that this was not even on Gandhi's agenda, much less his chief objective, when he began the fast. His was a fast against the societal tendency towards communal strife, which was being anticipated in the run-up to the partition. The fast itself continued long past the announcement that payments would be released, further underscoring the point. It was the governor general Lord Mountbatten who had apprised Gandhi of the issue of cash arrears on August 12, after Gandhi had begun his fast, and while the issue likely cropped up in his exchanges with Nehru and Patel the following days, it was never avowed, rather denied. See Abhishek's sources, chiefly Raghuvendra Tanwar's Reporting the Partition of Punjab, 1947: Prime Minister Nehru was naturally the first to state that even though Gandhi had been consulted on the issue, the decision to transfer the cash balance to Pakistan had nothing to do with his fast. The Prime Minister also said: 'we have come to this decision in the hope that the gesture in accord with India's high ideals and Gandhiji's noble standards will convince the world of our earnest desire for peace'. Some scholars speculate that this was likely an unofficial or tacit goal of Gandhi's fast, and while this was exactly the phrasing that the 3O had proffered (vide archive 16 #Comments_continued), there were brought up in the discussions a litany of scholarly sources discrediting the very proposition that Gandhi had used the fast to arm-twist the government of India into releasing payments to Pakistan--an aspect that the OP has consistently, against policies, disregarded, even though summarising the scholarly disagreement and divergence was the compromise reached during the fag end of the last year's discussion. While S Marshall's phrasing, incorporated in option #5, but not the whole of it, comes closest to being acceptable to some degree, it is preceded by the sentence in the option that the fast also aimed at the release of payments that suffers from the same lack of substance and editorializing as other options. MBlaze Lightning (talk) 19:20, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • 4. When you need various proposals to get around a questionable claim that lacks any firm foundation, then it is best to continue omitting the claim altogether. ZenDragoX (User) | (Contact) 14:49, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • 5 as per discussion below. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 13:55, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • 4. This is too subjective to include in the lead of the article. If the claim is questionable and or unprovable, it doesn't belong in the lead. Elmmapleoakpine (talk) 21:49, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak 5(1). I do find the abundance of sources provided for the statement to be compelling, while the sources in opposition feels like government propaganda in some cases (i.e, the government trying to make it sound like they are doing it out of the kindness of their heart), or otherwise a book of dubious scholarly merit (Beyond Doubt: A Dossier on Gandhi's Assassination seems to be cited exactly 1 time according to a google scholar search), and some news articles. While DW.Com is considered generally reliable, it has been noted that other language versions are less reliable per Perennial sources. Likewise, this source says The success of the Delhi fast would cost Gandhi his life. His effective pressure on the new Indian government to meet payments owed to Pakistan and on Hindus to cease persecution of Muslims persuaded his extremist Hindu assas- sins that they must wait no longer. But, the fact that Pakistan wasn't paid out until after a complaint at the UN was lodged probably has more weight on the decision. If the article is to say The fast was an important factor in the Indian government's decision, the statement should be cited because otherwise declaring it as "an important factor" seems to be MOS:PEACOCK.Brocade River Poems (She/They) 18:47, 11 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks @BrocadeRiverPoems: for taking the time to reply with such thoughtfulness. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:59, 13 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • 3 or 5 This has been a difficult conclusion to make. I have read the sources and comments provided below by users Abhishek0831996 and Fowler&fowler among others.Thanks to both of you for replying to my discussion below. In the end, there are just too many reliable sources claiming the payout had relevance with Gandhi's fast for the fact to be completely ignored. And where we are dealing with a topic that is clouded by opposing viewpoints, I don't see how we could use a black-and-white solution like 1, 2, or 4.
Fowler&fowler, in an effort to have both viewpoints addressed, is there a reasonable solution that can include the idea that the payout had nothing to do with Gandhi's fast? Penguino35 (talk) 13:10, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

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@Abhishek0831996: I am truly sorry, but there was an "also" in the statement that in my hurry I forgot to add. I corrected this after you posted your response. Please reread the RfC and if need be amend your response. Best, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:19, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"also aimed to restore to Pakistan its share of cash assets" is a speculation without any basis. Capitals00 (talk) 11:20, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That is not what undergraduates in history read around the world. See books written by major historians and political scientists of South Asia Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:21, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
PS See also WP:TERTIARY which is WP policy and describes the role of introductory textbooks in determining due weight, especially ones that are referred to nearly 7,000 times in scholarly publications. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:30, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@RegentsPark: There's something to be said for parsimony. As this is not a traditional RfC (in which different options are to be counted) but one in which a consensus is being crafted, would you be comfortable with: Option 6: "the fast also led the Indian government to restore to Pakistan its share of the cash assets of undivided British India which the government had resisted doing earlier? The way I see it, in the language of set theory, 1 ⊆ 2 ⊆ 5 ⊆ 6 ⊆ 3 where ⊆ denotes "is a subset of" At stake I think is the moral principle (that Truth is above Nationalism (e.g. wartime loyalties)) that Gandhi alone had upheld. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:04, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • I'm by no means wedded to the proposal above, but there is considerable source mis-representation in the opposition to it, and in the support for option 4. The sources that ostensibly support 4 are 1) not commenting on the issue of payment, or 2) listing communal strife as another motivation, or 3) written by non-scholars. Categories 1 and 2 (which includes good sources, like Wolpert) do not in any way impinge on this proposal; absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, especially when dozens of scholarly sources do support the other alternatives. Category 3 (including Setalvad, Hiro, and Vaidya) are not as reliable as the scholarly sources being offered, and at best can be presented as an alternative narrative in the body. I have yet to see a single scholarly source that explicitly says the payout was not a motivation for Gandhi's fast. Vanamonde93 (talk) 19:41, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Vanamonde93: There are scholarly sources that have noted that the release of payment was not Gandhi's motivation.
Raghuvendra Tanwar, Reporting the Partition of Punjab, 1947: Press, Public, and Other Opinions, p.71: "Looked at carefully each of the seven main issues was only an attempt by Gandhi to restore the confidence of the Muslims who had been traumatized. None of the points even remotely referred to the transfer of the cash balance to Pakistan."[31] See Sumit Ganguly's review of this book here.
Professor Saiyid Zaheer Husain Jafri, "Recording the Progress of Indian History: Symposia Papers of the Indian History Congress, 1992-2010", p. 254: "Only a tiny section of Maharashtrians brought up in a particular school of thought were vehement critics of Gandhi; they accused him of showing partially to Muslims, and of favouring Pakistan by his fast coercing the Nehru Government to transfer Rs. 55 crore to Pakistan, and finally killed him. In reality, according to C.D. Deshmukh the then Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, has recorded that the amount transferred was legitimately due to Pakistan."[32] He is cited across Wikipedia.[33]
Lars Blinkenberg, India-Pakistan: An analysis of some structural factors, p. 144: "Mountbatten found some mystery in Gandhi's last fast, and Kripalani thought that Gandhi was under great mental strain and in poor health, but he underlines that the fast was not directed against Patel. He confirms that Gandhi personally denied this to his secretary, Pyarelal. Maulana Azad, on the other hand, just like Durga Das, confirms "that, in a sense, the fast was directed against the attitude of Sardar Patel, he ( Patel ) knew it". Azad also explains that Gandhi put forward the exact conditions he wanted fulfilled in order to terminate his fast (the list specifying these conditions did not mention the transfer of money to Pakistan). He received the undertaking from representatives of the Hindu and Muslim communities, that they would assure that further communal disturbances would not take place, in Delhi."[34]Abhishek0831996 (talk) 16:55, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You'll have to do a bit better than that. Jafri is noting that Pakistan was owed those assets, which is precisely what other people cite as Gandhi's motivation. Jafri is saying that it didn't have anything to do with Gandhi's alleged partiality to Muslims; he's not saying the transfer wasn't a motivation. Blinkenburg is also not saying that; he's attributing the opinion to Maulana Azad, who was a party to the events being discussed and isn't a dispassionate independent source. The excerpt you have provided from Tanwar is devoid of context, but appears to be an analysis of Gandhi's formal demands, which of course we are in no way beholden to if scholars describe the cash transfer as an implied demand. Vanamonde93 (talk) 17:21, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • But @MBlaze Lightning: Gandhi met with Mountbatten on January 6 per the account of his personal private secretary Pyarelal Nayyar who was the brother of Gandhi's personal physician, Sushila Nayyar. Says he, in [Nayyar, Pyarelal (1958), Mahatma Gandhi: The Last Phase, vol. II, Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, pp. 699–706, On the 6th January, 1948, Gandhiji discussed the question with Lord Mountbatten and asked for his frank and candid opinion on the Government of India's decision. Mountbatten said, it would be the "first dishonourable act" by the Indian Union Government if the payment of the cash balance claimed by Pakistan was withheld. It set Gandhiji furiously thinking. ... Out of the depth of his anguish came the decision to fast. It left no room for argument. Sardar Patel and Pandit Nehru had been with him only a couple of hours before. ... The issue was nothing less than "the regaining of India's dwindling prestige and her fast fading sovereignty over the heart of Asia and therethrough the world." ...
    The fast commenced at 11:55 a.m. on the 13 January ... Only a few intimate friends and members of the household were present. The company was impromptu. ... Neither Sardar Patel nor Pandit Nehru tried to strive with him though the Sardar was very much upset. A believer in deeds more than words, he simply sent word that he would do anything that Gandhiji might wish. In reply, Gandhiji suggested that the first priority should be given to the question of Pakistan's share of the cash assets.
    So:
    Also, @MBlaze Lightning: Patel made his first public announcement of the abrogation of the cash assets payment on the morning of January 12, Gandhi made the announcement of the fast (or had Sushila Nayyar read it as it was is day of silence) in his evening prayer meeting of the 12. The fast did not begin until January 13. Your dates are incorrect. This is not just stated in Pyarelal Nayyar's secondary source, but can be viewed in the second newspapers in the list here. Patel's announcement of the abrogation of the payment is on the right. Gandhi's announcement of the beginning of the fast the following day is on the left. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:47, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Fowler&fowler Your whole comment can be discounted on one basic point that it commits synthesis of published material and misrepresents the source by quote-mining and assembling different passages (that occur far apart in different contexts in the source), synthesizing them together to advance a conclusion that cannot be found with a microscope in the source. The chapter in the Pyarelal source begins with a brief treatment of the political debate over the withholding of cash payments to Pakistan. In relation to it, Pyarelal writes that Gandhi broached the issue about the payments in his discussion with Mountbatten on January 6 to solicit his opinion. Gandhi himself did not even have a definite opinion on the matter at this time...It set Gandhiji furiously thinking. He did not question the legality of the Indian Union’s decision. Nor could he insist on the Union Government going beyond what the strict letter of the law required and permitted them... The context then segues to the more predominant and discernible context of the Maulanas of Delhi approaching Gandhi to ventilate their grievances about being subjected to violence in their own country, and these talks serving as the catalyst for Gandhi's fast. There is a lack of definite interrelation between the two contexts. You cannot make up for it or bridge that gap with WP:SYNTH by reading between the lines, especially where there is not anything to read, where the author has not made any connections, or lift parts from the latter and mix it artificially with the former. While Pyarelal contextualizes Gandhi's fast wholly in the communal context,[35] you have completely glossed over the same.
    You say that the dates are wrong, but as a matter of fact, they are not. Gandhi's visit to Mountbatten on January 12th in the aftermath of his announcement that he would begin a fast is a well-documented statement of fact in scholarly sources. Pyarelal attests to it (p.703), Ramachandra Guha notes it. Hell, the sources from your own compilation note it. Sources discuss it in the context of Gandhi's fast and establish the sequence of events through from the latter to the former. This is conveyed in so many words by Pyarelal in his memoir to boot.
    Here I bring out the excerpts from the same source that exemplify the actual communal context that impelled Gandhi to "to launch on a fast unto death unless the madness in Delhi ceased." (p.701)
    • The Maualanas approach Gandhi to convey thier grievances: If the Congress cannot guarantee their protection, let them plainly say so... The Muslims...cannot even go to Pakistan, for as nationalist Muslims we have been opposed to its formation..Hindus will (also) not allow us to live in the capital.. (p.700)
    • For the Mahatma who had spent his life in essaying to reconcile religious differences of the Hindus and the Muslims, and in bringing them together in one nation in peace and harmony, this was a matter of biblical proportions. Gandhi mentions "Times were bad. In Pakistan Muslims had gone mad and had driven away most of the Hindus and Sikhs. If the Hindus in the Union did likewise, it would spell their own ruin." (p.701)
    • "She came running to me with the news— Gandhiji had decided to launch a fast unto death unless the madness in Delhi ceased."
    • For Gandhi, the only reason for undertaking the fast was to resolve the problem of communal violence: "From the time that he had returned to Delhi..Gandhiji had never ceased asking where his duty lay in the face of what was happening.. There was no answer he could give to the Muslims who came to him..with their tales of woe. He was impatient to go to the succour of the minority community in Sind and the West Punjab... But with what face or self confidence could he go there when he could not guarantee full protection to the Delhi Muslims... Out of the depth of his anguish came the decision to fast. It left no room for argument. Sardar Patel and Pandit Nehru had been with him only a couple of hours before. He had given then no inkling of what was brewing withing him." (p.701)
    • "The decision was read out at the evening prayer meeting. The fast would begin on the next day..and..would be terminated only when and if he was satisfied that there was a "reunion of hearts of all the communities brought about without outside pressure but from an awakened sense of duty"." (p.702)
    • Gandhi explains his sense of compulsion and inner necessity he experienced on seeing the communal situation in Delhi to undertake the fast: "There is, however, a fast which a votary of non-violence sometimes feels impelled to undertake by way of protest against some •wrong done by society and this he does when he as a votary of Ahimsa has no other remedy left. Such an occasion has come my way. When I returned to Delhi from Calcutta on the 9th September, 1947, gay Delhi looked a city of the dead. At once I saw that I had to be in Delhi and “do or die”. There is apparent calm brought about by prompt military and police action. But there is storm within the breast. It may burst forth any day."(p.702)[36]
    • Next, Gandhi seeks blessing: "He asked all to bless his effort and to pray for him and with him. The issue was nothing less than “the regaining of Indians dwindling prestige and her fast fading sovereignty over the heart of Asia and therethrough the world"."
    • Death for me would be a glorious deliverance rather than that P should be a helpless witness of the destruction of India, Hinduism, Sikhism and Islam. That destruction is certain if Pakistan ensures no equality of status and security of life and property for aU' professing the various faiths of the world and if India copies, her. Only then Islam dies in the two Indias, not in the world. But Hinduism and Sikhism have no world outside India.
    • In reply to a question as to why he should have decided to launch on a fast at that juncture when “nothing extraordinary had happened”, he answered that “death by inches” was far worse than sudden death. “It would have been foolish for me to wait till the last Muslim has been turned out of Delhi by subtle undemonstrative methods.”!’ Could Suhrawardy freely move about in the city? He could not. “I cannot today ask him to accompany me to prayer meetings lest someone should insult him. ... All this has to go before I can be at peace with myself.”'® ...
    • it concluded that "the speaker remarked that they were satisfied that the tide had definitely turned and was now fast flowing in the direction of communal harmony and peace where previously bitterness and hatred prevailed. Since the administration had under-written the assurance given by the representatives of the people, they had every reason to believe it would be implemented, though it might take some time." (p. 731)
    • And then... "After the High Commissioner for Pakistan had reiterated the appeal, followed by the representatives of the Hindu Mahasabha, the RSS, the Sikhs and the representatives of Delhi Administration, Gandhiji broke the fast".
    There is nothing about the issue of payments, not in the least about it being the catalyst for Gandhi's fast. It is all about using the fast as a means to resolve the pressing problem of communal violence that Gandhi could not put up with. Gandhi made it clear that the fast would be terminated only when the communal problem was resolved, and an announcement made in the interim of the release of payments did not have any impact on it, illustrating again and again that the two were not intertwined. Gandhi employed the fast as a means to resolve the pressing problem of communal violence that he could not put up with. THis is what the sources convey too. He had a moral interest in the question of payments to Pakistan. He was a man of principles, so naturally when this issue was raked up in political circles, he had also formed a principled opinion on the matter. MBlaze Lightning (talk) 01:47, 31 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have read the arguments and the votes for consensus and came here to caution editors against WP:SYNTH, which says, "Do not combine material from multiple sources to state or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources. Similarly, do not combine different parts of one source to state or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by the source. If one reliable source says A and another reliable source says B, do not join A and B together to imply a conclusion C not mentioned by either of the sources. This would be improper editorial synthesis of published material to imply a new conclusion, which is original research."
The arguments to include or not include the pay out/reason for the pay out/request for the pay out are all good, and we have excellent and productive editors contributing to this conversation, however, please provide the quotes from scholarly sources explicitly stating Gandhi
1. requested the pay out as part of the fast and
2. that the pay out was a result of Gandhi's fast.
If there are sources explicitly stating the opposite, I would like those brought to light as well. However, stating that the pay out was made on a specific date that aligned with Gandhi's fast, and then assuming the reasonable conclusion is that the two are related is not appropriate for a Wikipedia article. Penguino35 (talk) 13:37, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Penguino35: Here are the opposite ones:
Some reliable concluding Gandhi did not fast for the payment.

  • Raghuvendra Tanwar, Reporting the Partition of Punjab, 1947: Press, Public, and Other Opinions, p.71: "Looked at carefully each of the seven main issues was only an attempt by Gandhi to restore the confidence of the Muslims who had been traumatized. None of the points even remotely referred to the transfer of the cash balance to Pakistan."[37] See Sumit Ganguly's review of this book here.
  • Professor Saiyid Zaheer Husain Jafri, "Recording the Progress of Indian History: Symposia Papers of the Indian History Congress, 1992-2010", p. 254: "Only a tiny section of Maharashtrians brought up in a particular school of thought were vehement critics of Gandhi; they accused him of showing partially to Muslims, and of favouring Pakistan by his fast coercing the Nehru Government to transfer Rs. 55 crore to Pakistan, and finally killed him. In reality, according to C.D. Deshmukh the then Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, has recorded that the amount transferred was legitimately due to Pakistan."[38]
  • "Did Gandhi go on a fast to get Rs 55 crore to Pakistan", Deutsche Welle: "Gandhi made no mention of Rs 55 crore given to Pakistan. The assurances given to Gandhi by the committee set up to end Gandhi's fast also did not include giving money to Pakistan. The press notes issued by the India government at that time also make no mention of Gandhi's demand for Rs 55 crore to Pakistan. So the fact that Gandhi went on a hunger strike to give Rs 55 crore to Pakistan is also a lie."
  • "Why, in 2022, We Must Remember the Hate That Killed Gandhi", The Quint: "Pandey has brought out details here that nail the “55 crore”-to-Pakistan lie, often cited as the reason why the Mahatma was disposed of. India needed to transfer arrears due to Pakistan under the terms of division of assets and liabilities. Of the Rs 75 crore to be paid, the first instalment of Rs 20 crore was already released. Invasion of Kashmir by Pakistani Army supported covert raiders happened before the second instalment was paid out. Government of India decided to withhold the payment. Lord Mountbatten was of the opinion that it was “unstatesmanlike and unwise” and he brought it to the notice of Gandhi on 12 January. Gandhi, keen that India stick to what was agreed, concurred with that view. But nowhere in the course of the last fast he undertook did he invoke this."
  • Testa Setalvad (2015). Beyond Doubt: A Dossier on Gandhi's Assassination. Tulika Books. p. 140. ISBN 978-93-82381-56-3. Retrieved 2023-03-05. All these facts prove that the hunger strike was not for the 55 crore rupees. [...] The Hindutva forces have consistently made false propaganda and no efforts were made to counter that propaganda. Hence, since it is repeated time and again, people believe this falsehood as truth.
Abhishek0831996 (talk) 16:55, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with MBlaze Lightning and Abhishek0831996 that the source supplied by Fowler&fowler«Talk» is in danger of breaching WP Policy SYNTH. However, is there really no way to include that the payout had something to do with the fast? Even if the need for the payout was what led to Gandhi considering the other civil issues that he actually fasted for in the end? What do we think? Penguino35 (talk) 14:23, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That is not my main source @Penguino35:. The list of my sources is: User:Fowler&fowler/Gandhi's last hunger strike: sources which are ordered in degree of reliability and due weight, the most reliable and due being those in group 1 i.e. major introductory text-books read in universities around the world and authored by some of the biggest names in history and political science. They leave very little doubt that they have interpreted the sum total of available primary and secondary sources to say there is a connection. Not a single one says there was no connection. Please read, in particular, Oxford University Press's, Gandhi: A Very Short Introduction and gauge how unambiguous it is in seeing a connection
The primacy of introductory textbooks or reviews of the literature is based on Wikipedia policy, in particular, WP:TERTIARY which is very clear. I have done this commonly to avoid pitfalls in history-related articles. For example the FA India's history section uses such textbooks, many in Group 1 of my list, for every one of its many sentences.
Pyarelal, whose memoir has been quoted from above by MBlazeLightning is not something we can use beyond citing dates. This is because it is a primary source. Pyarelal was Gandhi's private secretary and his sister the personal physician and his book is written from notes of his and his sister's from that time. Accordingly, I cited Pyarelal only for a contradictory proof of a date MBlzeLightning had offered for the day Gandhi announced his fast and the date of the meeting with Mountbatten. But MBlazeLightning has, as much as I have discerned, attempted to deduce historical conclusions from his memoir. That is a textbook definition of original research.
As for the sources Abhishek0831996 has listed, they are about the most fringe I have encountered in my 18 years on Wikipedia. My sources in Group 1 have a total of 7,000 citations in publications listed in Google Scholar. Abhishek0831996's Dossier etc does not have a single one.
So, Penguino35, long story short, please read the highlighted sentences in textbook after textbook listed in Group 1. The evidence is staggering. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:23, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
PS @Penguino35: Another thing I have noticed is that these editors along with a few others have misapplied WP:CONTEXTMATTERS, when they offer it to support their arguments. That context matters means that if a reference makes a passing mention of some conclusion, it will be on average less reliable than one which goes into more detail about the same conclusion. But that does not mean that conclusions in text-books are passing mentions.
Textbooks are vetted for balance by an army of advanced readers. The scholarly publishers such as Oxford, Cambridge, Chicago, Columbia, etc all require such vetting because their own reputation is at stake. Moreover, many of these textbooks are in the second or third editions. That means—to take Metcalf and Metcalf's A Concise History of Modern India, 3rd ed, CUP, as an example—the books has been used in hundreds of courses around the world, including those taught by former students of the Metcalfs and other professional historians in their academic community. In other words, a false conclusion would have been challenged by a very large population of careful readers in academe itself. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:50, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
PPS And @Penguino35: what do Barbara D. Metcalf and Thomas R. Metcalf say in the 3rd edition of A Concise History of Modern India, Cambridge University Press, 2012? They say, "Just before his death, Gandhi made one last decisive intervention in the Indian political process. By a combination of prayer and fasting, he forced a contrite ministry to hand over to Pakistan its share of the cash assets of undivided India, some 40 million pounds sterling, which had so far been retained in defiance of the partition agreements." The book has become such a classic around the world that it is now an audiobook. see here, one of the very few on modern Indian history. It has been cited nearly 1000 times on Google scholar. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:03, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Penguino35: Gandhi had fasted for putting an end to the violence. The payment issue was separate from that and it didn't concern Gandhi as we can see from not only recent sources but also the coverage during those days such as the Time magazine on 26 January 1948. That's why it is fair to support it's omission. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 16:56, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Please tell that to the thousands of undergraduate and graduate students in history around the world, maybe hundreds of thousands, who read Metcalf and Metcalf's classic mentioned above as their introduction to modern Indian history. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:06, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
They don't read Time magazine, let alone a short 1948 article without a byline. Seriously? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:08, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
But none of them ever cared about addressing the debunking of this claim. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 17:11, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
How a journalist Testa Setalvad,, whose Dossier is a random collection of primary sources, will hold a candle to two of the major professional historians of South Asia, I struggle to comprehend.
  • Not only did you remove the reference to the cash payout in this article (in which it had stably remained for 10 years), but also recently on
Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:28, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm at a loss. This discussion seems to have died in the water of opposing perspectives. Anything we can do to reach a consensus? Can we combine ideas, share sources? What do we think? Penguino35 (talk) 23:05, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It is not opposing perspectives. It is one perspective supported by the best sources available (the same quality as in the FA India) and another perspective which is being propped up by a small handful of abysmally poor sources. Engaging these editors further has no benefit for me; in fact it is depressing. Even though I had written the lead, I have lost interest in it. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:51, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In some ways this RfC was ill-fated from the get go. There simply was not enough participation. Perhaps, I had made it too complicated. Please read the closer's notes in RfCs such as Talk:2024_Kolkata_rape_and_murder#RfC:_Name_of_victim and Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_287#Times_of_India_RFC in which there was wider participation. The perspective I had supported, which had nothing going for it but a surfeit of highly reliable sources, won the day with a 2:1 super majority. So maybe, if the mood strikes some months from now, or maybe a year or two, I'll ask some experienced WPians to formulate the strongest RfC statement consonant with the sources and revisit the issue. Thanks for your good-faith concern @Penguino35: Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:53, 2 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've been in those kinds of disputes before. I'm sorry for the fizzle in engagement. Hopefully clarity and consensus can be reached. The reliability of a textbook as a source should be noted and held with due weight. Penguino35 (talk) 19:39, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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