Talk:Dominion of India

Requested move 2008

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

I request that the article "Dominion of India" and its associated talk page be moved to "Union of India" and "Talk:Union of India" respectively on the grounds that a Google search reveals "Union of India" -wikipedia more popular than "Dominion of India" -wikipedia, furthermore, the term "Union of India" was the official nomenclature for the entity. --Shibo77 (talk) 02:45, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Support per nom but not on the Google hits rationale. — AjaxSmack 02:14, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Map (1947 boundaries vs. current)

The boundaries on the map used (the current day map of the Republic of India) don't represent the 1947 borders of the country. Koregaonpark (talk) 12:08, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

I would also stress that the Hyderabad State should be marked light green in the core of India, since it was a disputed territory annexed by force.--140.77.75.232 (talk) 16:02, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Official language

Shouldn't it say Hindi and Enlgish and NOT Hindustani and English? --Rsrikanth05 (talk) 13:52, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Is this term still current?

I was reading the judgment of the Delhi High Court in Naz Foundation v Union of India, and the judgment several times refers to "the Union" when it means the Indian government. Is this anachronism intentionally used by the Indian judicial system, or an acceptable form of referring to independent India/the Indian government? Johnleemk | Talk 11:07, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

I guess it is a metaphor(or should that be a euphemism?) for the "Union government" just as courts in UK refer to "the crown" or "the state" in US when they actually mean the administration. Will ask some editors with a legal background to chip in.--Deepak D'Souza 04:15, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

The term Union of India is still in use, but in a very different context from what this article refers to. It is used (intentionally) by the Indian judicial system to refer to the Government of India as a whole (as opposed to the Governments of the states), but generally not used outside a legal context. However, the Government of India is colloquially referred to as the Union Government in popular parlance.

The present use of the term Union of India is derived from Article 300 of the Constitution of India, which states that The Government of India may sue or be sued by the name of the Union of India... (emphasis supplied). It has no connection to the Dominion of India, which was a pre-Constitutional entity. The Constitution also frequently refers to the Government of India/Central Government as the Union. Hope this clarifies. Regards, SBC-YPR (talk) 05:10, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! I've added a sentence to the lead and a short section on this unusual usage, which should help clear up similar confusion for other readers. Johnleemk | Talk 07:56, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, Johnleemk! for bringing this to our notice. --Deepak D'Souza 09:10, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

When the Indian Constitution was framed, there were vigorous debates as to whether India would be a federal state or unitary; as a compromise, the Constitution proclaimed, "India that is Bharat shall be a Union of States". Technically, the country is a 'Union of India' or 'Indian Union'. Only the Muslim League party retains this in its official name, "Indian Union Muslim League". When India proclaimed itself a republic, the official name of the country became the Republic of India. However, the country is still a Union of States. It is not an anachronism. It reflects the nature of the Indian polity: neither a federation nor a unitary state. There were, and are still, long debates in political science about whether India is a federation with unitary features, or a unitary state with federal features! A unitary country will have a central government, a federation will have a federal government; the Indian constitution is neither; therefore it has the 'Union Government', and the lands it directly governs are the 'Union Territories'. Gopalan evr (talk) 19:14, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Anachronistic map

The main map on this article is the generic India locator image. India's territory has changed since 1950, with areas like Goa and others annexed by the Republic. If anyone can make a more accurate locator, please do so. YeshuaDavid • Talk • 19:44, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Requested move 2011

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was move per request.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 12:31, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

---

Union of India → Dominion of India — I propose this article is moved back to its original title. Under the Indian Independence Act 1947 (see text), the two states which were established were the Dominion of India and the Dominion of Pakistan. "Union of India" is ambiguous as it can refer to the republic as well as the dominion. --The Celestial City (talk) 22:48, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

• Support per nom. GoodDay (talk) 12:31, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
• Support per nom.  — Amakuru (talk) 13:03, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

"India", not "Dominion of India" was official

The following is an extract from the Indian Independence Act 1947:

[Section]1.-(i) As from the fifteenth day of August, ninteen hundred and forty-seven, two independent Dominions shall be set up in India, to be known respectively as India and Pakistan.

There is no dispute but that India was indeed a Dominion between 1947 and 1949. However, its common name and official name was simply India. Although the term Dominion of India was used sometimes, it wasn't the official name. While moving the article has been rejected on a past occasion, the article itself ought to atleast be correct as to what the official name was. Frenchmalawi (talk) 20:43, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

This is true. It seems the term 'Dominion of India' was used retrospectively; but that's it.JWULTRABLIZZARD (talk) 09:56, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

User:JWULTRABLIZZARD and User:DrKay - I again return to this topic as the article is currently wholly inaccurate as to what was the name of the dominion whose name was simply INDIA. A solitary reference referring to a history book that in turn does not cross-refer to any statute appears to be given as grounds for the view that its official name was now (no less) “Union of India”. We have of course the clear terms of the 1947 Act. Any one of us can have a look at what an Indian passport of the time looked like too. There was no “Union of” or “Dominion of” on its passports either. Anyway, it would be nice if some honest attention was paid to this glaring inaccuracy. Frenchmalawi (talk) 03:29, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

It seems fairly clear that the official name is just India. DrKay (talk) 13:18, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

Not sure who added those "sources" for "Dominion" in the lead sentence. I have removed them as they are not reliable. I will soon add more sources for "Union of India" being the official name. Several are already in there after the appositive "officially the Union of India." Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:00, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

I have removed 5 because they (1) don't support the article content, saying nothing about an "official" name and (2) it's cite overkill. DrKay (talk) 08:25, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

Monarch's title in India (and Pakistan)

The Sovereign never had the title "King of India". George VI had the same title everywhere in the Empire. While he was certainly King in India and Pakistan after 1947 until they respectively became republics, his title after he dropped the "Emperor of India" never included any reference to India, never mind Pakistan. It is wrong to say he was "King of India". It is fine to say he was "king in India". It would be a bit like saying the King's title was also "King of Canada" at that time. It wasn't.

• Until 1947:George's official style and title in full was: His Majesty George the Sixth, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, Ireland and the British Dominions beyond the Seas King, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India (in Latin: George VI, Dei Gratia Magnae Britanniae, Hiberniae et terrarum transmarinarum quae in ditione sunt Britannica Rex, Fidei Defensor, Indiae Imperator.
• After 1947: George the Sixth, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, Ireland and the British Dominions beyond the Seas King, Defender of the Faith - Note, his new title does not even mention India (or Pakistan).

Frenchmalawi (talk) 13:24, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

Yes; it wasn't until 1953, during the reign of his daughter, that the Royal Titles Act (issued separately for each dominion) that separate titles; e.g. 'King/Queen of Australia, Queen of South Africa, et cetera, were used for each separate dominion, rather than merely using the catch-all additional title 'and of the British Dominions beyond the Seas'. Oddly enough; with the 1953 Royal Titles Act for Pakistan, the title adopted-in full; 'Elizabeth the Second, Queen of the United Kingdom and her other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth', did not mention Pakistan, whilst omitting the phrases 'By the Grace of God' and 'Defender of the Faith'.JWULTRABLIZZARD (talk) 10:00, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

Union of India controversy

This page used to be called the "Union of India." It was changed to the "Dominion of India" because it was said that the "Union of India" could also refer to the Republic of India. However, somebody changed the redirect-target of "Union of India" to the Republic of India. That is not appropriate.

• Legally, the Dominion of India only consisted of the territory that was previously under the British administration. The princely states were never part of the Dominion, but rather part of the "Union of India" or more often the "Indian Union." While accession matters were discussed, the country was often referred to as the Indian Union. The states joined the Union and sent representatives to the Union Constituent Assembly.
• After the passage of the Constitution, the princely states were dissolved and the country became a Republic. So, there was less need to refer to the "Indian Union." Only the legal use of the "Union of India" persists as per the Article 300 of the Constitution. In this usage, it refers to the Union Government only, not the country.

So, the "Union of India" should redirect to here. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 12:54, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

@Kautilya3: your second point seems more than enough to clearly outweigh the first. If the present usage of the "Union of India" or the "Indian Union" persists, then why is that argument not sufficient to redirect the page to the page of the Republic/the Government? MikeLynch (talk) 15:26, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Because reliable sources overwhelmingly use "Union of India" to refer to what you call the "Dominion of India". The Republic of India is rarely referred to by that name. (Politically, as I explained, the term "Union" was used for describing the combination of the Dominion + the Princely States.) -- Kautilya3 (talk) 16:09, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Union of India

That title redirects here but the term 'union' doesn't appear even once in this article. Srnec (talk) 23:50, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

"Union of India" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Union of India. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. DrKay (talk) 13:55, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

The myth of the monarch

Please read Britannica, which says,

"Dominion, the status, prior to 1939, of each of the British Commonwealth countries of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Union of South Africa, Eire, and Newfoundland. Although there was no formal definition of dominion status, a pronouncement by the Imperial Conference of 1926 described Great Britain and the dominions as “autonomous communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs, though united by a common allegiance to the Crown and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations.” ... After 1947 the use of the expression was abandoned because it was thought in some quarters to imply a form of subordination, and the phrase “members of the Commonwealth” came into use. The definition of 1926 was modified in 1949, when it was agreed that countries could enjoy full Commonwealth membership but were not obligated to recognize the British monarch as their sovereign. The monarch was accepted as the symbol of the free association of the independent member nations and as such was the head of the Commonwealth. India was the first country to enter into such an arrangement, and by the 1990s it had been joined by most of the other Commonwealth nations."

You could nitpick about whether George VI had any breathing room as sovereign between 1947 and 1949, but I've never seen any reference in the literature referring to him as one for India. I'm sure the Indians did not consider him to be their sovereign after midnight of August 15. It may have taken until April 1947 for the rules to be formally changed, but we can't very well call him King of India for the interim. He became head of the Commonwealth with no recognition as sovereign in April 1949, well before India's becoming a republic. I don't have the time now, but will eventually request a page move back to "Union of India." Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:02, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

Calling it a 'myth' is frankly, a bit odd. As I've mentioned elsewhere, Certainly as regards titles; there was no separate title for *any* of the Dominions until 1953; when each dominion passed a separate Royal Titles Act to specify exactly what title said dominion wanted the Queen to bear in right of it. So George VI was never officially titled 'King of Canada', 'King of Australia', 'King of South Africa', 'King of New Zealand' etc., even though he unquestionably was. (Curiously enough; Pakistan's Royal Titles Act adopted in 1953 didn't mention Pakistan, but did the United Kingdom, though it omitted 'Defender of the Faith'.) There certainly *were* treaties made in the name of George VI as regards India during the period August 1947-January 1950. The title 'Emperor of India' was (retroactively) dropped in 1948. Now, of course; Nehru was a republican, and pushed for a republican constitution, but that is of little consequence: the same was true of Eamonn de Valera in the Irish Free State, the same was true for Daniel Malan in the Union of South Africa (not to mention all his successors as Prime Minister, as well as the governors-general)

Here's the text of the Treaty of Friendship between India and Switzerland, carried out in the name of George VI:

https://mea.gov.in/bilateral-documents.htm?dtl/5163/Treaty+of+Friendship+amp+Establishmenthttps://mea.gov.in/bilateral-documents.htm?dtl/5163/Treaty+of+Friendship+amp+Establishment JWULTRABLIZZARD (talk) 08:08, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Rajagopalachari portrait in Central Hall of Parliament.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 04:24, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

POV on this page

This page is about independent India during the period 15 August 1947 to 26 January 1950. It is not meant to be a justification for how George VI really was the King of India after he had lost his empire. It is not a little mausoleum, a glass menagerie, for lost imperial glory. George VI occupies less than 1% of the historiography of India during the period 1947 to 50. Please examine the broad-scale histories of British India and tell me on how many pages you can find him. I'm irritated that in a little woebegone corner of WP attempts are being made to rehabilitate him at the expense of the history of the Indian people and their leaders. It is not enough to say you have cited reliable sources. In this day and age, you can find sources for the craziest assertions. The operational expression here is due weight.

I doubt I'll edit the page myself, but will post on WT:INDIA, pointing out the inequity. Meanwhile, I've added some representative pictures of India during that period. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:44, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

• What is this piece of exquisite nonsense: Bhārat Adhirājya),

Hindi became the official language of the Republic of India in 1950; since when did an anachronism in Hindi ca 2010 become kosher for India ca 1947? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:02, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

-seeing as you framed that as a question; the phrase 'Bhārat Adhirājya'; which *wasn't* used officially for the name of the Indian polity in the period between 1947 and 1950, was used retrospectively in the Constitution of India (ie, the 1949 one), referring to the polity existing under the India (Provisional Constitution) Order, 1947:https://www.archontology.org/nations/india/01_polity.php (see footnote 2).

As for the 1935 Government of India Act being used as a (provisional) constitution, see the Gazette of India (the official gazette of the Indian government) here:https://archive.org/details/in.gazette.csl_extraordinary.1947-08-14.E-2372-1947-0000-110384/page/n3/mode/2up

JWULTRABLIZZARD (talk) 16:33, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

As far as I know, Hindi was granted official status on 14 September 1949, during the Dominion phase. Just days ago was "Hindi Diwas". Peter Ormond 💬 04:08, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

Well if it did and it was for the period ending 1950, then please find a source from before 1950 using that expression, or a scholarly English-language source citing the use of that expression during the Dominion phase. We do know that Hindi is prominently mentioned in the Eight Schedule of the Constitution of India. Hindi is the only language whose development the constitution mandates. See User:Fowler&fowler/Official language(s) of India Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:26, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

BTW, that Hindi Day is a bogus page. It conflates the discussions of the Constituent Assembly of India in the waning months of 1949 and the promulgation of an official language which did not happen until the new Constitution took effect on 26 January 1950; by then, the Dominion of India was history. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:37, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

Using the logic of "Hindi Day," India became a Republic on 26 November 1949 (See Constituent_Assembly_of_India#Constitution_and_elections or view the picture in the gallery of Ambedkar presenting the final draft to Rajendra Prasad on 25 November 1949. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:45, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

"On 14 September 1949, Hindi, written in Devanagari script, was adopted as the official language of Union of India". Peter Ormond 💬 05:20, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

OK, if you are insisting on wasting my time, I will post on WT:INDIA. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:23, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

Your approach here is seen as WP:IJDLI. Even after citing RS, you are saying that I am "wasting your time". Such behaviour is not expected from an experienced editor like you. Peter Ormond 💬 05:28, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

I have corrected that page as well. The entire Constitution of India was debated in the Constituent Assembly from 1947 to 28 November 1949. The members of the assembly went through every bit approving it, opposing it, or changing it. The minutes of the meetings used to be available on the Indian parliament website; I don't know if they still are. There are some things such as the choice of India's national anthem (Jana Gana Mana) where the Constituent Assembly did make the choice. In that instance it was on 24 January 1950, two days before India became a republic. This was because the Constitution of India mentions the anthem in the abstract only. It does not mandate a specific choice.

I don't know what to do with you. You are blithely and very quickly adding whichever quick fix you can find on the internet. You don't even give yourself time to cite it in the proper format (cite book, citation, cite web) and you go on adding the pictures which show a British symbol somewhere in the foreground or background. I mean how silly is your reversion of my carefully chosen gallery with four pictures showing Mountbatten? Seriously, Mountbatten who left India in June 1948 and George VI who never visited India (though for no fault of his) are not the most important people in India in the period 15 August 1947 to 26 January 1950. Anyway, I will post a few academic sources here. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:10, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

There were three images showing Mountbatten, two of which have been replaced by Rajagopalachari's, the last GG. Peter Ormond 💬 14:04, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

This is not some game in which images are being counted, their number reflecting their encyclopedic worth. You have changed my gallery which gives the reader a feel for some notable events and people associated with India in the period after independence and before it became a republic on 26 January 1950. Instead, you have added pictures of the independence ceremonies that more properly belong to the British Raj page (and probably are there) or ones that properly belong to the Commons gallery of the India page (which being an FA can't accommodate any more pictures in its article body). The problem is that you are not taking the time to read the history of that period and mull over what is important. Nehru's visit to the US was important, as was the one to the UN. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:17, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

The Gallery under History should contain notable events in the Dominion phase. Adding too many stamps is just irrelevant. Yes, I know Nehru's visit was important, and I am adding it back. Peter Ormond 💬 15:33, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

F&f's sources for Hindi (official)

Please do not edit this subsection. You may add your own references in the discussion section below. I am adding generous quote so that the lay of the land becomes clear.

• Laitin, David (1989), "Language Policy and Strategy in India", Policy Sciences, 22: 415–436, Gandhi also emphasized the need for an indigenous all-India language as something of grave need, and promoted Hindustani, a north Indian koine that blurred the distinction between Hindi and Urdu. In 1925, the Congress amended article 33 of its Constitution to read, 'The proceedings of the Congress shall be conducted as far as possible in Hindustani? Gandhi did not advocate that the regional languages should be ignored; rather, he felt that a common Indian language for an independent country was of utmost concern. As Congress party nationalists debated as members of the constituent assembly to draft a Constitution, despite heated arguments about a plethora of language issues, there was hardly any question about the desirability of a common official language, and that some form of Hindi would play that role) India's constitution therefore specified that Hindi would eventually become the official language for all-Union business, supplanting English.
• Bhatia, Vijay K.; Sharma, Rajesh (2008), "Language and the legal system", in Braj B. Kachru, Yamuna Kachru, and S. N. Sridhar (ed.), Language in South Asia, Cambridge University Press, pp. 361–376, 367, Although the Constitution of India, which came into effect in 1950, designated 'Hindi in the Devanagari script' as the official language of the country, it also provided the use of English for official purposes of the Union for an initial period of fifteen years.{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)
• Wan, Peter P.; Reins, Thomas D (2021), Asia Past and Present: A Brief History, John Wiley & Sons, p. 352, In terms of national government-approved languages, the 1950 Constitution stipulated Hindi and English to be official, with English to be phased out by 1965 unless it created an undue burden on people. This meant that non-Hindi-speaking people would have to learn Hindi, and that added to the ongoing furor over local languages being ignored by New Delhi. Thus the Official Languages Act in 1963 extended the use of English, and gradually 26 other languages have been deemed official in various provinces and union territories.
• Lerner, Hanna (2016), "The Indian Founding: A Comparative Perspective", in Sujit Choudhry, Madhav Khosla, Pratap Bhanu Mehta (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Indian Constitution, Oxford University Press, pp. 63–64, Ultimately, it was the pragmatic consensus-seeking approach that triumphed. On 14 September 1949, after three years of debate, the assembly overwhelmingly approved a compromise resolution, known as the Munshi—Ayyangar formula, which later became Articles 343-51 of the Indian Constitution. Instead of declaring a 'national language', Hindi was labelled the 'official language of the Union', while English was to continue to be used 'for all official purposes'. It was decided that this arrangement would apply for a period of fifteen years, during which time Hindi was to be progressively introduced into official use. What would happen at the end of this interim period was left undetermined, with the Constitution providing for the establishment of a parliamentary committee to examine the issue in the future. In addition, the Constitution recognised fourteen other languages for official use (listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution). ... Fifteen years after the enactment of the Constitution, Hindi was still not widely used by the Union government. Following a series of violent riots in non-Hindi-speaking States in the 1960s, Parliament renounced the ideal of an Indian national language. In 1965, when the fifteen-year interim period prescribed by the Constitution elapsed, the government announced that English would remain the de facto formal language of India.{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)
• Isaka, Riho (2021), Language, Identity, and Power in Modern India: Gujarat, c. 1850–1960, Routledge New Horizons in South Asian Studies, Routledge, pp. 126–197, Partition ... had a marked effect on the debates regarding the position of English and provincial languages in the Constitution. The Hindi protagonists became even more insistent on establishing Hindi as the sole national language and imposing it on the non-Hindi-speaking regions to enhance 'national unity'. In addition, these leaders even began to argue that the Devanagari form of numerals should be used instead of the international form. This was firmly opposed by members from South India. To solve the continuing dispute among the Assembly members, (K. M.) Munshi and N. Gopalaswami Ayyangar, a Tamil member of the Assembly, drew up detailed language provisions. These, in the words of the latter, represented a 'compromise between opinions not easily reconcilable' (Constituent Assembly Debates 1X 1966: 1319). The provisions were proposed to the Congress on 2nd September 1949 and engendered a heated discussion. It was eventually decided that they would be proposed in the Assembly by Munshi, Ayyangar, and Bhimrao Ambedkar (the Chairman of the Drafting Committee) in their personal capacities, not as an official proposal on behalf of the Drafting Committee. ... The draft provisions, which were generally called the 'Munshi-Ayyangar formula', stipulated that the official language of the Union (it should be noted that the word used here was the 'official language' and not the 'national language') was to be Hindi in the Devanagari script. The international form of numerals, instead of the Devanagari form, was chosen. English was to be used, the formula declared, for all the official purposes of the Union for 15 years, after which the Parliamen could extend the period.

Discussion

• Here is a link for Article 343 of the Constitution of India. It has the Constituent Assembly discussions of 14 September. Again the Constituent Assembly voted on a resolution on 14 September which, however, took effect on 26 January 1950 when India became a republic. I hope the distinction is clear. The Constitution of India whose different sections were approved at different times in the period 1947 to 28 November 1949, did not go into effect until 26 January 1950. Please do not continue to do original research by grabbing whatever you can skim off the internet in harum-scarum fashion. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:46, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

• And now you have reverted to the earlier nonsense you were promoting on the Hindi Day as well. (here). I've had enough of you. I will now post on WT:INDIA where others, administratively wiser, can take a look at your relentless OR. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:51, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

• Your revision didn't cite a source in the lead. Wikipedia isn't the place for personal opinions. Per Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:No original research, content must be supported by Wikipedia:Reliable sources. You may add whatever you feel is correct, if supported by RS. Peter Ormond 💬 15:00, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

What was George VI's position in dominion

If George VI wasn't King of India from 1947 to 1950? Then who was the governor-general representing? GoodDay (talk) 00:55, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

@GoodDay: I've opened a thread at the ANI. Recommend you comment there. Peter Ormond 💬 00:58, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

@GoodDay: Wikipedia is the only place where much ado is made of his being "King of India." Please take a look at the history books that are now listed in the references. They are written by some of the major historians of modern India, historians such as Barbara D. Metcalf, Thomas R. Metcalf, Peter Robb, Burton Stein, Judith M. Brown, Percival Spear, Anthony Low, quite a few British with appointments at British universities. I haven't even included Christopher Bayly's two volumes on the Forgotten Armies and Forgotten states of Asia, ca 1940 to 48. There is no mention anywhere of George VI, let alone as "King of India." I have coins of British India going back to the East India Company's first coins (ca 1778) issued under the name of the Mughal Emperor of Delhi and all the way to the end of the Raj and into the first ten years of the republic. King-Emperor he most assuredly was until 1947, but if he was King it was a technical get-around (or whatever that word is (I'm tired)) for India to be eventually admitted into the Commonwealth as a republic. We can't give that sort of thing pride of place in an infobox. Bertie was a nice fellow, a self-effacing one; he would have been most pained to see himself be the subject of such grandiosity. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:55, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

PS I don't particularly care if WP calls him King of India in the infobox, but to then have a little alcove for him in the form of a subsection with the little icons like the Byzantines, purporting to show he really was king by playing gotcha with a letter written by someone, the picture of a flag flying somewhere, and calling India a "constitutional monarchy" (the ultimate insult to the nationalists who spent years languishing in British jails) begins to look like the outer edges of the solar system of fringe history. I have never heard of India as a constitutional monarchy and I've written this long history section of the FA India. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:13, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

So you agree to including George VI in the infobox. GoodDay (talk) 02:16, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Sure, but I draw the line there. Eventually, I'll find the real story and add a footnote. But really if it was even marginally notable why would we need to do OR to find sources; the history books would have it. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:23, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

I'll leave the rest of it, to you & others. GoodDay (talk) 02:30, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

This user still doesn't understand. One can still see his POV pushing: "calling India a constitutional monarchy is the ultimate insult to the nationalists who spent years languishing in British jails". He edits very quickly and justifies his POV by only listing sources that fit his view. No source which he cited states that George was not the monarch after 1947. And if one states a source, a scholarly source,[1] he then takes no time in removing and again presenting the article as he likes, [2], as if he owns it. Peter Ormond 💬 02:25, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

The Selected Works of JLN are primary sources. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:29, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

• The Contemporary Commonwealth: An Assessment 1965-2009, Taylor & Francis, 2009, p. 22, ISBN 9781135238308, On independence in 1947, George VI became 'King of India' until the adoption of republican status in 1950.

• Pillai, K.P. (1992), Great Britain, Commonwealth and India's Foreign Policy, Deep & Deep, p. 150, ISBN 9788171003440, India became an Independent Dominion on the fifteenth of August, owing allegiance to the King, the Common sovereign of the British Commonwealth. The Common sovereign is represented in India by a Governor-General as in other Dominions. But this link holding together the units of the Commonwealth does not and cannot diminish even by an hair's breadth the independence and sovereignty of our country. The independence of India is an accomplished fact.

• Hingorani, Aman M. (2016), Unravelling the Kashmir Knot, SAGE Publications, p. 184, ISBN 9789351509721, Thus, both dominions, even after independence, retained the British monarch as a ceremonial head of state, who was generally represented in the dominion by a Governor General. Accordingly, George VI, King of the United Kingdom, who had been 'Emperor of India', now acted as the 'King of India' as also as the 'King of Pakistan' during the dominion phase. While George VI ceased to be the King of India in 1950, he remained King of Pakistan until his death in 1952. His then 26-year-old daughter, Elizabeth Alexandra Mary, or Elizabeth II, succeeded him as the Queen of Pakistan till 1956.

• Mathai, M. O. (1978), Reminiscences of the Nehru Age, Vikas Publishing House, p. 21, ISBN 9780706906219, When dominion government came on 15 August 1947 the Emperor of India automatically stepped down to become King of India; and Nehru, the Prime Minister, corresponded directly with the King. The British Government went out of the picture.

Anything else? Peter Ormond 💬 02:34, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

If this was such a widely known fact, why can't you find a simple "History of India" published by Oxford, Cambridge, Columbia, Yale, Harvard, or the dozens of academic presses. Please see WP:TERTIARY "Many introductory undergraduate-level textbooks are regarded as tertiary sources because they sum up multiple secondary sources.

• Policy: Reliable tertiary sources can be helpful in providing broad summaries of topics that involve many primary and secondary sources, and may be helpful in evaluating due weight, especially when primary or secondary sources contradict each other."

It is very simple. Find the undergraduate textbooks on the History of India published by scholarly presses. These will tell us what is WP:DUE. There are hundreds and hundreds of references to Nehru, Patel, Gandhi, VP Menon, ... and no mention of GVI. I suggest that you not waste more of my time. No one can say that I have not engaged you. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:57, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

I have already given enough scholarly sources. You just don't like them, that's the problem. Peter Ormond 💬 04:39, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

• It's a WP:PROPORTION issue. We don't select minority views in preference to a majority one, or over-emphasize minority aspects of a topic in comparison to other aspects. The vast majority of sources on the history of India (1947-50) do not claim that the monarch formed a government or held any power. DrKay (talk) 09:52, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

It is though, appropriate to have the monarch shown in the infobox. A head of state, with little or no reserve powers. GoodDay (talk) 14:24, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Please don't re-raise points that are already settled. That's a sure fire way to confuse any discussion and prevent progress. DrKay (talk) 14:31, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

That wasn't my intent. Merely was seeking clarification. GoodDay (talk) 19:41, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

I've added a picture of GVI, but it is really not a picture of him though he's seen in it. It is a picture of Attlee, who along with many in the Labour party had a history of supporting decolonization in India. It wasn't just the war-weary public and the war-depleted economy. I felt it needed to be acknowledged somewhere. Will add the source later. I have it lying around here somewhere. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:59, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Neat. GoodDay (talk) 20:31, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

@GoodDay: May I, with respect, ask you to revert your edit changing King to Monarch, and offer your reasons here first? Best, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:47, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

I changed it from King to Monarch, to bring it in line with the infobox entry at Dominion of Pakistan. Even though there's only been one monarch, in this article's case. GoodDay (talk) 23:50, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

The Indian Independence Act 1947 says, "For each of the new Dominions, there shall be a Governor-General who shall be appointed by His Majesty and shall represent His Majesty for the purposes-of the government of the Dominion {s. 5).[3] So it would seem he was technically king of India, even if he did not use that title or his position was not acknowledged. It should be noted also that since the concept of the divisibility of the Crown was not generally accepted before 1982, one would not expect many people to have referred to George VI as king of the Dominion of India. TFD (talk) 04:29, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

The republican constitution

There is very little precedent in books published by scholarly publishers for calling India's constitution "republican." I did three searches.

• A search for "republican constitution of India" (i.e. for that precise phrase) among scholarly books with limited or full-view (you can view the publishers in the Google string) gives 97 books. (There may not be 97 precisely, but that's the way Google counts its searches; the numbers are generally inflated.)
• A binary search for "constitution of India" AND "republican" somewhere on that page gives 312 books
• A search for "constitution of India" -"republican" (i.e for the phrase "constitution of India" but with no occurrence of "republican" anywhere on the page) gives 43,200 scholarly books

@Peter Ormond: That means in fact that there is overwhelming precedent for not calling the Constitution of India "republican." I will await your response, but would like to change the section title, "Framing of the republican Constitution" back to "Framing of the Constitution." Best, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:53, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

The related article is called the Constitution of India, which went in to effect in 1950. Not sure what preceded it. GoodDay (talk) 22:22, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

That same Constitution of India was however drafted during the period 1947 to 1949. That is what the section is about. (Frame = to make a draft of or draw up (as a law or constitution) Webster's Unabridged) I'm happy to change it to Drafting the Constitution. It was one of the major achievements of the period. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:58, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

@GoodDay:There was the law of the land before that, the collection of codes and Acts going back to the late 18th century. There was the criminal code, the Indian Penal Code going back to Macaulay (1834), which is still the criminal code in India (though it has obviously been amended; homosexuality is no longer a crime, etc); there were acts of social reform such as the Bengal Sati Regulation, 1829, Hindu Widows' Remarriage Act, 1856, Female Infanticide Prevention Act, 1870, Age of Consent Act, 1891, etc. and there were acts of increasingly more representative government: Indian Councils Act 1909, Government of India Act 1919, and Government of India Act, 1935. Of course, there was the Government of India Act, 1858 which had ended Company rule in India and instituted direct administration of India by the Crown. So, there was definitely the Law of the land in India during the period 15 August 1947 to 26 January 1950, but there was no Constitution for a number of reasons. A modern Constitution typically has a Bill of Rights. None of the acts were made by representatives of Indians. In some cases, for example, the social legislation, that circumstance might have been good, as Indian society at the time was conservative. So, long story short: India had the law of the land before 1950, but no constitution (in the modern sense of the word). PPS Many Commonwealth realms don't really have the high sounding preambles of the American, Irish, or Indian constitutions, but they do have constitutions, but in India's instance that would have required the Constituent Assembly to adopt the British era collection of laws and acts as their Constitution, but that never happened. People might informally call the 1935 Act as the "constitution," but it wasn't really. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:40, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Since it's India's first (and only) constitution? by all means make the necessary 'section name' change. GoodDay (talk) 23:45, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

@GoodDay: No, it is not India first and only constitution. The Dominion of India had its own Constitution.

• Pylee, Moolamattom Varkey (1960), Constitutional government in India, S. Chand & Company, pp. 5–6, ISBN 9788121922036, Although the Government of India Act of 1935 was not fully put into operation, an important part of it was implemented in 1937 and, in any case, Indians had become familiar with its provisions ever since. The same Act was suitably modified to become the Constitution of the Dominion of India between 15 August 1947 and 26 January 1950, the date of the commencement of the present Constitution.

• Singhvi, Abhishek; Gautam, Khagesh (2020), The Law of Emergency Powers: Comparative Common Law Perspectives, Springer Singapore, p. 86, ISBN 9789811529979, Between August 15, 1947 and January 26, 1950, India was independent but it was not yet a constitutionally proclaimed republic. One of the biggest challenges faced by the government of independent India, governed by the Government of India Act, 1935 as the interim constitution, was the integration of princely states into the Union of India which was to be a republic. Republicanism of course meant abolition of sovereignty of princes.

• Mishra, Shree Govind (2000), Democracy in India, Sanbun Publishers, p. 144, ISBN 3-473-47305-7, The Government of India Act 1935 was a milestone in the history of the Constitutional history of India. The Act remained in effect until India became a Republic on Jan. 26, 1950 with Dr. Rajendra Prasad as its provincial President. This Act, suitably amended served as the constitution of the Dominion of India from 1947 to 1950.

Peter Ormond 💬 00:30, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

You can't both be correct. This dispute is headed towards RFC territory. GoodDay (talk) 00:37, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

The argument to make is not that it is India's first and only Constitution, but that the expression "Constitution of India" means (by a terrifyingly overwhelming majority in the scholarly sources) the Constitution that was completed on 26 November 1949. Therefore the title, "Framing the Constitution of India" has only one WP:DUE meaning. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:52, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

What did Jawaharlal Nehru swear allegiance to in the oath administered by Dickie Mountbatten on 15 August 1947? (Hint) Peter Ormond 💬 04:22, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Again, for the last time. It does not make any difference. "Framing the Constitution of India" has only ONE WP:DUE meaning." Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:57, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

When we write articles, we have to keep in mind how an average reader would interpret things. If the Dominion already had a constitution and was referred as "Constitution of India", then if we are describing the Constitution that came after 1950, we have to distinguish it. On this page, "Framing the Constitution of India" could also mean the modification of the Government of India Act, 1935, to create the Constitution for the Dominion. So, therefore I added the prefix "republican" to distinguish it from the Dominion's constitution. First, you didn't even know that the Dominion of India had a Constitution [4][5]. Then you argued that it wasn't called the "Constitution of India". I asked you to read Nehru's oath. I don't know why are you making such a fuss over just a word, which may be helpful for an average user to understand the things, and which is also found in sources. Peter Ormond 💬 07:00, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

@GoodDay: Your view will be appreciated. Peter Ormond 💬 07:46, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Recommend one of you open up an RFC on this topic, if not the entire article. Three reasons - 1) break the logjam, 2) side-step a long drawn out dispute & 3) avoid editors getting topic-banned or blocked. GoodDay (talk) 07:50, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Interesting side note: India's desire to become a republic & remain in the Commonwealth of Nations, brought about the creation of the title head of the Commonwealth, since all the members were no longer going to be constitutional monarchies. GoodDay (talk) 08:19, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Yes, and this was included in this article before Fowler removed that saying "this detail doesn't belong to India". Peter Ormond 💬 08:30, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

@GoodDay: @Peter Ormond: I suggest, with respect, that you not open an RFC. You had ample time to improve this article, several months. Yet it remained a WP:FRINGE article full of original research and synthesis. Neither of you know anything about Indian history. You are making random off-topic comments. I have been patient with you, but there is a limit to disruption. Please be warned. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:45, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

I don't know what you mean by "you had ample time to improve this article", as if somebody had assigned me to do this. And you don't decide whether somebody knows about a subject or not. Note that you were the one who didn't even know that the Dominion had a Constitution.[6][7] I proved you wrong,[8] but I don't call or present myself as a Master on such issues, like you do. And please don't get off topic. Why are you so afraid from an RfC? Maybe because that would lower your self-proclaimed authority on this article. Peter Ormond 💬 13:57, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

I have long experience of writing modern India related articles. I am the major editor of the FA India, Company rule in India, British Raj, Partition of India, British India, all but two of the famine articles in Timeline of major famines in India during British rule and lord knows how many other articles I don't remember off the top of my head. Knowledge counts for something on Wikipedia. I'm not claiming ownership of anything, only stating very plainly that before I began to significantly edit this article, you had made nearly 60 edits as a result of which the article went from this state at the time of your first edit in February 2021 to this version full of original research and undue weight. And as a result of my edits over the last three weeks, it has gone to this version, which is more comprehensive. Be warned that if you continue to promote original research and remove reliably sourced text of due weight, I will be proposing a topic ban for you from modern India related articles broadly construed. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:49, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

I've no intentions of opening up an RFC. That's going to be both your choices. GoodDay (talk) 15:19, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

@GoodDay: @Peter Ormond: I don't know why this did not occur to me earlier, but I just noticed that in the Contitution section my first sentence has "new constitution" in it. We can easily change the section title to "Framing the new constitution" or "Drafting the new constitution." If this is agreeable, we can then add a short paragraph about the provisional "constitution," i.e. the makeshift one that was the law of the land (probably the collection of different codes and acts (most significantly Government of India Act 1935) between 1947 and January 1950. The expression "Constitution of India," however, as I've already indicated, has always meant (per WP:DUE) the one drafted between 1947 to 49. Unfortunately, Peter Ormond, none of the sources you have added thus far are reliable. As I've also already indicated many of the previous acts (even 1909, 1921) have sometimes been called "constitution"s but usually only by the British not the Indians. Anyway, I'll look for other sources, and also ask around. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:41, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Commence with whatever changes you consider productive. GoodDay (talk) 19:50, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

I don't know why I didn't think of this earlier, but The Statesman's Year-Book 1949 has a lot of useful information, and not just about the "constitution" which was in play during that period. It is also a reasonable source for factual stuff, population, economy, and a brief description of the constitution. There is also the Statesman Year Book 1950 (full view) which describes the new constitution. Let me read through it (as much as I have access to on Google) and I'll get back to you later in the day or early tomorrow. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:13, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

As long as you & Peter O, can work things out on this article. I've no probs. GoodDay (talk) 00:52, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

References

Partition: 1947

As per the objections I had raised on ANI, I found misrepresentation on the section Dominion of India#Partition: 1947 in the following sentences:

In a matter of days, Sikhs and Hindus of the East Punjab were suddenly and unexpectedly attacking the Muslims there, and in the West Punjab, Muslims were returning the violence and the ferocity on the Sikhs. Trains taking the refugees to their new lands were stopped, their occupants slaughtered regardless of age and gender. Long lines of humans and ox-carts travelling East and West to their new dominions were intercepted and overwhelmed.

The Hindu refugees from the west Punjab arriving in Delhi ended up tearing away the Muslim community there from their established cultural patterns and values, and temporarily destabilized the new government.

What the source actually say[9]:

Within days of the award Sikhs and Hindus were falling on the Muslims of the East Punjab and Muslims on the Sikhs in the west. There was general fighting accompanied by every kind of atrocity; convoys were waylaid, refugee trains held up and their passengers slaughtered, men, women, and children. Within days long convoys were marching east and west seeking shelter in the other dominion. The tide of refugees caused an explosion of communal strife in Delhi in early September. The Muslim community was uprooted and for a time the stability of the government was threatened.

Since the source is significantly different from what has been added to the article, we need to fix that. Here is what I propose:

Proposal 1: Within days of the announcement of Radcliffe Line, there was violence in East and West Punjab, with Sikhs and Hindus carrying out atrocities on Muslims in East Punjab, while Muslims were carrying out atrocities on the Sikhs in West Punjab. A large number of people in these areas were seeking refugee in the other dominion. The arrival of refugees resulted in communal strife in Delhi. Following these events, the Muslims were uprooted and the stability of the government was endangered.

Proposal 2: Moments after the declaration of the partition lines, all throughout the Punjab violence broke out. During this period where the newly independent government was experiencing instability, Muslims were uprooted as Hindu and Sikh refugees from what is now Pakistan arrived in Delhi.

While the first proposal is more detailed and covering the details from the source, the second proposal is more concise and easy to understand for readers. If you have your own proposal or changes to the two proposals, then do let me know about it. --Yoonadue (talk) 02:47, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

This is just the first cut. There are half a dozen other sources, which I will be using to create a more nuanced text. It is quite possible none of this will survive. Please see the list of references in the article, most of which have not been used yet. Thanks though. All the best. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:22, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Gender make-up of Constituent Assembly?

The section entitled Dominion Constitution and Government has the following statement: « The Constituent Assembly had 299 representatives, consisting of 200 men and nine women. »

Something’s wrong there, with 90 positions not included, but I don’t know what the actual division should be. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 19:11, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

Thank you, @Mr Serjeant Buzfuz:, Good catch. The number is 15 women and 284 men. I will shortly correct it and give the names of the women. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:17, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

That was quick! glad to be of help. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 22:47, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

New edits

@Fowler&fowler:

In June 1947 the nationalist leaders, including Nehru and Abul Kalam Azad on behalf of the Congress, Jinnah representing the Muslim League, B. R. Ambedkar representing the Untouchable community, and Master Tara Singh representing the Sikhs, agreed to a partition of the country along religious lines in opposition to Gandhi's views. The predominantly Hindu and Sikh areas were assigned to the new India and predominantly Muslim areas to the new nation of Pakistan; the plan included a partition of the Muslim-majority provinces of Punjab and Bengal.

This is not mentioned in either of the 2 sources.[10][11] Why this misrepresentation is being restored?

Also, what is the problem with putting up full quotation of Clement Attlee? Aman Kumar Goel ^(Talk) 17:09, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Hello @Aman.kumar.goel: Both valid points. Let me mull this over and examine the sources.

Prima facie, the assertion about those people agreeing to the partition is not surprising. Sources should be available even if the two in place don't make a mention. The Chandrika Kaul reference does not seem to be mine, for I would never refer to someone as Dr. Chandrika Kaul. I might have to examine the tangled history of the article. Please grant me until tomorrow. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:00, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

I haven't had time to look at my sources with any semblance of attention; so, I'd like to request another day for your quote in green.

There are shadings in one source, Rotem Geva's Delhi Reborn: Partition and Nation Building in India's Capital, 2022, Stanford University Press, page 113, which says:

On June 3 Mountbatten made his historic announcement that British withdrawal would take place much earlier, on August 15, 1947, and would effectuate the partition of India. Once Nehru, Jinnah, and the Sikh leader Baldev Singh publicly endorsed the plan, the way was paved for a rushed withdrawal.

As for Attlee, it is not the full quotation in any case. It is a small part of a longer radio broadcast. What I added was the first half minute or thereabouts, but without Attlee's less than reliable speculation on Gandhi's seeming to belong to another age (which is politically meaningless), nor his characterization of Gandhi's method of political opposition as "passive resistance," which is both inaccurate and never favored by Gandhi himself.

Here is the full text. Warning it has been inaccurately reproduced in some other later sources, maybe even bowdlerized. Here is the full text:

Everyone will have learnt with profound horror of the brutal murder of Mr. Gandhi, and I know that I am expressing the views of the British people in offering to his fellow countrymen our deep sympathy in the loss of their greatest citizen. Mahatma Gandhi, as he was known in India, was one of the outstanding figures in the world to-day, but he seemed to belong to a different period of history. Living a life of extreme asceticism, he was revered as a divinely inspired saint by millions of his fellow countrymen. His influence extended beyond the range of his co-religionists and, in a country deeply riven by communal dissension, he had an appeal for all Indians. For a quarter of a century this one man has been the major factor in every consideration of the Indian problem. He had become the expression of the aspirations of the Indian people for independence, but he was not just a nationalist. He represented---it is true---the opposition of the Indian to be ruled by another race, but he also expressed a revulsion of the East against the West. He himself was in revolt against Western materialism and sought a return to a simpler state of society. But his most distinctive doctrine was that of non-violence. He believed in a method of passive resistance to those forces which he considered wrong. He opposed those who sought to achieve their ends by violence and when, as too often happened, his campaigns for Indian freedom resulted in loss of life owing to the undisciplined action of those who professed to follow him, he was deeply grieved. The sincerity and devotion with which he pursued his objectives are beyond all doubt. In the latter months of his life, when communal strife was marring the freedom which India had attained, his threat to fast to the death resulted in the cessation of violence in Bengal, and again recently his fast in Delhi brought about a change in the atmosphere. He had, besides, a hatred of injustice and strove earnestly on behalf of the poor, especially of the depressed classes of India. The hand of a murderer has struck him down and a voice which pleaded for peace and brotherhood has been silenced, but I am certain his spirit will continue to animate his fellow countrymen and will plead for peace and concord.

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:25, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Partition

• "along religious lines" is not only unsupported by the source but it is also a misleading Hindutva POV. It shouldn't be added back. Read:[12][13] for understanding what I am talking about. Capitals00 (talk) 12:06, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

Well the first of those says explicitly that it was a division along religious lines and a single opinion piece in the Quint does not make an academic consensus. Wikipedia follows mainstream reliable sources, the bulk of which support the article text. DrKay (talk) 12:13, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

None of the cited sources are supporting this information thus it is outright falsification of source. See the quality of the sources I cited. They have more reliability than the source falsification done here. Capitals00 (talk) 12:14, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

Don't be absurd. We can easily find any number of reliable sources for such a patently obvious statement. "Ultimately, the states were divided along religious lines", "separating the provinces of Bengal and Punjab along religious lines" "partitioning the Indian Empire along religious lines", "The border, hastily drawn along religious lines", "The bloody partition hastily divided the former colony along religious lines". DrKay (talk) 13:19, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

@DrKay: None of these sources are fact-checking the claim "partition along religious lines" but only making passing mention contrary to the sources provided by me that have actually fact checked this claim. Have you never read WP:CONTEXTMATTERS? Check it out. I also note the irony in your comment that you criticized use of "opinion piece" above when you are yourself using them to support your passing mention. Thus if anyone is "absurd" then that is you by taking this Hindutva POV seriously. Capitals00 (talk) 13:31, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

You have misunderstood the guideline. The Quint isn't peer-reviewed to any different extent than all the sources I have just listed. DrKay (talk) 13:35, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

The Quint cited views of Srinath Raghavan, S. Irfan Habib and other historians to refute this POV. Are they not reliable?

Now read this: "Politics, not religion was the basis of Partition, since there could possibly be no single scheme to herd the Muslims of India, who lived in virtually every part of the country, into one or even two politico - geographical units." This is from Manoj Joshi, an expert scholar on this subject.

Also: "Contrary to misconceptions, the partition of the subcontinent was not based on an all-around acceptance of the "Two-Nation theory" which propounded the creation of two states, one Hindu and one Muslim, on the supposition that neither community could hope to get justice in a state dominated by the other. The Indian National Congress, the majority political party of the dominion of India to whom power was transferred in 1947, did not accept the theory; the All-India Muslim League which received the authority to rule over the newly-created dominion of Pakistan accepted it."[14]

Given this claim has been thoroughly verified to be wrong, it should be removed. Aman Kumar Goel ^(Talk) 13:44, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

We can read the sources for ourselves. That is how we know that you are misrepresenting their views for your own absurd POV. DrKay (talk) 14:23, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

You are the one pushing a debunked Hindutva POV. Where are your sources to fact check your Hindutva POV in your favor? You still haven't read WP:CONTEXTMATTERS. Capitals00 (talk) 14:28, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

I agree with @DrKay: Verifiability does not imply due weight. I'll add some more academic sources, if need be, that is. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:31, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

Since this claim has been thoroughly verified to be wrong, better make sure to find out the "academic sources" that actually verify this claim to be correct by refuting the findings presented above instead of finding sources that are making passing mention of this claim. Aman Kumar Goel ^(Talk) 14:35, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

I will now be reinstating DrKay's version qualified further as stated below, but cited to the major textbook in topic:

• Talbot, Ian; Singh, Gurharpal (2009), The Partition of India, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-85661-4

• Google scholar citation index 359

This is the major text-book in the topic area. Per WP:TERTIARY, which states,

Many introductory undergraduate-level textbooks are regarded as tertiary sources because they sum up multiple secondary sources. Policy: Reliable tertiary sources can help provide broad summaries of topics that involve many primary and secondary sources and may help evaluate due weight, especially when primary or secondary sources contradict each other.

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:28, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

How is that not along religious lines? The Muslim majority provinces of British India—in their entirety, except for two, the Punjab and Bengal, of which only the Muslim-majority districts were included—constituted the Dominion of Pakistan, and the rest was India (including the non-Muslim majority districts of the Punjab and Bengal). This is what the 3 June Plan was about. That sentence references the plan. If you don't like "along religious lines" (unvarnished), I'm happy to give it additional meaning along the lines above, but briefly. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:01, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

@Capitals00 and Aman.kumar.goel: Done. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:47, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

Your source is not addressing the dispute over this Hindutva POV. It is just stating it without thinking of any dispute with the claim.

Read WP:CONTEXTMATTERS. We value fact checking of the debunked claim from reliable sources over bare statement no matter which source you are using. Your own personal view does not matter here but I will note a large number of Muslim majority areas of South Asia were not handed to Pakistan during partition. Partition was not based on religious lines. Capitals00 (talk) 05:41, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Talbot and Gurharpal Singh don’t speak of “Muslim-majority areas, only of the Muslim majority provinces of British India, two of which were partitioned into their Muslim-majority districts, which were awarded to Pakistan, and non-Muslim-majority ones, which were awarded to India, and the remaining three which were awarded in their entirety to Pakistan. Muslim and non-Muslim is very much along religious lines. What does it have to do with Hindutva? East Punjab, awarded to India, was Sikh-majority not Hindu-majority, not to mention Hindutva-types regularly burn down churches and Christians too were in the non-Muslim group. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 07:28, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Show source in line with WP:CONTEXTMATTERS just like 4 sources have been provided above to refute this Hindutva POV instead of just sharing your personal observation contrary to WP:NOTAFORUM. Capitals00 (talk) 10:34, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Brandishing Wikilawyer banners when engaging longstanding, competent, editors (both admin DrKay, who has watched over this article, and I, who has written it) does nothing to advance your argument.

DrKay wrote the FA George VI (the monarch who presided over the Partition of India), among other FAs, and I wrote the FA India, among others. While this doesn't mean anything when it comes to arguments, it does show that we have a history of showing some rigor in our editing. The sentence has been there in the article for a long time. "Along religious lines" does not mean that every district of British India was partitioned into Hindu- and Muslim-majority portions and the Muslim awarded to Pakistan. It means that the Muslim-majority provinces of British India (the Punjab, Bengal, Sind, Baluchistan, and NWFP) were either partitioned along religious lines or awarded in their entirety to Pakistan. Will you, @Capitals00 and Aman.kumar.goel: be happy if we say precisely that and cite it to Talbot and Gurharpal Singh, the standard textbook? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:45, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

An admin is not acting in admin capacity when he is involved in content dispute. "Along religious lines" does support the debunked claim that the partition was done over religion when no population exchange happened and India became secular. To echo this, 4 sources have been provided above to refute the claim that partition was done over religious basis. Do you have any sources that address the fact check Capitals00 (talk) 13:00, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

I don't see any four sources. Please list the sources below in the two subsection that I will soon create, along with the sources' Google Scholar citation numbers. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:24, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

@Capitals00 and Aman.kumar.goel: Please note that if you *do not* post your sources in the subsections below—not in links but in proper citation or cite book format—I will post next on the user talk pages of uninvolved administrators. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:36, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Adding. Aman Kumar Goel ^(Talk)

F&f's seven sources

1. Jalal, Ayesha (2014), The Struggle for Pakistan: A Muslim Homeland and Global Politics, Cambridge, MA and London, UK: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, p. 50, ISBN 978-0-674-05289-5, The interplay of official nationalisms and emotionally charged popular narratives of partition created a haze of myth and sentiment, making it difficult to fathom why India was partitioned along lines of religion for the first time in its millennia-old history
   1. Note that the book has been cited 261 times on Google Scholar, and she is the co-author with Sugata Bose of Modern South Asia: history, culture, and political economy, a book that has been cited 1263 times on Google Scholar
2. Talbot, Ian; Singh, Gurharpal (2009), The Partition of India, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-85661-4, (page 1) The carving of a Muslim homeland out of India also involved the partition of the provinces of Punjab and Bengal along Muslim and non-Muslim lines. In addition, Pakistan also received the undivided, Muslim-majority provinces of Sindh, Balochistan and the North West Frontier Province. (page 7) partition emerged as a practical solution which the Indian political elites accepted reluctantly with the 3 June 1947 Plan
   1. This book has been cited 359 times on Google Scholar.
3. Wilkinson, Steven I. (2022), "Religion and Party Politics in India and Pakistan", in Cammett, Melani; Jones, Pauline (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Politics in Muslim Societies, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 271–294, ISBN 978-0-19-093105-6, The (Congress) party also had substantial experience in running provincial governments in the devolved system set up in 1919 and reformed in 1935. Congress was also strongly opposed, as a result of British divide-and-rule policies and the trauma of India's partition along religious lines, to institutionalizing religion in state policy.
   1. As a research handbook, this source is useful in evaluating due weight; see WP:HISTRW (Reliable sources for weighting and article structure).
4. Sharma, Arvind (2013), Gandhi: A Spiritual Biography, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, ISBN 978-0-300-18596-6, It achieved its goal in the Mountbatten Plan, proposed by Lord Mountbatten in the summer of 1947. With this plan the British proposed the partition of India into two dominions along religious lines, but included a provision for the partition of the provinces of Punjab and Bengal along religious lines as well.
   1. Google scholar citation index 36
   2. Sharma is the Birks Professor Emeritus of Comparative Religions at McGill University.
5. Roy, Haimanti (2018), The Partition of India, Oxford India Short Introduction Series, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-948869-8, Two new nation states, India and a divided Pakistan, emerged out of the political partition and the British formally quit their jewel in the crown. Punjab and Bengal, two provinces with majority Muslim populations, were divided along religious lines: West Punjab and East Bengal going to Pakistan and East Punjab and West Bengal remaining in India.
6. Stein, Burton (2010) [1998], Arnold, David (ed.), A History of India, The Blackwell History of the World Series, Wiley-Blackwell; Oxford University Press, p. 356, ISBN 978-1-4051-9509-6, In August 1946, Jinnah had incited Muslim rioting in Calcutta, which in turn led to Hindu violence against Muslims in Bihar, and the prospect of yet more to come elsewhere. Failing to see a way out of the escalating conflict that continued through early 1947, the British simply declared that they would leave India in June 1948, and appointed Lord Mountbatten as viceroy, charged to complete Britain's withdrawal. Mountbatten bluntly stated the terms of departure in a broadcast to all of India in June 1947: a separate dominion of Indian Muslims to include those territories in which they were a majority; partition of the Punjab and Bengal; a Parliamentary act conferring dominion status upon India and the provision of referendums to ascertain which of the two dominions certain disputed parts of the country would join.
   1. Google scholar citation index 573
7. Metcalf, Barbara D.; Metcalf, Thomas R. (2012) [2001], A Concise History of Modern India, Cambridge Concise Histories series (3rd ed.), Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-1-107-02649-0, (page 253) Even more, perhaps, they (the Sikhs) feared a partition of the Punjab itself, along a line that set apart Hindu from Muslim majority districts, for that would leave their small community powerless, split between the two new states. But, once a united India had been abandoned, no other way of demarcating the boundary could in fairness be adopted than one which ran along the line separating Hindu and Muslim majority districts.
   (page 259–260) The decision of the Kashmir maharaja to join India flew in the face of the logic by which British India had been partitioned. Pakistan's existence was premised upon its status as a Muslim homeland. Even though millions of Muslims had had, in the Pakistani view, to be left behind scattered across India, Kashmir, as a Muslim majority state, rightly belonged to Pakistan. Indeed, had Kashmir been an ordinary Indian province it would almost certainly have been part of Pakistan from the start.
   1. Google scholar citation index 973

Capitals00 and Aman.kumar.goel's sources

• Joshi, M.; India Research Press (2008). Kashmir, 1947-1965: A Story Retold. India Research Press. p. 4. ISBN 978-81-87943-52-5. Politics, not religion was the basis of Partition, since there could possibly be no single scheme to herd the Muslims of India, who lived in virtually every part of the country, into one or even two politico - geographical units.
• Thomas, R.G. (2019). Perspectives On Kashmir: The Roots Of Conflict In South Asia. Taylor & Francis. p. 77. ISBN 978-1-000-30136-6. Contrary to misconceptions, the partition of the subcontinent was not based on an all-around acceptance of the "Two-Nation theory" which propounded the creation of two states, one Hindu and one Muslim, on the supposition that neither community could hope to get justice in a state dominated by the other. The Indian National Congress, the majority political party of the dominion of India to whom power was transferred in 1947, did not accept the theory; the All-India Muslim League which received the authority to rule over the newly-created dominion of Pakistan accepted it.
• Sudarshan, V. (2019-12-10). "Congress and Partition". The Hindu.
• Dahiya, Himanshi (2019-12-09). "Fact check: Congress Divided India on Basis of Religion, Says Shah - But Did It?". TheQuint.

Discussion

• OK. I'm busy for the rest of the day, but I'll take a good look at your sources @Capitals00 and Aman.kumar.goel: tomorrow and make a comment here. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:31, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

  I note meanwhile that Thomas has only edited the book Perspectives on Kashmir. Please cite the chapter and the author of that chapter @Aman.kumar.goel and Capitals00:. Your other sources have the following Google Scholar citation numbers:

  • Joshi, Kashmir 1947–1965: citation index 4
  • V. Sudarshan, "Congress and Partition" Google Scholar citation index 0
  • Dahiya, "Congress Divided India" Google Scholar citation index 0

  If there are any errors in my descriptions above, please point them out. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:47, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

• Don't see any mistake in name. Aman Kumar Goel ^(Talk) 17:05, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

  Again @Aman.kumar.goel and Capitals00: The book is only edited by Raju G.C. Thomas. It has 20 chapters written by various authors, most originally from the subcontinent, but teaching at the time of the book's publication (1992) in North American colleges. (See here). Your quote is from page 77. Raju has written only one chapter, the introduction, which is unlikely to be at least 77 pages long. So, who has written that chapter and what are the chapter's page numbers? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:45, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

  PS Unless I know that proper citation, including the author's name, I cannot determine the Google scholar citations for the chapter, and gauge its general notability in the scholarly community. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:47, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

  As you will have seen in Ian Copland's review (whose first two paragraphs are shown in good part in the link), the book has eight India-born authors, five Pakistan-born, one Bangladesh-born, and the remaining six Kashmir-born. The large number were chosen to demonstrate the diversity of views on Kashmir. Beyond the scholarly notability of the author of the chapter, we need to know which author has written the chapter. Nationality, in the sense of the country, or land, in which the author has been born and raised, is not a paramount factor, but it is important in Kashmir-related views, even when espoused from geographically remote North American colleges. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:28, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Today part of which countries?

Given that Bangladesh has also been listed as a part of the countries it now belongs to because of the territorial exchanges of enclaves, will it also be fair to consider it is also a part of China because of Aksai Chin? Pur 0 0 (talk) 16:03, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Explanation needed how India became a republic

Astonishingly, the article contains no explanation at all how India became a republic in 1950. Was there a referendum? Or was it a decision behind closed doors? Was there pressure from the Soviet Union or Pakistan? Or was Britain keen to cut off India to prevent immigration? Etc. etc. A very odd omission given the topic of the article. I would be grateful for an expert to add an explanation. 86.161.139.200 (talk) 06:45, 21 October 2024 (UTC)