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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was archived by Ealdgyth via FACBot (talk) 22 December 2019 [1].

Bengal famine of 1943

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Nominator(s):  ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 00:38, 8 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

[Revised nomination statement]: Somewhere between 2 and 3 million people in India perished in 1943–44, and their suffering and the ends of their lives were arguably preventable. I have labored for three full years now, from February 2016, because I felt keenly all that time that their deaths deserved to be explained in full, or at least as fully as any ordinary citizen can do – including the very complex array of (possible) causes, the tragedy of their suffering, the response of many others at the time and later. Some inquisitive high school or college student in Melbourne or Vancouver or Bern or wherever who wishes to take the time to read it should be able to quickly access a completely free, one-stop resource that uses a stringently neutral and consistently meticulous approach. The article at least attempts to unpack the manner that several complex forces can interact in genuinely terrible ways. The goal was to avoid making an article that is splashed with shrieks of blame, while not avoiding potentially uncomfortable facts. The article should look at every aspect of the issue from all available angles, and explain the relative weight that scholars attach to those views in retrospect. That article is now up for FAC review for the fourth time. I welcome all comments.

Changes since the last FAC include but are not limited to:

  • Trimming the footnotes by 1/3. [And readers who do not like footnotes are always very free to ignore them anyhow].
  • Adding women journalists to the Media etc. section (still searching for more)
  • Specifying that the Provincial Government of Bengal was largely composed of Muslims. [The (British) Government of India laid the blame on them for the famine]
  • Paragraphs about prioritised distribution re-inserted.
  • Added mention of Wavell as among those who repeatedly practically begged for grain shipments (full details should rightfully be added to Archibald Wavell, 1st Earl Wavell)
  • Reordering of some sections
  • Various trimming and copy editing, etc.
  • Promotion to GA and nearly immediate review at GAR (for technical reasons, I'll explain if requested). Excellent review by Vami IV
  • Other things I don't remember at the moment.
  • As a small note, I think the breathless pace of my replies in the previous FAC was distracting. I hope to move at a steady, measured pace. Your patience is appreciated.

Prenomination FAC Support by Fowler&fowler

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    • Pre-nomination, Fowler&fowler wrote on the GAR page (see diff here: "I would like to add that I'll be taking a vacation from Wikipedia very soon. After this rigorous GAR, I expect the article will go to its well-deserved FAC. I won't be here, but please consider this post an expression of my Support for promotion to FA. The article has seen major improvements since I opposed it at an earlier FAC. May I take this opportunity also to express my thanks, admiration, and congratulations to Lingzhi2 for persevering with this article through thick and thin. All the best, Fowler&fowler.
@Lingzhi2: I am on vacation. Someone emailed me, so I am making this post. My earlier post elsewhere, which I stand by, expressing support is a general expression of support born of intuition and experience. It is not one arrived at in a formal FAC review. I would be more comfortable if you changed its heading to "Pre-nomination support by Fowler&fowler," or simply refer to it with a link in the nomination note. Speaking of the nominator's note, I am a little disappointed that for it you have copied a post of mine (verbatim), without attribution. Please fix this in some fashion. Finally, you have replaced the infobox image I had supplied File:Dead or dying children on a Calcutta street (the Statesman 22 August 1943).jpg with the previous one, File:Statesman j.jpg (size 387x257). I understand that the licensing for my image is incorrect. As I have pointed out, my image has more detail. By magnifying the image you can see the details of the sari border which you cannot in the previous image; the child's face is a little more discernible. Also, the fringe object on the left is now absent in my image. I have further reduced my image to size 386x254. If @Nikkimaria: and others knowledgeable about images feel my image has more encyclopedic value, then the thing to do would be to upload it on Wikipedia as a fair use image and replace the previous image with it. I will not be here to respond to any queries. All the best, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:19, 9 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
My apologies for the inconvenience. I had already asked Nikkimaria what to do about the images, but her reply left me with numerous options, all of which seemed to require either switching the license (wasn't sure I could do that, licensing issues can be tricky) or bothering you (didn't want to do that, since I have a full measure of respect for your wish to have a wikibreak). As for your comment which I copied, I apologize and will now delete (not strike through). I am sorry that someone felt it necessary to bother you with this. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 20:59, 9 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
My objection to Fowler's image was with regards to the licensing, which I don't believe to be correct; either image could be used under a fair-use claim. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:16, 9 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

(←) OK. This gets complicated. Fowler&fowler's img is/was on Commons, so no Fair Use rationale can be used. Moreover, this img is also already in use on another WP article... so... I did the best I could. I selected "Upload a new version", uploaded Fowler&fowler's cleaned version to my WP img file, changed the rationale to mention Fowler&fowler's source (not mine), rename/moved my WP img to Fowler&fowler's file name (simply so it would be obvious that we are using that file), and nominated Fowler&fowler's Commons version for deletion. I hope this is satifactory. As I said, I did the best I could. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 03:40, 10 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Support by Serial Number 54129

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Support by Vami

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Question One of the reason previous FACs failed was due to a lack of support for the changes to the article and the nomination by other editors who are working on the article. Is there now consensus support among these editors that the article is of FA standard? No such discussion seems to have been started on the talk page before this nomination. Nick-D (talk) 00:49, 13 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

You may have missed F&F's rather detailed Support above, which explicitly states that he changed his mind about his past Oppose. F&f is among the most respected of editors in areas related to India that Wikipedia has on hand. You could at least make a reasonable case that F&F is the most respected editor in this area (I won't say that unreservedly, out of simple respect to other very admirable editors). Thank you. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 01:10, 13 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
A number of editors have been involved in this article. Do they also support the nomination? @SlimVirgin: do you have views regarding this nomination? Nick-D (talk) 03:06, 13 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Nick, re Is there now consensus support among these editors that the article is of FA standard?....of course not yet, though major editors and those most closely involved (not me, I'm just a copy editor) view it now ready for FAC. Is it perfect? No. Is it ready for our best and most astute minds to help and pick over? Yes. As such, can you engage, and also, would like to ping @RegentsPark: for input and help. Note as Lings friend I won't be supporting or otherwise, but for me, having been benefited in the past from her (and F&F's) reviews of FACs I helped put up, a view or review from Sarah would be hugely valuable. I do appreciate the less than sterling past history here, but given the significance of the page, and its potential, I hope that people can one again roll up the selves and work towards improvement. Obviously, Fowler's opinion is held by all in great stock; until Lingzhi appeared here, he was alone in covering southern Asian famines - these are among his other India related achievements. But to be clear, he indicated that it should be reviewed, NOT that it should be passed. There is a great distance there, which Nick, is where we need you to come in. Ceoil (talk) 08:23, 13 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I've been following the article and monitoring the changes for a bit and am generally supportive of putting it through the FA process. However, the article is an important one, is also long and complex and contains many references, and it needs to be put through the wringer to make sure that statements in references are not cherry picked or removed from proper context (if I recall correctly, the methodology used in identifying sources was an issue in the previous FA iteration). There is also the, admittedly difficult, issue of whether the article is missing important content but Fowler's support above is reassuring on that count. The point I'm trying to make is that this could easily be one of our finest featured articles, but we won't know that unless it is thoroughly reviewed. I'm mostly a gnome these days but will try to do my bit with some leg work over the coming couple of weeks. --regentspark (comment) 15:11, 13 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I genuinely appreciate your time and trouble. I still have the vast majority of the resources on hand. Email any requests... Thank you again. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 15:17, 13 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Ceoil

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Note, am involved as a copy-editor, so wont be supporting or opposing or otherwisee. IMO the article needs to be less polemic; some claims are reasonable and obv true on their face, but stated harshly and with an obv POV that could be removed without the meaning changed. i see this as actionable and within the scope of a FAC. Ceoil (talk) 12:29, 13 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Ceoil, for bringing up the topic of WP:NPOV.
My first line of argument against accusations of POV concerns what is not on the page. If you search through talk page history, you will find that I again and again and again deleted that "Why hasn't Gandhi died yet?" quote of Churchill's. I consider its use a polemical anti-UK tool, spoken by a man who was under unspeakable pressure, who may have been racist and was probably drunk. Ditto for recent research.. crappy research IMHO... that drew the polemical conclusion that its findings constituted "proof" that the famine was man-made. You may recall in the previous FAC that one early commenter made emotional anti-UK comment "there is no question where responsibility lies... It feels like Ireland all over again." diff but I gently requested that the editor delete it or strike it through diff (edit summary: " May I ask you to strike through the last two sentences of your reply?"). I recently added a bit about nationalist female journalists. What I did not choose to include was a quote from one of them: "The dead men, women and children of Bengal make short work of the so-called democratic fairy tales of Churchill and Roosevelt," or mention the accompanying cartoon of Puran Chand Joshi pouring the blood of Bengal into a chalice held by a British officer. I seem to recall the tone of Churchill's Secret War, which I cited many times, being relentlessly anti-British. [IIRC, she had a few kind words for Wavell, mainly because Wavell hated Churchill]. Yet when I quoted her anti-UK, anti-Churchill sentiments, I did so by explicitly calling them nationalist, and framing them as only one (POV) voice among many. Time does not permit me to list all the anti-UK quotes I did not use. Oh wait, speaking of Wavell, here's a Wavell quote I did not use: "...the vital problems of India are being treated by His Majesty's Government with neglect, even sometimes with hostility and contempt". But as I said, Wavell hated Churchill... So to be honest, I have bent over backwards to avoid a polemical, anti-British stance.
My second argument against POV is to ask where the POV is. "Scorched earth", for example, sounds harsh, but our WP page defines it as "A scorched-earth policy is a military strategy that aims to destroy anything that might be useful to the enemy when retreating from a position. Any assets that could be used by the enemy may be targeted. This usually includes obvious weapons, transport vehicles, communication sites, and industrial resources. However, anything useful to the advancing enemy can be targeted including food stores and agricultural areas, water sources...". Which is exactly what the denial policies did... That's an example. Thank you. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 13:45, 13 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I dont doubt you, and am only bring up matters of prose. Obv (given the above statements to Nick) I see the article as a significant feather to the project as a whole. My recent edits have mostly sorted out what I was on about. I dint detect POV in terms of pro or anti, say imperialism, more so that the wording is emotional at times. Obv, how could that not come through after deep research, but its all mostly now sorted into detached ency language. I am conflicted but if was a neutral editor, IMO yes this should be an FA, though I look forward to further input. Ceoil (talk) 14:12, 13 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

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  • Suggest scaling up both maps
  • Suggest adding alt text
    • I did the best I could; suggestions welcome. I am uncertain about one image, so queried on talk pages of RegentsPark and Winged Blades of Godric. I also skipped the Gandhi image, because its usefulness is currently under discussion. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 03:04, 21 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
It's at the end of the "Media coverage" section, "A contemporary sketchbook of iconic scenes of famine victims, Hungry Bengal: a tour through Midnapur District in November, 1943 by Chittaprosad, was immediately banned by the British and 5,000 copies were seized and destroyed.[341] One copy was hidden by Chittaprosad's family and is now in the possession of the Delhi Art Gallery." I put it in the "Sanitation and undisposed dead" section because it depicts undisposed dead ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 09:11, 20 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

(←) LOC no use. The Internet says historical archives etc. related to India are a shambles; difficult to find any kind of attribution for anything. I did find a Life magazine cover from 1946 that has the same Gandhi spinning image we have. Can use? I mean the one without LIFE written across it. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 23:23, 20 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, are we still talking about this 1942 image, or a different one? Nikkimaria (talk) 00:28, 21 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I was talking about a different one, which was on the cover of Life in 1946, and which I saw in Commons (but can't find again at the moment). But hey, can I just use our "Valued Image", File:Mahatma-Gandhi, studio, 1931.jpg? The reason I didn't go with this one from the beginning is because it's from 1931 and we have others dated much nearer the famine. In a previous FAC, people were complaining about images from 40 years before the famine.... images of rural scenes, boats, etc...Better yet, here's one in Noakhali (a district of Bengal) in 1946 File:Gandhi in Noakhali, 1946.jpg This one is both geographically and chronologically better. It's a still from a filmstrip I think. I might wanna crop it and upload as a new copy if the licensing is OK.. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 04:28, 21 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
At the moment it's missing a tag for US status. Nikkimaria (talk) 11:39, 21 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I am tracking down info on this image by contacting its uploader, who is an admin on Commons among other things... I think this image might be URAA-able. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 12:21, 21 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I found all the necessary data. This image is URAA-able. Published for public use in a museum circa 1950. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 23:47, 25 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Again, wouldn't that have copyright expiration after the URAA date? Nikkimaria (talk) 22:40, 26 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

(←) @Nikkimaria: I think I got everything covered. Do things look OK? Tks! ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 00:22, 26 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Nikkimaria: OK, as I noted above, I think the map above is OK because it is a government work. As for the Gandhi photo, after puzzling out the URAA small text, it seems to me the photo needs to have been published before 1937. I have swapped it therefore for File:Mahatma-Gandhi, studio, 1931.jpg, published in 1931. Please let me know what else needs to be done... ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 05:09, 29 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The image description for the new Gandhi image states it was probably published in the US around the time of creation - if that's the case the URAA tag would not apply. Any more specifics available on publication? Nikkimaria (talk) 10:43, 30 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Nikkimaria: I am now on the verge of completely giving up trying to find any public domain photo of Gandhi. I may simply remove it and be done with it. Here is my last grasping-at-straws attempt: I found a handful of news stories with identical text. There are three or four specific photos of Gandhi that the Indian govt has approved to be placed in all Indian govt offices. The descriptions are 'The GR says the Government has approved the photographs received from three agencies, namely Rex Photo Studio, Bombay, bust size 16 – 22”, Vanguard Studio, Bombay, size 14” – 17” – Dandi Kuch upright position and Associated Photo Service, Delhi bust size with folded hands size 10” – 12”.' Since these photos are in every govt office in India, does that get me any kind of get-out-of-licencensing-limbo-free card, assuming I can find one of those photos? Tks ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 14:53, 2 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately it wouldn't get you out of US licensing limbo - any idea when those were taken and when they were approved for distribution? Nikkimaria (talk) 15:29, 2 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

(←) @Nikkimaria: To answer your question, the relevant govt resolution was June 2 1949. the photos.. one mentions Dandi Kuch, which would be the Salt March from 12 March 1930 to 6 April 1930.... However, I just flat gave up and deleted the Gandhi image. I await your comments. Thank you for your time and trouble. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 00:09, 19 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Support from SC

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I have only a general knowledge of the subject and have done no proper reading into it. This review—per my standard caveat—is only on the prose element of the text and a brief check of the formatting of the sources for any glaring errors. It does not include a review of the literature used or a check on other sources, or on if the text reflects the reliable histories etc.

You should be commended for taking on this rather mammoth subject and making such a good article out of it. There are some niggly little prose issues, but these should not take too much effort to out right. As it's a big article, I'll review in bite-sized pieces.

General
  • According to MOS:DATERANGE, years should be 1942–1945, rather than 1942–45: it's a stupid rule, so I don't mind if you ignore it or not.
  • There are numerous examples where the closing quote marks are outside the punctuation. Per WP:LQ, the punctuation should be outside quote marks, unless it's a full sentence.
    • I think I found/fixed all these. Tks.
  • You have both World War II and Second World War – best to be consistent with just one.
    • I think I've fixed these, tks.
  • You have a mixture of en and em dashes – against be consistent with just one style (and make sure the em dashes always unspaced or the en dashes are spaced, whichever you chose)
  • There are a few examples of duplicate links which should be looked at.
  • You use the serial comma in some place, and don't in others - and there doesn't seem to be a logic in where it's been used. Personally I would do without it (which is probably the most favoured course in BrEng), but there's no harm using it if you prefer - just as long as it's consistent
    • Ack this will be hard to find and fix, will probably do it programmatically but busy at the moment... tks...
  • You have page ranges as pp. 108–9, pp. 284–85 and pp. 300–301. These should all be consistently done as the MoS-advised format pp. 300–301. There are also a couple of pp for single pages.
Background
  • "Cormac Ó Gráda writes": you need to introduce who he is so we know what weight to give his words. "The economic historian Cormac Ó Gráda writes…" would suffice (and you should delink his name in the Historiography section too)
    • Got it, tks

Done to the top of "Pre-famine shocks and distress": more to come. – SchroCat (talk) 20:15, 30 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

1942–45
Military build-up
  • "100 tons of warm clothing" – you should provide a conversion on all weights and measures
March 1942
Denial policies
  • "British military[T]" I am not a fan of notes or citations after a word or two in the sentence – they have no sense or logic and completely stop a reader in their tracks. Best moved to the end of the sentence
Mid-1942
Prioritised distribution
  • "as much as 80% of the armament, textile and heavy machinery production used in the Asian theater". There isn't anything in this quote that cannot be re-phrased outside a quote
  • The two quotes in the last two paragraphs should be attributed inline to the authors – although the second of them could probably be re-written in WP's voice.
Civil unrest

Done to the top of 1942–43: Price chaos. I've been doing some minor tweaks while I've been going on – minor stuff, partly EngVar, partly MoS bit. - SchroCat (talk) 13:21, 1 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

October 1942
Natural disasters
  • "cattle; while rice": this should either be "cattle, while rice" or "cattle; rice".
    • Ha ha yes. I teach freshman composition classes. I need to deduct points from my own score. Where's my red pen when I need it?
  • In the block quote 1000 and 3000 should carry commas (even if not in the original, we can alter them in such a small manner).
October 1942
Unreliable crop forecasts
  • The opening few sentences are just repetitions of the closing ones of the previous section.
  • Overall this para could be a bit more polished, I'm not a fan of listing in prose as "First", "Second", etc, and the "Moreover" jarred as I thought that was the third point until I got to "Finally", at which point I stopped reading and went back to counting the points to get a sense of what was happening.
Air raids on Calcutta
  • "The Famine Inquiry Commission's Report of 1945" could be "The Famine Inquiry Commission's 1945 report", which would make it smoother. You should ensure that here and in a couple of other places the "report" is given in lower case, as it's not a full title.
    • Done
  • "as a causation" jars. "as a cause" is better, but grammatically speaking you need to say of what it was a cause.
  • 'the shortfall was "2 million tons"': this doesn't need to be in quotes, and you should add a conversion too
@SchroCat: I am very embarrassed to admit I am a bit slow here... do you know how these should be converted? Long? Short? Metric? I am embarrassed to say I do not know how to do this. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 12:44, 20 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
1942–44
Refusal of imports
  • "less than three weeks before The Statesman's graphic photographs of starving famine victims in Calcutta": this is kind of sprung on us. This is the first mention of the publication. I know you have a media section further down, but as this is how the news was broken to the wider world, you need more about it here otherwise we're just groping in the dark.

Done to the end of the "Pre-famine shocks and distress" section (are we sure that's the right title to use for this? Having completed the section, not only have we dealt with part of the famine, I'm not sure about the shocks or distress either.

More to follow. (Overall this is very good from a prose point of view). – SchroCat (talk) 11:18, 4 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Continuing:

Famine, disease, and the death toll
  • "they resembled "living skeletons"" As this is a quoted opinion, I'd add "according to ..." at the end, just to clarify it's not WP's voice (regardless of the quote marks)
    • Attributed
  • "Statistics for smallpox and cholera are probably more reliable": that's an opinion, so you need to say whose it is

Attributed

  • "excerpted": Not, as far as I am aware, a word in British English
    • excerpted --> derived
Social disruption
  • I am not sure that "valorised" is the right word, and if it is, it's too obscure for people to grasp. (The OED has it as "To raise or stabilize the value of (a commodity, etc.) by a centrally organized scheme; gen. to evaluate, to make valid. ")
    • Valorised --> "highly valued"
  • "There were cases recorded of parents abandoning their children by the roadsides or at orphanages." That repeats the first sentence of this paragraph
  • "the fate of these women and children was an immense social cost of the famine". Again, I'd use "according to ..."
Economic and political effects
  • "When compared to the base period of 190–41," needs fixing
    • Got it tks
  • "galvanized both the Nationalist struggle in India" Again, I'd add "according to ..."

Done to the start of the Historiography section. More to come. - SchroCat (talk) 09:41, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support – and a strong one at that. This is an excellent article, and one I will strongly Support on prose. This is a huge topic, complex in the number and variety of disparate viewpoints and difficult to summarise without losing context and nuance. I think Lingzhi has done an excellent job here. Sorry Nick-D, but I don't see a problem with the "attitude" here. Lingzhi has accepted nearly all your suggestions, even when he has disagreed with them (I have disagreed with one or two of the, too, but I don't have a dog in this fight). I hope some agreement can be made with regard to the sourcing (I've not gone through the full discussion there); I think that can be sorted, and I hope both Lingzhi2 and Fiamh can continue discussing matters in a constructive manner to overcome any remaining problems there. Cheers – SchroCat (talk) 21:57, 11 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Fiamh

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  • Formatting issues:
    • Bowbrick 1985, Devereux 2000 and Osmani 1993 are incorrectly formatted according to your tools.
    • Some books are missing publication locations; for example Ó Gráda 2009 and Mukherjee 1987
      • I did find one book that was missing a location, thanks. As for the two you mentioned, I believe there's a rule that you don't need to include a location if the publisher is a university and the name of the university includes the location: Cambridge University Press is in Cambridge, Princeton University Press is in Princeton, etc. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 15:40, 31 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've selected three sources at random for spot checks: Weigold 1999, Ó Gráda 2008, and Mukherjee 2015, based on this version. All of Weigold and Ó Gráda was checked as well as the first ten references from Mukherjee. I'm not listing checks where source supported text.
    • Weigold 1999 Addressed
      • ref 105: The article text is However, evidence that fraudulent, corrupt and coercive practices by the purchasing agents removed far more rice than officially recorded, not only from designated districts, but also in unauthorised areas, suggests a greater impact. The most similar thing that I found in the source is: The purchasing agents bought coercively, draining the area of rice and radically altering the food position in the delta area. To the end Pinnell believed that government instructions were followed, that the amount of rice deposited in government stores was all that was removed. But maybe it is supported by the other two references?
        • Thank you for your comments. it may take me a while to cover them in detail; I'm busy in real life for the next couple of weeks.... In my opinion, Weigold in fact covers most of that quote already (and I will cover the other quotes below). Both the Weigold quote and the Wikipedia sentence in question are about the purchasing agents. Weigold's "...bought coercively" covers Wikipedia's "coercive practices" and Weigold's "draining the area of rice and radically altering the food position in the delta area" certainly covers Wikipedia's "suggests a greater impact", given that that sentence relates to/negates the previous sentence in our article, which is "Official figures for the amounts impounded were relatively small and would have contributed only modestly to local scarcities"... The other sources for that quote are J. Mukherjee 2015, pp. 62, 272; Greenough 1982, pp. 94–5. Greenough covers "corrupt". he goes through a few details about the purchasing agents on page 94 and concludes on p. 95 "...make it more than likely that the popular suspicion of fraud and rapacity was correct." Mukherjee p. 62 states "Charges of corruption were also rampant, and not easy to dismiss", then goes through a discussion of details, esp. purchasing from unauthorised areas.n Page 272 discusses Greenough's comments about corruption... but as I said, Weigold is valid for the main points of that quote. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 06:45, 31 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Ó Gráda 2008, p. 20
      • ref 77: Article text is Particularly in Bengal, the price effect of the loss of Burma rice was vastly disproportionate to the relatively modest size of the loss in terms of total consumption. I was not able to verify this, but there is a second source. Addressed
        • O'Grada quote covers half of the Wikipedia quote. O'Grada says "The usual supplies of rice from Burma, albeit a small proportion of aggregate consumption, were cut off." This certainly covers Wikipedia's "the loss of Burma rice was... relatively modest size of the loss in terms of total consumption". The other source listed, Bose, draws the connection: "The Japanese occupation of Burma in March 1942 cut off this supply, but more importantly had a vastly disproportionate effect on food prices in a disorderly market." I can send the source if you wish. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 06:01, 31 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • ref 377 references Ó Gráda 2008, p. 39. There is no page 39.
        • @Fiamh: The sentence in question: "Some sources allege that the Famine Commission deliberately declined to blame the UK or was even designed to do so". Many, many sources hit this point. The Osmani source in that set of cites very exlicitly states that the Famine Commission report was "designed to exonerate the administration from any blame for the famines; and by attributing famines to the stinginess of nature, the FAD view fitted nicely in this design”. But you're asking about O' Grada. Obviously I have somehow gotten the page number wrong. Let's see what we find in the source: "... the Report on Bengal failed to point the finger at any representative of HM Government" (p. 24 note 78); "Aykroyd, a member of the Commission, was much more critical of the British government and of Amery and Linlithgow... than the Report had been. It would be naive to suppose that the wartime context did not influence the composition of the Famine Inquiry Commission and its Report on Bengal." (p. 32, note 123). Oh, in the other O'Grada source we have on page 179 a somewhat-more-to-the point quote:" By the same token, the war accounts for the muted, kid-glove tone of the Report on Bengal and its refusal to criticize the authorities in London for leaving Bengal short. It would be naïve to think that the wartime context did not influence the composition of the Commission and its final report." The bit about "muted, kid-glove tone" covers Wikipedia's "deliberately declined to blame"... My vague memory is that "kid-glove tone" is exactly what I had in mind when I (inaccuately) cited O'Grada.. Would you like me to change the details (page number etc) of the O'Grada quote, or delete it entirely? ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 07:49, 31 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • J. Mukherjee 2015. I started to check this, but I realized that the copy of the source I had access to (a pdf) had a different isbn—9780190209889—and the two versions have different pagination. I did notice that the source is referenced in adjacent refs 52 and 53, which support the same text. Shouldn't they be combined?
    • Instead I'm going to check Brennan 1988, again the first ten citations excluding notes.
      • 110: Brennan does not support compromising the livelihoods of boatmen and fishermen, although maybe the other source does. Addressed
      • The full quote here is "severely disrupting river-borne movement of labour, supplies and food, and compromising the livelihoods of boatmen and fishermen." Brennan supports the first half explicitly by saying "...the 'denial' policy had crippled boat traffic near the coast while the roads and railways were clogged with military traffic" and the second half implicitly with "boats were surrendered by their owners, who received in return the market value of the craft along with a sum equal to three months' average earnings when the boat had been used as sole means of livelihood. The crew received a month's wages" .. those are paltry sums when your sole source of income has been destroyed. The other source (O'Grada"states on p. 154 "This ‘boat denial policy’ compromised the livelihoods of two of Bengal’s most vulnerable groups—fishermen and boatmen—and increased transport costs. " ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 06:45, 31 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • 174: Maybe this is splitting hairs, but Brennan says nothing about "atmospheric conditions", he only says that the cyclone increased the incidence of malaria.
        • if I recall correctly, the way it did so was by making everything wet. Mosquitoes breed more in wetter conditions etc. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 02:49, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
          • No, Brennan says nothing about mosquitoes or wet weather increasing malaria. Fiamh (talk, contribs) 06:29, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
            • Speaking purely for myself, however, I am not at all sure I would consider this "atmospheric conditions" cite to be a cite failure. In fact, I hope this isn't impolite, but I would say that it definitely is not a cite failure. As you yourself state, "Maybe this is splitting hairs, but Brennan says nothing about 'atmospheric conditions', he only says that the cyclone increased the incidence of malaria." The source says cyclones increased the incidence of malaria; Wikipedia says "It also created local atmospheric conditions that contributed to an increased incidence of malaria" ... I would suggest that the Wikipedia text is an acceptably synonymous restatement of the source, since a cyclone [and its direct, weather-related consequences] falls within the subset of "atmospheric conditions". Wouldn't you agree that it is within that subset?... I would suggest that it seems quite reasonable to say so. In that case, this is not a cite failure... Having said that, I think I saw a source that said the wetness after the cyclone increased malaria. I will look for it. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 02:57, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
            • It's original research to insert "atmospheric conditions" as the reason why the cyclone increased malaria. That's why you need to reword or change the source here. Fiamh (talk, contribs) 03:50, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

(←) Fiamh. Ah. Apparently I need to go back and carefully re-read WP:OR..OK, it says, "To demonstrate that you are not adding OR, you must be able to cite reliable, published sources that are directly related to the topic of the article, and directly support the material being presented." Source directly related to topic of article? Yes, the article's title is "Government Famine Relief in Bengal, 1943". To put it bluntly, it siomply could not be more directly related. OK, "source directly supports the material being presented"? Absolutely yes. The only condition under which the source does not support the wikitext would be if a cyclone [and its weather related consequences] are not "atmospheric conditions". Would you like to argue that a cyclone is not an atmospheric condition? That would be splitting hairs at best and simply wrong at worst... I know I am being very blunt here, and please do forgive me! But if I, in the name of politeness and deference, say, "Oh sorry, please let me fix that" I would be saying for the record, during a FAC that this cite is OR – which it very emphatically is not. A synonym is not WP:OR. In fact, if you read Wikipedia:These are not original research the very first thing that is not OR is "paraphrasing", and the very first example of that very first point is "synonyms are not OR". Unfortunately, you put me in a strong bind when you invoked WP:OR; now I cannot change it unless you agree that it is not WP:OR. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 04:23, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply] (←) There's no other mechanism by which a cyclone can increase malaria. However, i can look for someone else who says the same thing... perhaps I'll find one. Tks. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 07:44, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    • Additional checks: Famine Inquiry Commission, refs between 100 and 150. Same version of article as above.
      • ref 119: These barriers reflected a desire to see that local populations were well fed, thus forestalling civil unrest I was not able to verify this, perhaps I missed something?
        • I think you might have caught a bug. It seems the topic changed from trade barriers to price controls, and price controls were put in place to forestall uprisings etc. The barriers section mentions "emergencies", or something similar I think, but does not specify what kind of emergency. I will look into this further.. I do have a quote from Churchill's secret war, p. 108. "It is only human nature that if you give a province power to prevent grain going out of its border, that province will look to its own safety first". I will continue looking. Is that quote useful, in your opinion?.. Ah, the Minutes by M. Hussain, around pages 190-94 or so, has several mentions of provinces protecting their own citizens by trade barriers. But still no clear reference linking trade barriers to unrest...OK, after reflection, I'm gonna change "civil unrest" to "local emergencies" (which is a direct quote from the page after one that was originally cited). I think it is quite possible that my eyes saw "local emergencies" and my mind thought "civil unrest" when I wrote this a couple years ago. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 07:11, 1 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • ref 125: This is presented as a direct quote from the famine inquiry, but it isn't. Specifically, the famine inquiry committee quotes an anonymous source on one view on the famine; it isn't said in famine-inquiry-voice. Fixed

Overall there is a significant issue with failed verification. If a source does not support a given contention it should not be listed, even if the other sources do support it. I don't think the problem is as bad as it first appeared. Fiamh (talk, contribs) 20:28, 30 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

(←) @Fiamh:, Long-ish post, sorry... Thank you for your excellent comments. I hope this won't seem too much of an imposition, but for the sake of this discussion, I'd like to share my past experiences with you. On two occasions now in the dim past I was participating in a FAC (once as a reviewer on someone else's FAC, and once as nominator) when the FAC coordinator(s) rather abruptly slammed the door shut and turned out the lights on that FAC while someone was in mid-sentence. I'm sure the coordinators must have been busy with many other FACs when that happened; it's quite understandable. At any rate, though, given my past experiences, I hope you'll understand if I make a very gentle suggestion or request: If at any time (and I am not at all suggesting that you do it right now) you personally feel that all of the issues have been resolved to your satisfaction, I hope you'll consider going ahead and putting in a +Support !vote. It just seems that it might be somewhat unfortunate if you were thinking, "Oh I'll support..." but then didn't get around to doing so, and the garage door came down... the two issues you previously mentioned were notes and use of FIC as a source. I went through a detailed discussion of the text of WP:PRIMARY below (see "very explicitly allows the use of Primary sources"). I hope that explanation plus the deletion of many footnotes (what was it, maybe as many as 20 now just since this FAC has started) has satisfied your requirements. Thank you again for your time and trouble. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 02:31, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Additional checks

  • Bowbrick 1985, p. 57 does not "forcefully defend" the FIC report; he acknowledges the report's shortcomings. It would be more accurate to say that he forcefully denounces Sen's analysis.
    • Regarding "Bowbrick defends the FIC as a cite error, page 57". Without trying to give offense, you are mistaken.
      • Even on the cited page (57), Bowbrick states: "In my opinion the Famine Commission wrote an excellent report. They sought the truth rather than evidence in favour of their hypotheses. They entered into their study with no preconceived ideas as to whether it was a FAD or a distribution famine and they reached aconclusion that was not in accordance with the official view." I would suggest that, given the criticism the FIC has come under, to call it an "excellent report" with "no preconceived ideas" is a forceful defense, even on the page cited in Wikipedia... but there are more instances (below)
      • Page 57 is already sufficient support. However, another page is even stronger. Page 18 in a section very prominently titled "Why the [FIC] report is considered to be honest" quotes Stevens, “The Famine Commission’s report is as complete, painstaking and balancedan account of what happened and why, as will ever be achievable.” (Stevens, 1966). Sounds forceful.
        • Stevens' opinions should not be attributed to Bowbrick. Your edits here are not an improvement.
      • Page 29, "It must be concluded that the Famine Commission provides by far the most satisfactory explanation of price rises both before and after the cyclone." ["By far the most..." sounds forceful.]
      • At several points... again and again... Bowbrick states that the FIC is right and Sen is wrong, e.g., "The difference is that where the Famine Commission gives ten pages of argument and facts in support of theircarry-over explanation, Sen gives only a sentence or two in support of his explanations." And so on. I consider the source as originally cited to be a completely fair and accurate characterization of the source. However, merely to add more weight to an already sufficient statement, I will add the two pages cited above. Thank you for looking into this. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 02:41, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • The relevant passage reads in part, their economic analysis was naive or even wrong in parts. In view of this it is surprising that they should have made few major errors and that they should have been broadly correct in their conclusions. Certainly their analysis had more depth than Sen’s. In spite of the deficiencies of their market analysis, I would not be ashamed to have written such a report. To me that is a qualified rather than forceful defence.
  • Could I have a copy of Mukerjee 2014, "Bengal Famine of 1943: An Appraisal of the Famine Inquiry Commission" for source checks?
  • Unfortunately, I have to second Nick-D's oppose. While I appreciate all of Lingzhi's hard work on the article, the discrepancies between text and sources demonstrate a lack of care towards verifiability and indicate a systemic problem that cannot be addressed via FAC. Fiamh (talk, contribs) 09:19, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose by Nick-D

[edit]

This article seems considerably approved at first glance since the previous review. I continue to have serious concerns about the process through which it was initially developed (with other editors being actively discouraged from participating) though. I'll probably spot-check the article rather than read through it again. To kick things off, I have the following comments from my previous review and an initial scan of the article's, including its notes and sources:

  • The number of notes has been trimmed a bit, but remains much too high. Many simply repeat in a wordy fashion what has been summarised in the article so add no value, others simply add more sources for already sourced material and some contain material which should be in the body of the article.
    • Everyone sees things differently. If something is in the notes, it is because it seemed to me that it added to the text, and did not seem to me that it would fit properly within the body text. As for being much too high, I see things differently again. Notes are skippable. Don't wanna read 'em? Don't read 'em. There is almost no such thing as "too many" because you are simply not required to read even one of them... Having said that... I can try... to move some into body text and delete a few others. But please bear in mind what Fowler&fowler has said, that the topic is deep and complicated, and explication of details is more necessary here than for the majority of other Wikipedia articles.
      • @Nick-D and Fiamh: I believe we have deleted or moved 13 or 14 footnotes just since the beginning of this FAC. We are now down to 2620. My head doesn't live in a universe in which 2620 is an excessive number for a topic of this complexity, but perhaps yours does. I will look again to see if there may be 1 or 2 left that could be banished. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 03:29, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • That's still way too many. A number close to 0 would be much better. The current large number is not in accordance with the goal of keeping articles as short as sensible, or the advice at WP:SUMMARY to not try to cram too much into single articles. I don't intend to comment on the large numbers of notes one by one, but here are my views on the first few: the material in note A is very important and should be in the body of the article (I found a table a good way of presenting similar data succinctly in the Air raids on Japan article), note B is discussed in the body of the article, notes C, E and G are probably OK but inessential, note D is unnecessary, note F is UK-centric and odd to modern eyes (why compare the size of bits of India with the UK?) and note H is irrelevant given that three of the four types of land ownership noted were not significant. I note that by note H readers are only up to the start of the second sub-section. Nick-D (talk) 05:53, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
          • (Chipping in, while I'm reviewing) I fundamentally disagree on parts of this. There is no bar on the number of footnotes that should or shouldn't be in an article. This is a big and complex subject that needs a lot of background for readers to understand the whole. In most cases the article body would be too bloated if the information were included in the body, and if they are removed then entirely the information in the article is unclear. - SchroCat (talk) 06:53, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
            • While I respect your view, I think that the approach here isn't helpful to readers. Some important information is being made hard to find (especially note A), and other information is simply irrelevant (note H) or close to trivia (note F). I can't recall other FAs on social or history topics with so many notes, and the importance of the topic isn't a good reason to not keep the number of notes down (from some random checking of FAs on big topics, only Middle Ages has more, going up to note AI. As some other FAs on other major social topics, the FA on Canada has four notes, that on Australia twelve and Barack Obama none. As some articles on complex history topics, Sino-Roman relations has 11 notes, British Empire one and Oklahoma City bombing and Ancient Egypt none. Of articles on scientific topics where notes are more frequently used, Earth has 21, most with no references, Venus two, and Moon gets up to note M). At 77kb of text in the body of the article, this is already larger than recommended at WP:SIZERULE. The notes should be included in this calculation given they include so much content, which makes the article really quite large. I'm certainly not opposed to the use of notes, but my concern here is that many are unnecessary, it should be possible to get the number down to something pretty modest and readers would be better served by doing so. Nick-D (talk) 07:41, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
              • And there are also Siege of Sidney Street: 7, Spaghetti House siege: 6, Tottenham Outrage: 10, Operation Bernhard: 14, Great Stink: 13, London Beer Flood: 10. The Bengal famine is a huge topic – on its own it is nearly too big to be encompassed in an encyclopaedia, and there is always going to be a lot that needs to drop out of the main body to keep it uncluttered, yet needs to be immediately available in a bite-sized chunk to give sufficient background/context/explanation. I am not commenting on the individual ones yet, but what I have seen in general terms is not a cause for concern. Everyone's mileage differs, but I do not see a major problem with the general situation. (I also disagree with incluing them in the article size: they are out of the article for a reason, and we just don't ever include them.) – SchroCat (talk) 08:27, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

(←) I ran a quick little research project, and just for the sake of discussion, please consider MILHIST FAs: Balfour Declaration (80), Ulysses S. Grant (67), Ian Smith (35), Henry I of England (36), Henry III of England (34), Battle of Hastings (28), USS Nevada (BB-36), Dreadnought, Battle of Prokhorovka, SMS Derfflinger...OK I cut out a few more. We're down to 2220, but now I am really finding it harder to find things to move or delete. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 12:59, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • There's still no mention of the relief effort organised by the communist party, which Srinath Raghavan states was of a large scale, effective and had post-war political consequences in his book India's War
    • yes all political groups, not merely or even primarily Communists, engaged in voluntary relief. The Communists were praised for their work, most by the Indian govt I assume.. they were also referred to as "stooges of the Empire" etc etc etc. That's the way politics goes. I will put in a sentence or maybe even two about voluntary relief. I hope to be able to do that in the next hour or two... As for Raghavan, Fowler&fowler called into question his scholarship/reliability...OK I have beefed up private relief discussion and mentioned many groups. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 03:06, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • The book is a major history of India in World War II written by an academic expert in this field and published by the Penguin Group. What other sources were ruled out on the basis of what editors thought of them? This kind of response raises real concerns about how well the article reflects the literature on the topic. Nick-D (talk) 06:09, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • I see one paragraph in Raghavan hailing the relief work of the Communists. It doesn't say the results in terms of feeding people were substantial; it says they gained followers... which is not the focus of this article. The Communists did good things with relief work, it's true, but so did everyone else (as our article notes). Honing in on one political group when many contributed significantly would be textbook WP:UNDUE... Additionally, as for Raghavan being a major author who has been omitted, I feel that this article covers the field extremely well. The list of major works cited in this article include [Author Name & date, Google Scholar as cites at the time of the previous FAC; the numbers are probably a bit higher now]: A Sen 1981a (11,383 Google Scholar cites), A Sen 1977 (299 cites), Ó Gráda 2009 (191 cites), Mukerjee 2010 (112 cites), Knight 1954 (95 cites), Maharatna 1992 (89 cites), Bayly & Harper 2005 (65 cites), Mahalanobis, Mukherjea & Ghosh 1946 (58 cites), Iqbal 2010 (58 cites), S Bose 1990 (47 cites), Ó Gráda 2008 (40 cites), Greenough 1980 (35 cites), Tinker 1975 (31 cites), S Bose 1982 (22 cites), Brennan 1988 (18 cites), Islam 2007a (16 cites), Siegel 2018 (printed only a year ago, and already cited by 11), etc.. Plus Fowler&fowler questioned Ragahavan's accuracy on several points... If for some reason you want me to find something in Raghavan to cite, I could try to do so, but it would be WP:UNDUE to emphasize the Communists... Tks. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 04:10, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
          • The book states that the Communists "undertook extensive relief work in central and northern parts of Bengal" and organised meetings which criticised the lack of action from the government with this leading to them gaining "a major following among the poor peasants and sharecroppers" which had post-war political consequences. This seems pretty significant, and I'm not sure why you're so strongly arguing against following up on this (if other RS don't give much/any weight to the Communists, fair enough, but this source appears to be arguing that this was a significant part of the relief effort). I'm not asking for this to be included as part of a quixotic attempt to push this or similar, but as it's emphasised in one of the few books I own which discusses the famine I'm genuinely curious as to why it's not in the article, especially given one of my concerns in the previous FAC was that the article was structured around a particular narrative which was focused on the role and failings of the British authorities. It's again of concern that this RS is being dismissed based on the views of a Wikipedia editor. Nick-D (talk) 04:43, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
            • The proportion that things are emphasized in this article is, to the very very very best of my understanding, precisely the proportion that they are emphasized across the entire breadth of the literature, taken as a whole... Oh... I just now typed in a fairly long explication of that assertion here, but then I remembered that people said I talked too much in the previous FAC. Mmmmm, let's give it a one-sentence summary: Academic consensus suggests that the famine was "man-made", and even critics/naysayers of that consensus explicitly admit that it's the consensus. As the article states, the consensus suggests it was brought on by inflationary financing of the war, while other sources (typically Nationalists) assert racism etc. But the "man-made" voices heavily outweigh the others.... This RS is not being dismissed on the concerns of an editor (though that clearly weighs against it). It is unused because he says nothing original, and more oft-cited sources are used instead. Raghavan very strictly toes the line in following Sen's account of the war's causes! [I have to run now.... more later...] ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 05:25, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • The 'cloth famine' section is more focused, but over-long. The material on the amount of cloth India produced and where it went is not necessary: this topic could be covered much better in a single para.
  • "Girls were also prostituted to the military" - still incorrectly claims that the military was purchasing the services of prostitutes. Individual military personnel were doing this.
  • The material on how Bengal went straight from a disastrous famine to a record rice crop remains very modest, and hidden away in a note with a simplistic explanation (the earlier sections of the article note a range of structural reasons why land was not available for farming and other issues which contributed to the fame - issues such as how were these problems were so rapidly addressed, where the workforce came from given the starvation, whether the Army helped with bringing the crop in and distributing it seem relevant).
    • Added: "Survivors of the famine and epidemics gathered the harvest themselves,[324] though in some villages there were no survivors capable of doing the work.[325]" Moved out of footnote: According to Greenough, large amounts of land previously used for other crops had been switched to rice production..." ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 02:45, 4 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • The table in the 'Famine, disease, and the death toll' is much better and very useful, but what the 'rate' is isn't defined (presumably this is deaths per some number of people?)

Notes: 1) All cause-specific death rates are based on a constant denominator - being the enumerated population in the 1941 census. 2) For the period 1937-41, figures in the parentheses [which are in % column in Wikipedia's table] are the respective percentage shares to total average annual deaths, while for both 1943 and 1944 they are the percentage shares to total excess deaths. The excess deaths from each of the above diseases were calculated over the respective average deaths registered during 1937-41. Sources: Government of Bengal, Health Directorate, Bengal Public Health Report. Alipore, Government Press, various years.

      • That's a somewhat unusual way of calculating death rates, and doesn't seem to make sense - does this mean, for instance, that there were only 0.73 deaths from Cholera among the total population on average each year between 1937 and 1943? I presume that the table is actually using the standard calculation of deaths per 1000 people per year (as noted in our Mortality rate article) - the numbers seem to make sense and align with the facts presented in the article if it's deaths per 1000 people. Nick-D (talk) 06:20, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Given there's a huge scholarly and popular literature on this topic, I don't understand why the article relies so heavily on the 1945 Famine Inquiry Commission report - this is a primary source, which pretty much all subsequent authors have drawn on and discussed. The historiography section notes that some experts believe that it was systematically biased.
    • That's an interesting question. One reason this article relies so heavily on FIC is because all other sources (even the bitterest critics) always and everywhere rely heavily on FIC.... In short, everyone, even the most most vehement and even vindictive critics, trusts most of FIC's explication of the details of the events (except.. maybe.. it never mentioned shipping? not sure, will double-check). What many people do not trust is the eventual conclusion that His Majesty's government was mostly blameless, except for kinda maybe failing a little on some points. The FIC blamed the (Muslim) Govt of India; that's the bit many people take issue with. A second point is that many of the FIC cites in this article are supported by cites to other sources... But.... having said all that... Would it make you and Fiamh more comfortable if I tried to comb through every FIC cite that says something like "Famine Inquiry Commission 1945a, pp. 23–24" and tried to modify it to "Famine Inquiry Commission 1945a, pp. 23–24, as cited in AuthorName Year pg.xx"? That would take a while and as I said I am facing Midterms... moreover, I think it is completely unnecessary, since all sources trust FIC's explication of the facts... but I could try to do so. Do you wish to to try to add as many "as cited in..." as possible?
      • Please replace these with secondary sources. There's no need to note whatever it is the secondary sources happens to cite. Nick-D (talk) 09:13, 2 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • I disagree on several counts. I actually strongly disagree that this is a Primary source, but am afraid that topic can be argued forver. So let's just stipulate that FIC is primary. You cannot blanket ban a source because you feel it is primary. WP:PRIMARY very explicitly allows the use of Primary sources. That is , "Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. A primary source may be used on Wikipedia only to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge." As I said, you cannot blanket ban a primary source. You will need to go through on a case-by-case, cite-by-cite basis, present an individual cite to FIC, and establish that that cite to FIC is used to draw an interpretation rather than to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 13:54, 2 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
          • You have listed it in the sources as being a primary source... I am not suggesting a blanket ban on the source, but do not see any reason for it to be so heavily used given the vast secondary literature should be capable of covering pretty much all the points it is being used as a reference for. Secondary sources are obviously preferable to primary sources. Nick-D (talk) 23:57, 2 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
            • Actually (this is a point of lesser importance, but...) I didn't put it in Primary sources, nor did I even have a Primary sources in my all-100%-Lingzhi version (which is here). Someone else created those sections and put FIC in Primary. I would have done neither. But I just didn't want to argue... And much more importantly, please do bear in mind that all of the secondary sources you wish to insert are themselves drawing the very strong, clear majority of their basic facts from FIC. It would be half-illegitimate to attribute them solely to those secondary sources. If you wanna bring them in, it would be far better IMHO to say "FIC p. xx, as cited it SecondaySource p. yy"). And thirdly... the task you're asking is simply unnecessary. It goes far beyond what is required! I can try to put in a Good Faith Effort to do it to as many cites as I can easily find, but the only reason to do so is to make you feel more comfortable. I must repeat, even if we agree to consider FIC as a primary source, using a primary source for basic facts is absolutely 100% explicitly and clearly permissible in Wikipedia's policies etc. If you want to really argue a point, you must establish that it is an interpretation and not a basic fact. But I can append "as cited in" to some relatively small number of them. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 03:37, 3 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
              • It should not be necessary to use it often as a reference for facts given the size of the secondary literature (and I don't see the point in saying what references secondary works cite). Relying on such an elderly source for facts is also problematic given that there are over 70 years of subsequent research which may have either improved upon the report or found problems with what it presents as being factual. The report is also frequently used as a citation for analysis (as two examples selected purely at random, the current refs 83 and 84 both use only this report to cite analysis and claims which are likely to be contested regarding the performance of government policies and the parts of India most affected by the war - I would have thought that the areas which were in the frontline and then invaded in 1944 would have been more affected, for instance). Nick-D (talk) 06:09, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I've been reading up on it and it seems that there has been some criticism of FIC's statistics. According to Tauger 2003, p. 63: "Describing these data as ‘harvests’ is analogous to reporting as a football score the bookies’ wagers made the day before: there is a chance they might be correct, but they are not in the same league as the actual results". A large part of Mukerjeee 2014 is devoted to "Suspect Numbers" and "Discrepancies" in the FIC report. All the more reason to use secondary sources. Fiamh (talk, contribs) 06:25, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Fiamh: Still categorically disagree. The FIC is used for much, much more than statistics here. It describes events. It describes background data. The events and data were a matter of public record at the time, but the newspapers etc are hardly retrievable now. Find the bits that Mukerjee 2014 disapproves of, and see if they are cited in the article as if they are facts. In every instance that is true, I will modify the text to not Mukerjee's disapproval. Meanwhile, no reason to kill the entire orchestra if one of its instruments is wobbly. As I said, WP:PRIMARY explicitly allows use of primary sources (tho I disagree this is one; Wikipedia's definition is over-stretched) to supply background facts etc. If you can show the article uses FIC's info to draw inferences, 'especially about the cause of the famine (the FIC has been accused of being pro-UK), let me know... ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 23:25, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • The use of a primary source for the statement that "in late 1943, entire boatloads of girls for sale were reported in ports of East Bengal" also seems avoidable and weakens this material: have historians confirmed that this happened? (as seems horribly likely). "Boatloads" is a somewhat de-humanising term BTW - "entire boats" does the same thing, without the implication that these young women were nothing but cargo.
  • There's surprisingly little discussion of the wartime and post-war political consequences of the famine. Lizzy Collingham notes that these were surprisingly modest, possibly as the key Congress leaders were in jail at the time and didn't see the famine's consequences first-hand, but Srinath Raghavan notes local issues which arose from it. Nick-D (talk) 01:47, 2 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • the article does mention that the famine had political ramifications. If you wish, I can try to beef this point up. I personally see this as beyond the proper scope of the article. But I can beef it up, perhaps, if I can find such info. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 07:03, 2 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not sure if I'll review sections of the article in detail given the above, but the recently-added statement that "As Field Marshal William Slim observed, this directly reduced levels of care available to the general population, and "milked the hospitals of India to the danger-point" is problematic. While the quote and page number are correct, Slim does not note in the book that the transfers of medical personnel to the military "directly reduced levels of care available to the general population" as claimed or link this to the famine in any way so this is OR (his concern here is the inadequate medical support for his army). As an autobiography, the book is also obviously a primary source so should not be being interpreted. Nick-D (talk) 05:05, 3 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • The two works by Mansergh should be listed as primary sources, as they are compilations of British Government documents. Nick-D (talk) 07:20, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'm shifting to oppose given my concerns over the article's sourcing and the nominator's attitude to this (per this post). The article is certainly much improved, and has much to recommend it, but I am not confident that it has FA-level sourcing or that the previous problems around neutrality have been fully addressed. Nick-D (talk) 05:39, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • I sorta hope the FAC coordinators will take a moment to note that you are very explicitly requesting a shift to a more pro-UK POV, as in "...one of my concerns in the previous FAC was that the article was structured around a particular narrative which was focused on the role and failings of the British authorities". But. It's a bit unlikely they will. Thank you for participating. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 05:52, 10 November 2019 (UTC) [Striking through direct quote.] ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 05:16, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • That kind of battleground mentality is really unhelpful. Nick-D (talk) 09:04, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • @Nick-D: I suddenly recalled why your concerns about the "hospitals" quote are at least somewhat misplaced. That is because The Wikipedia text states exactly what you want it to state. You want it to state that meidical care improved under Wavell (that is, when the army took charge, as it is stated somewhat near the quote you have questioned.... It just does so in a different spot in the article. PLease see: "In particular, grain was imported from the Punjab, and medical resources[328] were made far more available.[329]" That assertion fits very logically in the context where it is placed. That context is "When Wavell arrived..." If you would like me to duplicate that cite in the offending position, I will gladly do so. The duplication would be... a duplication.. but if it will adress your concerns, then no problem.... as for battleground, I'll strike it, even tho it is merely a direct quote of your words, and as for your concern tha the UK is too harshly treated ("structured around a particular narrative which was focused on the role and failings of the British authorities"], I believe the expert opinion by Greenough (below) may disagree with that assessment. All concerns are thus addressed (unless you want me to duplicate the cite I just mentioned.]  ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 05:16, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Ykraps

[edit]
  • Why had Bengal's rice production been declining for decades? I assume that "Land quality and fertility had been deteriorating" is partly trying to explain this but in the very next sentence it says "Rice yield per acre had been stagnant since the beginning of the twentieth century". One would expect the yield to fall if the quality of land was deteriorating. I suppose it could mean that there was less land to cultivate because much of it was infertile but this seems an awfully convoluted and ambiguous way of saying so.--Ykraps (talk) 21:59, 21 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yield per capita, not yield per se, was falling. Yield per acre/hectare/whatever was more or less stagnant. No industrial revolution, no increases in productivity. Past increases in total yield had only been obtained by bringing new land under cultivation, and the amount of available new land was getting very small. Perhaps a few details from the full-length version might help clarify things. I will take a look at it later... OK, in the end, all I had to do was move the last sentence of the paragraph up to the beginning, and suddenly everything seems more clear, at least to me... ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 03:07, 23 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • How did agricultural expansion damage the natural drainage courses? Is this simply because water was being drawn off for irrigation?--Ykraps (talk) 21:59, 21 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Agricultural expansion and deforestation was messing up the drainage in different ways, including especially (but not limited to) silting up the rivers and the channels that fed into rivers. I clarified that silting was the main issue. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 03:12, 23 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Re the caption in the image, isn't buffalo both plural and singular?--Ykraps (talk) 21:59, 21 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • What does undeveloped mean in, "cultivating undeveloped lands"? Does it mean previously uncultivated? If so, it's probably better to say utilising uncultivated lands because undeveloped commonly means not built on and suggests that the shortage of land was due to building.--Ykraps (talk) 21:59, 21 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • What does the sentence, "Although imports were a small portion of the total available food crops, this may have been accompanied by a decrease in average consumption levels; it was estimated in 1930 that the Bengali diet was the least nutritious in the world" mean? What has the proportion of imported rice got to do with nutrition?--Ykraps (talk) 21:59, 21 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I wrote this years ago and my memory is very fuzzy, but I think what I was trying to indicate here is that one shouldn't be deceived by the relative smallness of the percentage of rice imports compared to overall consumption. That doesn't mean the overall problem of malnutrition was small. The change from net exporter (surplus amounts) to net importer (insufficient amounts) had very real-world consequences for the rural poor... As Islam (2007) points out, the problem of malnutrition was worsening through time on both sides of the equation – supply and demand of rice. It wasn't like, "rice supply is not meeting demand, but that's OK, it's only a small deficit, everything is OK, we've got plenty." The rural poor were already living at near-subsistence levels, and they were forced to cut back consumption even further.. The diet of the poor rural population actually worsened (or at least, the experts believe so) during this period... I will try to think of a way to word this more clearly. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 10:16, 24 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Fixed After careful consideration, I have decided that I am not entirely sure what Islam was trying to say. Offending bit about "decrease in average consumption" removed. Noreover, Bose's point about "least nutritious" actually includes the scant amount of food eaten, so included that. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 14:34, 25 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • I think decrease in average consumption levels means that on average people were eating less. It was the linking of import levels to nutrition I was objecting to but this seems to have been rectified.--Ykraps (talk) 17:09, 25 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Who says that the Bengali diet was the least nutritious in the world?--Ykraps (talk) 22:20, 21 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Iqbal (2010, p. 177) cites Bose (1930):" Chunilal Bose's observation in the 1930s that the Bengalis received the least nutrition in the world clearly pointed to the decreasing consumption of ecologically embedded foodstuffs...". Looking at Bose, I see on p. 92 that the Bengali diet is the worst in India. ... mmm same thing on pages 2–3 "...our present Indian diet is defective and ill-balanced and is directly responsible for the progressive deterioration of physical health of the people, particularly of Bengal..." Bose discusses the deficiencies of the Bengali diet in detail on pages 92-110. there's a table on page 96 which compares bengali protein intake unfavorably with other nations in the world. If you believe Iqbal has misquoted Bose, we can quote Bose pages 2-3, 92, 96 thusly: "it was estimated in 1930 that the Bengali diet was among the least nutritious in India and the world, and greatly harmed the physical health of the population". Is that satisfactory? ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 06:55, 22 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • What caused the population explosion between 1901 and 1941?--Ykraps (talk) 22:20, 21 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Ironically, if I recall correctly, it was the success of the Raj... in... was it in curtailing wars.. or... what? I don't remember offhand. I will try to look it up and add it if you wish. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 05:45, 22 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • I was really talking about whether it was due to migration, increase in birth rates, people living longer etc.--Ykraps (talk) 09:29, 22 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • I looked for an hour, and all I found was that the population increased due to "greater stability during foreign rule". I really do believe I have a recollection of seeing a quote a couple years ago to the effect that the Mughal empire had frequent bloody battles etc,. which all stopped during the Raj. People just killed each other much less frequently under a sort of Pax Brittania. In the twentieth century the main cause of soaring population was probably immunization... again by the Raj. Would you like me to continue searching for that quote & put it in the article? I have just now requested a relevant doc from WP:RX. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 23:01, 22 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
          • A short sentence about how peace and stability allowed the population to flourish, is fine.--Ykraps (talk) 10:13, 23 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
            • I was wrong, at least according to the relevant source. And our Wikipedia article on the British Raj completely and radically misquotes that source. Apparently it was mainly due to natural increases in immunity. I will research further to verify. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 07:57, 25 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
              • Fixed "Declining mortality rates, caused either by the pre-1943 success of the British Raj in famine reduction or by a natural process of increased biological resistance to prevalent diseases, caused its population to increased by 43% between 1901 and 1941 – from 42.1 million to 60.3 million.
  • How relevant is all this discussion about malaria and cholera? Were some of the deaths attributed to disease and not famine?--Ykraps (talk) 22:20, 21 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Very much so. In famine-related literature, "famine deaths" includes deaths brought on by diseases that were themselves a result of famine or famine-driven social disruption (poor hygiene, eating rotten food, crowded refugee camps, etc.). Even malaria is considered famine-related in this case (though it is directly caused by mosquitoes), because the people were so weakened by malnutrition that their natural resistance was greatly diminished. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 05:45, 22 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • I know you've received criticism for the number of foot notes but I believe an explanation of what's included in famine-related deaths, is needed. Particularly as they appear to include diseases which are likely to kill, whether one is mal-nourished or not.--Ykraps (talk) 09:29, 22 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • Resolved, I believe. I think there may already be a paragraph in the "Famine, disease, and the death toll" section which offers the information you have requested. Look for this sentence: "The two waves – starvation and disease – also interacted and amplified one another, increasing the excess mortality". It is the last paragraph of that section (thus the paragraph immediately before the "Social disruption" section). ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 14:43, 24 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • How many of the 500,000 refugees from Burma made it to Bengal? How much of this section is relevant? While an increase in the population due to migration is pertinent, deaths occurring outside Bengal and not related to a food shortage, probably aren't.--Ykraps (talk) 22:20, 21 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think we had a figure once for how many made it, but I have forgotten. I can try to look it up. Meanwhile, this section is relevant because the relevant literature says it is relevant. I didn't say that on my own... The refugees influenced the course of the famine in several ways. Their presence added to the growing feeling of unease and panic that Bengalis felt, which drove later behaviors such as (possibly) hoarding and (definitely) erecting provincial barriers.. Their presence added to the total demand for food and other necessities. They even brought disease, though if I recall correctly, I may have had to delete that bit because a previous reviewer in a previous FAC found it dubious and/or offensive. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 05:45, 22 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • When I say relevant, I'm thinking about whether the article is focussed as the FAC criteria says it should be. I would have thought that a sentence saying somethimg like, 'The Japanese invasion of Burma resulted in an influx of refugees and allied troops, increasing the population further, leading to hoarding...' etc, would be sufficient. Perhaps a bit more than that is needed but I really think that that section can be heavily trimmed.--Ykraps (talk) 09:29, 22 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • Resolved, I believe. I suspect the reason why it seemed it as though could be heavily trimmed is that the connection between these facts and the famine was not made strongly enough. I have bolstered that connection. Along the way I deleted one quote about British soldiers pushing refugees aside. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 01:03, 23 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • What occurred in 1943 to drive up inflation so dramatically?--Ykraps (talk) 10:28, 24 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • When did the US fly 100 tons of clothing into East Bengal?--Ykraps (talk) 11:17, 24 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Fixed. Source does not specify date, added "between October 1942 and April 1943" ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 02:32, 25 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • The trouble is, it now sounds like an immediate and successful response. The end of the year to October doesn't sound like much time for the locals to endure the "hardships of a severe cloth famine". If you need to make this sound like a failure to act, you're going to need some proper cited dates that do this. Or you could rewrite the sentence to say, "The hardships that were felt by the rural population through a severe cloth famine were alleviated when military forces began distributing relief supplies between October 1942 and April 1943".--Ykraps (talk) 17:09, 25 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • Fixed OK, I'll take your suggestion. @Ykraps: At this point I think I have resolved your points so far, but you may have further thoughts. Please look at the "Resolved, I believe" points and see if my explanations are sufficient for your requirements. Thanks! ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 01:49, 26 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Military barracks were scattered around Calcutta. Perhaps a thousand homes, including entire villages, were requisitioned for military use and at least 60,000 occupants expelled". I would be inclined to say, "Military barracks were scattered around Calcutta and perhaps a thousand homes, including entire villages, were requisitioned for military use". There is no need to mention the 60,000 occupants expelled from their homes as these are already included in Greenough's estimate of 150-180 thousand. Otherwise it looks like you are trying to artificially inflate the figures.--Ykraps (talk) 10:28, 24 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The policies' wider impact – the extent to which they compounded or even caused the later famine – has been the subject of much discussion". Firstly, among whom, and secondly, what is the later famine? Are we not still talking about the 1943 Bengal Famine? If so, I suggest changing to "...the degree to which they compounded or even extended the famine" if that's what is meant.--Ykraps (talk) 11:30, 24 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Ykraps: I believe I have addressed all your concerns up 'til now. I have marked them either "Fixed" or "Resolved, I believe", depending on how sure I am that I have accurately addressed your concerns. Thanks. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 14:38, 25 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The British acted to suppress the movement, arresting tens of thousands and killing some 2,500". Tens of thousands is quite vague. Is there a more accurate figure? Also, how were the 2,500 killed? It sounds as if they were executed.--Ykraps (talk) 17:07, 27 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • "In all 66,000 were convicted or detained, of whom about a quarter, including most of the Congress leadership, were still in jail in 1944. 2,500 were shot dead." That puts about 16,000 or so "still in jail in 1944"; no clear idea how many were in and out of jail prior. How would you like this to be worded? It seems fairly accurate to me, unless you want me to change "killing some 2,500" to "whereas 2,500 were shot dead" ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 06:20, 29 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Ykraps: I believe Bayly misquoted the source he cited. Both are available via Google books preview. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 22:00, 29 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • @Ykraps: OK with excellent help from WP:RX I found the source Bayly&Harper cited, and so have changed our article's text accordingly: "he British acted forcefully to suppress the movement, taking around 66,000 in custody (of whom just over 19,000 were still convicted under civil law or detained under Defence of India Act in early 1944). More than 2,500 Indians were shot when police fired upon protesters, many of whom were killed.(Brown|1991|p=340)... Is that satisfactory? ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 07:08, 30 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]


  • The sentence beginning, "When such shipments did begin..." immediately follows a sentence about a refusal of shipments from other nations which suggests that the modest shipments which began in late 1943, were shipments from other nations. Is that was is meant here?--Ykraps (talk) 09:42, 1 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Short answer: Yes definitely foreign grain, and probably grain from other Indian provinces as well. Long answer: Re-reading FIC carefully, there are explicit mentions of foreign shipments at the ports. "Australia and Karachi" are singled out by name, though there may have been others. These shipments are arriving at an increasing rate beginning around October 1943. [This is exactly the time Wavell took charge.] The amounts they carried were relatively modest, given the scale of the crisis. However, the whole adminstrative system of Bengal was direly under-manned, under-supplied and in a chaotic shambles at that time, and the relatively modest number of shipments seemed like a tsunami (my term, not FIC's) that completely overwhelmed their ability to receive/transport them... This is presumably why Wavell soon started using soldiers for distribution... I say "probably from other provinces as well" as an assumption, because the passage also mentions shipments received by rail, without stating where they came from. I am assuming no foreign shipments would arrive by rail. I don't think that is a major point, however... ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 14:38, 1 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "...no demographic or geographic group was completely immune to increased mortality rates – but deaths from starvation were confined to the rural poor". I assume this means that deaths among other demographics were caused by disease but this isn't immediately apparent and the sentence at first appears to contradict itself. Perhaps this can be made clearer or moved to the next paragraph where this is discussed?--Ykraps (talk) 09:42, 1 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • added "caused by disease", thanks...
  • The definition of 'excess deaths' needs to be moved to the first mention of the phrase.--Ykraps (talk) 09:42, 1 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Added to first use of term. It's now defined twice, but I think the mentions are somewhat far apart. Plus the second mention is within a discussion of mortality rates etc.
  • How are the death rates in the table calculated? Per 100K/pa?--Ykraps (talk) 09:42, 1 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm afraid this question has been asked before, and alas I don't have an answer. The source doesn't say too clearly. I will reproduce in full (just below this) the explanatory Notes from that page of the sorurce:

Notes: 1) All cause-specific death rates are based on a constant denominator - being the enumerated population in the 1941 census. 2) For the period 1937-41, figures in the parentheses are the respective percentage shares to total average annual deaths, while for both 1943 and 1944 they are the percentage shares to total excess deaths. The excess deaths from each of the above diseases were calculated over the respective average deaths registered during 1937-41. Sources: Government of Bengal, Health Directorate, Bengal Public Health Report. Alipore, Government Press, various years.

      • I'm not sure that answers my question. Death rates are usually calculated by dividing the number of deaths in a year by the population total and multiplying by 100,000 but this doesn't seem to have been done here.--Ykraps (talk) 07:47, 3 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • @Ykraps: I could not find the answer in Maharatna (1992), so I emailed Maharatna. [I know personal communication is not WP:RS, but I'm just trying to finsd an answer to your question]. His reply: "Death rate is total number of deaths in a year from all causes per 1000 mid-year population. Death rate from cholera for example is total number of deaths just due to cholera per 1000 mid-year population."... OK, based on this email I searched the whole document and did find sinilar explanations scattered throughout, though not near the table in question. Forex, table 5.4 on page 227 has similar notation, and for table 5.10 on page 257 we have "Notes: 1) All CDRs and CBRs (expressed per 1000 population) are calculated on the respective estimated mid-year populations."... If I may ask, why does it seem wrong to you? I am not doubting you. I am not familiar with this statistical procedure. Given the answers immediately above, does it make more sense? Thank you for your patience... I have added the "per 1000" explanation to our article and sourced it two pages which show that procedure... ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 02:59, 4 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
          • They seemed wrong because if they had been multiplied by 100K, they would have been tiny numbers. Might I suggest that you add the definition of 'death rate' to the table, in the form of a footnote. As an example of what I mean, see this table here. Note how Dorset is defined as not including the UAs of Bournemouth and Poole at the bottom of the table and how it is linked.--Ykraps (talk) 08:12, 4 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Ykraps: I believe I have provided at least some answer to your questions (above). Thank you for your close reading. Please do continue your very excellent review; you've improved the article in several spots. Tks. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 14:38, 1 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "India produced 600,000 miles of cotton fabric during the war, from which it made two million parachutes..." Is this actually what the source says because parachutes were normally made from silk?--Ykraps (talk) 17:02, 2 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Ykraps: It's what the source specifically states in at least two passages, one of which appears to be an indirect quote of military sources.. I googled "cotton parachute" and discovered they do or did exist... In one potentially telling passage of the book that is cited here in this article, there is a discussion of the UK using India's silk for "man-dropping" parachutes. This leads me to wonder whether parachutes for equipment may have been cotton.... AH yes, that's it. The discussion of cotton parachutes goes on to say they were used to drop supplies. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 21:38, 2 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The robbing of graveyards for clothes, disrobing of men and women in out of way places for clothes ..." I'm confused by this quote, which appears to be attributed to a 1946 book, because it is written in the present tense. Was this going on in 1946 or is this a quote within the book which should be attributed to someone else.--Ykraps (talk) 20:16, 2 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I have looked at source after source after source over the years and not one, not one anywhere, ever tries to give any sort of conclusive date for the end of the cloth famine. Some say Wavell helped it, which may have led me to belive it ended then.. but... I have just during this FAC come to the conclusion that the cloth famine probably went on for at least a few years after the food famine. The Natarajan source we are discussing here says "From the year 1942-43 onwards..", and its first printing was in '46. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 21:13, 2 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Here the death rates rather than per cent as reveal the peak in 1943". I don't understand this sentence. Do you mean, 'Here the death rates, rather than per cent, reveal the peak in 1943', or something else?--Ykraps (talk) 08:37, 4 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • 'Fixed, just a typo "per cent as" = "per cents"
  • "Corpses littered the streets of Calcutta". Not sure about the use of littered here which seems a bit colloquial. I don't have another suggestions as yet.-Ykraps (talk) 08:37, 4 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Pick a quote:\ from among these temporarily at User:Lingzhi2/sandbox ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 12:33, 4 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Is it a quote then because there is no indication that that is the case?--Ykraps (talk) 08:13, 5 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • @Ykraps: Oh, no, it isn't. I was paraphrasing. I seem to recall I got this again from Natarajan: "People died like flies on the pavements and the second largest city in the British Empire was littered with the dead and dying." Now that I have listed all those quotes, I actually am considering adding one or two of them. Some time soon I will alter "littered" either to delete it or attribute it to Natarajan. as I said, I may also add another quote or two. That might be tonight or maybe tomorrow, bnut will be soon. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 08:21, 5 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
          • @Ykraps and Fowler&fowler: I have re-oredered and tidied the "Sanitation and undisposed dead" section as per your suggestions. Please let me know if it's satisfactory, or if there's more room for improvement. Tks. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 15:33, 5 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
          • I would be reticent about adding anymore quotes. There is already an excessive amount, in my opinion, and most are sensationalist rather than encyclopaedic. In other words, they are not adding information to the article. I would also be wary of adding quotes from unknown eyewitnesses particularly if they come from a single source.--Ykraps (talk) 15:51, 5 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
            • @Ykraps:I see what you mean, thanks. I won't, then. So does that section look OK now? [Oh I added one line about "charnel house", but it seemed a reasonable summary, and I needed a line of text below the blockquote so the latter wouldn't be hanging there at the end of the section.] ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 16:04, 5 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "....grain given as gratuitous relief, and "test works" that were essentially work camps". Worryingly, only Madhusree Mukerjee appears to hold this opinion. Bhattacharya doesn't share this view at all, although attaching a citation from him to the next sentence infers that he does. He makes no mention of 'test works' nor 'work camps' and views the work opportunities provided as just that, opportunities to work for the unskilled for which they were paid a wage in addition to other benefits.
"The benefits offered took the form of free food, money (in addition to any arrears in pay on return to the village), medical attention, and free transport by train and bus (private bus operators were assigned stocks of petrol for the purpose) to 'roadside places nearer their homes'". (Quote from Bhattacharya)
No mention of starving Indians forced to do hard labour for food or left to die, which is the image Mukerjee is trying to conjure up with her references to work camps. Bhattacharya notes only the continuing misery of the unfortunate who were outside the scheme's ambit and doesn't suggest that such schemes were in any way detrimental.
Bhattacharya 2002a should instead be Bhattacharya 2002b, which is where the mention of stone quarries etc. is found... Plus I don't think "starving Indians forced to do hard labour for food or left to die" is the img Mukerjee is portraying -- just that it was deliberately made hard to see if anyone would accept it, and if they did accept it, that meant they were deperate (in famine conditions). I have found others who make the same assertion... But as I said, I am digging. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 15:49, 6 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Deleted the wikilink to labour camp (the Wikipedia article's sense of the word may not even be what Mukerjee intended). Left the explanation (for now). I have found other sources which give the same "hard work low pay to see if famine has come" definition, (forex Greenough 1982 p. 60), but am still digging into it... Maharatna seems to suggest that the "test" was the size of the works, not the intensity... he seems to suggest they were deliberateltey small-scale to see "how many" people came... Still looking.. Thanks for pointing this out. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 15:49, 6 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Ykraps: The problem with discussing "test works" is that the brief mentions in literature I've found so far discuss various points relating to a time span starting in the latter half of the 19th century and there were also variations in implementation between Indian provinces. I really haven't found any source that says, "In Bengal in the mid-1940s the test works were...." followed by a detailed explanation. Moreover, there seems to be a distinction between "test works" and "relief works". Both of them seem to involve difficult work, but the former was apparently somehow made worse. [Note that the BHattacharya quote seems to be about the latter, or at least uses that terminology, so it might need to be deleted.. but... perhaps the work was the same...(?)] The only labor I have found (at this point) specifically tied to test works is "stone-breaking"...] In general, as an Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) paper by K.S. Singh states, "The objective of test works is not to relieve famine but to test its presence by laying down stringent conditions for labourers seeking admission to relief works and restricting payment of wages strictly by results; no gratuitous relief is given and no relief is provided for dependents. There is no rest allowance." And from Greenough we have, "The whole aim of means test and of exacting work in exchange for food, of course, was to keep at bay those who would apply for relief whether they 'deserved' it or not, to distinguish ordinary beggary from crisis destitution. A further aim was to allow an efficient, drawn-out distributon of limited relief resources, in contrast to open-handed charity which was too quickly exhausted." But these were wholly British ideas; Bengali culture resisted the basic concept of test works and of distinguishing between the relative needs of the merely poor versus the genuinely starving. The Bengali idea was that in a time a crisis you give to anyone who shows up and asks... So where does all of this leave us? At least I think it is safe to say that the literature I have seen so far supports the text as I have recently modified it (see immediately above). Please do let me know whether you agree or disagree. Thanks... ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 06:56, 7 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • The article makes out, and you seem to agree, that the stone quarrying and metal-breaking spoken about by Bhattacharya in the reference given [[5]] were some sort of punitive labour camp. They weren't, they were valuable wartime industries, particularly in that area, where a massive road building program was in operation. Further more, Bhattacharya doesn't make that connection nor does he speak about test-works. Why Mukerjee wants to think this is obvious but I'm struggling to find sources that specifically mention test-works during the 1943 famine. I believe there were test-works during the Great Famine of 1876–1878 but this was part of the Victorian philosophy; test works were also used on British subjects in the United Kingdom at the time. Do we have sources that say recruitment to these industries was some sort of a test?--Ykraps (talk) 09:36, 7 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • @Ykraps: This recap is rather long, and I apologize, but there are sevral points under discussion. I beg your indulgence and patience as you read... To recap the discussion on test works: 1) Yes, we have several specific mentions of "test works" that involve some sort of labour very specifically for the 1943 period: most authoritatively, FIC on several pages, esp. 225–226 & 235–236; also Brennan 1988 several mentions; Maharatna 1992 (pp. 236–237) and of course Mukherjee, who used the unfortunate term "labour camps". 2) I am not at all sure that when Mukherjee said "labour camps" he meant the sort of penal camps that our Wikipedia article on that topic discusses. Mukherjee never elaborates on his use of the term. For that reason, I have deleted the term "work camps/labour camps" from our Wikipedia article. 3) The Bhattacharya passage which you have quoted above is from Bhattacharya 2002a. The relevant text in our Wikipedia article ("stone quarries, metal breaking units, [water] tank and road building schemes") is from Bhattacharya 2002b. [The two articles actually have the same lengthy title, except 2002a is "Part I" and 2002b is "Part II"] Yes, it was originally incorrectly written as 2002a in our Wikipedia article. It was a typo. I have corrected it. You are quoting from the wrong article because of that typo. Sorry. 4) I am not at all sure if the terms "test works" and "relief works" were used interchangeably in any sources, or if they are in fact always treated as different but related species of "wages/food for physical labour during food crises". The Singh article which I mentioned above very clearly and specifically explains a difference between the terms. The FIC, however, does not, and neither does any other source. I would have expected the FIC and other sources to do so, if there was an important distinction to be made. The reason why this point is possibly noteworthy is because Bhattacharya 2002b uses the term "relief works" when describing "stone quarries, metal breaking units" etc. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 02:40, 8 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
          • Yes, I have read both parts, they are available online here [[6]] and here [[7]] but I don't see any mention of test works. 'Relief works' are not the same thing. If J. Mukherjee and others specifically mention test works in relation to these industries we can say Mukherjee suggests they were text works. If there is proof that they were test works, or some admission that they were test works, we can say they were test works. My other point was that it wasn't a term used by Bhattacharya.--Ykraps (talk) 10:04, 8 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
            • @Ykraps: As I mentioned, several sources including FIC says there were test works in the 1943 famine. We do not need to delete the mention of test works. Meanwhile, the only info Bhattacharya adds to the the Wikipedia text is a deescription of exactly what labor was undertaken. I will delete the Bhattacharya text now. That removes the details. We are left with "it was prohibitively hard labor", and nothing else, but you know, maybe that is enough. Does that meet your requirements? ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 10:28, 8 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
              • @Lingzhi2: I think you've taken my comments the wrong way. I am happy with the wording if that's what the sources say. My main issue was with the term work camp, which has now been removed but I was also checking for WP:SYNTH because it appeared to me that two sources had been put together to arrive at one conclusion. If that's not what's been done there's no problem.--Ykraps (talk) 12:03, 8 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Check for overlinking. I have noticed 'Indian Railways', 'British Raj' and 'Quit India Movement', and I haven't started looking yet. On the subject of linking, please also note my comments above.--Ykraps (talk) 10:11, 8 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Ykraps: Thanks. I unwikilinked Winston Churchill, Briti Raj and Quit India Movement. I don't see others, even using the duplink finder script, but my eyesight is not the best on the planet. I also didn't notice double linking for "Indian Railways", tho of course I may have missed something.... Have I covered all your points, or did I overlook something? ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 12:46, 9 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Re Economic and political effects, and the table within that section. What's the evidence that the land was sold due to poverty and/or starvation and not some other reason such as fear of a Japanese invasion?--Ykraps (talk) 17:02, 9 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Ykraps: The striking surge in land transfers is overwhelmingly attributed to famine rather than fear of the Japanese. Mahalanobis, Mukherjea & Ghosh (1946) have a very finely detailerd analysis, but this point is emphasized in many sources for example Chaudhuri (1975) p. 139 "The greatest disaster, however, for the peasantry was the famine of 1943, when according to an estimate of the Indian Statistical Institute, 2.6 lakh families out of 65 lakhs owning paddy land had completely lost their land and 9.2 lakhs had to sell part or whole of their holdings" ... oh here's a relevant quote in Ó Gráda (2009). p. 172: "Evidence on land transfers during the famine is also of interest. In 1940 Bengal contained 16.4 million landholders. In the wake of the famine, 2.7 million sales of whole or part-occupancy holdings were recorded. The sales, which dwarfed those of the pre-famine period, and involved mainly peasant smallholdings, were disproportionately concentrated in east Bengal. A micro-survey of land transfers in one village in east Bengal found that as many as 54 families out of a total of 168 disposed of part or all of their holdings in 1943. While some of the land was transferred in order to repay old debts or to buy land elsewhere, 39 of the 54 transfers were prompted by ‘scarcity and food purchase’." ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 23:56, 9 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Are you particularly attached to the table and preceding sentence? Because it immediately follows discussion about selling land for food, one assumes the figures refer to those forced to sell for that reason. The table in fact shows the total number of all sales for all reasons and that's why it appears contradictory to Mahalanobis, P. C.; Mukherjea, R.K.; Ghosh, A (1946). Even using O'Grada's sample of 72% (39/54*100), I can't make the figures agree. Is it enough to say, "As the famine wore on, nearly 1.6 million families – roughly one-quarter of smallholders and dwarfholders – tried to save themselves by selling or mortgaging their paddy lands, thus falling from the status of landholders to that of labourers" and leave it at that do you think?--Ykraps (talk) 17:28, 10 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • This question will take a little time. I need to compare all info. More later. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 06:35, 11 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • @Ykraps: I am pretty attached to that table. I will need to offer only a partial answer right now, howver, and give further thoughts later, because I need to think more about whether the various sources in question are apples and oranges. So consider this reply "Part One of Two Parts". [Actually, my mea culpa below might resolve your concerns and remove any need for further adjustment to that article text, read on...] Right now I need to state, however, that you have caught a genuine and substantial error/misinterpretation in the MM&G sentence.. I substantially misinterpreted MM&G, and I am at fault. Rather than explain here, I'll just link to this diff. The changes are self-explanatory. Mea maxima culpa. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 16:00, 11 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
          • Still thinking about the table which I still think, confuses the issue at worst and adds little at best.--Ykraps (talk) 19:53, 12 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
            • Visual aids are profoundly useful for a number of obvious reasons. Land sales went up due to distress sales. This is common knowledge in academic sources, repeatedly discussed and repeatedly affirmed. The jump was huge. I have already provided sources to support this. I can readily supply more. One source said the jump was huge. I can find that source too. I am not sure how the table confuses anyone. Could you please explain? I believe you are putting forward an argument that is rather at odds with the preponderance of academic sources. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 01:08, 14 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
              • It's confusing because it isn't made clear what it indicates and is not useful for precisely the same reason. It immediately follows a section which describes how millions had to sell their land in order to survive, and it is likely that readers will assume this is what the table shows. It doesn't. These are the total number of sales for all reasons and will even include multiple sales by the same landowner.--Ykraps (talk) 09:42, 15 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

(←) You habve described its contents correctly. Not all sales were distress sales, of course. And some plots were sold more than once in that period, of course. And yet the table still misleads exactly no one. The trend is the key point, and the trend is exactly as stated: a huge surge in land transfers during the famine period, due to distress sales. That is what all scholars assert. If I may direct your attention again to Ó Gráda (2009, p. 172): "In the wake of the famine, 2.7 million sales of whole or part-occupancy holdings were recorded. The sales, which dwarfed those of the pre-famine period, and involved mainly peasant smallholdings, were disproportionately concentrated in east Bengal." [Note that east Bengal was hardest hit by the famine]. It's true the trend had been rising beforehand, but the bump during the famine is like an antelope in a python's belly. Again you find yourself adopting and defending an argument that no scholar takes up....Someone might say i could qualify it a little by adding "Not all sales were distress sales". I already have. I added the bit about "Some did so to profit from skyrocketing prices, but many others were trying to save themselves from crisis-driven distress." If you want, I can list at least one and possibly two other reason(s) plots were sold (to consolidate holdings, forex). But the table is valid and clear and misleads no one. Deleting it would be going against all relevant scholarship. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 10:23, 15 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • Just to be clear, the position I am defending is that of the Featured Article Criteria. I am questioning whether the table has any relevance so I might make an informed decision about whether the article is, "...focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail". With respect to Ó Gráda he has an entire book to fill and no criteria dictating what he can and can’t fill it with.--Ykraps (talk) 19:11, 16 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Two points: first, discussing this topic is crucial to fulfilling FA criteria 1b (comprehensive). The third and fourth sentences of our WP:LEDE preview the discussion of the famine's extended negative economic impact. The topic of distress-driven land transfers is given seven pages by Paul R. Greenough (1982, pp. 198–204). Greenough states (p 198, as his discussion of this topic begins), "It is the loss of land however which best illustrates the extent of material losses during the famine" (my emphasis). Ghose (1982) [a less-known scholar whom I didn't cite but perhaps should have) summarizes Mahalanobis, Mukherjea & Ghosh 1946, "After-Effects of the Bengal Famine of 1943" (hereafter MM&G) by saying "The Bengal famine of 1943 left in its trail the following changes: (i) a general deterioration in the conditions of the rural poor, (ii) an increase in inequality of the distribution of land and other productive assets, and (iii) an increase in the proportion of land controlled by the non-cultivating classes." The distribution of land is central to the after-effects of the famine. The surge in land sales is central to the discussion of the distribution of land. Second point: the positive correlation between distress-driven land sales and the Bengal famine of 1943 is extremely firmly established in the relevant literature. The table we are discussing was compiled by Sugata Bose, but the same phenomenon is discussed in the same manner by the paper whose principle authors are P.C. Mahalanobis and Ramkrishna Mukherjee (MM&G, around pages 339-340). We have already mentioned Paul Greenough and Cormac Ó Gráda. I also have several other papers by less-well-known scholars that discuss the same topic to some extent, most of whom are summarizing/discussing MM&G (as for example Ghose, mentioned above... Google scholar says MM&G has been cited 59 times). Sorry this post is long but such extensive supporting evidence requires many words to describe. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 03:24, 17 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • In answer to your first point, I am not asking you not to discuss it. I am talking about a single sentence in entire section and table which is confusing and questionably relevant. In answer to your second point, I'm not doubting the correlation between distress-driven land sales and the famine but what we are talking about here are transfers that are not driven by distress. You have already talked about the 1.6 milliom families who sold their land (not all distress-driven) adding a table showing 4,370,000 land transfers raises a number of questions which are not answered.--Ykraps (talk) 06:51, 17 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • I am totally confused. I am not saying that sarcastically; I mean it literally. One bit of info is about families, the other about land transfers. Why even attempt to make them jibe? They are apples and pink grapefruit, so to speak. You yourself have noted that a given piece of land might be sold more than once. Moreover, a given family might make more than one sale (though that would intuitively seem less common/frequent). ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 16:03, 17 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
          • My argument is this: If the table relates to distress-driven land transfers, how exactly does it relate? If the table does not relate to distress-driven land transfers, why is it relevant?--Ykraps (talk) 21:09, 17 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
            • Explanatory text for the table singles out distress sales: "The wartime subsistence crisis, especially the great famine of 1943, occasioned land alienation on an alarming scale. Figures from a Revenue Department source, presented in table 5.2, show, that during the years 1940-1 to 1944-5, 43.7 lakh of transfers took place out of a total of about 164 lakh of occupancy holdings in the province. The government was forced to take the unprecedented step of passing a Land Alienation Act in 1944 to enable small owners to repurchase their holdings. The alienees did not, however, find it difficult to circumvent the law, and little of the land lost during the famine was restored." If you won't take Bose's word for it, then the Wikipedia model breaks down... By the way, the table immediately before that one shows the trend going back to 1929. This table I think is summarized in a couple sources (I seem to recall). So.... would that one seem better to you? It also shows the antelope in the python's belly, although we do see a rising trend through time, mainly caused by the Great Depression. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 23:10, 17 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
              • It is not a question of taking Bose’s word for it; it is a question of understanding what Bose is saying. According to Bose, the table shows, “…that during the years 1940-1 to 1944-5, 43.7 lakh of transfers took place out of a total of about 164 lakh of occupancy holdings in the province”. That’s it, full stop, period as you might say. It does not, as you seem to think, “…single[s] out distress sales”. What Bose has done is state three facts and clump them together, and you have interpreted them in a way which fits your point of view. Bose gives no explanation as to how the table precisely relates to distress-driven land transfers and with that in mind, where is the value in it? Yes it's important to talk about distress-driven land sales but you have done so already. Yes, it's important to talk about those who were displaced from their land through other reasons such as military requisitioning but you have already done so. Adding a table and a sentence about unexplained land transfers seems utterly pointless to me.--Ykraps (talk) 19:34, 18 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
                • Tables add informational value by helping readers comprehend text more fully and readily. They bring much-needed visual salience to key points (such as this one) that might otherwise get lost in a sea of words... It's hard to argue that land transfers are not a key point, given the strong emphasis that Greenough (and many others!) have placed on them... If you're arguing against the content of this particular table, then as I said earlier, there is another table on an earlier page, and I will post that one below. Before doing so, however, let me summarize this thread for the record: This is a table from a book published by Cambridge University Press, an impeccable WP:RS. The book was written by Sugata Bose, the Gardiner Chair of Oceanic History and Affairs at Harvard University. The book has been cited 59 times, according to Google Scholar. We are discussing the trend of a table, and Bose very clearly and very explicitly describes the table as showing "land alienation on an alarming scale", which he very clearly and very explicitly attributes to "[the] wartime subsistence crisis, especially the great famine of 1943". His statement is very readily WP:V, it's right there in the book (on p. 152). It's not WP:UNDUE to add some salience by adding a table, because Paul Greenough says that land alienation "...best illustrates the extent of material losses during the famine". And for the record, you are arguing against its inclusion, saying "Adding a table and a sentence about unexplained land transfers seems utterly pointless to me" (my emphasis)...OK then, moving along, now that we have summarized this thread for the record, here's another table (below). I'm extracting it from Table 5.1 in Bose, "Land sales and mortgages in Bengal 1929-1943". I am deleting the mortgages, which actually are important, but land sales may be enough to present the trend to the reader. this table is clearly less informative than the current one, in my opinion, but I am trying to be accommodating:
Year Number of sales
1929 79,929
1930 129,184
1931 105,701
1932 114,619
1933 120,492
1934 147,619
1935 160,341
1936 172,956
1937 164,819
1938 242,583
L939 500,224
1940 502,357
1941 634,113
1942 749,495
1943 1,532,241
  • Does this table seem more acceptable to you? ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 00:13, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Okay, this is where I am: The article is extremely large and Wikipedia guidelines suggest it should be split up. You and others have pointed out that it is an extremely complex subject which warrants a long and lengthy explanation. I totally accept that but there is a lot of repetition and excessive detail which I think can be trimmed. I thought we might be able to do some trimming in this section by getting rid of the table which in my humble opinion doesn't add any value. Yes, "Tables add informational value by helping readers comprehend text more fully and readily. They bring much-needed visual salience to key points that might otherwise get lost in a sea of words" but not when they don't relate to the text. Also, what sea of words? I can see that you are stuck on keeping this table because presumably you think it emphasises a point. If it does, the point is completely lost on me. Land sales went up during the war; so what? During the war, 25% of the entire land area of the United Kingdom was transferred to the military causing quite an upsurge in land sales there. If you want to keep the table then you are within your rights to do so but I think it weakens the argument of stress-driven land sales not strengthens.--Ykraps (talk) 08:28, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • The land sales are important because they impoverished very large numbers of people. Those with fewer than 2 or 3 acres or so (that is, most of them) often sold all of their land. They became landless. Being landless, they were far more susceptible to the death spiral of debt described in earlier sections. They had no plot of land to grow rice to feed themselves, and so were totally under the power of market forces. During the BF43, market forces were horribly ruthless murderers. Even those with somewhat more land lost lands they could ill afford to lose. The land sales also represented a huge shift toward even greater income inequality than before. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 09:45, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • But that isn't what the table shows. All the table shows is that there was an increase in land sales at a time of intense military build-up and as I alluded to earlier, that is wholly unremarkable.--Ykraps (talk) 16:33, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
          • thank you for making this point. First, our Wikipeia article imports this table into a discussion of famine as a self-contained component without laying out finer details of occupancy and ownership. In that sense it is in fact offered deprived of much of the greater context. Bose, in contrast, is rather at pains to unpack the relationships between such entities as "de facto khas khamar, land held in direct possession by proprietors and tenure-holders, and de facto raiyati, land held by cultivating peasants". As a further example of context-awareness, he draws a distinction between information sources (Land Revenue Administration Reports and Registration Department Reports), stating that aggregate figures drawn from the former " provide a rather distorted picture of temporal and spatial trends" while the latter are "fuller and more reliable in this respect". The point I'm getting at here is that Bose's discussion demonstrates that he is context-aware. One would assume that the Registration Department Reports that he draws on as an information source would also be uniformly context-aware. To speculate that both would miss (or worse, deliberately elide) the distinction between private sales and military requisitions/sales... well nothing is impossible, but that would be an incredibly huge miss on both their parts. Second, as a quote I offered above mentions, the Bengal Government felt it necessary to pass a Land Alienation Act of 1944 which "provided for the repurchase of holdings alienated during the famine... through the civil courts". This rather eloquently testifies to the fact that the sum total of these alienations was perceived as significant by all involved. Again, if military lands were involved, the legal processes and their subsequent discussion in Bose would be configured rather differently. In all... if Bose made this mistake and none of the scholars subsequently citing him caught it... then in all seriousness, you should be awarded Bose's job. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 21:35, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
            • As I said at the beginning of this thread, the table shows all transfers for all reasons so yes, it includes transfers to the military. It includes stress-driven transfers as well of course but as we don't know what percentage, is it worth clagging up the article with it? With regards to Bose's neutrality; would being related to, and a huge admirer of, a famous anti-British agitator affect what he chose to highlight as the reason for the increase in land transfers? I don't know. What do you think?--Ykraps (talk) 09:00, 21 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
              • As regards to neutrality, I have no idea where Cambridge University falls in that spectrum. Being from the UK (according to your user page) you might very well know that better than I would. But I would hope CUP would treasure their academic prestige enough so that they wouldn't try to fob off POV material as NPOV. They published this same research twice, if I'm not mistaken (which I may be), once as a separate book, and once in a volume of "The New Cambridge History of India" series. Similarly, I would also hope their editorial staff would catch an oversight (or overstatement) as huge as the one you suggest. What do you think? I should hope they would. But please let's take a step back here and look at the wider context of our discussion: do we really believe it's within the purview delimited by WP:RS, WP:V and WP:WIAFA for Wikipedia editors to say that a very explicit statement in a book published by CUP should be omitted because we Wikipedians believe it doesn't really describe what it purports to describe? ...In my humble opinion, if we wish to discount the reliability of a given statement within such a rock-solid WP:RS, we would need to support our assertions with a suitably clear countervailing statement in a different WP:RS. Someone would have to publish and say, "Bose is exaggerating" or "Bose neglects to consider the impact of..." ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 12:01, 21 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
                • That was a rhetorical question, but okay: Firstly, CUP doesn't care about people's point of view.[[8]] Outside Wikipedia, people's opinions and points of view are perfectly valid. Wikipedia recognises this which is why it asks that you present all opinions. But what I'm really questioning here is your interpretation of the source. As I said earlier, Bose has presented several separate facts and left you to draw your own conclusions. I am saying that the conclusion you have drawn is incorrect. This is not the first time you have misinterpreted something you've read [[9]][[10]][[11]] and as a further example, I now feel the need to point out that living in the UK is not the same as coming from the UK.--Ykraps (talk) 12:21, 21 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

(←) I'm open to the possibility that I have misterpreted the text. Again, the text is "The wartime subsistence crisis, especially the great famine of 1943, occasioned land alienation on an alarming scale (etc)." What part did I botch? Was it "subsistence crisis"? Or was it "the great famine of 1943"? I have made mistakes before, and will make mistakes again. but which bits of those words have I misunderstood... ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 12:41, 21 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • "The famine has been portrayed in celebrated novels, films and art". 'Celebrated' sounds a bit peacocky.--Ykraps (talk) 05:47, 11 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • The source says panicky responses by the colonial state which to me means the Bengal government. Why say panicky responses by the British?--Ykraps (talk) 19:53, 12 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • The very next sentence says, "These were intended, ultimately, only to allow the smooth mobilization of the war-effort at the expense of all other competing administrative concerns. " It was the British who wished to mobilize the war effort, as the following sentences state plainly. The sentences after that mention the actions of Government of India again and again and again, and say they were intended to garner support for the war effort. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 20:37, 12 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • I misread the source slightly. The colonial state, which I still think refers to the colonial government, was caught unawares. The panicky responses are not attributed to anyone in particular. I disagree that only the British wanted to mobilise for war; over two million Indians fought in WW2 and I seem to remember reading that they volunteered. To be on the safe side, I'd be inclined to follow the source and not blame anyone in particular for the panicky responses.--Ykraps (talk) 06:00, 13 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Meanwhile, he repeatedly and rather forcefully favors its analyses over Sen's". Favours --Ykraps (talk) 09:42, 15 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Once the crisis began, morbidity rates were driven by a series of cultural decisions..." Morbidity or mortality? I'm asking because the sentence finishes "These abandoned groups had been socially and politically selected for death.--Ykraps (talk) 09:42, 15 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Returning to the Military build-up, inflation, and displacement section. "Farmland purchased for airstrip and camp construction..." Does the source specifically state farmland because this seems odd to me.--Ykraps (talk) 06:51, 17 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • With regards to the refusal of imports: Do your sources go into more detail about the reasons? For example I believe an offer of help from Canada was turned down because it was thought unnecessary, as a shipment of grain from Australia was due to arrive. Also it wasn't just the British who refused to send aid because of a lack of shipping, although the article currently suggests otherwise, the Americans also wouldn't or couldn't help and cited exactly the same reason.--Ykraps (talk) 09:44, 21 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you for your comments. I have to go to work soon and won't be able to look into these for at least six hours. Meanwhile, though, it's at least possible that some copy editing removed explanatory details for some but not all of your questions. If you wish to do so, you could look here to see if any of your questions find their answers in the original uncut full-length version of this article. But you don't have to if you don't want to. I will be back later to try to respond. Thanks again. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 22:09, 21 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

deleting or adding "as cited in" to FIC cites

[edit]
  • Placeholder. temporary working page here ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 02:11, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Deleted six FIC cites. Marked four as "don't need to find a secondary source". Cited one to a secondary source... ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 07:57, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Nick-D and Fiamh: Deleted five more, but there are no interpretations being drawn here. This is excessive. This goes above and beyond what is required in WP:PRIMARY. Do we simply ignore what WP:PRIMARY says? ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 14:18, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • What do you mean by 'double tapping'? (killing?). From checking one of the uses of this reference (ref 274, to page 138 of the report) chosen purely at random, it doesn't support the claim that "Conditions did not improve for those under medical care" at all. It actually says that the relief effort led to improvements to the standard of hospitals, though progress during the worst part of the famine was much too slow and conditions were terrible. The next page of the report discusses when and how the situation in the hospitals improved, and notes that part of the reason for the high death rates was the condition people arrived at hospital in, as well as the inadequacies of the care they then received. Nick-D (talk) 22:56, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Ref 274 supports a direct quote, "Conditions in certain famine hospitals at this time ... were indescribably bad ...and the lack of adequate care and treatment", so fine. I agree this does not imply anything re conditions "under medical care". Ceoil (talk) 01:19, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am away from my computer for 3 or 4 hours, so cannot copy/paste the full page. Internet archive has it online. It strongly supports current Wikipedia text, saying they increased spending but "results were meagre" and conditions were appalling. Please read the text online. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 04:02, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yes, it says that, in the Famine Inquiry Commission. It seems that strict, blanket removal of primary sources is introducing other, unintended, problems. I think we need more nuance and balance. Ceoil (talk) 02:09, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • I think it already it nuanced and balanced. In fact, it is (or at least was) extremely nuanced (note the large number of footnotes was explicitly done to add nuance) and balanced (the article very strictly follows academic consensus...) ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 04:02, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • My concern is that you are cherry picking material from a primary source here, with the primary source not even supporting what is being claimed given that it states that the hospitals were bad and then got somewhat better. Nick-D (talk) 04:12, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
          • No cherry picking here. Even the FIC, which if anything at all is in some clearly defined aspects PRO-UK, explicitly says the benefits of increased expenditures (not sure at the moment how big the increase was, will look later) were meager. "Meager" is less positive than your description. Many if not most famine hospitals were revolting. The text is clearly extremely negative. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 04:52, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
            • Para 21 on the page you cite states that the famine hospitals were better than what was previously available. Para 22 states that the early results of the hospital program were meager though, with the quote which is currently in the article illustrating this. Paras 23-26 on the next page then describe how the situation improved, which the article doesn't cover with its statement only that "Conditions did not improve for those under medical care". Para 32 provides a useful summary of the medical situation, noting that it improved from a dire situation but was never satisfactory. The report seems somewhat contradictory though. We should also not be needing to discuss the interpretation of a primary source at FAC, especially when it is being used to cite analysis: I think that this illustrates my concerns with the use of primary sources (and, again, I'd stress that I chose this reference to check purely at random). Nick-D (talk) 05:16, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

(←) I restored "Particularly in the early months of the crisis," which some copy editor deleted. In fact, we do not need to discuss this primary source. You are fairly broadly misinterpreting the text, repeating your misinterpretation here, and stating that your misinterpretation proves there are problems. Conditions were horrific until Wavell came along at the tail end of the famine, and even then just began to improve. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 05:23, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • I'm shifting to oppose. You have just partially corrected an obvious error after arguing that there was no error. You are still claiming that there was no error and there's no need to further discuss the matter or stop using primary sources. Combined with the other sourcing problems, I simply do not trust how you have used sources here: while most of the spot checks are fine, too many are not and this case is particularly worrisome. Nick-D (talk) 05:34, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • A copy editor deleted it, see [[here] ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 05:43, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • Indeed. I'm not sure Nick's is a reasonable or collegial oppose, its not in the spirit of improvement, nor do I think his view reflects consensus on the article. Ceoil (talk) 08:39, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
          • I feel that I'm banging my head against a wall here, with the above exchange being the straw which broke the camel's back. Not opposing at present given my concerns would not be respectful to the nominator, other involved editors and other reviewers IMO, as it would imply that I think that the FAC can pass with a modest amount of work and that I don't harbour serious reservations. I think that I've tried to explain what these reservations are, and would be pleased to do so further if there is interest in responding to them in a constructive way (and this doesn't mean I expect to be agreed with necessarily). Nick-D (talk) 09:11, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
              • From my point of view your opinion carries significant weight, and I think your input here is greatly improving the article. Just surprised you choose this matter to oppose over; when it seems clear that the error was introduced by (a) your request to remove all primary sources, (b) a copy editor. wrt point a, the article text needs to be allowed to catch up. I sincerely hope you stick with improving the content, albeit, yes this is a stressful review (ps I also though 'double' tap was ott). Ceoil (talk) 09:25, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
                • (edit conflict) I'm not sure what you mean by point a) given that this issue was present in the article prior to this FAC [12], and seems to have been present since at least 2017 from the diff Lingzhi2 provided above: it's not my fault. Just to note, I don't think that it has been addressed, as the reference for what is analysis remains a primary source and the text fails to capture the argument made in the primary source (e.g. that the hospitals were bad to start with, remained bad despite attempts to improve them during the worst part of the famine and then improved but remained unsatisfactory once the Army moved in, though paras 21 and 32 of the report seem somewhat contradictory). I don't particularly want to litigate each of my comments point by point, which again is one of the reasons why I've shifted to oppose. Nick-D (talk) 09:56, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Expert opinion: Two brief excerpts from email exchange with Paul R. Greenough

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@Nick-D:@Fiamh: I corresponded with several of the principal scholars cited in the article, to various degrees from three-sentence exchanges to weeks of correspondence. One of those is Paul R. Greenough. We corresponded relatively little, only two or three emails total, but his remarks regarding the Wikipedia article were clearly positive. [He even sent me a pdf file of his book, for which I am extremely grateful... as did another author cited in the article.] He also recently agreed to let me repeat those remarks. Below are very brief excerpts from two exchanges, one recent and one not so recent. The recent one is from today:

In the short-run, it's simplest for me to say that I stand by my earlier praise for your Wikipedia article on the Bengal famine of 1943. It's the best short introduction I know to the event and the scholarship to date about the event, and I have no hesitation in recommending it to anyone who doesn't know about the famine period. You can repeat whatever the lines you want to whomever.

— Tue, Nov 12, 2019 Greenough, Paul R

I must admit that you've done a wonderful job weaving together many threads of argument and evidence in the scholarship about the famine in your latest Wiki version. The visual materials are excellent--I hadn't seen several of the photographs and copies of ms correspondence before--and your notation and citation practices are careful. Thus I find the article, just as it is, a lapidary account that students and others should absolutely turn to as a first resource to discover what happened in Bengal in 1943-44.

Your Wiki article also, it must be said, relentlessly focuses on certain kinds of facts (or on debates about such facts) that surround a subsistence crisis as seen through the analytic lens of political-economy. (Not Marxist political-economy, rather more orthodox market-based analysis.) You are even-handed in the sense that you aggregate, weigh and cleanly arrange competing views, but these views refer primarily to matters of quantity, extent, price, timing, as well as to breaks and junctures in the command-and-control information flows between "below" and "above" and between "out there" (Bengal) and "home" (London). This is the divided factual terrain on which the modern economic science of famine has consistently been examined, and the events of 1943 are typically said to form the indexical or paradigmatic case... [Describes the socio-historical perspective outlined in his book].... [However] I should tell you that modern Bengali historians, on the whole, have not been not impressed by moral-economic arguments about 1943, preferring to stay in the interpretive mainstream defined by Amartya Sen and other development economists.

— Sun, Mar 10, 2019, Greenough, Paul R
 ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 18:28, 11 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • That doesn't address my oppose which is mostly based on the verifiability of the article's content per FA criteria 1c. Fiamh (talk, contribs) 19:20, 11 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • This also isn't relevant to my concerns. Nick-D (talk) 08:57, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Your concerns are that pages 139-40 of FIC (IIRC) weren't covered. They were covered, but just not in the place where you were looking. I duplicated them to put them in the place where you were looking, but bear in mind, they had been in the article all along. The source was adequately utilized, cited, etc. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 09:32, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • My concerns regarding references is that far too many are primary sources, too many spot checks have failed WP:V and the responses to comments pointing this out have been combative and unhelpful. Nick-D (talk) 09:48, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • Ah I see. As to #1, I assure you, it would be completely impossible to write this article in any meaningful way without very frequently referencing FIC. The information just can't be found, and even if it could, we'd be in danger of WP:OR if we grabbed things from articles not directly related to this topic... Moreover, FIC is used in a way explicitly permitted by WP:PRIMARY. As for #2, have you actually counted? I think.. one actual bug..and one half-bug.. and many many many false alarms? As for #3, please bear in mind, this is Featured Article candidates, not Featured Nominator candidates. The personality of the nominator is neither a valid nor an actionable reason to oppose. All of your reasons, then, are... not valid reasons to Oppose. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 10:02, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose Clearly there is no consensus for promotion. Verifiability is more important that than prose issues, (which are usually the last to be addressed at FAC). And the attempted involvement of the ARBCOM undermines the authority of our FAC coordinators, without whom we would not have a FA process at all. That the nominator has to take recourse to such manoeuvrings makes me most unsure with regard to the FA quality of the nomination. Graham Beards (talk) 23:05, 11 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • I am not maneuvering. No. Not. I was innocently following SN's suggestion, thinking it was protocol for confidentiality. I. Have no desire to undermine anyone. Read the thread at WT:FAC. My first post says, "I will send it to a FAC Coord". Please do WP:AGF. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 23:08, 11 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • This FAC has been tainted by suspicions of subterfuge, noncollegial responses to valid criticisms and doubts about the interpretation of sources. It is not only the quality an article that justifies its promotion to FA; it is the consensus reached during FAC - sadly, this nomination has been found wanting. Graham Beards (talk) 23:20, 11 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Hi Graham, I hope all is well. I'm not sure there was any subterfuge here. Lingzhi was following the advice given by a third party at FAC Talk. The 'use' of ArbCom was only to verify that the source of the emails was as has been claimed. I am hoping that the sources issue can be overcome if both parties continue to discuss things. It's a strong article and strong nomination, and I think it should be given the opportunity to progress further. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 23:35, 11 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • Thanks, I value your opinion very much. I have struck my oppose and I will follow the discourse and perhaps comment later.Graham Beards (talk)
        • The concerns about this article's verification are far overshadowed by its overwhelming accuracy. Ask your reviewers; they will probably admit for every one cite that needs tweaking, there are 50 or 60 that are spot on... When I say "overshadowed" I do not mean any given cite can't be discussed and perhaps altered; I am only adding a sense of perspective. I am extremely willing to work with these. Are we looking for every cite to be perfect? Have we ever had any article held to that standard? Nope, it's 10% checks as SOP... As for "noncollegial", why is it noncollegial ro say "You're simply wrong, you've misinterpreted the page [on this isolated point]?" That's not saying [insert insults here], it's saying you're wrong. Am I not allowed to say someone's wrong? If that's the case, I must always accept every change that every reviewer requests. Have we ever had any article held to that standard? .. I'm sorry I did not catch that a copy editor removed a key phrase that placed one statement in chronological context. The article is freaking huge and the copy editor removed entire freaking sections. I had to re-add stuff repeatedly. I missed a prepositional phrase. I am human. I am sorry. I re-added it without complaint when I spotted that it was missing. This article is freaking huge. I missed a phrase. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 00:06, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Fiamh: Please refresh my memory. Precisely which cite(s) would you like to re-examine? Tks ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 01:05, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Lingzhi2: Look above. All the comments that have been addressed have been struck. But there are still outstanding points: search above for Ó Gráda 2008, p. 39, Brennan 1988 re. atmospheric conditions, Bowbrick 1985. My estimate is one in ten or twenty citations are not verifiable against the content, which seems unacceptably high. Fiamh (talk, contribs) 01:56, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Thank you for clarifying. I will look at the other two you just mentioned within the next few minutes. [Snip sorry I'll move this bit of the reply to a spot further above] Thank you for your time and trouble. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 02:10, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • @Fiamh: OK, with all due respect and hopefully without sounding impolite, of the three you list immediately above, two are very clearly not cite failures. I hope you will forgive me for speaking plainly, but alas I must. As for the other, I addressed it above. Thank you fo your attention. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 03:21, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Break to recap all points

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Too many uses of (arguably) "Primary Source" FIC
  • Currently 70/ 615 = 11%. I am trying to add "as cited in..." [See here. You have me against the wall on this point. We apparently have profound differences of interpretation of WP:PRIMARY. Use of primary sources is perfectly legitimate, sanctioned and allowable, according to WP:PRIMARY, "... only to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge". Moreover, primary sources cannot be used alone, without a secondary source to make an interpretation of the text. To the very best of my knowledge, each and every use of FIC fits these two cases as described.I would not be shocked if someone found a clear exception, but I am not aware of any. So then we come to the point of having "too many". If each and every instance is individually allowable within WP:PRIMARY, how can you say there are "too many"? Too many things which follow the rules? How is that a problem?... I can, in the interests of collegiality and cooperation and so on, make at least some effort to go through and delete some FIC cites. I have already deleted ten or so during this FAC, and added "as cited in" to another. But please be aware that we are very rapidly approaching the upper limit of what is even possible in that regard. If I deleted every FIC cite, or even most of them, the article would cease to exist, and its content would not be in any way recoverable. It cannot be written without citing FIC extensively. I do not think it is the role of FAC reviewers to make a judgment call on how many is "too many"; WP:PRIMARY is silent on the matter. I'm not sure it's appropriate to use our opinions or personal preferences to write where nothing official is written, and expect others to follow our opinions as law...
Cite verification failure
  • Eight points have been considered cite errors. I count one full bug, one half bug, one that is debatable between a full and half bug, and five false alarms. Bear in mind that your reviewers have mentioned that many of the cites (the number isn't specified) were spot on...
  1. Weigold 1999 ref 105 [Fiamh]
    False alarm
  2. Ó Gráda 2008, p. 20 [Fiamh]
    False alarm
  3. Ó Gráda 2008, p. 39. ref 377 [Fiamh]
    Yes, I totally mangled that one, but other cites in that sfnm accurately covered the text. Repaired. That's one bug.
  4. Brennan 1988 ref 100 [Fiamh]
    False alarm
  5. Brennan ref 174 "atmospheric conditions", [Fiamh]
    The reviewer hasn't had time to strike through this one yet, but it is a false alarm.
  6. Famine Inquiry Commission ref 119 [Fiamh]
    At first blush I thought this was a total miss on my part [I should go back and strike through that comment], but after thought it seems I mentally interpreted "local emergencies" to mean "civil unrest". I did change the text in light of this review, however, because the two are not necessarily synonymous. But I'll give this one only half a bug.
  7. Famine Inquiry Commission ref 119 [Fiamh]
    Really neither a bug nor a false alarm, just needed attribution "As one deponent stated"
  8. Bowbrick 1985, p. 57 [Fiamh]
    False alarm. Oh... additionally.. I just now noticed the comment, "Stevens' opinions should not be attributed to Bowbrick. Your edits here are not an improvement." That comment misses the mark, sorry. I didn't quote Stevens in Wikipedia text, only in discussion during this review. The point of showing the Bowbrick quote of Stevens is that Bowbrick is citing Stevens approvingly, which adds weight to the stated Wikipedia text's assertion that Bowbrick forcefully defends FIC. As does all the other text I added, and I could add more if you wish. Reviewer later adds, "...To me that is a qualified rather than forceful defence." No sorry again. Bowbrick states that the economic analysis was faulty ONLY in light of decades of hindsight. He forcefully defends FIC again and again, as I explicitly noted but the reviewer did not notice. And what's more, does so even on the one page that was originally cited: "they... made few major errors and [were] broadly correct in their conclusions. Certainly their analysis had more depth than Sen's." [Note that Sen won a Nobel prize for the analysis that is allegedly not as good as FIC's]. He also, again, on that same page says the report is "excellent" and "without preconceptions". No, sorry, no way I could consider conceding this point. Bowbrick forcefully supports FIC. I am sorry to be so blunt.
  9. FIC ref 274, to page 138 of the report. [Nick-D]
    Nick-D says that the stated text is correct in so far as it goes, but it omits text that occurs on the next page. Text on the next page runs contrary to text on cited page, i.e., "the hospitals were horrible" (cited page) "but improved" (on next page, not cited... at least not in the section of the article where Nick was looking). But considerably later, maybe a day or two, I suddenly remembered that the text which Nick wanted cited actually was cited. It was just cited in a later section (the "Wavell came and everything got better" section). I just... had a section about the bad conditions and a later section about how they later improved. So... is this a bug? I'll certainly give it half a bug at least, since yeah, I copied the "things got better under Wavell" text (already present in the article, down below) that Nick wanted to see and duplicated it up in the "things were bad" section. Is it a full bug? A matter of opinion. I am sure Nick would say yes. I think.... it was a mental error, as I was trying to organize the article. I fixed the mental error. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 14:12, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Lingzhi is non-collegial
  • Completely, totally, utterly irrelevant. Not actionable and not valid for Oppose. No one in the outside world reading the article (hovers around 1,000 views per day) knows or cares whether or not I am Mr. Congeniality (nor do they need to know or care). No one in Wikipedia should be unduly influenced by having been told they're wrong. Process is important, but product more so... Besides, this is all a bit overdone because I haven't been rude anyhow. I have just said, "Sorry, you're simply wrong." I must be allowed to do this, for the process to function correctly.  ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 19:31, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Lingzhi, no one said you are rude. I certainly did not. As for the other points, I don't object to your defenses but it would be helpful if you tried to keep them shorter for future. I am wondering if you think it would be better for me to leave the source review to someone else and let FAC coords decide what to make of my objections. Regards, Fiamh (talk, contribs) 22:47, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Oh. I was answering all stated objections by all reviewers at the same time.. Yes, you've never said or suggested that I was rude, but in fact two other reviewers essentially have. As for "let FAC coords decide what to make of my objections", I'm not sure that would work... Neither you nor I actually knows whether any given FAC coord is brave enough to reject an Oppose that he/she disagrees with, given that the discussion has been lengthy. I would only suggest that you put things in perspective/consider the big picture: do you think the points you disagree with me on, and the potential for other such points, is/are strong enough or frequent enough to distort the truth or mislead the reading public? If so then you must keep your Oppose. Do you think these are points that may be debatable and would not materially mislead the reading public? Then you should, in my opinion, strike your Oppose. Even further, do you think these points are actually minor, and the whole article is sound? If so, then in my opinion, you should not only strike your Oppose but then actually Support. That's my only suggestion: take a step back and look at the big picture. Thanks. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 23:59, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • What I would suggest you do is go back and systematically check your citations and make sure each matches the content. That's what's recommended to do before FAC nominations, especially since your last one failed in part due to failed verification. As for FAC ccords weighing supports and opposes, that's what they have to do on any contentious nomination. I would like nothing more than to support this nomination but I cannot at present. Fiamh (talk, contribs) 00:25, 14 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
          • @Fiamh: I still do not accept that these were bona fide cite errors... not in the slightest ... but I will change them to meet your desires... For "atmospheric conditions" I deleted "atmospheric conditions". It now reads "It [that is, the cyclone] also contributed to an increased incidence of malaria." For the text,"... Bowbrick forcefully defends the report's accuracy, twice describing it as excellent, repeatedly favoring its analyses over Sen's, and stating it was undertaken without any preconceptions", I changed it to "...Bowbrick defends the report's overall accuracy, stating it was undertaken without any preconceptions and twice describing it as excellent. Meanwhile, he repeatedly and rather forcefully favors its analyses over Sen's." Is that acceptable to you? ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 14:52, 30 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
            • That's definitely an improvement in the first case. In the second, now it matches the source but it sounds awkward. Anyway, I wish you best of luck with this FAC. I have renamed my section so that you can get a comprehensive source review from a second editor. Fiamh (talk, contribs) 22:47, 14 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

(←) @Fiamh: Thank you for your help. I was wondering, did you mean you keep the text above that says, "Unfortunately, I have to second Nick-D's oppose"? If not, it might confuse a FAC coord. Thanks. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 23:10, 14 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • A single comment I noticed this diff, for the change, "Corpses littered the streets of Calcutta, ..." to "Corpses were stacked on the streets of Calcutta ...," and citing as rationale a description of Janam Mukherjee:"... stacks of corpse that began accumulating on the streets and by-lanes of Calcutta." (here) A stack is a pile arranged in an orderly fashion. Corpses typically can't be arranged in stacks. Corpse boxes, i.e. coffins, can; but there were no coffins there. It is more likely that the corpses lay littered, i.e. lay about in a disordered fashion, throughout the city. They may have been then piled up here and there before being carted away. In my view it is better to write: "lay about scattered throughout the city." I'm sure there are sources that attest. Best, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:41, 5 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Post-nomination support by Fowler&fowler

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  • I have carefully read the article. Although I had criticized it earlier, and not a few times, I believe it now meets all the FAC criteria, and then some. What little nooks and crannies there are of disrepair will continue to be restored, I have no doubt, after it is promoted. For such is the interest in this topic. For @Lingzhi2: this has been a long labor of love for which he has my envy and my admiration. I venture to predict that the article might even become a benchmark for those who want to write articles on important, vital, topics, genuinely encyclopedic ones, requiring sifting, assessing, and summarizing wide-ranging views of thoughtful people. This latter group, in this article, includes not only, P.C. Mahalanobis, W. R. Ayckroyd, and the members of the Famine Inquiry Commission of 1945, Amartya Sen, Paul Greenough, Mufakharul Islam, Iftekhar Iqbal, Christopher Bayly, Tim Dyson, A. Maharatna, and Cormac O Grada, but also those who much earlier were responsible for crafting these words in the Report of the Indian Famine Commission of 1880:

    "The first effect of a drought is to diminish greatly, and at last to stop, all field labour, and to throw out of employment the great mass of people who live on the wages of labour. A similar effect is produced next upon the artisans, the small shop-keepers, and traders, first in villages and country towns, and later on in the larger towns also, by depriving them of their profits, which are mainly dependent on dealings with the least wealthy classes; and, lastly, all classes become less able to give charitable help to public beggars, and to support their dependents. Such of the agricultural classes as possess a proprietary interest in the land, or a valuable right of occupancy in it, do not require as a rule to be protected against starvation in time of famine unless the calamity is unusually severe and prolonged, as they generally are provided with stocks of food or money, or have credit with money-lenders. But those who, owning only a small plot of land, eke out by its profits their wages as labourers, and rack-rented tenants-at-will living almost from hand-to-mouth, are only a little way removed from the class of field-labourers; they possess no credit, and on them pressure soon begins."

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:19, 12 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your generous words and your kind support. I genuinely appreciate both. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 23:01, 12 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment from Fowler&fowler: @Ykraps: @Lingzhi2: I have the sense that you are increasingly talking at cross purposes. If I am correct in my assessment, please try to keep your comments on-topic. Anyway, here are a few clarifications. About your query, Ykraps, Sugata Bose says (in the discussion accompanying the table):

    East Bengal was worst hit by the wave of distress sales of peasant smallholdings. Eleven out of the fourteen subdivisions ‘very severely affected’ by the famine were in the four east Bengal districts of Dhaka, Faridpur, Noakhali and Tippera. According to an Indian Statistical Institute survey, 12.5% of all families in subdivisions within this category sold land between August 1943 and April 1944, and 3.9% had to sell off all their paddy lands.52 The strata of peasantry which had started lending on usufructuary mortgage in the 1930s were the principal beneficiaries of the land sales of the 1940s, but some talukdars made gains too. An enquiry in a Faridpur village revealed that 40.5% of the alienated area was purchased by ‘cultivators’, 17.9% by ‘zamindars’, 15% by ‘office employees’, 10.1% by ‘traders’, 7% by ‘jotedars’, 5.4% by ‘moneylenders’ and 4.1% by ‘priests and petty employees’. Yet, land alienation in east Bengal in the 1940s did not swell the ranks of landless agricultural wage-labourers <sic, he forgot to put a comma here> who were ‘either reverting to sharecropping — sharecroppers with no land, no cattle, or migrating tothe cities, or simply dying out’.

    I don't believe he talking about land requisition by the government during the war. I noticed some earlier concerns about the population trends of the period 1901–1941. That is probably not the best timespan to consider. The period 1871 to 1921 had intervals in which death rates were high and these affected the average mortality. They were caused by the Great Famine of 1876–1878 and the Indian famine of 1896–97, the plagues of 1896-98 and the influenza pandemic of 1917-18. It was only in the period 1921-41 that the population began to increase stably. The reasons for it have been much debated by historical demographers, although there is a better understanding now. Here is Tim Dyson in A Population History of India OUP, 2018:

    "... much of the lower average death rate of the 1920s and 1930s reflected the elimination of major calamities. Epidemics and food crises still occurred, but they were smaller and more limited affairs. Famine was declared on at least twelve separate occasions between 1921 and 1941, and there were many individual ‘scarcities’. Nevertheless, these crises tended to affect districts that were known to be particularly drought-prone—such as Bellary, Bijapur, Satara, and Sholapur behind the Western Ghats, and Gurgaon, Hisar, and Rohtak in the vicinity of Delhi. Consequently, given a degree of administrative awareness and preparation, and transport improvements, deaths on the scale of previous times were avoided. ... Further, the different disease ecologies associated with the drier conditions of the north and the west, and the moister conditions of the east and much of the south, became better understood. In the 1920s and 1930s, there was also an increased understanding of the contribution of inadequate nutrition to deaths from diarrhoeal and respiratory diseases. <Dyson, Tim. A Population History of India (p. 179). OUP Oxford. Kindle Edition.>

    The claim that the population had developed natural immunity to some diseases seems to be discounted now.

    "In short, with respect to TB and other diseases, there is little reason to think that the mortality improvement of the 1920s reflected a change in the population’s immunological resistance. Dyson, Tim. A Population History of India (p. 160). OUP Oxford. Kindle Edition."

    There was also the British enactment of the Female Infanticide Prevention Act, 1870, the Age of Consent Act, 1891 whose combined effects of limiting female mortality, and maternal mortality, had begun to give demographic dividends by the 1920s. I hope this helps. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:02, 21 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • One of the problems is that the table doesn't support or add anything to the text. The table just shows total land transfers. We could put it in the Military build up section and it would be just as relevant/irrelevant there.--Ykraps (talk) 10:53, 22 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • @Ykraps: Sugata Bose says pretty clearly, "The strata of peasantry which had started lending on usufructuary mortgage in the 1930s were the principal beneficiaries of the land sales of the 1940s," That is a pretty general statement, about Bengal, not just a district or division. It suggests that in his view the principal land transfers in the 1940s were made to money lenders, not to the government for tis war-time needs, that they constituted a plurality, if not the outright majority, of the sales. In that case, giving the overall land sales figures does give the reader a feel for the magnitude of distress-driven transfers. Putting that table in the military build-up section would be deceitful, as those transfers constituted a minority. Also, your comment about Sugata Bose's neutrality, even if it is a rhetorical question, is unfortunate. For the record, the drafts of the book were read by three historians of South Asia, Christopher Bayly (his former thesis adviser in Cambridge), David Washbrook and David Ludden, all highly experienced reviewers of the literature. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:21, 22 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • @Ykraps: Your final comments below include the statement,

          I have just started looking at neutrality but already have some concerns. The areas the British failed in are made clear but the article is less obvious about where they got it right, and the extent to which the natives contributed to the problem is glossed over. There is no mention, for example, of how difficult it was to inoculate against disease because of suspicions about western medicines.

          Do you mean inoculation, which had a long history in India, or vaccination? The major British investment in vaccination in India was against smallpox, and to a lesser extent against typhoid and TB. You are right about Indian reluctance. (See here) However, the major disease burden during the famine was malaria for which there were no effective vaccines. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:28, 22 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
          • Ah, I found it. Ykraps has pulled two or three of his/her talking points from Bhattacharya, Sanjoy (2002b), which he and I had discussed earlier... It mentions both "military had to distribute food" and "enticing with food for medicine".. Mmmm on the first point, Bhattacharya doesn't directly say the military had to distribute food because of corruption, but says there was corruption that never stabilized until the military began distributing food... On the second point, this phenomenon occured only in famine camps, where the principle malady was malnutrition.. the people wanted food, not medicine... This seems to have been limited in scope, since this is the only article that mentions it, and it limits it to famine camps.. The article does not draw a link to that as a significant cause of excess deaths or any such thing... the tone of the single paragraph dedicated to this point actually comes across more like it was a mild annoyance, a source of mild criticism.. so it seems a stretch to point to one article as evidence that the pro-British POV has been sady neglected in our article. I am glad Ykraps has scanned/read the article tho. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 14:35, 22 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Coordinator notes

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Commenting here as coord without making any remark on the weight of the comments (that's for reviewers to consider) but I've confirmed over email that the remarks attributed to Greenough above about the article are indeed from him. --Laser brain (talk) 22:07, 17 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Non-coordinator comment, but: SchroCat I see you added this FAC to Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/Image and source check requests#Image/source check requests as needing an image review but there was already an image review by Nikkimaria, a few sections above. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 09:12, 2 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Well spotted Jo-Jo Eumerus! I meant source review, and I've tweaked the request as appropriate. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 09:18, 2 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Source review

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  • All links are live and working according to the tool.
Formatting
  • Ref #9, missing page numbers for A. Sen 1976 and A. Sen 1981a.
    • Sen's entire thesis – the thesis for which he was awarded a Nobel Prize – is that the famine was a crisis of "entitlements" that was largely if not entirely the result of human action and inaction. it is the cornerstone of his academic reputation. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 00:09, 13 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ref #10, missing page numbers for Bowbrick 1986 and Tauger 2003.
    • Bowbrick and Tauger's arguments are that Sen is wrong, and the famine resulted mainly from a deficit of grain. Perhaps the chaos of war made things more difficult, but the main cause was a decline in food availability. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 00:09, 13 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ref #13, missing page number for Chaudhuri 1975.
    • The process described here is a main thesis of Chadhuri's paper, as seen in the title, "The Process of Depeasantization in Bengal and Bihar, 1885–1947". For example, page 106 gives the thesis statement for the entire article: "The compulsion under which peasants sold their holdings was mostly caused by the 'permanent background' of their indebtedness." ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 00:09, 13 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ref #46, missing page number for Mukherji 1986.
    • The cited sentence reflects the main topic of this entire paper. The first sentence says, "The main purpose of this paper is to examine the nature of change in the forms of credit or capital supply in Bengal agriculture through the 30s and 40s of the twentieth century, which were ultimately reflected in changing methods of land control and management, as well as in the forms of labour employment. " Two pages later we have, "In the following pages, there will be occasion to examine what the authorities in different districts had to say about the willingness of a new class of land grabbers to acquire all kinds of new rights in land." ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 01:13, 13 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ref #56, missing page number for Ram 1997.
  • Ref #64, odd formatting for "citing McClelland (1859, pp. 32, 38)", inconsistent with the rest of the referencing. Different variations in refs, #108, #121, #140, #166, #181, #275, #278, #289, #299, #300, #337, #413, #423; make them all consistent.
  • Ref #125, missing page number for Iqbal 2011.
  • Ref #171, missing page number for Ó Gráda 2015.
    • Changed to "A. Sen 1977, p. 50; Ó Gráda 2015, pp. 55, 57". I put Sen first because he makes the assertion more succinctly and forcefully, i.e., "The ineptness of the propaganda drive was exceptional." ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 04:34, 13 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ref #210, "p." should be "pp."
  • Ref #235, missing page number for S. Bose 1990.
  • Ref #257, inconsistent formatting for "Derived from Maharatna (1992, p. 243, Table 5.5)"
  • Ref #276, missing page number for Das 1949.
  • Ref #301, missing page number for Greenough 1982.
  • Ref #311, missing page number for Brennan 1988.
    • It's actually repeatedly discussed from different angles in several places across several pages, since relief aid (and it slowness/inadequacy) is the main topic of the article. That's why I didn't add page numbers. However, two places where it is summarized clearly are 547–548 and 562–563. I added those pages. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 13:31, 13 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ref #326, missing page number for Siegel 2018.
  • Ref #346, missing page number for Greenough 1982.
    • This is another "it's everywhere in the book, where do I begin?" thing. It's especially salient in the anecdotal evidence of (again) chapter four and again throughout chapter 5. Page 184 gives a thumbnail sketch, so used that, but it would be better to say "Chapters 4 and 5". ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 15:03, 13 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ref #352, missing page number for Ghosh 1944.
  • Ref #357, missing page number for A. Sen 1977.
  • Ref #358, Baltimore Sun is the work, not the author. This also needs a date of publication.
    • I didn't add that reference; someone else snuck it in when I wasn't looking. That's why the formatting is so entirely hosed up. But I suppose the factoid is somewhat useful, so I'll fix instead of deleting. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 01:19, 14 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Refs #371, #374; be consistent what short name you choose; the first uses publication and year, the second the title.
  • Ref #379, missing page number for Bowbrick 1986.
    • Again, the entire paper is pretty much about this. However, it's discussed at length in pp 111-114 so I'll add those.
  • Ref #380, missing page numbers for Padmanabhan 1973 and Tauger 2003.
    • Again, these papers are pretty much about this. However, Padmanabhan has a famous quote on pp. 11, 23. Tauger is famous specifically for unearthing Padmanabhan. However, he kinda hones in on the brown spot on pp 65-67. So I'll add those. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 11:15, 14 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ref #382, missing page numbers for A. Sen 1977 and A. Sen 1981a.
    • Nobel prize
  • Ref #383, missing page number for A. Sen 1977.

Nobel prize

  • Ref #400, missing page number for Law-Smith 1989.
    • The cited sentence summarizes the whole paper. I suppose I can add a page number from the conclusion section.... p. 64
  • Ref #402, missing page number for Hickman 2008.
    • Added |Hickman|2008|pp=238–240
  • Ref #421 needs the publisher listed after the title, not before.
    • Sorry, there's nothing I can do about that. It's the output of an inflation conversion template...
  • Das, Tarakchandra (1949) needs an OCLC number, as you provide it for other sources.
  • Famine Inquiry Commission (May 1945) is not a PDF.
  • Is there any detail on who published "The Pinnell Archive on the Bengal Famine: Evidence to the Famine Inquiry Commission 1944"?
  • Because you listed locations for your other references, you should add the location for Wavell, Archibald Percival (1973) too.
  • Grehan, John; Mace, Martin (eds.) needs a year of publication.
  • Arnold, David (8 January 1991). Just a year is sufficient for books.
  • Bhattacharya, Sanjoy (September 2013). Same.
  • Bose, Sugata (11 March 1993). Same, also needs a location.
  • Bose, Chunilal (1930) needs a location.
  • Brown, Judith Margaret (1991) also needs a location.
  • Callahan, Raymond (14 October 2011), the location includes the state abbreviation, which isn't consistent with other references (you could alternatively add it in to those missing it.)
  • Churchill, Winston S. (1986), is there an original year of publication for this?
  • Dewey, Clive; Hopkins, Anthony G. (eds.). The Imperial Impact: Studies in the Economic History of Africa and India. Needs year of publication, and ideally an OCLC or ISBN as appropriate.
  • Dyson, Tim (27 September 2018), just a year is sufficient, plus location.
  • Greenough, Paul R. (1982) needs a location.
  • Islam, M. Mufakharul (2007b) same.
  • Khan, Yasmin (2015) same.
  • Knight, Henry (1954) has state abbreviation.
  • Maharatna, Arup (1996) needs a location.
  • Mukherjee, S. N. (January 1987), just a year is sufficient, plus location.
  • Ó Gráda, Cormac (2009) needs a location.
  • Ó Gráda, Cormac (2015) needs a location.
  • Panigrahi, Devendra (19 August 2004), just a year is sufficient, plus state abbreviation.
  • Roy, Tirthankar (2019) needs a location.
  • Sen, Amartya (1980) needs a location.
  • Sen, Amartya (2011) has state abbreviation.
  • Siegel, Benjamin Robert (26 April 2018), just a year is sufficient, plus location.
  • I didn't identify each as I went, but why do UK and US locations just list the City/City and State, while Indian locations have City, Country? Make it consistent.
  • Reviewed formatting to the end of the "Books, book chapters". Will continue later. No verification checks have been carried out yet. Harrias talk 11:55, 12 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Vernon, James (2009) has state abbreviation.
    • @Harrias: Thank you for your detailed comments. I'd like to clarify, however: when you say a given source is missing a page number, do you mean "it might be possible to add page numbers to some of these, and if it is possible, then doing so would be an improvement", or do you mean "you must add page numbers to these"? To my mind at least, and I believe I could probably find examples in published sources, listing sources without listing page numbers is an extremely acceptable practice. It generally means that the point at hand is one which is salient in the source... and as for all the missing locations, when the name of the university press includes the city in which it resides (eg., Bose, Chunilal (1930). Food. University of Calcutta" which is located in Calcutta) then the name of the university itelf suffices. The article should be consistent in this regard, unless I missed one or two. Thanks. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 21:05, 12 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Re: page numbers: FACR 1c requires that "claims are verifiable". WP:CITEHOW explains that "This information is included in order to identify the source, assist readers in finding it, and (in the case of inline citations) indicate the place in the source where the information is to be found." So in essence; if you are happy that if I choose a selection of the claims supported by those references above, I will be able to (relatively) quickly and easily be able to verify them without page numbers, then no page number is required. However, if that is not the case, then they need page numbers to meet FACR 1c. I would expect that the lack of page numbers would be very much the exception, but I have not yet looked at the references in context of the article, only from a pure formatting point of view so far. Harrias talk 21:38, 12 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Re: locations: I can live with that, but do check it is consistent. (There is at least one case of "Oxford: Oxford University Press".) Harrias talk 21:38, 12 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Harrias: I think I may have answered all or almost all of your questions, but it's late so I may have missed some. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 14:26, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, just seen this on my watchlist. It didn't ping me for some reason, but no matter. I'll take a look over your responses and changes as soon as I get a chance. Harrias talk 14:30, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Coord note 2

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Coord note: @Fiamh, Nick-D, Ykraps, and Harrias: I need to get a feel for where these reviews are. This review has been open 2.5 months and it's gotten quite large and bloated. I'm not seeing that a source review has been actually passed. I see some concerns from Ykraps about the size of the article and interpretation of some of the sources. I see Nick's oppose on comprehensiveness and not containing other points of view. I'd like to see this wrapped up quickly, and if that can't be done ... I suggest that it be worked out amongst the various editors above on the talk page rather than here at FAC. Where do we stand, in other words? If I could have brief summaries from the various folks who appear to have issues, that'd be great, thanks! Ealdgyth - Talk 15:41, 21 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • I've been monitoring this nomination, and remain a firm oppose for the reasons noted above in my review. I didn't closely review the article's text due to my concerns over sourcing (extensive use of primary sources and a much too high incidence of sources not supporting the text when checked), and the many issues noted in Ykraps' review raise further concerns regarding content. As I noted in my review, the article is much improved on when it previously came to FAC, but I don't think that it's of FA standard. Nick-D (talk) 21:38, 21 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Harrias: promised to do a source review, but he/she seems to be busy. Supports (including, implicitly, Paul Greenough, who gave a glowing review) heavily outweigh opposes. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 22:35, 21 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Ling, with all seriousness, I can still read and count, I didn't need the recap, unless you think I'm not capable of reading this. I didn't ask you your opinion, I asked the folks I pinged. Ealdgyth - Talk 23:29, 21 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Apologies for my part in bloating this review but this is partly to do with it being such a large article.
Is it too large? I have to say that it probably is. I accept this is a large complex subject but I think there is room for some trimming. The section on the fall of Burma for example could probably be reduced to a few sentences.
This leads me to question whether the article is focussed. The article repeats itself quite a lot. I realise that some repetition is probably necessary because of the length and the need to put things in context but the repetition is in my opinion, too in depth and excessive. The cloth famine is discussed in multiple places, as is the disintegration of families, child prostitution, population displacement, disposal and non-disposal of the dead.
I'm not entirely convinced that everything in the article is wholly relevant. The quotations are excessive and sensationalist, and don't appear to add extra information to the article. I still question the relevance of the land transfers table and whether it supports the text.
I have just started looking at neutrality but already have some concerns. The areas the British failed in are made clear but the article is less obvious about where they got it right, and the extent to which the natives contributed to the problem is glossed over. There is no mention, for example, of how difficult it was to inoculate against disease because of suspicions about western medicines. The British overcame this somewhat by refusing to issue food and clothing unless it was accompanied by treatment. Greedy Indian grain merchants artificially inflating prices isn't discussed and although communal and political wrangling among the Indian middle-classes is, the scale of the problem is downplayed. In fact the situation was so bad that the British Army had to take over grain distribution to ensure that food meant for general distribution wasn't kept by well-off Indian civil servants who intended to profit from the misery of their own people. The situation improved greatly after. This isn't a problem with cherry-picking sources, worryingly these things are in some of the sources used but didn't make it into the article. The article points out the British refusal to send food and questions the lack of shipping excuse but the Americans also refused to send shipments for precisely the same reason and this isn't mentioned. As I said, I've only just started looking at neutrality.
I also think that parts of the article are going to be confusing to those without specialist or in-depth knowledge. As a quick example, the term British appears to have been used interchangeably to describe the British contingent of the colonial government, the UK parliament and the British military.
For my part, this review isn't going to be over any time soon.--Ykraps (talk) 22:51, 21 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Ykraps: Do you think the article as it stands now, without further review from yourself, meets the FA criteria? Ealdgyth - Talk 23:29, 21 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Without further review? I still have things I want to discuss so I have to say no it doesn't at this precise time, and it gives me no pleasure to so. I do understand that this nomination can't sit here forever however and a decision needs to be made.--Ykraps (talk) 11:09, 22 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
You have zero, exctly zero, and no more than zero proof that military transfers are included in the table, It's your word against Cambridge university and Sugata Bose. For. The. Record. This fits right in line with your other extremely confident assertions below, for which you have Zero proof, and several of which were verifiably false/wrong (and I showed the wikitext with sources to prove it). Everything you've said.. zero support in ANY sources.. All you have is your own words and nothing else. Did you cite anything? No. Never. Thanks. And again for the record: If this nom fails, the Wikipedia WIAFA model functionally holds that WP:V is completely irrrelevant, and any editor can make any unsupported assertions, and those assertions weigh more than OUP and CUP etc. That's the simple truth. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 11:25, 22 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Several rebuttals: Hopefully without starting an argument, the Americans did not send food because the British explicitly rejected the offer... I would be happy to add that, after looking it up, if it seems relevant... [Our Wikipedia article already says, "The Cabinet also refused offers of food shipments from several different nations.[18]" ...Specifically, IIRC, the Americans offered to transport grain, but the British refused the offer because they believed (perhaps correctly, I seem to recall) that military transport would be re-tasked and thus directed away from their present military supply goals, rather than having the grain transported by ships that were not presently tasked... But the end of the story is that the UK said NO... I have been reading for 3 years now and have seen no mention of people refusing inoculation. I can look again, but...Greedy merchants and war profiteering are mentioned repeatedly in our Wikipedia article and are discussed with a devastating quote: "...nearly a thousand rupees ... of profits were accrued per death". There isn't an extended discussion of them because I never found an extended discussion of them [I have found anecdotal evidence...]. That in turn makes sense, because they were private citizens and thus better able to keep their actions undocumented. ... Speaking of the military taking over grain distribution, yes of course they did, but the picture the FIC paints is not that they did it to forestall profiteering (which did exist), but because the necessary administrative systems were in near total collapse. No equipment, no personnel, nothing to move grain with, and the grain that began to arrive was piling up in the Botanical Gardens and other places. It was just chaos and and an utter lack of transport ability, so the military very efficiently and effectively took control..Ah yes our article mentions this: "However, a second problem emerged: the Civil Supplies Department of Bengal was undermanned and under-equipped to distribute the supplies, and the resulting transportation bottleneck left very large piles of grain accumulating in the open air in several locations, including Calcutta's Botanical Garden"... Back to the topic of people declining vaccinations, the FIC repeatedly asserts that the level of vaccination was woefully inadequate until a very decisive change very late in the famine (precisely the same as the food distribution situation). The FIC never explains why the earlier situation was so inadequate. Now, you have to bear with me: I strongly believe that if there had been widespread rejection of medicine, the FIC would have said so. I seem to recall that they were careful to explain, for example, about how some people declined to eat or were reluctant to eat certain unfamiliar or unpreferred types of grain. Rejections of medicine would have been a similar case, with dire consequences, that would almost certainly have been mentioned.... Ah the FIC doesn't say people declined unfamiliar grain, it says they didn't know how to cook it, and the resulting digestive distress was potentially fatal. But the analogy with medicine distribution still holds, because the unfamiliar food detail is mentioned several times.... Sorry this is scattered but... back to corruption.. yes corruption is mentioned again and again and our Wikipedia article mentions and cites it again and again. It doesn't give details. I have been looking again and found a few anecdotal things, especially about "purchasing agents".... but these don't draw a connection between corruption and the military taking over distribution of grain, as Ykraps suggests...AS for Nick-D's Stong Oppose, if you read the sea of words above very, very carefully, you'll discover that Nick is resting his strenuous oppose solely on a single sentence which he believes was missing, but which in fact actually always was in our article, just not in the section where Nick was looking. I then duplicated that sentence in the section where Nick wanted it. I then told everyone that it was already there, and that I had duplicated it anyway... Nick declined to search for further evidence of failure to fulfill WIAFA, and declined to retract his oppose even after I explained the above. Nick's comments mirror those of Ykraps in feeling that our article over-emphasizes the role of the UK in all of this. I can only say this: my job is to comb all sources, and repeat what they say. I have made some errors. But Good God, I have hundreds of sources. I believe I have reflected then faithfully.... As for anti-UK bias, to be honest, as I stated far above, if the article can be accused of any bias at all, it is understating the content of the sources. For example, Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen, who is very very far from a polemical nationalist, states (and I do not believe I quoted him in the article) that the UK government is culpable for not doing enough to provide food. I will find this quote soon...got it, Sen, Amartya (1981a). Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation. pages 78-79. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 03:10, 22 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Ealdgyth: Unfortunately, Christmas is getting the better of me at the moment. During my initial source review I had a lot of concerns about missing page numbers for book sources; I can see that the nominator has responded with regards to this, but I have not had a chance to go back through properly, though I can see that most still don't have page numbers for various justifications. I can't comment on the validity of those justifications at the moment. The lack of page numbers leaves me concerned about verification, which is an aspect of the source review I have not yet managed to get to. I honestly can't promise that I'll be able to get anything done before Christmas Day. Harrias talk 13:59, 22 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Closing note

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It's pretty clear that although this article has a number of supports, there are also a number of editors opposed. There still isn't completed source review, with the previous source reviewer appearing to have withdrawn for various reasons. At this point, the FAC has gotten so unwieldy that it's a serious drain to try and figure out what's going on. It's been open two and a half months - and it's still having new issues brought up. The opposes have weight, as they are not just prose concerns, but concerns with the content of the article. Whether or not a historian backs the article isn't much help, because we do not know whether or not they have taken sides in this particular historical dispute. I strongly strongly suggest that the editors involved in the nomination work with the folks who are opposed to come to some agreement before bringing this back to FAC.

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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