User talk:Vice regent/CowVigilantism

Suggestions

from User_talk:Tyler_Durden:

1. The title would be Cow vigilantism in India.
2. And the first line in the lead should describe it briefly - i.e., What is 'cow vigilantism' and how does it happen in India? The lead can be however rewritten after developing the content in the body.
3. But the article should focus more on: Why cow vigilantism happens in India?
4. Who does it, and against whom?
5. Which organisations/groups are involved in it, and what they or their leaders say about it?
6. And why is it important to take note of it?
7. Also, the POVs/content should not be more event/case-specific, they should be broader, for an encyclopedic article on Cow vigilantism. You should look for scholarly sources on the subject, and write from what they say.
8. . You can also add what notable people said about cow vigilantism.

@Tyler Durden:, what did you mean by point 6? To me it should be obvious this topic is important, because of the list of killings mentioned in the article.VR _talk 21:36, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

@Vice regent: Well, Extent would be one part of the answer to that. You should look for sources that say how far it occurs, in which parts of India, and how common are Gou Rakshaks in those areas(mostly rural). I know this is an easy thing to say, but difficult to put into action. However adding a list of killings would do no good in an encyclopedic article, this is not a newspaper report. You can, at maximum, add a list of some 20-30 incidents. That itself would be way too long, and will appear quality-less and creates little impact to the reader. Nobody really gives a damn about, say even 50 Gou Rakshak incidents of violence, in a 120 crore populated India. Take it from me. As I have already told you, don't be event(s)-specific, make it broader.

The more important part is, Cow vigilantism has not become a national issue in India just because some people get killed because of it. Example is the Dadri incident itself. People get killed everyday in India. Of course mob lynching is a special case, but the predominant reason why its important is, Cow vigilantism is seen as a part of majoritarian communalism in India, and it is heavily criticised for a wide variety of reasons. Scholars call it "Indian fascism" or "Hindu fascism" (look up for the citations here). In 2002, when five Dalit youngsters were killed in Haryana by a mob, reportedly led by members of the VHP after reports of cow slaughter, the local leader of the VHP stated that he had no regrets over the incident and that the life of a cow was worth more than the lives of five Dalits.[1] That should give you an idea of why this is important. However you cannot add all the criticisms of militant-Hindutva here. You need to look for the criticism that is made in this subject's(Cow vigilantism's) context. You can make a clear-cut case on the relation between Cow vigilantism and militant-Hindu nationalism, and write a bit on it though. Don't worry much about the neutrality, as you asked me on my talk page. I'll take care of it while you develop the article. Anyhow, when you publish it, POV warriors will come to pounce upon it and attack every piece of it, so no worries. WP:NPOV will be automatically taken care of. Cheers, Tyler Durden (talk) 06:10, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Quotation request

@Tyler Durden:. Is this what you meant when you asked for a quote?VR _talk 10:45, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Yes. And Many vigilantes believe their actions are approved by the government and Hindus of India. is WP:OR. The source does not say so, as per your quote. — Tyler Durden (talk) 11:53, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

That came from a different sentence. I've added the entire paragraph now.VR _talk 16:04, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Fine, thanks. Do add such complete quotes for any kind of contentious content that you insert. Especially, if the source cannot be accessible online. Please add links for the references, whenever possible. Cheers, Tyler Durden (talk) 21:37, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Background

I saw that you asked "activists of which groups/organisations participate in cow vigilantism? how were they formed?". Do you think this information answers that question?VR _talk 10:45, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

No. It does not give any information on groups/organisations, whose activists participate in cow vigilantism. Or why, when and how they (cow vigilante groups) were formed. The information you added in that edit is helpful for the article though. The initial para in the present 'History of violence' section partly serves as background. You can take it appropriately to the 'Background' section, and try to develop it. Cheers, Tyler Durden (talk) 12:03, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Feedback

[Coped from User Talk:Spaceman Spiff]

Hey there,

Someone recently told me to seek help from you regarding an article I'm developing in my userspace: User:Vice regent/CowVigilantism. Could you please leave some feedback? I'm particularly interested in knowing if you think it is neutral.VR _talk 01:59, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

• Vice regent, I don't involve myself with content in this area as I admin here and I don't want to get WP:INVOLVED. I think Kautilya3‎, Vanamonde93, or Joshua Jonathan‎ would be better equipped to give you feedback. cheers. —SpacemanSpiff 05:44, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

Add Ms Sarah Welch. My knowledge on this topic is nihil. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:39, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

@Joshua Jonathan: I am not current with topical and political issues there, so please take what follows in that context. @Vice regent: A quick read suggests the article has NPOV issues, strange claims, reliance of news sources accused for their one-sided POVs (Aljazeera is cited; Aljazeera's one-sided POV pushing is one of the reasons why Saudis/UAE/Egypt/Bahrain/etc broke up with Qatar, per some British sources). The article also relies on eccentric sources. The background section is weak, there are reasons why cow killing is frowned upon in the texts of Hindus/Jains/Buddhists. Not just cow, all life forms. It is strange to rely on a student's association president that "beef is cheap protein in India" (it isn't, beef costs more than $2 per lb bulk production price in a country where the poor live on less than $2 per day) or "25% of their country's population, not including their ~14% Muslims, are beef eaters"... all such exceptional claims need high quality RS, not gossipy student rep quotes and what is currently cited in the draft. If you look at the RS, such as FAO and USDA/FAS, cow+buffalo beef consumption per capita is very low in India. If just their Muslims eat as much meat beef per capita as Pakistanis or Turks do, that would account for 90%+ of their domestic beef consumption. I see Tyler Durden is discussing the draft with you on the draft's talk page. One suggestion: review the useful comments by admin Nyttend below, about the need for caution with news sources in wikipedia (cutting-pasting from the wall of text there).

Be careful with newspapers/etc as sources

Ian.thomson saw my comments elsewhere and asked me to chime in here. Journalists virtually never have scholarly training in history/anthropology/ethnography/etc. — they're generalists as far as this kind of thing goes, not knowing more than what's needed for background purposes, and as such we mustn't consider them reliable sources for such fields. Exceptions can exist, of course, and we can't discount a journalist merely because of his job (e.g. he could be an avocational anthropologist so dedicated to the field that he's a member of a learned society), but even then we should only trust his writings if they've gotten reviewed by other experts; the most scholarly journalist will have his newspaper writeups reviewed by nobody except the newspaper's editors, whom again we can trust to know a lot about news reporting but we can't trust to know much of anything about "olds" reporting. We can take newspaper reports as authoritative if we're writing a middle school report for our teachers, but encyclopedia writing demands better sources: whether they're written by professional academics, journalists with a lot of experience in scholarly work, or anyone else, they need to have gone through a scholarly review process. Of course, all this applies if there's no significant dispute; a faithful adherence to WP:NPOV will demand that we use the best sources from (or about) each position, and we can trust a journalist to report on the rise of a new popular movement that advocates a different perspective on such-and-such an idea, but journalists being primary sources in such situations, we shouldn't use them to interpret something about the different perspective. – Nyttend

Newspapers, tabloids and certain magazines are useful sources in some cases, but not RS for many cases. Always attribute primary sources when you quote them (you shouldn't interpret primary sources). Sorry and thanks SpacemanSpiff for letting us (ab)use your talk page for this non-admin discussion!, Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 13:11, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

Well Sarah, the other editor, VR, invited me on my talk page. So I got involved, didn't put any serious effort though. I just wandered there for a couple of days and left, as VR stopped developing it. I thought to go back after he starts making changes again, if he aims to publish it.

Since you tagged me, I just want to humbly & politely note that there is a lot of inaccurate and faulty OR in what you said above. I don't think this is the appropriate place to discuss all of that point by point, so I won't elaborate. Also, regardless of your argument about "beef is cheap protein in India", it is not even there in that user-space article. I don't see anything written anywhere as such!

Above all, in any case, much of your discussion belongs to the article: Cattle slaughter in India. Not this one. This user space article: Cow vigilantism in India, is particularly intended to deal with the violence in the name of Cow-protection, carried out by the extremist-Hindutva mobs, who take law into their own hands. This is not an article that is meant to focus on the larger Cow-slaughter issue in India. Best, Tyler Durden (talk) 16:58, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

@Tyler Durden: The "cheap protein" comment was more to question the reliability of the source that uses a student's association president as the dietary / sociology expert. Newspapers can be useful primary source of events/tragedies/new developments. Not rest, see Nyttend's caution above. For the background section consider this, this, this and this as potential sources instead. On another note, I thought beef production/consumption/exports from India was mostly buffalo beef, but I am not current on all this and situation there, please check and clarify if appropriate. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 18:03, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

Another source. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 18:07, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

Dear Sarah, again, I'm afraid you're not noticing that this draft-article is on Cow/cattle vigilantism in India. Not Cow/cattle slaughter in India.

I thought beef production/consumption/exports from India was mostly buffalo beef. - Yeah, you're largely right here.

Firstly, on a side note, as for this line above - there are reasons why cow killing is frowned upon in the texts of Hindus/Jains/Buddhists. Not just cow, all life forms., and your lead sentence-change here, where you opened the lead with because of the ethical principle of Ahimsa (non-violence) and the belief in the unity of all life: please try to understand that this page is a hugely contentious page where everyone and their brother can find some author(s), perfectly reliable, who is/are seemingly supporting their favorite family sentiment/prejudice or political agendas. (for eg., we have a renowned Indian historian D. N. Jha for one side, who wrote a book titled The Myth of the Holy Cow, saying, this cow-issue started just with the "Hindu-nationalists making the animal a symbol of the unity (& identity) of a wide-ranging people, and challenging the Muslim practice of its slaughter", also asserting that the Hindus consumed beef in ancient India, and cow is not any sacred during then — all of which attracted & entertained many audience.[2] [3] [4]) I'm not saying you are doing that, not at all. But you are opening the page to that, which will allow the POV warriors (again, you're certainly not one of them) from both sides to push their propaganda. We need to look at the broader picture, in detail. The fact of the matter is, Hindu-vegetarianism, in reality, is an empty argument in India, in the socio-political context. [5] - 70% of India is non-vegetarian, and majority of its Hindus (at least 60% of them) are apparently non-vegetarian, irrespective of what their religious texts say or do not say. Especially in the entire Southern and Eastern belt, you'll likely feel very lucky to find 2 vegetarians for every 10 Hindus you pick. (scroll down and see the image here) Frankly, there are probably more people who believe in ghosts & black magic, than those who follow vegetarianism in this whole region. Ahimsa (i.e., 'prevention of animal-violence' in this context) or vegetarianism is so weak an argument that even Hindu nationalists do not carry it as their political agenda for cow-protection.

The standard and the most popular argument, in its basic and brief form, is that Cow is like a mother to us, as it provides milk and so many things ("more than the earthly mother", in Gandhi's own words). Indian Hindus clearly & unarguably have a special love for cattle, particularly the cow, not only as per their religion, but also as per their way of life (as they put it). Why they have it, how it evolved since the past, and why it became a part of their socio-political conflict with Muslims, Christians & Dalits; especially the Muslims, in India — is all a pretty big & complex story. But all in all, apart from religion, there is a significant social and political dimension here, in the 'cattle/cow-slaughter issue' in India, which needs to be remembered.

Now cow/cattle-slaughter aside, and please think and suggest — what, in your opinion, should the Background section majorly cover, in an article that is on 'cow-protection violence'? Best, Tyler Durden (talk) 23:55, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

Emperor Babur responds to D. N. Jha's rant as follows:

[Babur] wrote: "Son, this nation Hindustan has different religions. Thank Allah for giving us this kingdom, we should remove all the differences from our heart and do justice to each community according to its customs. Avoid cow-slaughter to win over the hearts of the people in the matters of administration. Don't damage the places of worship and temples which fall in the boundaries of our rule. Evolve a method of ruling whereby all the people of the kingdom are happy with the king and the king is happy with the people. Islam can progress by noble deeds and not by terror...."

Enough said. As to why it became a socio-political conflict with Muslims etc. one reliable source says this:

Veneration for the cow increased in medieval times. Although "the stages by which the doctrine of the cow's sanctity spread throughout the Hindu community are not clearly discernible," it "comes conspicuously into view during the period of Muslim invasions, when Hindus were shocked by the constantly recurring examples of cow slaughter."[8] Early Muslim invaders killed cattle in the same iconoclastic spirit with which they smashed idols. This slaughter probably intensified Hindu veneration for the cow. The manner and extent of permitted slaughter became both a gauge of the status of Hindu and Muslim communities and a means of conciliating potential opposition. For example, Akbar prohibited cow slaughter as part of his effort to consolidate Hindu support, and he made violations of his order punishable with death.[9]

-- Kautilya3 (talk) 00:36, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

References

Tyler Durden: Our goal should be an encyclopedic article, not merely a topical WP:Soap-y essay on current events summarized out of newspapers/blogs, no matter how valid or pressing they be. WP:Recentism is not the way to create a robust article, not that you are suggesting that we do so, but I note that for other page watchers. The context and the scholarly WP:RS on ancient and medieval history is important to any encyclopedic article. Wikipedia is a resource for all sorts of readers, from around the world. Build it over the Longue Durée!, Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 00:53, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

@Tyler Durden "I just wandered there for a couple of days and left, as VR stopped developing it." Sorry! I got a bit busy. I've also been adding to Cow protection movement.VR _talk 04:29, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

@Ms Sarah Welch: I understand concerns about WP:Soap. Which is exactly why I reached out to several users because I believe the best way to make something NPOV is to bring various different viewpoints. Thanks for the four sources you provided for background! The first two of them are unfortunately in accessible by me currently. The other two (a pdf and a preview of a book on google) I will use. Feel free to add too.VR _talk 05:06, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

• PS: Apparently, a significant portion of the discussion here is about the content in Cattle slaughter in India. So, I'm copying those parts of discussion to that article's talk page. — Tyler Durden (talk) 12:06, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

History

In 1883, there were Hindu-Muslim riots in Punjab; in 1888-93, there were riots in the United Provinces; in 1893-95, rioting broke out in Bombay and Mahrashtra. Often, the rioting was fueled by class tensions, as Hindus and Muslims often differed in land ownership and occupation.[7] At least, 100 people were killed in the 1893 riot.[6]

@Vice regent: How is all of this relevant to 'cow-protection violence'? We need to be more specific here. Regards, Tyler Durden (talk) 19:38, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

Ok, I've improved the wording. Does the new wording make clear the link between cow protection violence and pre-existing class tensions? If not, let me know and I can find more sources and elaborate further.VR _talk 04:53, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

POV fork

I am afraid I am going to oppose this page as a WP:POV fork. Cow slaughter has been a contentious issue in India for a thousand years. Trying to cover the present vigilantism in isolation doesn't make sense. All aspects of the issue need to be covered jointly. The Cattle slaughter in India does that. That is where this content needs to go. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 00:12, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

Well, yes, this is an arguable point that needs to be debated. I will think over this, to take a position here. --- Tyler Durden (talk) 00:24, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

FWIW, I am also leaning towards Kautilya3's suggestion. It is best to have a well sourced section on this in the main article, because it provides the context necessary for NPOV. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 00:39, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

There are two main reasons why this article should exist. First, it is a legitimate topic on its own. Cow vigilantism isn't merely a "POV", it actually exists. There's actually many forks that can be created from Cattle slaughter in India: for example, Cattle slaughter legislation in India (which is itself a lengthy topic). Another fork actually already exists: Cow protection movement. Finally, if there was enough material we could also have an article titled Cow in Hinduism (currently a redirect to Cattle in religion and mythology). All these topics are legitimate and notable, as is Cow vigilantism in India. The vigilante violence has generated significant coverage in many reliable sources, so it is definitely notable. I fully appreciate concerns with WP:recentism and the fact that this article relies more on newspapers than journal articles. But given the recent nature of topic, that is to be expected.

Secondly, according to WP:TOOBIG, Cattle slaughter in India is at 100kb, making it "almost certain" that it should be forked off. This article is already at 15-20kb and I think it still has quite some room for expansion.

Additionally, WP:POV fork has extremely negative connotations attached to that term (emphasis added):

POV forks generally arise when contributors disagree about the content of an article or other page. Instead of resolving that disagreement by consensus, another version of the article (or another article on the same subject) is created to be developed according to a particular point of view...

...Since what qualifies as a "POV fork" can itself be based on a POV judgement, it may be best not to refer to the fork as "POV" except in extreme cases of persistent disruptive editing...

I have not engaged in any form of disruptive editing on this matter. Nor have I tried to dodge consensus. Far from it, I've actually gone out of my way to get opinion from others. Unless I'm missing something, WP:POV fork definitely doesn't apply here.VR _talk 04:25, 14 June 2017 (UTC)