Talk:Presidencies and provinces of British India/Archive 4

This is an archive of past discussions about Presidencies and provinces of British India. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

Agencies

I have asked the question in several other articles about the nature of the "Agency" (e.g. the Gilgit agency) under British rule. No one has really adressed the topic adequately, so I would add the suggestion to this article to deal with this topic.Vontrotta (talk) 10:44, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Proposal

We would like to move this page to British India, and to then expand it and shoot for a featured list. See discussion on Talk:British India#Final proposal. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 03:21, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

See previous discussion /Archive 3#Final proposal --PBS (talk)

In line with the previous discussion I have moved the content of the page British India to British India/Article during the second half of 2008 and Provinces of India to British India. I did this because the history of the article Provinces of India went back much further. History is important for copyright reasons. I will leave it to others to merge any relevant text from British India/Article during the second half of 2008 into this article. --PBS (talk) 23:16, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Was Ethopia ever a part of British Indian rule?

See previous discussion /Archive 3#Was Ethopia ever a part of British Indian rule?

Extent of British India at various times

I should like to suggest that it would be a good idea to have a specific section of the article called something like Extent and population, with the aim of summarizing the growth of British India in size and population over the centuries.
In the mean time, the information in the article seems to have changed. What was here before had online citations to detailed figures, which I believe I transferred myself from the Talk page. The lead now says "British India constituted a significant portion of India both in area and population; in 1910, for example, it covered approximately 54% of the area and included over 77% of the population." I am doubtful about the 54% figure, and the citation for it is to pp. 59-61 of volume 4 of the Imperial Gazetteer, but after checking that source what I can find there is "Information with respect to the area, population... regarding the Native States will be found in the Appendix... The area outside British dominion is enormous (more than 824,000 square miles), but the population (68,000,000) is vastly inferior to that of British India." I do not think that supports "...in 1910, for example, it covered approximately 54% of the area and included over 77% of the population". (By the way, it is not quite clear to me what comparison is intended in "of the area" and "of the population", which perhaps mean the area and population of the whole of India, either including or excluding Burma?)
I should prefer it if the previous information and citations could be reinstated, or else other citations to figures provided. Part of what we had before was "In 1925, the Literary Digest's 1925 Atlas of the World and Gazetteer reported under 'India': "The term British India includes the districts subject to British law, the area of which is 1,093,074 square miles. The Indian States or Agencies having political relations with the Indian Government have an area of 709,555 square miles, thus making the total area of India and Dependencies 1,802,629 square miles."^[1] Strawless ^(talk) 17:47, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

^ 1925 World Atlas and Gazetteer published by Funk & Wagnalls, online at scribd.com, accessed 4 September 2008

What is

{\dfrac {1800000-824000}{18000000}}\times 100

? Fowler&fowler «Talk» 22:55, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much, Fowler&fowler. I am sure you intended only five zeros at the bottom of that fraction, so the sum comes to 54%. I believe the total of 1,800,000 square miles includes Burma? I think perhaps it would be helpful for us to say so at that point, by explaining in a footnote how the 54% figure is arrived at. Strawless ^(talk) 01:44, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I made my correction long before you made your post here. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 02:03, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

That is quite odd, the edit linked above is to the talk page attached to the archive, which I wasn't aware of, and not to this Talk page, but in any event it's a very trivial point which I think it was discourteous of me to mention, so apologies. Strawless ^(talk) 02:10, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Strawless that this would be a worthwhile section on the page. Xn4 (talk) 01:12, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, Nichalp mentioned that last month (see talk archives) and we discussed showing the changes graphically in gif images. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 12:27, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Questions about the lead

The lead begins at the moment "British India is the term used to describe the territory on the Indian subcontinent that was under the tenancy or the sovereignty of either the English East India Company or the British Crown...". I do not think it is intended that tenancy should link through to Leasehold estate? I would suggest that this passage needs rewriting to something like "...in the possession of the English East India Company or, after 1858, under the sovereignty of the British Crown..." Would that be better?

With regard to a later statement, "It also included the Colony of Aden in the Persian Gulf...", Aden is not in the Persian Gulf, so I would suggest deleting "in the Persian Gulf".

To say near the beginning "...on the Indian subcontinent..." doesn't seem quite right, and, as just noted, the article goes on to mention Aden. Would it be better to say "...on the Indian subcontinent and the Arabian Peninsula..."

To say "...India was thereafter directly ruled by the British Crown as a colony of the United Kingdom, and officially known after 1876 as the Empire of India" seems to me to be not quite right, at least on the first point. Some time ago, at Talk:British Raj, we agreed that India had not been a "colony" and as a result took the word 'colony' out of the British Raj infobox ; on what is said about "Empire of India", clearly, there was an Empire of India after 1876, but I am wondering in what sense that term was the "official" name of India? I have looked through the pages of the Imperial Gazetteer cited (vol. II 1908, pp. 514-530) and I can't find either of those statements there, but perhaps my eye has missed something, it is a very long passage which is cited.

Strawless ^(talk) 19:34, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

NOTE, with regard to the citation "vol. II 1908, pp. 514-530", I have just checked the title page of Volume II of the Imperial Gazetteer, and its date is 1909. Strawless ^(talk) 20:01, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Would you like me to post a scan of the title page of the 1908 edition? Please see this. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 22:58, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

(Replies to user:Strawless's other questions)

Tenancy: Well actually the link to "leasehold estate" is intended, but "tenancy" might not be the best word. What we want to say is, "the territory that was either leased by X or Y or over which X or Y had sovereignty." EIC in its early years did not have sovereignty in areas of its factory towns, indeed even its Presidency Towns. So, please think about a better way to express this idea.
100% correct about Persian Gulf. This is not the first time I've made that mistake. I guess it would be more accurate to say, "Aden on the Gulf of Aden," however, since sounds like a tautology, "Arabian Peninsula" (which is less precise) is better.
If you wanted to be completely technical, then, yes, you'd have to say "British India referred to the territory on the Indian subcontinent, the Arabian Peninsula (from 18** to 19**), parts of current-day South Asia (including Burma from 18** to 19**, Ceylon from 17** to 18**, ...), parts of current-day southeast-Asia (including Malaysia from **** to ****, Singapore from **** to ****), British Somaliland from **** to **** and the island of St. Helena in the Atlantic Ocean from **** to ****, but that would be sort of like including Guam, Hawaii, Alaska, US Virgin Islands, Philippines (after the Spanish American War) in every description of the US.
Well, "colony" is a vague term and a charged term as well. So, its probably best to leave it out. Please suggest something. India was simply called India. The "Empire of India" was informally used not only before Disraeli's enacting his cynical appellation for his queen (which, as I've said before, Gladstone and the liberals were firmly against), but also before the onset of the Raj itself (i.e. in the Company years). In some sense, the only read distinction between pre-1857 India and the immediate post-1857 one was that the Princely States felt more secure in the latter. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 21:27, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I think the best thing may be just to leave out 'colony', as it's a word which I think we agreed didn't properly apply to India? Another word which may be helpful is 'possession', but of course the picture in India is a complex one. Strawless ^(talk) 20:57, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

British India

I am a little confused by the technical side of PBS's move of Provinces of India to British India. No deletion of the useful article at British India is agreed (and, indeed, the merger seems to be sudden and without a regular merger process). As I have no objection to a genuine merger, I am not greatly troubled, but where now is the text which was at British India, and its page history, please? I see that the Talk page which is now here appears to be the Talk page (and its archives) of British India, and not Provinces of India. Was there a talk page of Provinces of India]], and can that still be found somewhere? Strawless ^(talk) 00:48, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

See above Talk:British India#Proposal and also British India/Article during the second half of 2008 --PBS (talk) 00:50, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

This is the version of Talk:Provinces of India that I moved here, (as can be seen there was not a lot of talk on it). I then copied some of the more recent text from the previous Talk:British India which is now at /Archive 3. Hope that makes it clear but if not comment here and I will reply here. --PBS (talk) 00:55, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much for your answer, PBS. Now that the main text of the pre-existing article which is under discussion is merged in, with the Further Reading section which we have built up for the British India title, I believe this is a successful outcome. Strawless ^(talk) 01:34, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

If ...

see Talk:British India/Archive 3#Final proposal

I would like to propose that if this page begins to be edited in the future, as it has been in its past, for demographics, administration, public works, culture and other topics belonging to British Raj, Company rule in India or British Empire in India, then we consider this move to have been a failure and go back to option 2:

redirecting British India to Provinces of British India and locking down the redirect (unless changed by consensus).

As I have said before, and I believe RegentsPark has said so too, I am going along with this move, but I remain less than sanguine about its prospects. Regards, Fowler&fowler «Talk» 02:29, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I do not think we could all agree that "demographics, administration, public works, culture and other topics belong... to British Raj, Company rule in India or British Empire in India" – at least, nothing in that is self-evident, and I thought British Empire in India was intended to be little more than a disambiguation page. Clearly, there are some topics and matters which belong at British Raj, and some which belong at British India, and we can always discuss where the boundaries lie in a sensible way. There is no more need for British Raj to seek to swallow up British India than there is for British India to threaten British Raj, and I have never seen any need for them to conflict with each other at all. Strawless ^(talk) 02:48, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Would you like to go for a Wikipedia mediation about what the content of British India should be? Fowler&fowler «Talk» 08:16, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

What's going on

I'm confused over the moves and edits going on. Could someone explain why this was done in such a hurry? Secondly, what is the new scope of this article? It looks all messed up so I downgraded the assessment ratings. =Nichalp «Talk»= 05:23, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Hello, Nichalp, I also thought the page move from Provinces of India was done in a hurry, but please see Talk:British India/Article during the second half of 2008/Archive 3 to understand how PBS decided to do it. Also, here, on 8 December, Fowler&fowler added a {{merge}} proposal to Provinces of India and it seems there was no comment on that, though I should have preferred one to be added here, too.

Logically, the scope of this article must be that of British India plus that of Provinces of India, although for practical purposes they seem to me to come to the same thing, so in my view the scope has not changed. I am sorry if you feel it looks all messed up, but PBS left this page with only the content of the former Provinces of India article (see here), saying on the Talk page "I will leave it to others to merge any relevant text from British India/Article during the second half of 2008 into this article", so I merged the two as best I could by copying and pasting in the text (just as it stood). Oddly, I see PBS has now blanked that 'Article during the second half of 2008' page before protecting it, which I do not completely understand, but no doubt there is some reason and you can still see the final version of the former British India page here. Please compare with the current article. Strawless ^(talk) 06:32, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I know, I saw the move to British India/Article during the second half of 2008... It should not be in the mainspace. The merge is not as simple as a history merge, it would be more appropriate to merge the histories of the two pages for proper GFDL attribution as recommended by PBS. The actual scope of the article is becoming more blurred, one would expect that "provinces of British India" to be a list of some sorts. I'm not entirely convinced that we should be introducing list content into this article. =Nichalp «Talk»= 06:41, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi Nichalp, I don't know anything about the GFDL part, but I don't think the page move was made in a hurry. We've only been debating this for five months. As I've said before, the scope of British India can't be anything more than the Provinces of British India. The question is merely one of what to call the page with this content: "British India" or "Provinces of British India." That is the historiographical tradition, the tradition in secondary and tertiary sources, and the tradition in newspapers, as I've already pointed out in the examples I gave in August. I understand the "popular usage," but we are not free to expand the meaning. Alternatively, the only way in which the previous "British India" page can be expanded is by a list of the type in the Provinces of British India. There is no other content that it can have. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 08:32, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

If the title would be redirected to "Provinces of British India", then what is "British India". That would be a cyclic logical fallacy. About GFDL, we simply can't copy-paste text from one article to another without attribution since many people have worked on the article(s) before, and their contributions (therefore attribution) would be lost on another page. Hence, the need to merge the histories of the page. =Nichalp «Talk»= 09:31, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) Can the merging of the histories not be done now? I'm sure Philip can do this (if it can be done).

Yes it could be done, but it would make the history of the article impossible to follow, because for half a year the two pages have been actively edited so one would be jumping between the content of both pages mixed up like a slice of marble cake --PBS (talk) 21:35, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes there is a fallacy, and thanks for noticing it. The problem resulted from the confusion between the page, Provinces of India and "Provinces of British India," which had been redirected to "Provinces of India" I will write a little history below to chart out what has happened.

Regardless of whether Provinces of India is redirected to to British India or its reverse, I think the lead should say something along the lines of: "Provinces of India, collectively British India, were administrative units of the British Empire in India. Together, they referred to the territory on the Indian subcontinent that was under the tenancy or the sovereignty of either the English East India Company or the British Crown between 1612 and 1947." (This would be similar to the page United States.) How does it sound? Fowler&fowler «Talk» 20:55, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I am afraid I just do not agree with that. While I begin to understand the deep anxiety about British India being British India, and not a list (so thus severely limited in scope), there were arguments advanced for and against the move of British India to Provinces of India, and vice versa, and the consensus was in favour of British India. I am afraid I also do not agree with what has been said about 'historiography'. British India is a valid historical topic, both before and since The History of British India. Strawless ^(talk) 22:34, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Strawless, Of course, we are aware of Mill's History. Books with that title were written mainly in the first half of the nineteenth century. "British India" was a widely used term then, because the three Presidencies and the Ceded and Conquered Provinces, i.e. British India, was what the British were in control of and could write about; once the Raj was instituted, and all of India came under the British umbrella, the titles became simply "History of India," unless the authors wanted to specifically refer to the Company years. During the last 50 years, such titles have almost always tended to be meta-histories, i.e. critical reflections on Mill's book (or others in the early imperial historiography of Company-ruled India). Fowler&fowler «Talk» 12:15, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

The Pre-History of British India – a Foundling (with apologies to Henry Fielding)

The "British India" page has been the domain of many disputes on Wikipedia since it was first created in 2004. (And, it is not certain which was created first, the page or Wikipedia.)
(Sociological Aside) I might add that, in my view, the parties to the dispute have generally consisted of
1. editors who are chagrined that the word "British" should be applied to India or the Raj, in the first place; these editors would prefer, "India during its colonial nightmare" or "India during its darkest hour" for the page name,
2. editors, who think "British India" is another name for India during its British colonial years. As an aside to the aside, these editors favor "British East India Company" over "English East India Company" in an allied dispute on Wikipedia.
3. editors, who, be it from nostalgia, pride, or a vestigial sense of ownership, the last only secretively acknowledged, would like the British contribution to India—by way of roads, canals, railways, telegraph, universities, and creative land-tax—to be stamped on any page name for 18th-19th-early-20th century India. (This group, however, paradoxically favors, "English East India Company" to "British East India Company" in the allied dispute.)
4. editors who examine the secondary and tertiary sources for usage (and also, newspapers, such as the New York Times, but discount lesser vetted evidence from the tabloids such as the Chicago Tribune, The Times, London or The Guardian).
Some proportion, permutation or combination of the above-mentioned sociology, had, for years, tried unsuccessfully to redirect British Raj to "British India."
In mid-August 2008, however, an editor, user:Xn4, appeared on the British Raj page and took the novel tack of
1. ignoring the dispute entirely,
2. declaring British Raj, the page, to be "British Raj," a term, and deeming the latter to be colloquial, and
3. editing "British India" as a standalone page involving content that he said would develop in time.
Consequently, in late August 2008, The RfC was held
In the RfC, user:Fowler&fowler made a statement with more details than a phonebook (and some details from the phonebook). Newton's Third Law now came into play. user:Xn4's subsequent response statement was more distilled than the best travelbooks by Baedeker, which, it soon turned out, user:Xn4 would have use for.
For, in a time-honored tradition established by other Wikipedians user:Fowler&fowler has disputed with in a mediation, user:Xn4 stopped posting to the RfC. Indeed he stopped editing Wikipedia altogether. When he was heard from again in late October, he traveling in France, with "no internet access," he said, using the widely used French short hand for "better things to do."
Soon, user:Strawless, who had not been entirely unsympathetic to user:Xn4, and who, had been firing a supportive salvo every now and then, also disappeared from the RfC discussion,
The RfC was abandoned in October, after user:Nichalp appeared on the page and provided his input.
After some back and forth, it was decided, in early November, to create a short page "British India," which
1. would serve as an introductory page for a new template "Colonial India,
2. wouldn't go into the nitty-gritty as the "Provinces of India" page did, and
3. could be stabilized by shooting for an FA.
Later that month, such a short page was created, which, incidentally, could also have served as the lead for the (then still separate) "Provinces of India" page.
However, at this point, outside expert, user:Casliber, who had been invited to evaluate the page's FA prospects, appeared on the page, and suggested that the page needed more heft by way of culture or legacy in order to be even considered for such prospects.
Since the term "British India," however, had a delimited usage in the scholarly sources, it was felt by user:Fowler&fowler, who claimed to have read them all, that the page could not include culture and legacy. It was proposed therefore that the page "British India" be redirected to "Provinces of India." It was also proposed that the latter page be developed as a candidate for a Featured List, in order to gain that still elusive stability. This proposal received the approval of the few people such as user:Nichalp and user:RegentsPark who were still keeping track of the post RfC discussion. And presumably also the approval of user:Fowler&fowler who had proposed it.
At this point user:Nichalp took a week's Wikileave. His return, however, was delayed by the tragic events in Mumbai.
During this time, user:Fowler&fowler's approval of his own proposal began to fade away. Furthermore, left to his devices, user:Fowler&fowler commenced creating ever finer distinctions in the proposal, and soon began to flip-flop.
One of these changes—a redirect "Provinces of India" to "Provinces of British India" and then redirect "Provinces of British India" to British India— was turned by user:Fowler&fowler into his Final Proposal; the others changes, which were discarded, consisted of the remaining five permutations of 3 objects taken two at a time.
The Final Proposal too was deemed reasonable by user:Nichalp. However user:RegentsPark thought that any page with title "British India" would bring out the kooks from their hideouts.
At this point user:Philip Baird Shearer, the benign administrative presence in the background, suggested that, another possibility would be to redirect "British India" to "Provinces of India" and lock-down the redirect. user:Fowler&fowler, latched on to this with alacrity; presumably this had user:RegentsPark's approval as well.
Then, user:Strawless, referred to above somewhere in the single digits—who had been given up for missing-in-action, but who in fact had been sharpening his quills to commemorate, on this page, the upcoming 41th anniversary of the Tet Offensive—now fired the first feathered fusillade.
This immediately created fear, among anyone with a long memory, of a return to stage 1, 2, 3, ... or, indeed, any single digit.
Somewhere in this discussion, user:Philip Baird Shearer, seeing that the lock-down redirect might be going nowhere, suggested a return to the "Final Proposal."
This too was accepted by user:Fowler&fowler, this time not only with alacrity, but also with dispatch.

The rest, as they say, is history. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 22:14, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

May I offer my friendly congratulations on all that, Fowler&fowler? You would not expect me to agree with every word, but the sense of humour is very welcome. Now, I am afraid, I need an early night, after the weary aftermath of last night's marathon. Strawless ^(talk) 22:46, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with the above. If we can avoid taking things too seriously, then it's a lot better. Xn4 (talk) 01:38, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 12:35, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

This is getting too complicated to follow. I am removing the article from my watchlist as I do not have any time to monitor this on a day to day basis. =Nichalp «Talk»= 06:27, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Sorry to hear that Nichalp. Thanks for helping out. Regards, Fowler&fowler «Talk» 12:35, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I echo what Fowler&fowler says, and I shall also miss your input, Nichalp. Thank you for your contributions, and I hope you will return to the page in the future. Strawless ^(talk) 21:01, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Lead again

On the last edit to the article's lead, which has the summary "changing dictionary style to encyclopedia style", I would absolutely support the change of "a term used to describe" to "was" (although the punctuation needs to follow), but there is another part of that edit, so that the lead now goes on to say near its beginning "British India... consequently was a shortened name for the Provinces of India or the Provinces of British India" and that adds a non sequitur which I do not agree with: there could be no 'Provinces of British India' unless there were a 'British India' for them to be provinces of, and 'British India' is not an abbreviation of 'Provinces of India'. My suggestion is to keep the 'was', but not the rest. May I ask, are there any objections to that? Strawless ^(talk) 05:10, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes that didn't sound right. I did it in a hurry. I've changed it now to the correct version. We already have a page "Provinces of British India" which is the more descriptive name, it has to be there in boldface up there with "British India." Historically, the Provinces came first, and then the collective name, "British India." Regards, Fowler&fowler «Talk» 08:51, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Part of Strawless's meaning is surely that we do not need "Provinces of India" or "Provinces of British India" in bold in the lead, and I agree. I see no harm in the page Provinces of India being merged into this one, but the main reason for that merger must be that a separate article is not needed at the moment. In the lead as it stands, "a collective name for the Provinces of India or the Provinces of British India" seems dismissive of the subject of the article and at the same time it adds no information. Xn4 (talk) 01:30, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid both Strawless and you have misunderstood what primarily needs to be boldfaced. It is not "British India," but rather "Provinces of India," of which the former was merely a collective term. I have now corrected this. Regards, Fowler&fowler «Talk» 11:32, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

But I do not agree with any of these recent edits to the lead to suggest that this article is really about Provinces of India. Rather, it is self-evidently about British India. Strawless ^(talk) 19:06, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I would suggest this: "British India was the part of India (and of the Arabian Peninsula) directly administered until 1858 by the East India Company and after that until 1947 by the British Government's India Office in London, under its Secretary of State for India. The Presidencies and Provinces of British India comprised territory in the possession of the East India Company or later under the sovereignty of the British Crown." Strawless ^(talk) 19:32, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) I am afraid there is nothing self-evident about it. "British India" has always been about the "Provinces of India" in the same way that the United States page has been about the United States of America, the former is a short-hand for the latter. The only reason why the short (3 paragraph) page was agreed to, during yours and Xn4's absence in October and early November, was that it was to serve both as an introductory page in the "Colonial India" template and a test case for a "short featured article." Once it became clear after Casliber's input that the FA label was unlikely, British India went back to being a collective term of "Provinces of India."

I have offered before and I am offering again to go for a formal mediation with anyone on Wikipedia who thinks that there is any significant content to "British India" beyond what is there in the "Provinces of India." Wikipedia is not a democracy; it is a tertiary source and, consequently, is bound both by the convention in tertiary sources and by the evidence in secondary sources.

This is as far as I go. If you want to debate this further, please agree to a formal mediation. Regards, Fowler&fowler «Talk» 20:02, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

On the mediation point, I really do not think we have the kind of confrontation here which calls for a mediation. We are discussing improving a piece of text in the article: isn't this just a small local issue which we can discuss and resolve here? And on the question of whether the British India page is really about 'Provinces of India', what I meant above by "self-evidently" is only that the page isn't called 'Provinces of India'. For instance, there are thousands of links to the page which are looking for 'British India' and not for 'Provinces of India'. But perhaps I should not have said "self-evidently", and I can withdraw that term, if you wish. In any event, I have quite cautiously suggested a new text for the opening of the lead and will be interested to see any comments on it. Strawless ^(talk) 20:26, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I have moved this section to the bottom of the page as it seems to be the active one. Please see Wikipedia:Manual of Style#First sentence format "If the subject of the page has a common abbreviation or more than one name, the abbreviation (in parentheses) and each additional name should be in boldface on its first appearance". It seems to me that there is no reason why both terms should not be in bold, particularly as the article could be under either name. I am baffled by today's argument as I understood it it had been agree back in September that British India meant a geographical area. For example on 7 September "The term 'British India' has a well-established meaning and relates only to the parts of India under British administration and subject to British law" (Xn4,[1]), and on 12 September "Here is a further thought, British India is clearly a geographical area, which it now seems we can define, while British Raj isn't, however useful it is as an expression." (Strawless [2]) --PBS (talk) 22:45, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Strawless's suggestion, which seems to me pretty fair. But let's ask, does the expression 'Provinces of British India' (or 'Provinces of India') appear anywhere except in lists of the Provinces or chapters of books dealing with their functions and so on? Following PBS's point, if 'Provinces of [British] India' were an alternative name for British India and that could be shown, I should see no harm in putting it into bold in the intro Strawless has suggested. I find myself doubting that it could be called an alternative name. 'British India' is defined in various Acts (of the British parliament and the Governor-General-in-Council), in histories, encyclopedias, etc., and I don't remember seeing in any such places any term which includes 'Provinces' used or defined at the same time. But perhaps I'm overlooking something? Xn4 (talk) 03:35, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

I take your point, PBS, and looking at what you have quoted I should say the same again, but I have not suggested that British India was only a geographical area, nor would I say that each or any of the provinces was no more than land. British India was a territory (a country, even) which had its own Governor-General, government, military forces, system of laws and of courts, subdivisions (in the form of provinces), currency, postal service, and so forth. The provinces could be called one aspect of it, but they do not seem to me to be such an important aspect that the lead should treat them as the name of the article, nor even as an alternative name of the article. I should say it is at best unhelpful to use the lead to half-change the title of the page, at worst a mechanism for limiting its scope. We could no doubt change my suggested opening paragraph to read as follows, but would it achieve anything worthwhile? Strawless ^(talk) 22:50, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

"British India was the part of India (and of the Arabian Peninsula) directly administered until 1858 by the East India Company and after that until 1947 by the British Government's India Office in London, under its Secretary of State for India. The Presidencies and Provinces of British India comprised territory in the possession of the East India Company or later under the sovereignty of the British Crown."

I don't think so. I still support that text, but without the second bolding. Xn4 (talk) 06:43, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

As there are no more comments, I'll make the revision as proposed by Strawless. Xn4 (talk) 05:30, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) British India on the Arabian Peninsula? In an encyclopedia? Don't you think it is getting to be a little ludicrous? As I've said before: let's have a formal mediation; otherwise, frankly I don't have time for these repetitive arguments. Sorry to be blunt, but nothing that either Xn4 or Strawless have produced in either talk page discussions of in the actual edits thus far rises to the level of a first undergraduate course in colonial India at any university that I'm aware of. I don't see why I should be endlessly engaging these editors. Regards, Fowler&fowler «Talk» 06:04, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

You think that the Aden Settlement was administered from BI but not part of it? I'm happy to leave that out, pending discussion. Xn4 (talk) 06:12, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Lead Sentence

It was Provinces of India that was moved to British India not vice-versa. The former page has had a lead sentence with Provinces of India in boldface since its creation in 2005. You can't suddenly change it, worse yet remove it, without establishing consensus for it afresh. So far, I have seen scanty evidence of that vaunted consensus. I would urge you, both Xn4 and Strawless, to respect the previous style of editing in this page that was established during your long absence from it. More disruption will only lead to a quicker return to "option 2," the redirecting of British India to Provinces of India. Off the top of my head, I can count a good many previous discussants, such as RegentsPark, Vontrotta, BlueKnight, Nishkid54, who would not be unsympathetic to that option, not to mention editors such as user:Ravichandar84, who have engaged in discussion about the Provinces of India page and who have splendidly edited the actual provinces, such as Madras Presidency, during your long absence. Regards, Fowler&fowler «Talk» 11:55, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

I see that there is a misunderstanding here. This page is not 'Provinces of India', it is a merged page of 'British India' and 'Provinces of India', with the title 'British India', because that is what the consensus of those discussing a merger supported. On the move of 'Provinces of India' to this title, PBS said he did it that way for the technical reason that 'Provinces of India' had more history which he wished to keep for copyright reasons. However, the Provinces of British India are clearly a topic which is subsidiary to the topic of British India. Xn4 (talk) 05:21, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

OK, have it your way. You want to play hard ball, you got it. I'm going to be requesting a move to Provinces of India. Regards, Fowler&fowler «Talk» 05:25, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand your comment about "hard ball". The above comment seems to me to be just rational and polite discussion of the point at issue. I can add, I don't know what the view of the users you have listed would be now, as some matters have moved on. There have also been several other users who have been very supportive of an article on British India, but I also do not know what their views would be on such a renaming proposal. I, of course, do not agree with it, as explained before. Xn4 (talk) 05:31, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Xn4 you seem to have changed you tune since the RfC debate where you argued that British India was a geographical description of the areas of India directly ruled by the British. You seem to be suggesting now that the British Raj article should be merged into this one, yet that has been repeatedly rejected as a move and for which there has been no consensus on this talk page since you first changed the redirect into a stubby article. So to clarify you position please explain what you current thoughts are on the correct division of content between the British Raj article and the British India article. --PBS (talk) 09:26, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

I am afraid I do not understand why PBS should say this at all. I see nothing new from Xn4 which suggests that "the British Raj article should be merged into this one", which is the contrary of his or her position to date and is not even hinted at above, but I look forward to Xn4's reply. Strawless ^(talk) 00:21, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, I haven't suggested that the British Raj article should be merged into this one. On that issue, my view remains exactly as I've stated it several times before. And I've only "argued that British India was a geographical description" in the sense that that provides one of the differences between 'British India' and 'British Raj'. I agree with the summary Strawless came up with during my absence which also emphasizes other differences, such as the relevant time periods being different.

In comparisons which can be made (and have been made) with other encyclopedias, we need to bear in mind that one of the many differences between Wikipedia and (say) Encyclopaedia Britannica is that Wikipedia's format doesn't lend itself to continuous articles which might run to ten or fifteen thousand words, or even more. Here, we need to structure any complicated subject (such as the history of India) over a network of inter-related pages, using (as mentioned before) the principle of subsidiarity.

Returning to the subject of the lead of this article, I see that it has again been edited to a version which feigns that the article is called 'Provinces of India', which it isn't. I still agree with Strawless's draft for the opening paragraph (minus, for now, any mention of the Arabian peninsula). I can't help wondering why we discuss changes here if one editor believes his/her view is pre-eminent and over-rides the discussion. Wikipedia is a collaborative project. Those who wish to have absolute control of a text should surely concentrate on publishing their own individual work under their own names. Xn4 (talk) 19:46, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

I still have the same view and would hope we can agree an improvement. Strawless ^(talk) 21:00, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I also still agree. So far as I'm concerned, it should be updated. It needs to cover the changes over the centuries better - in particular, in the beginning British India didn't consist of provinces. Xn4 (talk) 10:27, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

While we argue ... what are the kids reading?

Xn4 and Strawless, I have suggested to you before that "British India" is a historical term. It was used mostly before 1858 to describe the regions of India under British control. Once Crown rule began, the term's general use began to diminish; after Victoria, in 1877, became so-called Empress, the term's use began to drop precipitously. In fact, in the first half of the 20th century there were almost no new books printed that had titles "History of British India." The few instances there were were histories of the Company years. Especially from 1877 onwards, the British began to think in terms of all of India. Consequently, you won't find books with titles such as, "Geography of British India," "Culture of British India," "Art of British India," "Architecture of British India," "Literature of British India," published during the years 1877 to 1947 (although you will find many such titles without "British" in them). The only books you will find during this period using "British India" in their titles, are books about the British Raj, about law, about military, about business practice. (Flora and fauna is the only exception, but that has to do with a series put out after the BNHS's mammal survey of the sub-continent with that title.)

Today, the term is sometimes used casually as a form of disambiguation. If, for example, you are trying to distinguish post-1947 New Delhi from the pre-1947 one, you might say the latter was the capital of British India. It is also used as a term of meta-history, especially in critical perspectives on earlier histories, for example in the subtitle of Javed Majid's Ungoverned Imaginings. There is, of course, still some unreconstructed nostalgia for the Raj, and for that market, popular historians will, every now and then, turn out a bedtime history with that title. The world of scholarship, however, is very clear on this. "British India" is not the general term they use to describe Colonial India.

What you are doing is, however, more problematic than mere misuse of terms. You are both using old outdated histories as primary sources in order to provide meanings for early 21st-century usage, in other words, blatant WP:OR (in Wikispeak). This is an absolute no-no.

Here are two chapters from the social studies text (put out by India's National Council of Educational Research and Training) that millions of eighth graders (13 year olds) in India study from:

How, when, and where talks about periodization and about Mill's History as an example of Imperial periodization of Indian history.
From Trade to Territory: the Company Establishes Power

Here are two, more sophisticated, chapters from the high-school (17 year olds) history text:

Where are they studying about "British India?" What do you think these kids are going to say when, after finishing their courses, they happen upon the "British India" page on Wikipedia? Fowler&fowler «Talk» 20:46, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

I certainly agree that "British India" is a historical term. British India came to an end in 1947. I am sure we can agree that we are discussing history and not current affairs. All of the above reflections by Fowler&fowler appear to have some elements of truth, but they all are overstated and all seem to apply just as much (or even more) to hundreds of other regions, countries, nations, etc, which no longer exist but on which Wikipedia has and needs articles. As a generally non-geographical term, "British Raj" also suffers from such confusion.

I agree that 'British India' is used both correctly (as defined, for instance, in standard reference works) and incorrectly to mean almost the whole of India; but almost any historical or geographical term one can think of is used in a variety of ways, and all such matters can be covered in a mature piece of writing without great difficulty.

Testing the rhetoric, I have looked at the How, when, and where pdf file linked above, but I can find only one use in it of 'British India', and that is consistent with the meaning mostly relied on in the present Wikipedia article – and also, of course, with that set out in the short British Empire in India page, of which Fowler&fowler is the principal author.

"after Victoria, in 1877, became so-called Empres"... I do not begin to understand the term "so-called", which to me suggests a lack of objectivity.

May I add, I find it sad that any user here should constantly make personal comments directed at me and others, some of them suggesting that I am an idiot, others that I am not grown up or that I am intellectually on a level with a first year undergraduate. As it happens, I am fairly elderly. I should very much like to be as young again as many of the contributors here, but I am rather glad that I have no wish to respond in kind to such sneers. In my experience, all academics who produce valuable work learn by their early twenties (and usually before) that the ad hominem approach to disputation harms them. For me, that moment came a very long time ago. Strawless ^(talk) 01:11, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

The point I was trying to make with the text-book chapters was that "British India" is mainly a term, which may even be used widely; however, that doesn't make it worthy of being an encyclopedia page. In the text-book chapters, they use the term here and there, but where did you find any extended (even half a paragraph long, even one sentence long) discussion of British India? It was conspicuously absent in the Colonial Cities chapter where you might most expect it to be. Terms, typically, go into Wiktionary (which allows proper nouns), not Wikipedia. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 10:25, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

BTW, "so-called Empress" was used to indicate that nothing substantial changed politically with this new appellation. As is well known, the award of the title was a cynical move on the part of Disraeli; Gladstone and the Liberals were firmly against any such title. Once the title was granted, however, it was difficult to take it away. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 14:35, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

I have stayed away for a few weeks because (sadly) I find this page stressful, although I am also very interested in it. That may be a sign of the nearness of old age, when we get to like comfortable things best.

On 'Empress of India', I agree that "nothing substantial changed politically with this new appellation", but I do not think there was anything notional about the title of Empress, and later Emperor; it was real and had real effects. We can perhaps leave it there.

There is a philosophical argument to be had about whether a name is a real thing or a "term", but everything which merits an encyclopedia article needs a name, or we should not know what to call it or where to look for it, and the difference between a name and a term is rather academic. British India is a term used as the name of a country of the past and means something which once was very real. Pythagoreanism is a term used to describe a set of beliefs and is the name of that set of beliefs. British Raj is a complex term, used in a greater variety of ways than British India. All are worthy of articles, and I suppose the number of links to each of them gives a very rough idea of how many contributors feel we should be interested in finding out what they are or were. Strawless ^(talk) 20:13, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Lead

Looking at the two versions of the lead, I think neither works well with the article. My inclination would be to lead off with a definition of the term 'British India' (as in UZK's version) but keep the definition crisp (as in f&fs version). Something like "British India refers to the parts of the Indian subcontinent that, between 1612 and 1947, were under the tenancy and sovereignty of Britain, either indirectly through the English East India Company or directly under the British Crown. These areas were variously referred to as the Provinces of India, the Presidencies of India, and Presidency towns." (Then the stuff about 'British nation in India' which is a bit unclear (to me)). --Regent's Park (Rose Garden) 22:33, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, the problem for me is that "British India" was really a term—a collective term for other entities—and remains one. Until the Charter Act of 1833, it was a collective term for the presidencies, and, more generally, for British dominions in India. The period 1773 to 1833 was the peak period of its usage in the latter general sense. After 1835, it became a collective term for the presidencies and provinces, as North-Western Provinces (current-day UP) was created in 1835 and as Punjab was annexed in 1847. Since the Company had become an administrative entity in 1833, and the system of subsidiary alliances was well in place, the British began to think increasingly in terms of "India," and not just "British India," and this became especially widespread after the annexation of Punjab. In this sense, the change (after the Indian rebellion of 1857) in 1858 was minor. Retrospectively, in the early 19th century, the term "British India" may have been used for the Presidency towns of the early and mid- eighteenth century, but there seems to be little evidence that this was a term of contemporaneous usage.

The page Provinces of India was an important page, which provided real information; the page Presidencies of India is a useful page too, as is the stub Presidency towns; however, there is nothing more to "British India" than its use as a collective term (often informal), at different times, for these three entities. I agreed to British India being an independent page only on the condition that the page would be about the Provinces (or the presidencies) and, in fact, we moved the Provinces page to the British India page. Before that, with Nichalp's suggestions, we were trying to create what was effectively a soft (i.e. an expanded) disambiguation page for British India. What user:UZK had done, until I reverted his edits, was what we were fearing in the first place: he had cut and paste (he may have paraphrased slightly) sections from Company rule in India and British Raj to the British India page. In other words, in trying to make British India more readable and less listy, he unwitting created a content fork. (He, of course, likely didn't know the history of the page.)

In light of what has happened since August 2008, I now don't see any value in British India being an independent page. I would like to suggest that we reconsider our other previously considered options: either change the name of the page back to Provinces of India and make "British India" a hard redirect (i.e. locked down) to Provinces of India or change (and lock down) "British India" back to being a disambiguation page that it briefly was. I have a feeling that many people, even the ones who feel they know South Asian history, are not aware of the precise meanings of the term British India, and conflate it with "South Asia under British rule." Fowler&fowler «Talk» 10:13, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't look like the extended dab page approach will work without protection. Anyway, I've asked UZK to weigh in as well. --Regent's Park (Rose Garden) 14:44, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

I didn't wish to upset anyone. I don't believe the introduction is a very great issue, although it surely must focus on telling visitors what British India was. For me, the suggestions by Regent's Park seem very sensible. By the way, this is the first time I have seen nearly all of my additions to an article undone and I don't understand the position that the article should only be about geography. For instance, there must be thousands of sources for non-geographical information. I only have limited time for Wikipedia at the moment, but when I have more time I'd like to make some contributions here. Umar Zulfikar Khan (talk) 10:00, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

I'd just like to correct the misunderstanding above which states that I "cut and paste" anything to the page from Company rule in India or British Raj, as stated above. After a discussion with Fowler&fowler and Rockybiggs at Talk:History of the British Raj I moved some material from History of the British Raj to here, with some rewriting. We had agreed that this pre-1858 material did not belong at History of the British Raj and my actions are noted in the edit summaries. From the history of the History of the British Raj page, it seems that what was there to be moved had been added by Fowler&fowler. If it had already been "cut and pasted" from somewhere else, please don't blame me.

No, this page, British India is an important general article and I fail to see a proper reason for eliminating it. The distinctness of British India from the rest of India is an important historical fact, and if someone doesn't know what British India was they need to be able to click on the name and find out, without being confused by being redirected to some other title. I would suggest that we need historical outlines here with links to other more detailed Wikipedia pages. That seems the best way to make related pages serve each other and provide the information which users need to be able to find. Umar Zulfikar Khan (talk) 11:33, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

The Wikipedia page for "British Empire in India, 1757 to 1857" is Company rule in India, for "India under British rule, 1858 to 1947" is British Raj, for "British Empire in India, 1600 to 1756" is East India Company. I didn't make those pages or those conventions; they go back to 2004. Until user:Xn4 removed the redirect, British India had been redirected to British Raj. (Again, British Raj is not just about the rule, but it is identical to India under British rule, 1858 to 1947, with emphasis on the British administered areas, ie. British India). There is nothing that can be added to the British India page that isn't already in (or shouldn't be in) the British Raj page. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 11:42, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh, but this is becoming irrational. British Raj and British India are not the same thing at all. I remember that you have correctly said so yourself on the Talk:British Raj page. Umar Zulfikar Khan (talk) 11:53, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Again "British India" is a term of convenience for other entities. I submit that of the two broad content groupings: geography and other topics, the first is covered in the Provinces of India, Presidencies of India, or Presidency towns, which already have their own pages, and the "other topics" are covered (or should be covered) in either "British Raj" or "Company rule in India." For example, Law in British India is identical to Law in the British Raj (since the British page is not about law in the princely states, which in most cases didn't have a well-defined legal system). Same with the economy, famines, etc. These conventions, btw, are not just Wikipedia conventions, but those of modern historiography. There is just one book published on its history by the better-known academic publishing house (and even that is by an outdated popular historian)? Contrast that with the 31 books titled History of India, quite a few of which are about the British years. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 12:19, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

This just is not well founded. There is no "Law in the British Raj". The Governor General in Council had powers to legislate for British India but not for the princely states, which I understand you consider to be part of an area which some people now call the "British Raj". Of course the states "didn't have a well-defined legal system", they didn't have one system, they had their own laws and their own courts. Umar Zulfikar Khan (talk) 12:33, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) If you want a formula: British Raj (geography) = Provinces of India + Princely States; British Raj (other topics) = "post-1858 British India" (other topics) + subsidiary alliance. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 12:26, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

PS Similarly, Company rule in India (geography) = Presidencies of India; Company rule in India (other topics) = 1757–1857 British India (other topics) + Subsidiary alliance. What can any one put in the page "British India" that is not already covered in those two other pages? Fowler&fowler «Talk» 12:32, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

PPS Of the two pages, Company rule in India and British Raj the former is more complete (although neither is finished yet). Take a look at Company rule in India and tell me honestly: what can you add to the topic "British India (1757 to 1857)" that is not there in that page? Fowler&fowler «Talk» 12:37, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

I and my dictionary don't favour the use of "British Raj" to mean India itself. Apart from that I don't see a problem with these formulas, but for reasons I've already offered I suggest we need a British India page, and I see that many others here agree with me. My opinion is that the most essential articles for the British presence in India are East India Company, British India, and Princely States, plus one for the whole of India from 1858 to 1947. At the moment this is called British Raj, and as I said at Talk:British Raj I prefer India (1858-1947), but it seems that idea hasn't found favour.

Yes, Company rule in India is a very good article, and congratulations on your contributions, but if British India were redirected there it would be misleading.

Thank you for the discussion, an enjoyable one, but I have to go now. Umar Zulfikar Khan (talk) 12:56, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

I think that the main reason for not favoring India (1858-1947) is the preference for common names on wikipedia and British Raj is the common name. Also, the consensus was that we do need a page for British India page that is not just a redirect and that's why the extended dab page, with definitions and summary information, was created. We felt that a detailed British India page wouldn't work because the term refers to fairly disparate entities (company rule, the raj, India during the British period, etc.) that are well covered in other articles (and wouldn't work as a single article anyway).--Regent's Park (Rose Garden) 16:08, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

I concur with what RP has just written. Let me add a "stocktaking" section below. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 18:50, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

I also agree with what Regent's Park has proposed as a new lead, and this seems now to have good support. On Fowler&fowler's latest renewed argument against the need for the page, I have little to add to all of our previous debates on the matter but will comment briefly below. Strawless ^(talk) 23:39, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Regent's Park's suggestion for the lead looks reasonable to me. Xn4 (talk) 02:51, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

As there is such good support for the text of the lead provided by Regent's Park, I have edited the article accordingly. I must point out that I have made a small change, as "variously referred to as the Provinces of India, the Presidencies of India, and Presidency towns" seemed on more thought to suggest that those three terms were interchangeable, but of course they are not, so I have said "also referred to as the Provinces of India, which included the Presidencies of British India and Presidency towns." If anyone minds this change, may I suggest we can discuss it here? Strawless ^(talk) 20:57, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

On the question of recent scholarship, there is George Anderson & Manilal Bhagwandes Sudebar's very recent The Expansion of British India (1818-1858)‎ (BiblioBazaar LLC, 2008, ISBN 0554482193 & 9780554482194, 212 pp.) Strawless ^(talk) 23:23, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Stocktaking after two months

This is really a more leisurely explication of some of the issues discussed above. I am certainly not suggesting that British India be redirected to Company rule in India, only that everything that might be reasonably covered in an article on "British India" for the years 1757 to 1857 is already covered in the latter article. Similarly, when the article British Raj is complete, (and it doesn't matter whether you call it British Raj, or Crown rule in India (my original choice), or India (1858–1947)), there is very little that anyone will be able to add to the topic of "British India" for the period 1858–1947 that will not already be there in British Raj.

In addition, the geographical content that the expression "British India" represents, is already there (or should be there) in the pages, Provinces of India, Presidencies of India or Presidency towns. What then does anyone propose to do in this "British India" article, other than to direct the reader to the different Wikipedia pages that cover the contents of the term's meanings for different periods (i.e. create a disambiguation page)? Furthermore, we can't create the page British India on the grounds that British Raj is a huge topic and we need a page for a smaller part of it, i.e. British India during 1858–1947. The reason for this is that the sub-articles of the different sections are already there. Some of these even use the term "British India!" Economy of British India is an example. All this, of course, represents Wikirules and Wikilogic. But the biggest reason for not having a British India page is that there is very little modern historiographical precedent for it. To be sure the term "British India" is used, but mainly in a clutch (as it were) to either set the context or to disambiguate. If you look at a recently published book with "British India" in its title, such as "Canal irrigation in British India," you will find that the title is pretty much where "British India" lives. In other words, the text itself uses either "India" or the individual provinces "UP," "Punjab," or the regions, "Gunga-Jamna-doab" and so forth. (When I find time I'll add some examples to my subpage: user:Fowler&fowler/British India Histories.) Neither is there any precedent in the tertiary sources. As I have already indicated neither Britannica 2009, nor Britannica 1911, have pages for "British India," although both, but especially the latter, use the term on other pages to set the context or disambiguate (for example, Britannica 1911 does it with Hyderabad: one is a town in British India; the other is a native state in India). Encarta, the only encyclopedia that has a "page" on British India, says only, "British India, collective designation of the 17 Indian provinces formerly under direct British administration, as distinguished from the more autonomous regions called the Native States of India." In other words, it is a definition page. I think a clear disambiguation page, which includes the definition, serves the purpose of explaining the term adequately.

In conclusion, in my view, there are only two options for the British India page: (i) To have the British India page as a front (i.e. collective term) for the Provinces of India, Presidencies of India, and Presidency towns pages, and develop it for submission as a Featured List. (This is what we had chosen in December 2008), or (ii) to make "British India" a clear disambiguation page, something like my version here in September 2008, but more user friendly. Although I had supported option (i) earlier, I foresee endless problems, with different editors turning up at different times, and each wanting to add (in good faith) different things relating to how they interpret "British India." I'm now leaning towards a protected Option (ii): it is clear, it directs the reader to un-duplicated information. In addition, the Colonial India template provides more links. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 19:08, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Umar Z. K. has drawn our attention to Fowler&fowler's views as stated at Talk:British Raj, comparing British Raj with British India, which read "...as you will see in the British India page itself, the two are not the same entities". That's perfectly sensible, and I agree with it. The basic differences between the two (which I remember analysing somewhere above, now in an archive) are the only really critical factor here.

"...we can't create the page British India...": We have it now and it incorporates what was at Provinces of India (a page which I seem to remember that Fowler&fowler proposed to be merged here); and in any case the consensus has been that the page should be kept. Alas, most of those who support it are driven away, so that every so often another argument can be raised that the page isn't needed, but anyone can look back and ask themselves how much good purpose there is in all this.

"...on the grounds that British Raj is a huge topic and we need a page for a smaller part of it, i.e. British India during 1858–1947. The reason for this is that the sub-articles of the different sections are already there." This seems to me a very weak argument. We all know, I think, that British India isn't "a part of" the topic "British Raj" ("the two are not the same entities"). This comment also proposes that by being created first, a Wikipedia title can cancel out the need for another title which hasn't been created yet. That would be a terribly odd way to decide on the structure of any encyclopedia. This one is not a "snapshot" printed work, to be restructured by the next edition a few years later, but a work in progress which for all we know may last for a hundred years or more. The idea that its structure should be decided randomly is at best eccentric. In any case, looking back at the history of British Raj, it seems that it began as British India and was mistakenly converted into British Raj, and that in the years which followed some of those who were unhappy about that mistakenly argued that British India should be seen as an alternative title for British Raj: an ill-considered debate. None of us here seems to think that.

"What then does anyone propose to do in this "British India" article, other than..." One reply is that Xn4, Nichalp, Umar Z. K. and I have all started to try to "do something" with the page, with the encouragement of other users such as Casliber, but month after month our efforts are undermined by deletionism. When I work on a Wikipedia page, usually Church of Ireland subjects, but sometimes an article like The History of British India (most of which is by me), I don't personally plan the article's whole future development, my idea is that it will develop according to the best sources the community can find. This is an approach which seems to me to work very well. British India is a wide-ranging historical subject, but what is the point in starting a new section on something not yet covered in Wikipedia if it is simply going to be deleted on the basis of the assertion that British India is only a "geographical" subject? If there is similar text in two articles, then of course the duplication will need to be sensibly addressed, but for some material British India will be the best place for it.

Then I see there is an argument which almost suggests that all of the material which could be included in British India is already elsewhere. That seems to me incorrect, but even if it were not the question should not be "Where is the material now" but "Where should it be?" I do not think that either British Raj (whether with that title or with another one) or British India should be enormously long pages, trying to contain masses of historical information. "All human knowledge" should be here, according to Jimmy Wales, and as Wikipedia grows in that direction the detail of any particular topic will need to be on a page of its own, so that no more than summaries are needed on the parent articles. Eventually, I foresee that there will be more "offspring" articles for British India, covering aspects of it, such as its courts or the different strands of its administration, but even if this were somehow prevented, my final comment would be this:

Umar Z. K. is right, there are great numbers of links from other pages to British India, and people who click on the words are actively trying to find out what British India was. (Some of those links are bad links, but that is also true of any other term you care to name, and it is a problem which we can cure as time goes by.) The minimum we need at this title is (first) something in the early part of the page which will begin by answering the initial inquiry and (second) text with links which will then go on to point those readers towards other Wikipedia pages so that they can develop their interest. Strawless ^(talk) 01:14, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

If people are trying to find out what British India was, a dab page (of the three-line variety that Encyclopedia Encarta has) will do just fine. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 12:42, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

PS And, by the way, it is pointless to name other editors, Wikipedia is not a democracy of people, only one of sources. You don't have the sources on your side. Modern sources, as I've already indicated above, use "British India" only in a clutch. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 12:45, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Two points to consider Wikipedia:Content forking "A content fork is usually an unintentional creation of several separate articles all treating the same subject." and also WP:SETINDEX a special sort of Disambiguation page which might work as a compromise. --PBS (talk) 14:42, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

We've discussed these things so many times before, and there isn't really a compromise between having an article and not having one. In support of Strawless's last point, I see there is now a new article on Economy of British India, which was lacking references and which Fowler has done some good work on, including adding a link in its lead to this article.

UZK is surely right that the historical concept of British India is critical to understanding the modern history of the successor states. He must have in mind especially the conflicts between India and Pakistan, largely driven by the fact that the British were able to partition only British India and not the rest. Not only do we need a handy term to describe the parts of India which were British possessions (and what better than the historically correct term?), but we correctly have a variety of articles and categories which include "British India" in their titles, and they need a point of reference for British India, which is this page. Xn4 (talk) 03:04, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

There is something a little scary about Fowler's response to the above post being to move Economy of British India quickly to Economy of India under the British Raj, and unlinking British India in the lead, which he had linked himself, without any discussion. He has also created a new page with the even more comical title of Economy of India under Company rule, clearly seeking to pre-empt the obvious point that Economy of India under the British Raj can't deal with the years before 1858. But while British India had an economy, did the whole of India, including the Princely states, have a single economy? It doesn't seem to me that it did. Clearly Economy of India under Company rule can only refer to British India, as the Company ruled nothing else. If anyone is interested, I've started a discussion at the new page Talk:Economy of India under the British Raj. This does demonstrate one thing, though, and that is that "Economy of the British Raj" isn't a possible title. Xn4 (talk) 01:01, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Dear Xn4, Your Wikipedia edits don't loom as large in my decision making as you seem to imply above. I changed the name of the page Economy of British India to Economy of India under the British Raj because the original author, user:Rueben lys had mistakenly used "British India," when he meant "British Raj." For, the lead sentence said, "The Economy of British India includes the Economy of the Indian subcontinent under the British Colonial authority" where "British Colonial Authority" was linked to British Raj. (Please see the 5 February 2009 version of that page.) Please also note that of the 35 references I have added to that page, there is only one about "British India;" the remaining 34 are about India as a whole, i.e. the Indian Empire. So, the "Economy of India under/during the British Raj" makes perfect sense. Similarly, the Economy of India under Company rule is a daughter page of Company rule in India, typically daughter pages have names that includes the name of the parent page. There is nothing comical about that. I would like to suggest that you stop wasting your own and other people's time randomly discussing these meta-issues. If you have the sources, please tell us what they are and what they say; if you don't, please hold your peace. Regards, Fowler&fowler «Talk» 04:01, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

(Copying posts from Talk:Economy of India under the British Raj.) As for your Google hits, there are only 33 Google links for "Economy of British India" (you have to enclose the title within quotes), whereas there are over 6,620 links for "Economy of Colonial India". As I have already, indicated on Talk:British India, the term used in modern historiography is "Colonial India." I am happy to change the name of the page to "Economy of Colonial India" (and make it the parent article for the Economy/Trade sections of both the British Raj and Company rule in India pages. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 04:21, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

(Question to Philip) What would the "British India" page look like in setindex format? Fowler&fowler «Talk» 04:41, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

There are several examples at WP:SETINDEX. I have not been exposed to many, BUT AFAICT the best way to think of WP:SETINDEX is as a cross between a Wikipedia:Summary style page and a Disambiguation page. I had been working on a piece about a brother of William Mercer. WM wrote a book called "Angliae speculum, or, England's Looking-Glasse" (1646), Google searches showed that a number of other 17th century included "England's Looking-Glasse" in the title so I wanted to catalogue them as I thought a Wikipedia page on this would be useful, so I created a page called England's Looking Glass but it was not really satisfactory as there were some things I wanted to add but could not because they were opinions and you can not put opinions on a page without a reference, and references are not allowed on a disambiguation. Another editor suggested a WP:SETINDEX page as a solution hence what we have now: England's Looking Glass. In this case the set is the "set of different meanings for British India" and the index would be a list of the articles that explain those different meanings. --PBS (talk) 17:24, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

On the "Economy of... India" matter, I shall comment on that talk page and not here.

On the WP:SETINDEX point, I refer to my comments above, and indeed all of our previous discussions, as it would be terribly exhausting to need to say everything again. In summary, I and several others see British India as having the notability and importance to justify an article.

On the "different meanings of British India", of course its meaning changed between its first appearance and 1947, when it ceased to be, but only in the same way that the meaning of France, United States and Armenia changed constantly during the same period. It seems we need a timeline to set out the development of the meaning; but if I were to spend an hour or more working up such a timeline, the spirit of deletionism would quickly say "this is only a geographical article" and it would be gone. Strawless ^(talk) 21:08, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Maps

I have added 13 maps of India from 1700 to 1947. I had been meaning to do this for the Provinces of India page for over a year, and have done so now on British India. I hope these maps will soon become the best collection of maps (of India under British rule) anywhere on the web, that is, if they aren't already. :) Fowler&fowler «Talk» 04:27, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

This is very helpful and partly overcomes the difficulty raised above about the changing meaning of 'British India'. Evidently, Joppen liked to use the term 'British Territory' on a map headed 'India', and it seems that the maps selected all use this term, while other maps using the term 'British India' (such as the one now in the infobox at British Raj) are no longer exemplified on the page. However, one such, Political Divisions of the Indian Empire (1909), with its caption, was deleted from the page earlier today, and partly for the sake of illustrating an example of this use, I shall reinstate this map (pictured right). Strawless ^(talk) 21:41, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

I feel that you imputing all kinds of motives to me, none of which are based in reality. I wasn't even aware that all the maps now refer to the pink regions as "British territory" instead of "British India." They are not all from Joppen; three are from the Imperial Gazetteer from India Atlas, the same Atlas that I copied the "Political divisions" map from. The only reason why I removed the "Political divisions" map is that it is already on a number of Wikipedia pages; however, its replacement (which is of the same vintage, ca. 1907) was in danger of becoming a newly-born orphan had I not included it here. It was as simple as that. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 20:49, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Sockpuppets?

I have moved the post to this subpage of my user page. Regards, Fowler&fowler «Talk» 14:59, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Confirmed, also he has Umar Zulfikar Khan (talk · contribs) and two others... what were they called? YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 00:53, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Dzw49 (talk · contribs) and RF75 (talk · contribs) YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 01:26, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

What to do now

What to do now (see Talk:British India/Archive 3#Final proposal also above #If ... and #Stocktaking after two months). If it is decided to revert the pages to as they were last year or to some other solution that involves moving pages around let me know. --PBS (talk) 17:23, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

I suggest returning to a mid-December version of the article that F&f thinks is ok. Only the various socks seem to have edited the article since about Dec. 15. We then copy edit the article, protect it, and move on. Hopefully, we can stop going around in circles. --Regent Spark (crackle and burn) 23:32, 27 February 2009 (UTC)r

Alternatives are (c) leave as is and rewind the history (as RS suggests above), (d) move the pages back and put back the dab page, (but we can not protect a dab page indefinitely). But given that my last move of this page was done because of a compromise resulting from a false consensus created through the use of sockpuppets (now confirmed by another CU team member), the simplest thing to do is to implement Option b (redirecting British India to Provinces of British India), because we can not protect an article indefinitely but we can protect a redirect until such time as there is a consensus to take the protection off. To do this we rewind my last move: We move British India and its history to Provinces of British India, (placing a hatnote for British Raj) and then move British India/Article during the second half of 2008 back to here adding a redirect to the top. This will preserve the history of the two articles. We will also have to unwind of the two sets of talk archives. --PBS (talk) 10:48, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) Sorry, I was busy yesterday. Yes, I too think that Option b is probably the best option for the following reasons: (i) rolling back to December 15 and cleaning-up will certainly help, but we won't be able to protect the article permanently, especially with a name like "British India," (ii) the protected redirect will force editors who wish to edit "British India" as more than a collective term for the provinces to build a consensus, which means they will have to provide sources that contradict the redirect. Two other issues remain if we agree to option (b):

Is "Provinces of British India" the best name for such an article, since "British India" was also a collective name for the "Presidencies" during Company rule?
What should we do with the other (possible content-fork) pages Presidencies of British India and Presidency towns? (These two pages are really stubs).

(Option "after-b") One possibility would be to:

change the name of the page Provinces of British India to Provinces and presidencies of (British) India and to
redirect the Presidencies of British India and Presidency towns to Provinces and presidencies of (British) India.

The reason why I have (British) in parentheses is that there is a bit of circularity in defining "British India" to be a collective name for the provinces and then calling the article "Provinces of British India" (as Nichalp had pointed out). However, "Provinces of India" by itself is a little confusing since "provinces" was used during the period 1947–1950 in the Republic of India and during the period 1947–1956 in Pakistan, and it needs "British" to set the context. "Provinces and presidencies of India," though, by including the older word "presidencies" automatically sets the context to an older time, so the "British" is not needed (but it might still be a little confusing to a novice reader).

I am guessing that this could be done after Philip has implemented the hard part of Option (b) that he has detailed above. Once all this is in place, we could make the section 1600&ndsh;1757 to be about "Presidency towns," the period "1757 to 1857" about the "Presidencies" and the period 1858–1947 about "Provinces." There are a exceptions to this tripartite division, of course, (such as the creation of North-Western Provinces in 1836), but that is a minor problem, easily dealt with. Sorry, to be this detailed (and probably confusing), but I think I have dealt with all the issues I can think of. So, to summarize:

Implement option (b) as described by Philip
Change the name of the page Provinces of British India to Provinces and presidencies of India (or Provinces and presidencies of British India if people think that the circularity is not a problem). I am open to both versions.
Redirect Presidencies of British India and Presidency towns to the page name in 2. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 14:50, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

PS And then shoot for that Featured List. :) Fowler&fowler «Talk» 14:50, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Could "Provinces and presidencies of India" be mistaken for any other period, or could in include other colonial powers? --PBS (talk) 11:07, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

It's no secret that I'm related to Xn4, who asked me to help him with all this, and there's nothing wrong in that. With Wikipedia's articles leading up to 1947, you've been struggling, but at least the debates have been relying much more on facts and sources than on personal opinions, and you need to keep a clear separation between the two, just as you do between "British Raj" (whatever you call it) and "British India" (whatever you call it). The historical realities are all very clear and well sourced. UmarZ (talk) 15:43, 2 March 2009 (UTC) It's no secret that meatpuppetry is not permitted. Ncmvocalist (talk) 13:05, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

OK I'll rewind my move of last year the rest does not need administrator assistance. --PBS (talk) 19:18, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I have rewound the move of 11 December and redirected British India to Provinces of India. I have not protected the redirect and won't do so until the the new page name if any is agreed upon. --PBS (talk) 20:05, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) (Reply to PBS posts). Thanks Philip. Now that I've had some time to mull over the various titles a little, I prefer "Provinces and presidencies of British India." True, there's a bit of circularity in the definitions, but we can fix those by defining things more carefully; also, this title will be unambiguous and less of a surprise to an editor who clicks on British India and finds themselves on another page. So, here is the last:

Proposal: Move page "Provinces of India" to "Provinces and presidencies of British India."

Look forward to your responses. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 15:46, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

As I said above, such a move does not need an administrator to make it. So I'll leave it to others to decide if this move should be made. --PBS (talk) 13:21, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Fine with me. (I also agree that British India being anything other than a protected redirect is asking for trouble.) --Regent Spark (crackle and burn) 15:00, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Just one thought which came first presidencies or provinces? --PBS (talk) 18:32, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Presidencies came first. So, I guess the move would be to Presidencies and provinces of British India. Since, Regent Spark and me are the only two people left from the original discussion, I will go ahead and make the move. Regards, Fowler&fowler «Talk» 18:59, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Moved

I have now moved the page Provinces of India to Presidencies and provinces of British India, and would like to request PBS to protect the redirect British India ==> Presidencies and provinces of British India. I have also redirected both Presidencies of British India and Presidency town to Presidencies and provinces of British India; however, I didn't know what to do with the talk pages of the redirected pages. So I've left them as they were for PBS's attention. Regards, Fowler&fowler «Talk» 19:18, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

As there was not substantial information on the two talk pages, all I have done is leave the history in place and redirect the talk pages to this one. I have altered the wording on British India (disambiguation), please check it is correct. I have also protected the redirect British India as agreed. --PBS (talk) 22:45, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

[AWG1925-1] 1925 World Atlas and Gazetteer published by Funk & Wagnalls, online at scribd.com, accessed 4 September 2008

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