Talk:Presidencies and provinces of British India/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

Disambiguation

See the history of this page. It was a redirect to British Raj until User:Xn4 converted it to an article page with this edit on 13 August 2008. After lengthy discussions at Talk:British Raj#What to do about British India and other sections on that talk page, the consensus was to make this page a disambiguation page as the term British India is also used by some to include East India Company rule. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 14:30, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I have taken part in that discussion and I don't agree there was a consensus, so I am reinstating the page, as invited to do by Philip Baird Shearer. Strawless (talk) 14:58, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

RFC: article or disambiguation page

Please could all interested parties read Wikipedia:Dispute resolution. As can be seen by reading the sections listed above from the talk page of the of British Raj, we clearly have a dispute over the content of British India. I think we have agreed to discount the option that British India as a redirect to the British Raj article. That leaves two other possible options discussed above:

1. British India becomes a stand alone article (See this version).
2. British India becomes a disambiguation page (See this version).

I call on the two principle advocates of the two options to briefly summaries the advantages and disadvantages of both. User:Xn4 for the stand alone article (and please include references for the difference that you claim exist between British Raj and British India between 1858 and 1947 ("India wasn't ever the same thing as British Raj, and only some parts of India were British India."); and User:Fowler&fowler for the disambiguation page (User:Fowler&fowler has already supplied references see here and here and here). Once we have those statements then I will add the RfC template to the start of this section. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 10:10, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Advocacy for a stand alone article by Xn4

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. This is the area which was administered by the Government of India between 1858 and 1947.

'British India' has a statutory meaning. It did not include the Indian Princely States.

Before the Government of India Act 1858, the term 'British India' meant those parts of India under the control of the Honourable East India Company. The Government of India Act 1858 transferred the task of administering the British possessions in India to the India Office.

British India was subject to the laws of British India, which flowed directly or indirectly from legislation of the British parliament. Other parts of India were not.

The extent of British India in the 20th century can be stated as approximately three-fifths of the whole Indian Empire.

The term 'British Raj' is more obscure and has a less well-established meaning. For instance, it does not appear at all in the twenty-six volumes of the Imperial Gazetteer of India (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1908-1931). However, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) says under raj:

2. spec. In full British Raj. Direct rule in India by the British (1858-1947); this period of dominion. Often with the. Also in extended use: any system of government in which power is restricted to a particular group. The British Raj was instituted in 1858, when, as a consequence of the Indian Rebellion of the previous year, the rule of the British East India Company was transferred to the Crown in the person of Queen Victoria (proclaimed Empress of India in 1876). In 1947 the British Indian Empire was partitioned into two sovereign dominion states, the Union of India (later the Republic of India) and the Dominion of Pakistan (later the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and the People's Republic of Bangladesh) (cf. PARTITION n. 7c).

The OED offers eight examples of use of the term, none of which gives 'British Raj' the meaning of 'British India'.

Wikipedia's British Raj article defines itself as "British Raj (rāj, lit. "reign" in Hindustani primarily refers to the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947." Under the heading Geographical extent of the Raj, it says "The British Raj extended over all regions of present-day India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh..." In identifying with the whole British sphere in the subcontinent, it is approximately the equivalent of British Indian Empire, Indian Empire and Empire of India, all of which redirect to British Raj.

I have drawn the analogy elsewhere with two other groups of articles, (1) England, England and Wales, Great Britain, and United Kingdom and (2) Russia, Russian Empire, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and Soviet Union. All eight of those topics have Wikipedia articles, and justifiably so. As with those articles, there are matters which are best dealt with (on the principle of subsidiarity) at the appropriate level, in this case British India, and not inserted into articles relevant to a different level. The areas in question are to do with administration, law, and other matters which have a homogeneous history within British India but not within the whole of India during the relevant period. Where Wikipedia has a correct link to British India, as (for instance) at Bengal Presidency, Bombay Presidency, or Madras Presidency) it is valuable to be taken to an appropriate article on that topic.

Xn4 (talk) 02:06, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Advocacy for a disambaguation page by Fowler&fowler

The background and the two options

The history of British presence and rule in India has thus far been described in three Wikipedia pages:

• Honourable East India Company (1600–1765),
• Company rule in India (or Company Raj) (1765–1858), and
• British Raj (or Crown rule in India) (1858–1947).

"British Raj" refers to the rule of India by the British Crown from 1858 to 1947 (see OED definition and other meanings). "British India," on the other hand, refers to the regions of India that had been annexed by the British and over which they had sovereignty, in contrast to other regions of India, called Princely States, which were ruled by Indian rulers, and over which the British exercised only a form of indirect control (or suzerainty). Since the British Raj page covered all British rule in India between 1858 and 1947, both direct and indirect, the "British India" page had in the past been redirected to British Raj. Symbolically:

$\mathrm {British\ India} \rightarrow \mathrm {British\ Raj} \ \ (\mathrm {redirect\ during\ last\ year} )$

$\mathrm {British\ Raj} =\mathrm {British\ India\ (1858-1947)} +\mathrm {Princeley\ States}$

This brings us to the current dispute. In mid-August 2008, user:Xn4 removed the redirect of British India to British Raj, and stated that he was interested in editing British India as a separate standalone page in addition to the British Raj page. (I will describe is his reasons later.)

In the ensuing talk page discussion it was clarified that the term "British India" is used—for areas of British sovereignty—not just for the period 1858 to 1947, but also for the period 1765 to 1858. This meant that the redirect of British India to British Raj was no longer an accurate option (since the period 1765 to 1858 of "British India" is covered in a different page: Company rule in India). So, it was suggested by some editors, including myself, that British India should become a disambiguation page. Symbolically:

$\mathrm {British\ India} =\mathrm {British\ India(1765-1858)} +\mathrm {British\ India(1858-1947)} \$

$\mathrm {British\ India(1858-1947)} \ \subset \ \mathrm {British\ Raj}$

$\mathrm {British\ India(1765-1858)} \ \subset \ \mathrm {Company\ rule\ in\ India}$

where $\subset \$ stands for "is included in" or "is a subset of." (Note: Company rule in India = British India (1765-1858) + Subsidiary alliance; and British Raj = British India (1858-1947) + Princely States.)

In other words, there are two options before us:

1. British India becomes a stand alone article (See this version) in addition to the British Raj page. (supported by user:Xn4)
2. British India becomes a disambiguation page (See this version) instead of being redirected to "British Raj."(supported by user:Fowler&fowler)

An hypothetical analogy and Britannica 1911

In case you are confused by the "set theory" above, I am copying (more or less) a post I made at another editor's talk page in order to answer his question: "Let me put this another way: Why isn't "British India" the all-encompassing term? Without doing original research, could we not portray it that way?"

(My answer): India under British Rule was in a sense one unit. What did this mean? Well, if an Indian had to travel abroad, it didn't matter whether they were from Bombay (governed by the British) or from Kashmir (a native state), they used the same passport, which was issued by the British Government of India. If they had to travel between Native States or between a Native State and a British province, no passport was needed and there was no border crossing. (It was like traveling between two states in the US.) Trains, for example, passed through British provinces as well as Native states, as did communications lines, and they were all owned and controlled by the British. If someone traveled from Hyderabad (a Native State) to Bombay, they didn't say they were going to "British India," rather that they were going to Bombay or to the Bombay Province if they needed to mention the region. The usual distinction in India was between the Provinces of India (governed by the British) and the Native States. "British India" was just a collective term for the Provinces; in other words, "British India" was a term of convenience used when there was a need to distinguish between the British parts of India and the Native parts of India, but not otherwise one of common use. The term for the entire region under British rule (whether direct or indirect) was simply India. All history books refer to it as India.

Here, for example, is a hypothetical analogy. Suppose the Native American reservations in the US occupied two-fifths of the area of the US, and that they were not parts of the 50 states, but had a semi-autonomous status controlled overall by the Federal Government in Washington DC. Other than that, let's say, there was little difference. So, I could still drive from Santa Fe to an Indian pueblo and no one would stop me. Let's also say that from the time of the Mayflower, two short-hand terms had developed: Pilgrim America for all the States collectively, and Native America for all the reservations collectively. Well, the Wikipedia pages would still be about Wisconsin, Idaho, Navajo, Lakota, or United States, not about "Pilgrim America" because there would be no Government of "Pilgrim America" only the Government of the United States or the State Government of Wisconsin or the Government of Navajo reservation. "Pilgrim America" might be used—even officially or legally—to make distinctions, but it would not be an official entity. If I were then writing a Wikipedia page on the History of the United States between 1860 and 1960 (inauguration of Lincoln to the inauguration of Kennedy), I would call it History of the United States (1860-1960), I wouldn't call it the History of Pilgrim America (1860-1960). (I could, perhaps, create a page on the History of non-Native-American people in the US between 1860 and 1960 and call it "History of Pilgrim America 1860-1960," but that would be different.) I couldn't create a page History of Pilgrim America 1860-1960 and then proceed to talk about the Civil War and Reconstruction because those topics would already have been covered in History of the US (1860-1960) and Lincoln would have been the President of all of the US, not just of the States. Moreover, if the convention in American historiography was to write "A History of the United States from 1860 to 1960" or "A History of Winsconsin," but not "A History of Pilgrim America 1860-1960," then I would also be going against scholarly convention.

That is roughly the situation with "British Raj." The British Raj page is about "India under British rule during the period 1858 to 1947" just as Company rule in India is about "India under British rule during the period 1765 to 1858". (My own personal preference would be for the "British Raj" to be named Crown rule in India, but the page is an old page, dating back to 2002, and the term "British Raj" is used widely now by historians. For example, Library of Congress Country Study on India, has only two sections under "British Empire in India" these are: Company Rule 1757-1857 and British Raj 1858 to 1947.) So, if I someone wants to create a page on British India, but really write about "India under British rule 1858-1947" i.e. British Raj, then they are not only being redundant, but also going against historiographic tradition (as in the Library of Congress example): for "British India" is the equivalent of "Pilgrim America." On the other hand, if they claim they will only write about "British India" i.e. the Provinces of India, I will say, well that page already exists, as do the subpages Bombay Presidency, Madras Presidency, etc. In other words, they have to tell me, what new material they propose to add.

To give you another example, if you do a search for "British India" in the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica, you get approximately 1500 returns, but none to a page "British India." They are all or the sort: "CALICUT, a city of British India, in the Malabar district of Madras; ..." or "BELLARY, or Ballari, a city and district of British India, in the Madras presidency." So, let's do a little experiment. We will search for "Hyderabad" and we will do this because there were two Hyderabads in 1911 (as there are now), one a city in British India (now in Pakistan) in the province of Sind, the other a princely state in southern India. We'll see how Britannica (1911) described the two cities. Here are the results. a) "HYDERABAD, or Haidarabad, a city and district of British India, in the Sind province of Bombay. ..." b) Hyderabad, India (State): "Hyderabad, HAIDARABAD, also known as the Nizam's Dominions, the principal native state of India in extent, population and political importance; area, 82,698 sq. m.; pop. (1901) 11,141,142, ..." c) Hyderabad, India (capital): "Hyderabad, HAIDARABAD, capital of the above state, is situated on the right bank of the river Musi, a tributary of the Kistna, with Golconda to the west, and the residency and its bazaars and the British cantonment of Secunderabad to the north-east." Notice that Hyderabad (a) says "British India," however, Hyderabad (b) and (c) don't, they only say "India." Notice too that Hyderabad (c) (which was the capital of Hyderabad (b)) mentions the British residency and cantonment. That refers to the office of the British official who oversaw the state; the cantonment refers to the area where the British Army (which too kept an eye on the state) was stationed. Britannica 1911 does not have a page for "British India," only a page for India, even though it uses the expression "British India" in 1500 other pages. It is this India (1858-1947) that the Wikipedia British Raj page is about. Just as in Britannica 1911, we don't have a page for "British India" (or we didn't until user:Xn4 opened it in mid-August) although we use the term all the time either as a short hand or to make distinctions. All that is needed to inform Wikipedia readers about how we use the expression "British India" is a disambiguation page, not a standalone page.

user:Xn4's reasons and my response

• user:Xn4 first stated that since the dictionary meaning of the term "British Raj" did not cover the region that was governed by the British (but referred only to the "rule" or the "period of the rule,") and since the term "British India" did refer to the region, he was free to edit "British India" as a separate page devoted to the region, and British Raj could then focus on the rule.
  • My response: Regardless of the dictionary meaning of the term "British Raj," the British Raj page is identical (in scope) to "Crown rule in India," and is the counterpart (for the period 1858 to 1947) of the page Company rule in India (also Company Raj). Both pages already cover all three topics: region, rule, and period.
• He next stated that he considered "British India" to be a subset (in scope) of the "British Raj," but since this topic was "huge" and could not be accommodated in the "British Raj" page alone, modularity of exposition would recommend that British Raj be subdivided into smaller modules, one of which would be "British India."
  • My response: (Briefly) I show below that such modularity of organization already exists; in other words, British Raj already has modules and that there is nothing in the scope of "British India" that is not already in the scope of these modules. Creating "British India" as a separate page will result in redundant modularity, and thereby negate the very principle of modularity.
• For his part user:Xn4 has thus far consistently refused to describe how his new British India page will differ from the pre-existing British Raj page (see, for example, the question posed by user:RegentsPark, and user:Xn4's second reply here). He has stated that "differences will develop," but has not described what they might be. He has further stated that those differences will be given shape as the British Raj page itself develops more and he has a clearer idea of what exact content it covers.
  • My response: The British Raj and its daughter pages are in the process of development and consolidation (see, for example, section 6 of British Raj, Famines, Epidemics, and Public Health in the British Raj, for which a dozen sub-pages have already been developed). If user:Xn4 is waiting for the content in British Raj to become stable, then he should revert "British India" either to the disambiguation page (my choice) or revert it to the previous redirect to British Raj and let the British Raj and its daughter pages develop and consolidate, but with the proviso that a deadline be agreed upon (in this RfC), say 3 months, for such development. user:Xn4 can then make his case for what content differences he sees.
• In the standalone page British India that user:Xn4 has thus far edited, he has emphasized the period 1858 to 1947 and has relegated the earlier (1765-1858) period of "British India" to the pre-existing Company rule in India page (see second paragraph of the lead here).
  • My response: I show below that user:Xn4 is introducing a POV that is not supported by the the sources, which do not emphasize any one period.
• By quoting various parliamentary statutes in his new British India page, user:Xn4 seems to be suggesting that "British India (1858-1947)" has some kind of legal existence as a State or a State within an Empire. He also seems to be suggesting that "British India (1858-1947)" was somehow more "legal" or more "legally British" than "British India (1765-1858)"
  • My response: "British India" has always been a short-hand used (formally or informally) to distinguish regions of British sovereignty from other regions of the subcontinent. No government was formally called the Government of British India; it was either Government of the Presidency of Fort William from 1773 until 1833, or the Government of India thereafter. Neither can "British India (1765-1858)" be considered significantly "less British" , since after the Regulating Act of 1773, the Crown held ultimate sovereignty over all East India Company territory in India, and British Law applied in all regions of British India.

In order to present my argument, I will answer two questions first:

1. What does the term "British India" mean?
2. What pages already cover or should cover the content that falls under the purview (i.e. the full scope) of the different meanings of "British India?"

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(i) British India, primary meaning

"British India" has been employed as a collective term for regions of present-day India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh that were governed by the British in India between 1600 and 1947 (and over which the latter had sovereignty). By extension, the term has been applied to other regions that were governed by the Government of the British in India (such as Burma (present-day Myanmar) from the second half of the 19th century to 1937). These regions comprised:

1. the presidency towns of Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta until 1765. (see references)
2. the Madras, Bombay and Bengal presidencies, and later North-Western Provinces under Company rule in India from 1765 until 1858. (References: scholarly, journalistic, published books)
3. the Provinces of India under the British Raj from 1858 to 1947. (See: References)

(i) British India, secondary meaning

4. "British India" has also been used to mean "the British in India." (See: References)

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(ii) What pages already cover or should cover the content under "British India?"

1. The regions of "British India" before 1765 (i.e the presidency towns) are currently covered in the:
   1. history section of the Honourable East India Company page; if more detailed descriptions are desired, then they should be attempted in the:
   2. Presidencies of India page, which is a stub/dab page.
2. The regions of "British India" between 1765 and 1858 are covered in the:
   1. the Madras, Bombay and Bengal presidencies, and the North-Western Provinces pages; they can certainly be expanded if more details are desired. In addition, any specifics that apply to the "presidency system," but not individual presidencies, can be added to:
   2. Presidencies of British India or Company rule in India pages.
3. The regions of "British India" between 1858 and 1947 are currently covered in
   1. the British Raj page,
   2. the Provinces of British India page, and
   3. in the individual provinces pages such as Assam, Baluchistan, Bengal Province, Bihar, Bombay Province, Central Provinces and Berar, Madras Province,North-West Frontier Province, Orissa, Punjab, Sindh, and United Provinces of Agra and Oudh)

   ultimately, the British Raj version will be a summary style precis of the Provinces of British India page, so more details should be added in that page or in the individual province pages.

Material on governance, organization, economy, history, public health, army, police, civil service, trade, law, social reform, infrastructure development, education in "British India" is covered in (or should be added to)

1. (1600 to 1765) Honourable East India Company or Presidencies of British India
2. (1765 to 1858) Company rule in India; land revenue: Permanent Settlement, Zamindari, and Ryotwari
3. (1858 to 1947) British Raj, History of the British Raj, Economy of British India, Famines, Epidemics, and Public Health in the British Raj

That brings us to the secondary meaning of the term, i.e. the "British in India."

4. There is no page (to my knowledge) on the Social History of the British in India (to get an idea of content, please see Victorian Social History; everything else about "the British in India" is covered in the links above. From my perspective though this page is not a high priority right now since many of the other pages above need work. I would be delighted if someone wants to work on such a page, however, that page cannot be called "British India," since it refers to a secondary meaning of "British India" and covers only one aspect (social history).

---

Conclusion

I have described the two meanings of the term "British India," a primary meaning comprising three different time periods (of which the latter two are the more significant) as well as a secondary meaning. I have also shown that all the topics covered under the primary meaning are either already being covered in existing Wikipedia pages or need to be covered in those pages whose links I have provided. (See also other encyclopedias and studies.)

A standalone British India page (option 1 supported by user:Xn4) will duplicate material not only from the British Raj page, but also from pages such as Provinces of British India and History of the British Raj, and will be confusing to most Wikipedia readers who will likely not know the subtle difference between British India and British Raj.

Also, as I have shown in (i)primary meaning 2. above, contemporary sources use "British India" to include the period 1765 to 1857 and do not give greater weight to the period 1858 to 1947. I feel that user:Xn4—by emphasizing the period 1858 to 1947 under "British India" in a standalone page, and relegating the earlier (1765-1858) period of "British India" to the pre-existing Company rule in India page (see second paragraph of the lead of user:Xn4's "British India" page)—is introducing a POV that is not supported by the the sources.

I feel, therefore, that "British India" is best kept as a disambiguation page (option 2), which describes the various meaning and points to where the associated content can be found in Wikipedia.

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:25, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

Extended content

I'll be happy to do that (see Philip Baird Shearer, above). If no one minds, I'd like to take a few days about it. It's far from easy to define "British Raj", and so far I've merely relied on the definition offered by British Raj. It may also help if I do some more work on British India, to illustrate the points we've discussed elsewhere. Xn4 (talk) 16:15, 4 September 2008 (UTC) I think it would be better if you would put a paragraph describing the arguments for this to be an article, above the Discussion subsection header and not invest a lot of time in the article until the RfC has been run. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 23:18, 4 September 2008 (UTC) If you wish, I'll aim to post something soon, but you've drawn our attention to Wikipedia:Dispute resolution, which says "Most situations are not urgent. Please give both you and the other party some time. Often it helps to just take a deep breath and sleep over it." I've found some new sources for what 'British India' was, but there's a real problem with finding reliable sources for 'British Raj'. Perhaps it can be agreed that we'll rely on the meaning the term's given by British Raj? If some other meaning is to be relied on, then we should all need time to take that into account. Xn4 (talk) 01:14, 5 September 2008 (UTC) User:Xn4 the problem with using the British Raj article as a source is that it is subject to change, and many of the changes over the last month are a reflection of this debate, so to use the British Raj as a source, is likely to set up a negative feed back loop. It would be better if this debate was kept as separate as possible from that page. I appreciate your argument from Wikipedia dispute resolution "Most situations are not urgent. Please give both you and the other party some time. Often it helps to just take a deep breath and sleep over it.", but as we are discussion two different alternatives, I think the party who's article is currently on display has a moral obligation not to keep the other party waiting. If you need more time you could of course revert the article to the last disambiguation version and place the moral obligation on User:Fowler&fowler. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 08:37, 5 September 2008 (UTC) I have waded through the material referenced above and have some sense of what the issues are. However, there does not seem to be a simple statement of what is in contention here. Would someone (Phillip or the discussants), please describe what is at issue in a short paragraph or two? Sunray (talk) 19:07, 6 September 2008 (UTC) It is described in the top of this section 1. article, 2.disambiguation page, but we are awaiting User:Xn4 to present his/her case. Once that is done I'll refactor this section to make it clear what the we are discussing and what options are. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 21:01, 6 September 2008 (UTC) Perhaps I am missing something (hopefully not something too obvious). But I do not understand what the contending issues are. I see the two alternatives you've listed, above, but there is no short, sharp, summary of the alternative points of view. I await your refactoring and further elucidation. 21:13, 6 September 2008 (UTC) Hi, I have now added a "background" section. Does that explain the contending issues? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:17, 6 September 2008 (UTC) OK I have now refactored the page hiding discussion about setting up the RFC and re-ordering the two Advocacies into the same order as they were presented --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 10:22, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

• Comment I have come to this page as a result of the request for comment. I am English and come to it with that perspective. It is frequently the case that WP has general articles, which then lead to more specific articles on particular aspects of a subject. That is what this article attempts to do, and that is appropriate. In general, this article ought to give a brief summary of each subject, leaving the detail to appear in the sub-articles (linked to it with a "main" template. I would suggest that the article should have sections covering 1600-1765, perhaps "The Trading Company"; 1765-1858 "The Company as a Ruler"; and 1858-1948 "Direct British Rule". The independence struggle might be a fourth section, or perhaps (better) a subsection. This might be followed by the discussion of the meaning of "The term British India", but WP is not a disctionary and I am not sure of the value of arguing over semantic issues. This may be oversimplistic, since the Company had other activities, including a trading post at Bencoolen (Sumartra - ?) and trade with China, but those issues probably belong only in the article on the company. I appreciate that the Princely States were not strictly under British rule, but in many cases, the Resident (who was strictly the Comapny or Viceroy's envoy to the Prince) often played a major part in ruling the state, allegedly for the Prince, but in practice to British orders. The distinction between British-ruled and Princely-ruled areas was thus perhaps somewhat less real in practice. I do not cleaim to be an expert on this. Peterkingiron (talk) 16:38, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't see this. Please clarify what you mean by "this article." British Raj or British India? Thanks. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:47, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

OK, well let me attempt a reply. I agree with some your analysis, but I'm not entirely clear if you are talking about the British Raj page (i.e. Crown rule in India) or this new "British India" page that user:Xn4 is attempting to edit. The divisions you speak of already exist (as I have stated in my statement): Honourable East India Company (1600-1765); Company rule in India (also Company Raj) (1765-1858), and British Raj (also Crown rule in India) (1858-1947). If you do indeed mean "British India" then please explain what content you envisage as a part of "British India" that is not already in British Raj (or Company rule in India). Alternatively, if you are suggesting that British Raj is really the same as "British India" on account of the compromised sovereignty of the Native States, you are in effect suggesting that British Raj should be redirected to "British India." This, of course, has been debated on the British Raj page before, but it is not one of the options we are considering now. Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:29, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Posted by user:Peterkingiron on my talk page with request to copy here (Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:57, 7 September 2008 (UTC)):

Having looked at the British Raj article (which I had not before), I think that article should focus on 1858-1948, with the "company prelude" section eliminated from that (or largely so). I would aslo suggest that the lists of states (rather than being collapsed should be forked into one or more separate articles: even the collapsed lists are cluttering up the article. Peterkingiron (talk) 18:32, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I entirely agree with you about the Raj page. That is in fact the plan for that page. The History section will be reduced with details moved to daughter page History of the British Raj page. The "provinces" section too, with details moved to Provinces of British India page; same with the Native States section, with details moved to the Princely States page. It is in transition right now. Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:05, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

PS Have implemented your suggestion about collapsed lists, which have been moved to Princely state. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:40, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

• The list of Princely States now clutters up that article. I would suggest that the best solution to this is to merge it with List of Indian Princely States. I am not convinced of the usefulness of collapsing the main lists, but things like "28 minor states" might usefully be collapsed. However the article Princely state itself is good as providing a general coverage of them and their relations with the British.
• The section on "usage" in British India might be better added to the parallel British rule in India, which is partly a disambiguation page.
• I would suggest that the Company section be removed from British Raj, and replaced by (at most) a couple of sentences. Any content not in other articles should be merged.
• British India should survive as an article providing an overview of the whole subject, a parent article, with sections as previously suggested.

I refrain from interfering with the text, as there are various "in use" tags, and it is not my field. However, you might find it useful to have a look around Ironworks (which is essentially a disambiguation page) and the articles listed there, which form a tree. When I came to that subject a couple of years ago, there were missing articles and duplicate ones. Furthermore, people kept adding unnecessary detail on one process to articles on another. Most have now reached a position of some stability of content, so that I presume most editors are now reasonably satisfied with the structure. Peterkingiron (talk) 14:58, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your many helpful comments! I agree with most of your comments about the British Raj article and I will look at Ironworks.

Once the British Raj and Company rule in India have stabilized, there might be a case to be made for an overview article of the kind you suggest (although I'm not convinced yet that it will be needed), but why should that hypothetical article be called "British India?" "British India" has specific historiographic usage that other encyclopedias respect. See the Encarta "one-sentence page" on 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." Britannica, on the other hand, says not a peep about "British India;" its section headings for the India page written by Stanley Wolpert are: "India and European Expansion, 1600-1858" (with a large subsection "Extension of British Power, 1760-1856" for Company rule) and "British Imperial Power, 1858-1947."

You might call that overview article "British Empire in India" in the style of the Library of Congress Country Study on India (which has only two sections under "British Empire in India" : Company Rule 1757-1857 and British Raj 1858 to 1947), but calling it "British India" would be emphasizing the secondary meaning of "British India" (i.e. the British in India) and would constitute a POV. Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:55, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Comment by User:RegentsPark

1. It is clear that the a distinction exists between British India and the Princely States. The term British India is enshrined in various laws and acts of parliament and even early historians made this distinction clear (cf. ). The Princely States had a certain amount of independence (e.g., they could enact their own laws) though they were finally dependent on the crown for survival as political and geographical entities within India.
2. However, it is not clear that there is a sufficient content difference between British Raj and British India to warrant a separate article. Let's take a look at the historical, political, geographical and temporal characteristics that underlie the two terms:

• British India, as defined by User:Xn4 and by the act of parliament, refers to the region directly governed by the British between 1858 and 1947. The British Raj article covers the same time period. There is no temporal difference between the two entities.
• British Raj covers the political entity India that was recognized by various international bodies (e.g., the League of Nations) and includes British India, the directly governed parts of India along with the various Princely States that were nominally independent entities. Thus, it would appear that a case can be made for a sub-article of the British Raj that covers British India. However, the reality is that the political structure of the British Raj and that of British India were entwined and the various Residents for each Princely State reported to the India (the governor-general or lt. governors) rather than directly to the crown. In a sense, all of India that was not British India was subservient to the non-British India. In a political sense, therefore, British Raj and British India are really the same entity. (Of course, the administrative structure of a princely state probably differed from the structure of British India but see below.)
• It is true that the laws of British India were not applicable in the princely states and that each state had its own laws and police forces, and administrative structures. In this sense, there is a big difference between British India and the rest of India. However, the best way to address this is to have articles for each princely state because, presumably, the states differed from each other in their laws and in the ways they administered their possessions. An overarching British Raj article cannot even begin to meaningfully cover these aspects of the princely states. (It is a shame that the princely states are forgotten and have no articles of their own, but that's a different story!)
• Each Princely State has its own history and their collective history is limited to (is the same as) the history of British India.

In summary, the things that are different about the Princely States (non-British India India) are different between Princely States and cannot be easily generalized into a single article (British Raj while the things that they have in common are also the things that they have in common with British India. In effect, two articles, one focusing on British Raj as the rule of the British over the geographical entity that was then India; and British India focusing on the rule of the crown over directly administered regions, would end up containing the same material. One could argue that the single article be called British India but that would be at odds with WP:NC and is a separate discussion anyway. For these reasons, I believe that British India and British Raj should not be separate articles. British India should, in my opinion, be a redirect to British Raj but I suppose a disambiguation page is ok. --Regents Park (count the magpies) 16:35, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree that in theory British Raj and British India are the same thing. It is possible that the latter should have a new title, but I still think it useful for their to be a general article providing an overview. On strict issues of sovereignty, the Princely States were subject to British suzerainty and had at most interal sovereignty. Any attempt to engage in international relations contrary to British intersts would have been quickly and firmly suppressed.

Certainly there is no room in WP for having competing articles dealing with the same subject at the same level; if such exist they should be merged. However, a general overview article with sub-articles on particular aspects is normal practice. Peterkingiron (talk) 22:23, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps. But I would argue that the overview article already exists in British rule in India which spans the entire period from 1757 to 1947 and contains links to all the sub-articles. A separate overview article for the 1858-1947 period adds an unnecessary level of detail. --Regents Park (count the magpies) 22:31, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Apart from a discussion of semantic issues, British Rule in India is essentially a disambiguation page, and probably an unnecessary one. If the British India article is amended in the way that I am suggesting British Rule in India will probably become a redundant page that can be merged/redirected. Peterkingiron (talk) 16:31, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't disagree with you about an overview page (a sort of dab page on steroids ! is how I see it) for the entire history of the British involvement in India - that is an excellent idea and it is shocking that one does not already exist. However, there are a couple of things we need to be aware of.

• First, we need to address the proposal put forth by User:Xn4 for a separate article on British India that focuses on the 1858-1947 period and on the areas that were directly ruled by the crown. Since, as I argue above, the material in that article will be the same as the material in British Raj, this move would convert British Raj into a shell article with the material going mostly to British India. Not that there is anything wrong with that but the consensus so far seems to be that British Raj is the more common name and there is the danger that the outcome will be against consensus. I assume you disagree with Xn4's proposal because you are suggesting a more limited article, right?
• I'm not sure I like the idea of calling the overview article British India because the term is specifically associated with the areas under direct British rule from 1858 to 1947 and using that name for an overview article is inviting content creep. Perhaps a better name would be British involvement in India because it is neutral (the company did not initially rule) and encompasses the entire period from 1600 (the charter) to 1947. I see that f&f proposes British Empire in India and there may be other ideas as well. Perhaps we should gather consensus on a title for the overview article separately. --Regents Park (count the magpies) 16:58, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to reiterate though that the overview page, if there is ever any consensus for it, can't be called "British India." Call it "British rule in India" or "British Empire in India," but it can't be "British India." As I have stated above, it is contrary to all scholarly and encyclopedic usage. See my new section and in particular, the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica paragraph: A hypothetical analogy and 1911 Britannica. Also, it is a little premature in my view to create an overview page. The Company rule in India and British Raj page need to stabilize first, and then, perhaps, the overview page could be a short summary style precis of the three articles (i.e. + British East India Company, which is about the involvement, 1600-1757). Otherwise, we'll have the same problem of duplication or worse yet an independent page that has its own perspective. For those reasons, I am against a long overview page. At best it can be only a little longer than a dab page. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:09, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

PS So, I'm really agreeing (more or less) with user:RegentsPark. I should have said that at the outset. :) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:25, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I believe there is a merit in overview articles, with (say) one paragraph on each subject and a "main" template leading to a more detailed article on that aspect of the subject. I have no particular view on names. It will probably be necessary to defend the overview page against editors who want to expand it. The present British Raj provides a reasonable coverage of its period; other articles also exist on other periods. It is thus essentially a matter of redistributing the material to remove unecessary overlaps. It will of course be necessary to edit it to fit it together tidily. Peterkingiron (talk) 11:29, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Comment by Strawless

At Talk: British Raj, I have agreed that there should be a British India page, and I still do, but, to be frank, I have very little to add to what I have already said there. However, I am copying the following comment here as requested at Talk: British Raj, though I am quite doubtful that it will be of much interest. 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. Members of my family who were born in British India say "I was born in British India". I suppose they could also say "I was born in British India in the time of the British Raj". I have just done some Google searches: "born in the British Raj" has three hits, one of them on the British Raj page here, "born in British Raj" has one hit, which in full reads "born in British Raj India", but "born in British India" has 735 hits, which seems to bear out the way I hear the expressions used. I think the main point of this comment is that it might be useful to look more closely at how these two expressions, British India and British Raj, are properly used. It seems likely that a close analysis would show up a greater difference between the two than has come out so far.

When I reverted one of the edits which took out the British India page as an article, prompted by a discussion between Philip B. S. and Xn4 at Talk: British Raj, I said "I'm inclined to put British India back as it was, for the reasons which have come out in the discussion, and also because there's the potential for a useful and interesting article which seems to be on its way. I agree, though, that it will be better if it can develop on its own terms, with well-sourced new material which is specifically about the subject identified." I should still find it helpful for the article to be improved some more. Strawless (talk) 20:29, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

British India is a collective term for the Provinces of British India. It was the provinces, such as Bombay Presidency, that were the "clear geographical areas." All those pages already exist.

As for the expression, "born in ...." very few people said either "I was born in British India" or "I was born during the British Raj;" instead they simply said, "I was born in India" The British Raj page is about that India. Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:45, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I suppose we can indeed say that "British India" is a collective term for the Provinces of British India, to the same extent that "England" is a collective term for the Counties of England. In both cases, it may be that the whole is more than the sum of its parts?

I do not know whether anyone can find us a source for "very few people said... "I was born in British India"...", but as I still hear it said today, I thought it worth mentioning. I think perhaps some younger people may overlook the real difference between being born a British subject in British India and being born in other parts of India. The point of my comment, as I said above, was simply that we need to analyse the use of these expressions rather carefully. Strawless (talk) 20:51, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Well if you do a Google Search for the exact expression "born in British India," you get 843 links; however, if you search instead for the exact expression "born in India" and qualify the search with "British" and "19th century," you get over 18,000 links. Some of these links might not be the right ones, but most are, i.e. they use "born in India" to mean "born in India during British times." (For example, Kipling was born in India etc.) Similarly, if you search for the exact expression "born in India" and qualify it with "British Raj," you still get over 15,000 links. Lastly, if you search for "born in India" and qualify it with 19th century OR British OR Victorian, you get over 426,000 links! That's what I meant by most people would have said "born in India."

People might say today they were born in British India, but they usually mean "India during British times" or pre-1947 India; in other words, they use "British India" to distinguish it from the post-1947 (independent) India, not to distinguish it from the pre-1947 Princely States. Thus, they are not necessarily saying that they were born in one of the British provinces, although, if they are British themselves, they likely were. The main point for us is that we have to go by how the secondary or tertiary sources use the expression "British India." There the usage is very specific and is a collective term for the provinces. Here, for example, is the Encyclopedia Encarta page on British India. All it says is, "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 pretty much a dab page. I have already described above how the Encyclopaedia Britannica of 1911 (the year of the Delhi Durbar and the high-point of the Raj) made the same distinction. It used the term "British India" in 1500 other pages, but had no page for "British India" itself. Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:19, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

22 September

Another week has passed. Are we any way near a compromise on this issue? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 08:17, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I am really impressed by the quality (and calmness) of the discussion and I do feel that there has been some progress in establishing that British India is an encyclopedic subject which is worthy of a Wikipedia article, under the wider-reaching umbrella of British Raj, which deals with the whole of India in the British period. (I can't help wondering, by the way, whether "India under the British Raj" might be a better title for the article now called "British Raj", but of course that is a quite different issue). Xn4 seems to be absent "on wikileave" at the moment, but I would suggest that it would be helpful if he when he returns or someone else could add some more information on this page to establish the notability of "British India", although I don't myself have any doubts on that.

Compromise: the question which Philip B. S. posed was whether British India should be an article or a disambiguation page, and it isn't easy to see room for compromise on that matter. However, with a view to the most interested editors working as happily as possible together, I should like to suggest that what is really needed is to agree some guidelines on the subject of links to the British India and British Raj articles from other pages, which may be what excited passions a few weeks ago. I am busy this evening, but if it would be helpful I could make some suggestions. Strawless (talk) 20:25, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

How does the "Agency" fit within the British structure?

I have been shuffling around among the various and overlapping articles concerning this period in India, many of which mention the various agencies, but none of which clearly describes how it fit within the overall administrative structure. Whether a good description ends up in this article or in the British Raj - it needs to be somewhere. Any SME's that can help?Vontrotta (talk) 09:19, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

(Copying user:Vontrotta's post on the Talk:British Raj page: I don't understand what the intended distinction is between these two articles. The overlap is partial, each having some sections more developed than the other. The one fact that I was looking for is dealt with in neither: how did the "agency" (e.g. the Gilgit Agency) fit into the British administrative mechanism? I think there may be an opportunity to either merge or distinguish these two articles, hopefully filling some gaps. Any comments?Vontrotta (talk) 08:55, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

(My reply) Well, Gilgit Agency is a little different. It was a part of the princely state of Kashmir that the British had leased in order to keep an eye on the Russians during the height of the Great Game. Other agencies, like the Rajputana Agency or the Central India Agency were groups of princely states that were supervised by agents of the Governor-General of India (i.e. by officers of the Central Government of India). This was in contrast to other princely states that were dependencies of provincial governments, for example, Junagadh, which was under the charge of the Governor of the Bombay Presidency (a province of British India).[[[User:Fowler&fowler|Fowler&fowler]]«Talk» 13:17, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Let me restate this (with questions in parentheses) to see if I understand. The "Agent" was the representative of the Governor-General (direct report or to some administrative functionafy?). The area for which the Agent was "responsible" was either a princely state, a group of princely states, or a portion of a princely state (i.e. Gilgit Agency, although some of the article suggest that the Agency may have included more than the regions leased from the princely state of Kashmir). So my main question is what was the nature of this "responsibility"? Was it essentially an "ambassadorship" or were there some administrative powers? And did the responsibility differ with respect to the leased property in the Gilgit Agency, eg. British law applying in the leased area as opposed law of the princely state?Vontrotta (talk) 05:48, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Time for a decision

There has been lots of discussion, but the fact remains that the current article really doesn't add anything as currently structured. Worse, it is easy to miss the British Raj article which has many of the details this article lacks. I vote to dump this article and redirect to British Raj, which already has some decent links to all the related articles.Vontrotta (talk) 08:33, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

• Strong support For all the reasons outlined above (name confusion, duplication of material, inconsistent information, concurrency of time period, de-facto nature of British control over the entire pre-partition India, etc. etc.). Also, while the two main proponents of a separate British India page think that the page will be interesting, neither of them have provided any specific content for that page, leading me to believe that my first thought that there really was nothing new to say on this page is probably correct. I also agree with Vontrotta that we should redirect sooner rather than later so that wikipedia readers are not left with a half-baked article on India between 1858 and 1947. --Regents Park (sniff out my socks) 14:36, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) Well, the discussion has died. The article has not been edited in a long while. I'm going to move it back to its original redirect status. --Regents Park (sniff out my socks) 14:05, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

There is no consensus for this unilateral action, which I have undone. One should respectfully point out (see above) that Philip B. S. suggested to Xn4 that the article not be improved, pending this discussion, and also that a redirect to British Raj was not even under discussion. Strawless (talk) 17:24, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

No worries. The discussion was getting bogged down and it was worth a try (WP:BOLD). :-) I'll let other people decide what to do with this next but the current situation is not really tenable. --Regents Park (sniff out my socks) 18:05, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much for your courteous answer, RegentsPark. Of course, I am one of those who have put forward the view that the current situation is tenable, and indeed the status quo is one of the options we have discussed above. So far, no one has disagreed with my suggestion of a compromise (please see above) around some agreed guidelines for links to British Raj and British India, which most of us seem to agree are not the same, so over the week-end I shall make a start on putting forward something for discussion. Strawless (talk) 22:34, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I disagree that the status quo is tenable. Every time I want to check a fact on the key subject of the articles (the role of the British government in India during the times covered), I have to look at both articles (unfortunately this is not a problem unique to these articles). I have no problem making this article a disambiguation page, but to leave it in its current form while the issue is debated compounds the problem rather than leads to a solution.

I also think it is unfair to say there is no consensus. As I read the long debate, I don't see any support for the current structure of the article. That is why I suggested that it is time for a decision. Make it a disambiguation page, eliminate the overlap/confusion etc. or delete it. Let's commit to make a decision on Monday after you have had an opportunity to work on it.Vontrotta (talk) 05:59, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Just a quick followup - I took another look at the British Raj article, and note that it has taken pains to address the disambiguation issue right in its intro, and has done so pretty successfully in my judgment. There is also a new British rule in India article that also attempts to address the disambiguation issue.Vontrotta (talk) 06:58, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Hello, Vontrotta. The reason I have said that there is no consensus is simply that in this discussion there have been several contributors for and against the two alternatives discussed, fairly evenly divided in numbers, the alternatives being (1) British India as an article or (2) British India as a disambiguation page. We have seen disagreement on that, just as we did when the matter was discussed at Talk: British Raj. And in a matter of this kind, it appears to me that what matters most is the rationale for an outcome. You say "As I read the long debate, I don't see any support for the current structure of the article", but so far we have not discussed the structure of the article, which perhaps it would indeed be helpful to discuss, as the thing is in its early stages.

In Advocacy for a stand alone article by Xn4, above, it seems to me that a very clear case is made, with many good citations, for British India being that part of India (which he has defined and shown on a map) possessed and administered by the British. You say "the British Raj article... has taken pains to address the disambiguation issue right in its intro, and has done so pretty successfully in my judgment", and I agree with you on that. British Raj says at the moment "British Raj... the region under the rule... commonly called India in contemporary usage, included areas directly administered by the United Kingdom (contemporaneously, British India)..." That confirms that the British Raj article covers a greater area of India than British India, and the rest of the article confirms it, too, as do the simple redirects to British Raj from Empire of India and Indian Empire. This is in the same way that the Yugoslavia article covers a greater area of the Balkans than Serbia, or (as has been said before) as RSFSR is less than the Soviet Union, and both have articles.

Looking at your impressive contributions history, I see you have made many edits to Independent State of Croatia, and also some to Kingdom of Croatia (Medieval), and State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs. These are outside my own areas of interest, but it appears that they are all different topics and that those articles can helpfully exist alongside the main article on Croatia. There is perhaps quite a good parallel for the case under discussion.

Anyway, I am aiming to put up a proposal tomorrow on the guidelines I have suggested and I shall be glad to see other editors' thoughts on them. Strawless (talk) 20:50, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) Strawless, the problem with your additions to the British India article is that they are all purely definitional. It makes no sense to me that we create an article that twists itself around into knots just to explain that sometime in the 19th century there was a definitional difference between British India and the princely states. Frankly, I think we have an unruly article explosion going on here with British rule in India, British India, and British Raj, not to mention Undivided India. Should we now add articles on India under the British, The British Indian Empire etc just to show that these terms have some subtle differences? In some sense, I agree with f&f that this is an underhand way of replacing British Raj with British India (though, in all fairness to you, I don't think you're seeing it that way) but I can't see anything in the 5300 words you've imported from the talk page that contains content that is different from what would be included in British Raj. --Regents Park (sniff out my socks) 02:09, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, yes, Regents Park, in my humble view that material is all quite specific to British India and is not specific to British Raj, which I agree with xn4 is a wider subject. May I say that if, as you say, those additions are "purely definitional", then please do notice that I wasn't aiming to make the article better in a rounded way, just to put some genuinely new material into mainspace which at the moment doesn't appear to be anywhere else in mainspace. In a sense, it may be immaterial where it all ends up, but it doesn't seem to me that it would be any advantage to Wikipedia just to lose it.

By the way, I couldn't agree with you more about Undivided India, and I have left some thoughts on its talk page suggesting that it should be merged somewhere, but not to British India! What we now have at British rule in India seems to me to be excellent stuff. You may be able to persuade me that it could be in a better place, but one real advantage I see in the present short separate article is that it can usefully be linked from a hatnote on any other article. Strawless (talk) 23:10, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Suggested guidelines for links to British India and British Raj

First thoughts

As I mentioned above, it seems to me that there is a potential for conflict which is largely behind the doubts about these articles, British Raj and British India, co-existing, but history, like life, is not as simple as we should like it to be.

I have spent about two hours looking at links to these two titles (and other related ones), and I am left with the impression that many of them could be a lot better, but there are such difficult questions here that I approach this matter in a spirit of humility.

At least, I do not need to deal with links to other articles, such as India, because they are not at issue, but the confusion does go a long way beyond British Raj and British India.

We seem to have agreement that there are at least three fundamental differences between "British India" and "British Raj", across the areas of history, geography, and language.

1. Period: "British India" runs from the 18th century (or even earlier) up to 1947, while "British Raj" runs from 1858 to 1947.
2. Extent: "British India" slowly grew in size but was never anything like the whole of the subcontinent, whereas the "British Raj" refers to very nearly the whole of it, apart from some small areas of French India, Goa, etc.
3. Meaning: "British India" means no more than the physical area directly administered by the British, whereas "British Raj" has other more conceptual meanings, as set out in the dictionary definitions previously quoted.

A really good outline which helps to clarify the above is at British rule in India.

The more you look into all these matters, the harder they become, but at the same time the more you see the usefulness of the discussions we have been having in recent months.

Links to British India

After looking through many of the existing links, I have the impression that there are even more doubtful links to British India than there are to British Raj. However, I suggest that these links are only appropriate when what is meant (as stated at British rule in India) is that part of India "directly administered by the British Government India Office in London, and its head, the cabinet-level Secretary of State for India, whose policies were implemented by the Viceroy and Governor-General of India (in short, Viceroy of India) in the name of the British Crown".

However, where what is meant is specifically the British possessions in India before 1858, a direct link to Company rule in India is likely to be more helpful.

Some examples of good links to British India:

• At Rajiv Gandhi - "Born 20 August 1944 Bombay, Bombay Presidency, British India."
• At 1830s - "The stealthy murderers called "thugs" are eradicated by William Sleeman and his team in British India."
• At Sind province (1936–1955) - "Sind is a former province of British India from 1936 to 1947..."

Links to British Raj

The British Raj article is about the whole of India, primarily in the period 1858-1947. The question of links to British Raj is made more difficult by the separate existence of the article History of the British Raj, which seems to me to go wrong by seeking to cover not just 1858 to 1947 but also the "Prelude" period from the 17th century to 1858, but this isn't a problem from the point of view of these suggested guidelines and I suggest that links should be to British Raj where the meaning intended is either:

1. (as stated at British rule in India) "Crown rule in India, the rule of India by the British Crown, which lasted from 1858 until 1947" (where "India" means the whole of India and "rule" means imperial domination and not just direct administration); or
2. the whole of India (including all the present-day countries which were part of what was called "India" at the time) during the period of British domination. (This is frankly made necessary by Indian Empire, Empire of India and British Indian Empire redirecting here.)

Some examples of good links to British Raj

• At R. P. Paranjpe - "In the three years (1944-1947) preceding India's independence from the British Raj..."
• At Noor Mohammad - "Supervising land-revenue collection and farming during the British Raj, he was famous in the region..."
• At Mary Miller (actress) - "When the BBC made a series, The Indian Tales of Rudyard Kipling, set in the days of the British Raj..."

Strawless (talk) 23:10, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

It's OK to use the expression, "British India," as I have myself done on many occasions; however, frequency of such usage (and I apologize if I have misinterpreted your point) doesn't make a case for the need of the page "British India." Britannica 1911, for example, is full of instances of "British India," mostly in examples of the sort you have detailed above, however, it doesn't have a page for "British India," only one for "India." British Raj (regardless of the exact meaning of the expression) = India 1858-1947. As I have explained somewhere or the other before, my own personal preference would be for the page "British Raj" to be renamed "Crown rule in India," however, the page is an old page (created in 2001), and the term "British Raj" is now used widely, so I am reluctant to tamper with it. I don't have quibbles with your usage guidelines, but, again, they don't make a case for the need of the page "British India." Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:05, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

PS Thanks for your compliment about British rule in India! Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:09, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

But not at all, we need to respect each other's contributions, even when we disagree in discussions like this. Strawless (talk) 00:03, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

I support what Strawless suggests here, and I agree that it should avoid some past conflicts. Xn4 213.174.121.121 (talk) 13:02, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Return to the basic issue

Before we talk about appropriate links to British India and British Raj, I think it is important to finalize the content and structure of British India.

If I understand it correctly, the term British India refers to the "territory" during a specific time frame: pre-1858 (company rule period) and 1858 - 1947. During each of these periods, British India actually included some territory outside of modern day India/Pakistan (e.g Aden, Burma). The form of "government" varied significantly pre and post 1858.

There are two main articles pertaining to the pre and post 1858 periods, which describe the history and form of governance in each of these periods.

There is also a disambiguation page talking about British rule in India.

If all the foregoing is true, what are the key additional facts or subjects that should be covered in this article?

Admittedly that is a loaded question. If "British India" is just going to refer to the territory, then it would probably be easier (and less confusing) to just expand the British rule in India disambiguation page and then be sure to use the term appropriately in the British Raj and Company rule articles.

Another possibility, and actually a harder article to write, would be to transition British India into a more esoteric article, looking at changing perceptions of the British in India. At least that would have something more to say than just a repeat of the other main articles.

So I guess I come back to my original comment. The current article and structure adds to confusion rather than clarity. I just don't see the justification for its current form. It needs to be drastically shortened, eliminated or some different type of content included - and the sooner a decision is made the better. Vontrotta (talk) 13:04, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Conceptually, the article is a mess. Take, for example, the system of government section. The way British India is defined (pre- and post- mutiny), two separate systems of government existed at different points of time and both will need to be described. Of course, we already have good descriptions in Company rule in India for the pre-mutiny period and a more than adequate description in British Raj. Likewise, the Presidencies and Provinces section is already well detailed in British Raj. There is nothing new to say except to use British India as a definitional place holder. The point is that we already have more than adequate articles for both the pre-mutiny as well as the post-mutiny periods. We also have an adequate disamb page - British rule in India. The status quo is an embarrassment to wikipedia and my suggestion is eliminate the page entirely. If strawless and xn4 feel that they can construct a suitable page that coheres well and is not a mere duplication of material already covered elsewhere, let them do it in userspace and then bring it to mainspace. --Regents Park (sniff out my socks) 13:23, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Here's what we should do. Redirect British India to British rule in India and be done with it. I changed the page to a redirect once and, since I've chosen to follow WP:1RR rule, can't do it again. If anyone wants to bell the cat, I'll back them up. Doggoneit! --Regents Park (sniff out my socks) 14:46, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I had to be away due to an unexpected emergency and had no internet access during the interim. I will post something here later today. I emphasize again that all the major tertiary sources, Britannica 2008, Britannica 1911, and Encarta have no significant content for "British India." In other words, that page is either non-existent (Britannica) or only disambiguates (Encarta). I support RegentsPark's proposal. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:52, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree with both Vontrotta and RegentsPark. It is time for a decision. The article British India has now existed for exactly 2 months and all its content consists of copied-and-pasted text from other Wikipedia articles, most notably British Raj. My preferences are: (a) it should be redirected to the dab page British rule in India (which is not a new page, but has existed since 2007, when I created it), or (b) it should be returned to its original status, i.e. redirected back to British Raj. I would prefer (a) simply because "British India" can also refer to regions of Company ruled India, which existed before the Raj was formally established in 1858. But, regardless, it is time to get rid of the current standalone British India article. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:33, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I would also support option (a). How long should we wait before determining there is consensus?Vontrotta (talk) 15:30, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I dropped a note on User:Philip Baird Shearer's talk page. --Regents Park (sink with my stocks) 15:43, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm away for a few days, but I'll I'm back late on Monday. That should be long enough for anyone else to voice an opinion. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 18:10, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the present article needs a good deal of improvement if it is to demonstrate its own usefulness in practical and not theoretical terms, but Philip B. S. specifically asked on this talk page above for the article not to be improved, which may have been the main cause of delays to such improvements: it certainly deterred me. (I can't find that request now, perhaps it has been removed?)

The 'duplication' point is not so very strong. Most related Wikipedia articles have some duplication, and having looked carefully at what is there now, only small parts of the present article duplicate material elsewhere. The statement "all its content consists of copied-and-pasted text from other Wikipedia articles" is incorrect, although perhaps it was true when the article began. All of the material (including citations, external links, etc.) which is new to Wikipedia needs to be kept, it is no advantage to the encyclopedia simply to delete it, so as part of the proposal for option (a) there should be an element of merger - perhaps to Provinces of British India.

I think a fair analysis of this discussion will find we do not have a consensus for option (a) over option (b). In terms of numbers on either side, they are roughly equal. In terms of argument we have seen a good quality of debate, the balance of which it is not for me to judge. When Philip B. S. asked for compromise proposals, only mine came forward.

If anyone wishes to propose a redirect at this point, which is not one of the options proposed by Philip B. S. for discussion, the redirect might be to Provinces of British India, but I do not support that.

RegentsPark says "If strawless and xn4 feel that they can construct a suitable page that coheres well and is not a mere duplication of material already covered elsewhere, let them do it in userspace and then bring it to mainspace." I can't speak for Xn4, who still seems to be on wikileave, but I am still sure that British India has great potential to cover topics which are specific to British India, of which there are many. As we have an existing article, I should be glad to start work to improve it. However, there is a lot of work in that, and if it were decided to abandon the present article, awaiting a better one to be created in userspace, how and under what conditions would that later return? I am afraid I foresee that however much good work might have been done, some users would simply say "We decided not to have this article", I (and/or others) might well be wasting my or our efforts. Given the previous discouragement to improvements, it seems to me that there should be a period of (say) a month for that approach to be encouraged. Strawless (talk) 18:32, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

I maintain British India has only copied-and-pasted text from other articles, supplemented by crumbs found in frantic Google searches for material resembling one already present. Perhaps Strawless can detail what is new—not an obscure reference to Parsi family law that reiterates the pre-existing definition in the British Raj article, but significant content, one that could be put under a heading, even in a sub-sub-section.

I repeat user:RegentsPark's original question: what content will the "British India" article have that is not already there in British Raj, Company rule in India, Provinces of British India, Princely State or British East India Company? It is all well and good to say that repetition exists in other articles of Wikipedia etc. etc., but that doesn't absolve you from answering that question. Fine, Philip might have asked people not to add text to British India, but he never asked anyone to not outline here what they might want to add. To date, no one has given a satisfactory answer. If you think you can create an article, please do it in your user space and take the risk that anyone else takes in attempting to create new material.

The article "British India," was forced upon us by Xn4, in clear violation of the numerous discussions we have had on the British Raj talk page during the last five or six years. I think it is time to end this fruitless discussion. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:43, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Of course, it is far easier to prove a positive than a negative, and I am not the alleged plagiarist. Perhaps F. & F. could help the discussion by copying and pasting onto this page everything which he/she believes has been copied from somewhere else in Wikipedia, and copy here also the text plagiarised? Even so, that seems to me to side-step the main question, which is simply whether a British India article can have some value for the encyclopedia, which is not such a vituperative subject.

The expression "crumbs found in frantic Google searches" I am afraid I just do not understand. Could the words crumbs and frantic be explained, please?

I do not agree with "forced upon us by Xn4". He or she may have re-established the British India article from a redirect, but several others have contributed to it since, and others (including me) have supported its existence.

"in clear violation of the numerous discussions we have had on the British Raj talk page during the last five or six years" - Several weeks ago, prompted by the discussions at Talk: British Raj, I looked back at these numerous discussions, and they all seemed to be about whether to move British Raj to British India, an obviously foolish idea which in this year's discussions no one seems to have promoted, so I believe 'violation' is not appropriate.

"I think it is time to end this fruitless discussion" - in my quite humble opinion, any of us could say that about anything, but perhaps the greater question may be where we have got to? Strawless (talk) 21:20, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Here are the statistics of the contributors: Xn4 89 edits; Fowler&fowler 29; Strawless 12; Philip Baird Shearer 8; Vontrotta 7; RegentsPark 3; one IP has 2 edits; and the rest are single (1) edits, mostly by IPs or Bots. So, who has really made serious contributions? Mine have been in the nature of removing the profusion of errors from Xn4's edits. I should add that Vontrotta, RegentsPark and I are for the redirect to British rule in India and Xn4's last edit was made on September 5, 02:24. As for "copy and past," or words to that effect, it is not just my view, but admin user:Nishkid64 said something similar in his edit of August 20, 2008. During the following weeks, Xn4 replaced obvious copied and pasted text of my paraphrases from the Imperial Gazetteer of India, by a few direct quotes instead. I happen to know what is in those volumes (see picture in the Imperial Gazetteer of India page); the volumes are pre-eminently about the Raj. Just because the expression "British India" is used somewhere, doesn't give a raison d'etre for an encyclopedia page by that name. Perhaps you can explain why both the 2008 Encyclopaedia Britannica and (especially) the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica, use the expression "British India" on many other pages, but neither has a page for "British India" itself. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:12, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

"Main article" hatnotes in subsections

I have just noticed that several hatnotes have been added into the British India article which suggest that the "main article" for each subsection is at a subsection of British Raj, even including a new hatnote in the Definitions subsection here, which is clearly better than the smaller quantity of material to be found at the British Raj article. I really do not see any point in edit-warring over this, but it does go to the heart of what we have been talking about. So long as there is a British India article, subsections of British Raj do not need need to assert that they are the "main article" for subsections of the British India article, which is about a different subject. Indeed, it would be normal for there to be links in the other direction (I mean, from British Raj) where appropriate. However, for now the cross-referencing is helpful to anyone who wishes to check that the statement "all its content consists of copied-and-pasted text from other Wikipedia articles" is mistaken. Strawless (talk) 20:13, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

No, the definition was first there in the British Raj article long before the "British India" page was created. One good definition, one adopted by the British Parliament, is enough. There is no need to find 3 other definitions, especially obscure ones. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:54, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

May I add that it does go to the heart of what we have been talking about but not quite in the way you see it. Clearly, everything included here already has an existence in other articles. Without commenting on the merits of which 'definitional' section is better, if you feel that a particular section in one of the other articles is lacking in some way, the appropriate thing to do is to modify the text in an existing article rather than creating a new 'better' version. I honestly see no sense in having multiple articles that cover the same topics. --Regents Park (sink with my stocks) 21:05, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

And also perhaps no need to give areas, populations, etc?

"multiple articles that cover the same topics": I think the real answer to that, Regents Park, is that on this side of the discussion we do not agree that they are the same topics. Please see xn4's analysis above and also my "three fundamental differences" bulleted under the heading Suggested guidelines for links to British India and British Raj. As F. & F. has correctly said at Talk:Undivided India, British India was a subset of India. The mere existence of information on British India at British Raj cannot demonstrate that an article on the subset is not justified, any more than it could show that we needed no British Somaliland if Somalia contained subsections and information on the nature and administration of British Somaliland. This is why this seems to go to the heart of what we are talking about. Whatever we call it (and like F. & F. I am uncertain about its title) British Raj is an article we need, but in my submission it is the wrong place for detailed material which is specific to British India. As the encyclopedia grows, I think such arguments will become stronger. Strawless (talk) 23:58, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid the detailed material is already there (or needs to be there) in pre-existing Wikipedia pages, such as Provinces of British India or the individual province pages themselves, e.g. United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, Central Provinces and Berar, Bombay Presidency, etc. What details do you propose to put in the British India article that don't belong in these pages (or in British Raj or Company rule in India)? The geographic and demographic details belong to the provinces (see, for example, my two province pages, Ceded and Conquered Provinces, North-Western Provinces), and the rule belongs to the British Raj or Company rule in India. What else is there? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:12, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

No doubt this is also a question for me. Unfortunately, I'm travelling in France with only limited internet access (and also of course without access to my usual library and intranet).

As Strawless has said above, great improvements are possible to this article, though that is a different issue from whether it is appropriate to have it at all, which has been debated already in quite some detail. If my view is asked for, the future improvements need to be chiefly in the areas which are to do with the whole of British India, as a coherent territory, and not just to some parts of it. For instance, sections on the courts of British india, the status of people born in British India, and on some of the other functions of the British administration carried out uniformly across the whole territory (such as posts and railways). This recalls the principle of subsidiarity, which I mentioned once before. When I am at home, in mid-November, I'll be able to make a start on such work, and I see Strawless is also interested in helping. Xn4 (talk) 13:18, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

I think I understand the aim of Fowler&fowler which is expressed in "One good definition, one adopted by the British Parliament, is enough" - in the British Raj article, such conciseness may indeed be enough. But the one definition is no more than a snapshot in time, and at a dedicated British India article it is surely appropriate to range over time and also to go into greater detail. In the light of that, I really do not agree that the "main article" for British India questions is British Raj. Also, I am familiar with the idea of a subsection of ar article leading to a dedicated article on the same matter, but not with the idea that a subsection of one article is the main for a subsection elsewhere. Xn4 (talk) 13:24, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

I feel you need to clarify both for yourself and for us whether the term "British India" is a geographical term, and therefore, only about the physical aspects of the region, about its population and the like (a point of view not only maintained earlier by you yourself, but also one echoed by Strawless in his/her most recent post) or whether it is also about the rule in "British India." If it is about the latter, you are really advocating changing the name of the British Raj article to British India, for there is no difference (I repeat "no difference") between the "law in the British Raj" and the "law in British India." Although the British Raj (with "raj" now being used as a verb) included indirect rule of the princely states, at no time was any significant effort devoted to interfering with (or changing) the legal systems in place in these States. The sections on "law" in any of the dozens (indeed hundreds) of books on the Raj are invariably about the law in British India.

It is possible that you may have mistakenly concluded that British Raj page is about Princely States and British India in near equal measure (perhaps because I was creating tables for the princely states at the time you began editing the article); in fact, the Raj is mostly (>90%) about the rule of British India. However, that in no way makes a case for the independence existence of the page "British India," any more than the occurrence of the expression "British India" in thousands of other pages in the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica, makes a case for the page "British India," which the Encyclopaedia conspicuously lacks.

Look, it is ultimately a question of historiographic convention. For better or worse, historians have used the term "British India" mainly for disambiguation; the rest of the time, they have used only "India." The page British Raj (regardless of the various meanings of "raj") is completely identical with that "India," the same "India" that appears in the Imperial Gazetteer of India. It is, after all, not the "Imperial Gazetteer of British India" even though, for the most part, the volumes are about "British India," especially, when describing the administration, economy, law, etc. The British Raj article is, on a Wikipedia scale, an "Imperial Gazetteer of India." What you are proposing to do, is, attempting—again on a Wikipedia scale—an "Imperial Gazetteer of British India." I don't see the point. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:10, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Far too long

I'm afraid this deliberation on whether this page should exist, and if so, in what form, has gone on far too long. I don't see why (as I've said before many times) a special dispensation should be made for this latest round of editors (Xn4 and Strawless) in this latest round of arguments; arguments that, I might add, keep changing, chameleon-like, from one position ("No we are not trying to change the name of the page British Raj to British India. British India will develop with time, we can't tell you what it will be about, you can't put a time limit on inspiration, etc. etc.") to another ("British India is really about the geography, population—the finer details that is—which won't find mention in a huge topic like the British Raj, etc. etc.") to yet another which looks very much like the negation of the first ("sections on the courts of British India, the status of people born in British India, and on some of the other functions of the British administration carried out uniformly across the whole territory (such as posts and railways)." Well, what else is the British Raj article about??).

It is not fair to the people who have worked long and hard on the British Raj article for this state of affairs to continue any longer. The longer a decision is not made on this issue, the more collateral damage will be done in other articles. Witness a long-standing merge tag in the page "Undivided India", which was only changed recently; what they really meant there was "British Raj," not "British India." From, my point of view, there is a majority for this page to be redirected to British rule in India. If a decision is not made, and if Xn4 and Strawless continue with their arguments, which are long drawn out in both space and time, I will be forced to consider formal mediation (as I had offered before). If Xn4 is traveling and can't edit, well, why can't he compose his article on foolscap paper with a No. 2 pencil and keyboard it into a subpage of his userpage when he is able to? When that subpage is complete, as RegentsPark has suggested many times before, we can reopen this issue again. Again, this is not a threat; people who make threats don't wait around for two months for resolution. End of the day, Wednesday, October 29, is as long as I will wait. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:01, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

I just realized that the disambiguation page British rule in India is different from the disambiguation page for British India I supported in the RfC, (It's been too long!), but in any case there is a majority for the "British India" page to be a disambiguation page of some kind and not an independent standalone page. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:58, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

A reminder of how it all started

Here is a reminder for those who might have forgotten how it all started:

• user:Xn4 made an edit, which I thought was both provocative and inaccurate, in the lead of the British Raj page on August 13, 2008. Nothing was mentioned on the talk page. (I realized later on that he may have been aided in his inaccuracy by an earlier inaccurate edit made by Janus657 on July 25.) Concurrently, on the British India page, he removed a two-year old redirect to British Raj (which had this explicit statement by admin Philip Baird Shearer at the top), without a peep on the talk pages of either article, and then copied and pasted this definition in his new British India page from this section of the British Raj page (version of August 10). No attempt was made to even minimally paraphrase the copied and pasted text.
• Five days later, after returning from my vacation on August 18, when I saw user:Xn4's changes, and corrected it in this edit and this, user:Xn4, proceeded to edit-war with me, re-adding content such as, "British Raj is an imprecise term which began in about the 1920s as a colloquialism for 'British India', ..." in the very first sentence of the British Raj page, unaware, still, that this statement contradicted the edits he had made on August 13, 2008 to the British India page, where the "definition" stated that British India was only those regions under the British Raj that were directly administered by the British, and this time he had no Janus657 to pin the blame on.
• When, I presented evidence that the term was older than 1920 etc., he reluctantly began to retract all his edits on British Raj, but continued to edit British India. What did he do there? Well, he defined British India to be the "British India" of the British Raj and not that of Company rule in India (see here). As we know from statutes of the British Parliament dating to 1770, the term "British India" has been used for British dominions in India pretty much from the early 17th century (see: Drayton, Robert Harry, The Statutes: From the Twentieth Year of King Henry the Third to the Tenth Chapter of the Twelfth, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth Years of King George the Sixth AD 1235-1948, Statutes of the Realm - Law - 1770 Page 211 (3): "Save as otherwise expressly provided in this Act, the law of British India and of the several parts thereof existing immediately before the appointed...").
• When he was challenged with this correction of August 18, what did he do? He let the edit stand for 10 days, but then in this edit of August 28 (with edit summary, "copyedited lead"), he changed the lead sentence back to being about the British Raj, but delegated the inconvenient fact about Company Rule to the page Company rule in India, with this incorrect statement, "The term has also been used less formally for the holdings in India of the Honourable East India Company in the period up to 1857, but that period is dealt with in Company rule in India." The term was not used less formally; it has been just as formal. Here is the Imperial Gazetteer of India (published under the authority of the Secretary of State for India-in-Council, another name for the British Government India Office), "The history of British India falls, as observed by Sir. C.P. Ilbert in his Government of India, into three periods. From the beginning of the seventeenth century to the middle of the eighteenth century ..."
• user:Xn4 was also busy soliciting support on talk pages. At 1:07 on August 20, 2008, he left this message on admin user:Nishkid64's talk page, which said, among other things, that he (user:Xn4) was "getting battered by Fowler&fowler, who seems to have persuaded himself that his ownership of British Raj extends rather widely." When admin Nishkid64 responded right away (at 1:16) on the Talk:British Raj page, with this reply, which said, "Xn4, did you check the page archives linked at the top of (t)his talk page? It seems like there was considerable discussion over the British India vs. British Raj naming convention. I haven't looked at it myself, but it may explain why Fowler&fowler feels that a consensus needs to be established first," what did user:Xn4 do next? He posted eight different user talk pages asking them to look into "British India" (see here for verification):

1. 02:35, 20 August 2008 (hist) (diff) User talk:Cosmos416 ‎ (→British India)
2. 02:34, 20 August 2008 (hist) (diff) User talk:Speedboy Salesman ‎ (British India)
3. 02:33, 20 August 2008 (hist) (diff) User talk:Viscious81 ‎ (→British India: new section)
4. 02:32, 20 August 2008 (hist) (diff) User talk:MichiganCharms ‎ (→British India)
5. 02:08, 20 August 2008 (hist) (diff) User talk:Big Adamsky ‎ (→British India)
6. 02:06, 20 August 2008 (hist) (diff) User talk:John Smith's ‎ (→British India)
7. 02:05, 20 August 2008 (hist) (diff) User talk:Tom Radulovich ‎ (→British India: new section)
8. 02:04, 20 August 2008 (hist) (diff) User talk:AjaxSmack ‎ (→British India)

• When admin Nishkid64 replied again at 02:49 and made an explicit suggestion, "Perhaps British India should be redirected to British Raj#British India and the Native States? The content of British India could be found almost in its entirety from the aforementioned section in British Raj." what did user:Xn4 do? He failed to respond to user:Nishkid64's post altogether. There was no response by Xn4 even a week later.
• When there was no support generated by the other talk page posts either, user:Xn4 posted again a week later on seven talk pages:

1. 23:17, 28 August 2008 (hist) (diff) User talk:Viscious81 ‎ (→British India) (top)
2. 23:14, 28 August 2008 (hist) (diff) User talk:John Smith's ‎ (→British India)
3. 23:12, 28 August 2008 (hist) (diff) User talk:Tom Radulovich ‎ (→British India)
4. 23:11, 28 August 2008 (hist) (diff) User talk:AjaxSmack ‎ (→British India)
5. 22:35, 28 August 2008 (hist) (diff) User talk:Magicalsaumy ‎ (→India)
6. 22:30, 28 August 2008 (hist) (diff) User talk:Kirrages ‎ (→India again)
7. 22:24, 28 August 2008 (hist) (diff) User talk:Strawless ‎ (→British India: new section)

which included two new people user:Kirrages and user:Strawless. This resulted in two posts: this post by Strawless (who had no history of editing the British Raj page), and this post by Stephen Kirrages, which suggested the British India page should be about what "exactly 'what it was' from 1765 to 1947," but added, "I agree with Fowler, however, that how British India was governed (political, administrative, historical) or about how life was lived in British India (social, economic), in other words what happened there, would more sensibly go in the Raj or Company rule articles."

• When administrator user:Philip Baird Shearer attempted to resolve the issue by creating a disambiguation page, with this edit, and posting on on the British Raj talk page with this edit, what did user:Xn4 do? He answered with this post on the same talk page, stating, "Hello, Philip. My only reason for not replying above is that I have been away for two days and haven't visited Wikipedia. I don't agree that there is a consensus for British India to be a disambiguation page, and even if there were one here it wouldn't be very surprising. However, I have no objection to leaving it to someone else to revert your edit, which I disagree with." Apparently, what that statement meant was that as soon as someone else reverted that edit, he would feel free to start editing the article again (without pursuing the discussion about the disambiguation). For, soon thereafter, user:Strawless (the same Strawless whose talk page was left a post by Xn4, who had no history of editing the British Raj page, and who had failed to respond to admin Shearer's request for further discussion), nonetheless saw fit to revert admin Shearer's edit, and, true to his word, user:Xn4 then saw fit to start editing the page again.

All this happened well before the RfC began, and it has been almost two months since that date. Soon thereafter (September 5), user:Xn4 disappeared from Wikipedia, but not before he left this post on admin user:Philip Baird Shearer's talk page, which says among other things, "... I've also got the impression that you have a strong predisposition to the positions taken up by Fowler&fowler, however abusive he is, and as you've made previous decisions in support of him or her on the very choice you've posed now at Talk:British India under an RFC, it's quite hard to see how you can avoid at least the appearance (I'll put it no stronger than that) of having prejudged the issue." Disappeared from Wikipedia, that is, until he made his post above on October 24. Now we hear that user:Xn4 is traveling in France and has little or no internet access and that he will work on the article British India and show us what content can be developed after mid-November (and I'm assuming it is 2008).

I understand that real-life intervenes; I too have had interventions. During this time, I had more than one family emergency including the death of a parent, and what I described at the top of this post as "vacation," was actually spent in a hospital. But we all try to move the process forward as best we can. Clearly this is not happening here. It's time to end this RfC. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:44, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

A possible compromise

I'm still lurking. First of all I want to congratulate everyone in not allowing this to degenerate into an edit war, but I would also like to remind everyone that the current position is unstable and that the current page only exists in its current form because it was agreed not to edit war over the page. I think from reading the contributions above, we may be able to reach a compromise. I think that we can all agree that the current article is not of a standard that it could be. The major argument against it is that it only repeats what is already in other articles. To which the proponents of it say "but we could improve it and have only not done so while we try to reach a compromise".

So I suggest as a compromise we move the current article into user space. Then move British rule in India to here and modify it so it is a true dab page for the term "British India". If the article in users pace does improve, then we can at some future date either agree to move it back here, or we can incorporate the new information into existing articles -- so the effort put into the user space article is not wasted which was a concern raised by Strawless. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 17:55, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

This sounds good to me. No effort made by Xn4, Strawless or anyone else will go wasted. Any addition of content, for example, to the economy, will also go into the article Economy of British India (note "British India"), and only then, in summary style, make its way into a section "Economy of/during the British Raj" of the British Raj page. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:52, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

View by Nichalp

Fowler asked me to weigh in, so here are some of my thoughts:

I'm strongly opposed to having content forks, including those to support technicalities. So having multiple articles on British Raj, British Rule, Company rule etc serves to confuse a reader rather then enlighten him. The term "British India" is generally used in popular parlance to separate independent India from British-governed India (that also included Pakistan and Bangladesh). India as a coalesced nation did not metamorphose till the British arrived and began conquering and uniting. The princely states too were not independent nation-states that require a separate historical article to justify British India vs British Raj. The state kingdoms were not independent and were subjugate to the British Empire. Also, I'm not sure what British India is supposed to mean. We do not have a British Australia or British Africa. So what I do think is that the term is a derived one, rather an a formal defined name and proper noun. Co-relate this to British East Africa that existed, and issued stamps under the name. I suggest the following breakup:

1. British Rule in India that details the arrival of the British in India up to 1950, when India became a republic. The article also contains a summary of the following articles:
   1. British Raj [scope 1858 - 1947] with a strong focus on governance and rule
   2. Company Rule in India [scope 1757 - 1857] with a strong focus on the expansionist programmes of the Company
2. British India be redirected to British Raj
3. An additional article can detail the relationship between the suzerain states of India and the British.

=Nichalp «Talk»= 13:01, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Nichalp. Your suggestions are somewhat along the lines of what was proposed by user:Peterkingiron here earlier. So, just to clarify what you are saying, here is how I have understood your comments:

1. There should be a overview article entitled British rule in India (which is currently a dab page) or British Rule in India (which I didn't realize also existed), providing an overview of the entire British presence in India from the early 17th century to the mid-20th and containing a summary of the current articles:
   1. Company rule in India, and
   2. British Raj
2. "British India" should be redirected to British Raj
3. An additional article can detail the relationship between the Princely States and the British.

I do have some questions:

A. There is also the (former feature) article East India Company, which focuses on the trading company, the period 1600 to 1757, and the regulating acts. So shouldn't the overview article also have a summary (perhaps a shorter one) of East India Company as well?

B. Would you be opposed to "British India" being redirected to this overview article, British rule in India instead of "British Raj?" I ask because the term "British India" was used and still is used collectively for the (expanding) presidencies under Company rule as well (at least in the scholarly sources), even though in popular parlance (especially lately) it has been used for India under British rule during 1858 to 1947? I do understand your point about technicalities though.

C. Can the current article, Princely States, be the article in 3. above?

D. I agree that there should be some overview article that is more than just a disambiguation page, but my main worry is still that this overview article might begin to duplicate content, and that anything more than a paragraph (or two) devoted to each period, (a) 1600–1757 (East India Company (b) 1757–1858 (Company rule in India), and (c) 1858–1947 (British Raj) will begin to look like duplication. All three articles of the three periods are old articles dating back to 2002. How do we ensure that this doesn't happen?

E If there is consensus for this overview article (and soon), will you (along with user:Philip Baird Shearer, user:Peterkingiron, user:RegentsPark, user:Xn4, user:Strawless, user:Vontrotta, user:Kirrages, user:Nishkid64, user:rueben lys, user:TheBlueKnight, and any others that might be interested) be willing to take a shot at it? Or, you could do the first cut, and they could then provide feedback and revisions? I ask because you have experience in these matters and because the iron is hot right now so we might actually make progress on these longstanding issues.

F The alternative to the overview article is simply to have British rule in India as a disambiguation page with especial attention to the term "British India" (as described by user:Philip Baird Shearer above). In other words, we could proceed with this set up, make the three daughter articles more complete and focused and then attend to the question of the overview. I should add that I am neutral between options E. and F. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:03, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Comments on Nichalp's proposal

• (ec) I think Nichalp has expressed the requirements very well. I share f&f's concern that the overview page British rule in India could be prone to duplicating material already in other articles but, perhaps the need for an overview page outweighs that danger. Princely States should adequately cover the relationship between the British and those states (the term Princely States applies only in the context of the British Raj). If anyone is interested in expanding on any particular state, they can do that in separate articles (the lack of historical articles on the various princely states is an important gap in wikipedia's body of knowledge on Indian History). In my opinion, the British India article should be redirected to British Raj (because that is the technical definition of the term) but it could also be redirected to British rule in India (because many wikipedia readers will not care about minor technicalities!). —Preceding unsigned comment added by RegentsPark (talk • contribs) 16:26, 29 October 2008

(EnigmaMCMXC' post moved to Talk:British Raj#India in World War II Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:54, 29 October 2008 (UTC))

Fowler&fowler has thoughtfully invited me on my Talk page to comment.

Nichalp says in the present thread "The term "British India" is generally used in popular parlance to separate independent India from British-governed India". I am sure there is some truth in that, but I think the reply is that Wikipedia shouldn't about "popular parlance", it is an encyclopedia and needs to be about scholarship, about detailed and correct information, sourced as well as possible. To put that more grandly, it is about educating the world. To illustrate this point, in the "popular parlance" of much of the world, "Great Britain" and "England" are much the same thing, but by education people learn the difference between them. To have an article on British India here, even one with much improvement needed to it, is a powerful tool in that process of education.

On Nichalp's suggestion that "British India" should be redirected to British Raj", I and others do not agree with that, for all of the detailed reasons advanced so far: please see the discussion here and also at Talk:British Raj. And I believe Philip Baird Shearer has said correctly somewhere above that there is a consensus against such a redirect.

Fowler&fowler asks "Would you be opposed to "British India" being redirected to this overview article, British rule in India instead of "British Raj?" " I, of course, am one of those who believe Wikipedia needs a discrete article, so I should be opposed. At the same time, I should like to look for ways to make the outcome I support more comfortable for those who disagree with it.

In general, I do agree with the "overview article" idea which has developed, and if I am invited to help in particular ways then I shall be glad to do what I can, but I do not believe 'British India' would be a possible title for that overview article, as the term has a correct meaning which is significantly less than the whole of India.

One thought which I believe Fowler&fowler had some time ago which does strike me as another possible compromise would be to merge Provinces of British India into British India. For reasons of space, the separation might one day be an advantage, but as matters stand at the moment this might be a rationalisation which could make sense to all of us?

I hope these comments are helpful. Strawless (talk) 16:53, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I concur with Nichalp's proposal that an overview page will be more informative in giving a layman (perhaps too strong a word??) an overall perspective of the British presence (Company and the British Crown) in India. Indeed there shall be duplication in the expanded articles but that is acceptable. I do see one potential problem - POV-pushers from India might wish to place more emphasis on the WRONGS of the Brits, while POV-pushers from the UK might wish to place more emphasis on the RIGHTS of the Brits. Placing an emphasis on merely governance may actually add fuel to the fire.

TheBlueKnight (talk) 19:28, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

(Remainder of TheBlueKnight's post moved to Talk:British Raj#India in World War II Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:54, 29 October 2008 (UTC))

(Remainder of India in World War II discussion including posts of Fowler&fowler and RegentsPark moved to Talk:British Raj#India in World War II. Hope this is OK. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:54, 29 October 2008 (UTC))

Replies

@Fowler:

1. Yes, the overview article should have something on the EIC – The reasons why it came to India, and the subjugation of fractitious Indian kingdoms. Out of scope would be the financial aspects, governors, etc.
2. British India: Detailed discussion below
3. Princely states: Yes, I think the article on Princely States should suffice with a little expansion and cleanup unless there is detailed information on the political relations for a spinoff daughter article
4. On content creeping in: Difficult; unless someone watches it regularly. A global problem with Wikipedia. The best way IMO, is to get it featured. If the prose is well-written, and links to the main articles are present in the section, it would be difficult for a casual reader, and easy for those watching the page, to maintain featured article standards -- just like the India or Mumbai pages.
5. Sure, I like précis writing. But maybe not in the immediate future, little tied down for the moment.
6. British rule in India: more below

@ Strawless

1. Wikipedia shouldn't be about popular parlance, but popular parlance does mean that we should be able to get verifiable third-party sources. Therefore, I think we are in line with its inclusion. So the question remains about its scope.
2. Next, what do scholarly sources have to say on the term British India? Is there a consensus among scholars? Or is the erudite community divided? See my comment on British India below:
3. Provinces of British India is more suited to be a Featured List if someone could clean it up and add references

@ BlueKnight

POV pushing will always be present on WIkipedia. FA status is the best solution. :(

British India

I have some questions:

1. When was the term "British India" coined?
2. When did India as a unified nation arise? Is there consensus when India as a unified nation came into being? Was it in the mid 19th century?
3. At what stage did the East India company become more powerful than the local rulers? I'm working on the History of Mumbai, and I have a "sion+fort"+contraband&client=firefox-a source (pg 148) that mentions that Bombay (which was always British-held territory since the 1600s) was subject to Maratha regulations on taxes and contraband items. This information is dated circa 1800. So the question to be asked is: Was the Company Rule absolute up to 1800?
4. Other than the scope on British India, I want to know if we have consensus on the other proposals? Instead of holding the developments other articles in abeyance, if there is consensus, I suggest we go ahead with the development of those articles, while debating the scope of British India. How does this sound? =Nichalp «Talk»= 15:23, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Comments on Nichalp's further questions

I have added my replies to your questions 1-3 (which have a lot of references) in a separate section below, so as to not burden the discussion here. Here is my reply to question 4:

4. I am in agreement. Consensus, of course, will depend on the input of others.

Please continue further discussion here. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:21, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the references. It also struck me that the term British India could have been used to distinguish Portuguese India, French India and so on. So, I do not support a redirect anymore. I have a proposal. How about if the page on British India contains the following text:

---

'British India is the term used to describe the territory in the Indian subcontinent that was under British control or direct influence from 1608 to 1947. From 1615 to 1773, the British East India company managed to take advantage of the fractious kingdoms to achieve gains. After 1773, the East India company governed the territory on behalf of the British government and managed to successfully displace other European powers as the dominant colonial power in the region. By the early 19th century, the British became the most powerful political and military entity in the subcontinent. In 1858, a year after the Indian revolt of 1857, the East India Company was disbanded and India was ruled directly by the Crown as a colony of the United Kingdom officially known as the Empire of India. Independence from British rule was later achieved with the formation of the Dominion of India. The term British India briefly applied to modern-day Myanmar (then known as Burma) till it was separated as a separate crown colony. British India does not apply to the Sri Lanka (then known as Ceylon) and the Maldives that were also colonies of the British in the region. At its peak, the territory of area under British influence extended from Burma in the east to Afghanistan in the north west, parts of Tibet in the north east, and the colony of Aden in the west.

See also

• British rule in India
• Company rule in India
• British Raj
• British rule in Burma

---

=Nichalp «Talk»= 16:28, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

This sounds good to me too. It is an expanded version of the dab page that user:Philip Baird Shearer had suggested. I am will change a few things in it later (below) while we wait for input from others. Thanks, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:36, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good to me too. I have a couple of quibbles - I would restate 'modern day Myanmar' to Burma (modern day Myanmar) and drop the briefly because chunks of Burma (Arakan) were a part of British India for over a hundred years - longer than, say, the Punjab. But, otherwise its more or less good to go. --Regents Park (sink with my stocks) 03:33, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Please, feel free to edit it. I have no hardened stand. The write up was impromptu, I did not check for prose or exactness. =Nichalp «Talk»= 14:58, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

It is fine just the way it is. I'm just being a quibbler. Ignore me. :-) --Regents Park (sink with my stocks) 15:55, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

---

I have tweaked the text a little below. I've included RegentsPark's point. Also Burma didn't become a British Crown Colony in 1937, only commenced to be administered independently of India by a new Burma Office, a correction that needs to be made in the British rule in Burma page as well. There were a few other minor issues (such as the Company being formally disbanded in 1876 and I didn't want people objecting later), and I've amended those. I hope this new version of British India suggested by Nichalp is also more along the lines of what users Kirrages and Peterkingiron, and perhaps also Xn4 and Strawless, were advocating. Please suggest any other changes.

I would like to suggest that no wikilinks be added in the text proper, otherwise a new reader will be thoroughly confused. We also need to make sure that this page is not expanded. Perhaps it should be locked down, with any additional changes to be made with administrative help by posting on the talk page. Also, should we add Portuguese India and French India to the See also? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:09, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Fowler&fowler's references

1. Well, the term "British India" has certainly been in use since 1770:

• There is a British Government statute of 1770 that uses the expression "British India." Drayton, Robert Harry, The Statutes: From the Twentieth Year of King Henry the Third to the Tenth Chapter of the Twelfth, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth Years of King George the Sixth AD 1235-1948, Statutes of the Realm - Law - 1770 Page 211 (3): "Save as otherwise expressly provided in this Act, the law of British India and of the several parts thereof existing immediately before the appointed..."
• There is a book (in three volumes containing a total of 1040 pages) published in 1794 with title, British India Analyzed (this version, 1795) by Charles Francis Greville, London:Printed for R. Faulder, New Bond Street, which, in turn, elicited this 7 page review in The Analytical Review, Or History of Literature, by Thomas Christie, (contributors Joseph Johnson, Thomas Hurst), published by s.n., 1794, Item notes: v.19 (May-Aug. 1794). Since the term British India is not explained anywhere in the review, we can assume that it had been in use for some time.
• There is a journal article from 1798 published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, which says, "I have no doubt, when it is known how much such information will tend to illustrate the history of the earth, and particularly that of gems, the spirit of inquiry, so laudably afloat in British India, will be directed to attain it." ("On the Corundum Stone from Asia." by Charles Greville, Count de Bournon and Charles Oakley, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Vol. 88, (1798), pp. 403-448)
• The Naval Chronicle for 1799 reporting on the proceedings in the House of Commons on July 12, 1799, states"... At this period, however, while the House was about breaking up, he (Mr. Dundas) would not trouble them further than to state, that, in his opinion, the Court of Directors of the East India Company had sufficiently the means in their own hands to grant such facilities to the private trade, and establish such regulations as would, with great benefit to themselves and to the State at large, secure to this country the whole of the trade from British India, ..."
• The Asiatic Annual Register for 1799 (published in 1800) began to publish a series "History of British India", and stated in its preface, "We propose to arrange our Miscellany under six different heads; namely, a History of British India; a Chronical of Public Events in Asia at large, ..." and goes on to say somewhat apologetically, "Anxious that our first article should be as complete in itself, and as useful to the Public, as we were capable of making it, we have commenced our History with a View of the Indian Empire, from the earliest Ages to the beginning of the seventeenth Century of the Christian Æra, ... Without a competent knowledge of these subjects, it would be the height of presumption to write a History of British India; and without an adequate notion of them, no reader, who is not conversant in Asiatic politics, could possibly understand it."
• The same Annual Asiatic Register in its list of New Publications, advertises the book Historical View of Plans for the Government of British India (410 pages) with this blurb, "The Authorities upon which the whole of this Detail rests, have been obtained either from the Records of the Company, from the Archives of the State, or from the Communications of those whose official and local knowledge qualify them to aid their country upon this important occasion."
• In the early 1800s there are many books about "British India," the most well-known of which is: The History of British India by James Mill, Esq., in six volumes (London: Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, 3rd edition, 1826)
• Finally, it seems newspapers in Britain began to use the term from the very early 1800s.

2. I'm assuming you mean "India as a unified nation under the British?" I'd say it happened gradually in the first half of the 19th century, as more and more native states signed pacts recognizing EIC as the suzerain and paying them fees to maintain an army for protection. The Residency system, for example, was devised in the first half of the 19th century (some residents were even appointed in the late 18th.) By the time of Dalhousie, India was certainly being regarded as a country, since the railway lines and telegraph lines were laid then and although they passed through the Native States, they were maintained and controlled by the British. Many of the native states who rebelled in 1857 (like Jhansi) had already accepted EIC suzerainty; it was the Doctrine of Lapse that proved to be too much. The three universities (Madras, Bombay, Calcutta), they were founded under EIC rule. A large number of primary and secondary schools (in the Doab) were founded then by the EIC. The Ganges Canal, for example, pushed through after the Agra famine of 1837–38, was opened in 1854. The famine was also the first one for which the Company organized relief works. Also, by 1833, the EIC, had essentially become an administrative arm of the British Government. No trade was going on. That's why "British" and "Company" are often used synonymously for this period. If I had to point to any one event, I'd say it was the Anglo-Sikh war, 1846, that sealed the deal by adding Punjab and Kashmir to the Company's realm (the latter of which was immediately sold to the Dogras by the Company). The expansion was reflected in the naming of regions; in 1836, "North-Western Provinces" was the name of the current-day UP area, and although this name was used for the rest of the 19th century, by the turn of the 20th century "North West Frontier Province" meant Peshawar.

3. I'd say after Wellesley (turn of the 19th century) with the creation of the Ceded and Conquered Provinces, it had become clear to everyone that the Company was the dominant power on the subcontinent. Between 1773 (Warren Hastings) and 1800, there was probably an awareness among Indian princes that the British had superior technology. In Bengal (Bengal, Bihar, Orissa), however, the Company did pretty much have absolute power. Justices, for example, were appointed to the Supreme Court in Calcutta in 1784, when the Nizamat (Criminal Jurisdiction) passed to the Company.

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:51, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

For contemporary (i.e. modern) use of "British India" for the period 1757–1858 (not just journal articles, but also in books and newspapers) see sections 5, 6, and 7 in my subpage on the RfC references. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:42, 31 October 2008 (UTC)