Talk:Mahatma Gandhi

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Misinformation on lead

Lead says: "he undertook several hunger strikes to stop the religious violence. The last of these, begun in Delhi on 12 January 1948 when he was 78, also had the indirect goal of pressuring India to pay out some cash assets owed to Pakistan."

The bold part is a misleading claim and should be removed. It is pure misinformation.

It is claimed that this was one of the reasons why Godse killed Gandhi but it seems to be Hindutva disinformation also because his own statement makes no mention of the owed cash to Pakistan. Similarly, pages on Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi and Nathuram Godse also make no mention of this false claim.

I don't see any official sources for this information. This false claim was apparently created in the mid-1960s and became popular only after 1980s. Nevertheless, there are enough sources that debunk this information.

• Stanley Wolpert (2002). Gandhi's Passion: The Life and Legacy of Mahatma Gandhi. Oxford University Press. p. 525. ISBN 978-0-19-992392-2. Since mid-August, Nehru and Patel had continued to resist releasing Pakistan's 550 million rupees owed from partitioned British imperial balances. Many Indians felt that Gandhi fasted only to encourage Delhi's Cabinet to pay Pakistan that money, but Gandhi's final fast, the penultimate passion of his life, was undertaken for more than one failure on the part of his two most powerful former disciples. He fasted to punish his impotent self for the general breakdown of Delhi, for the selfish corruption of the Congress, and for the criminal attacks against minorities in both dominions.

• Testa Setalvad (2015). Beyond Doubt: A Dossier on Gandhi's Assassination. Tulika Books. p. 140. ISBN 978-93-82381-56-3. Retrieved 2023-03-05. All these facts prove that the hunger strike was not for the 55 crore rupees. [...] The Hindutva forces have consistently made false propaganda and no efforts were made to counter that propaganda. Hence, since it is repeated time and again, people believe this falsehood as truth.

• Dilip Hiro (2015). The Longest August: The Unflinching Rivalry Between India and Pakistan. PublicAffairs. p. 493. ISBN 978-1-56858-503-1. Retrieved 2023-03-05. Because the Indian government made its decision during Mahatma Gandhi's fast, some historians have wrongly attributed his fasting to the issue of the cash payable to Pakistan.

• Kaushik, Narendra (2020). Mahatma Gandhi in Cinema. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p. 243. ISBN 978-1-5275-4960-9. perpetuated myths on Gandhi's role in the partition, the release of Rs. 55 crore and the alleged appeasement of Muslims and Pakistan, which have been part of the public perception for long

• Chunilal Vaidya (2015-01-30). "The truth behind the assassination of Gandhiji". Rediff. Dr Sushila Nayyar, as soon as she heard Gandhiji proclaim his decision, rushed to her brother Pyarelal and informed him in a huff that Gandhiji had decided to undertake fast till the madness in Delhi ceased. Even in those moments of inadvertence the mention of 55 crore of rupees was not made which clearly proves that it was not intended by Gandhiji.[...] We hope these facts should put at rest the 55 crore concoction at rest.

In light of these sources, this information should be removed. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 04:47, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

The indirect goal of pressuring the Indian cabinet, and more pointedly Patel, to pay out some cash assets of British India owed to Pakistan by newly independent India, has been recorded in the reliable sources for a very long time. It was also a motivation for Godse to murder Gandhi, made easier according to many by Patel's open disregard for beefing up security arrangements for Gandhi, especially after the failed bomb attack of the week before the murder. The lax security was also mentioned by Herbert Reiner Jr., the man who apprehended Godse after Gandhi's assassination. Have added some histories, classic and modern: Rudolph and Rudolph's classic socioeconomic history; Sumit Sarkar's classic modern colonial history; Joe Lelyveld's definitive modern biography, and Rotem Geva's academic monograph of last year. I am flat out of time these days for Wikipedia, so I'm pinging @RegentsPark, Johnbod, Tito Dutta, Dwaipayanc, and Vanamonde93: and request that they keep an eye on this page if they can. Thanks. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:43, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Just because "the indirect goal of pressuring the Indian cabinet, and more pointedly Patel, to pay out some cash assets of British India owed to Pakistan by newly independent India, has been recorded in the reliable sources for a very long time", it doesn't mean it becomes true since it is fairly a recent assertion and has been verified as invalid claim by the sources provided above. If it "was also a motivation for Godse to murder Gandhi" then why it was never mentioned as such by Godse himself? Your latest source tells "last fast seems to have been directed in part", which is a mere dubious speculation at best. This information appears to be 1) an accidental mix-up, 2) Hindutva propaganda as noted in one of the above sources to justify the murder of Mahatma Gandhi under the garb of significant anti-Pakistan sentiment in India. For these many reasons, this sentence should not be included in this article just like it hasn't been included in any other article. Capitals00 (talk) 03:56, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

I have added four very much more reliable sources. I'll let the editors pinged be the judge of it. There are at least a dozen more reliable sources waiting in the wings, if need be. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:03, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

To those I have pinged, please note the need for extended quotes in controversial articles. You remove them, and as the recent history of the page proves, it begins to go to dogs (with no disrespect meant to dogs; we own quite a few of them and they are enlightened sentient beings). Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:06, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Another source which you have added just now (accessible here) appears to be telling the claim in question to be a possible mixup by "Hindu-right circles" who without any basis "saw Gandhi's fast as political blackmail to achieve precisely this aim".

I don't oppose removal of large quotations because if the information is verifiable then even a small quotation is enough. People who remove information are liable for removing it without proper justification, not those who added after ensuring basic WP:V. Capitals00 (talk) 04:18, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

• Giving a short shrift to the many reliable sources cited above isn't quite discerning. Where one half of the sources diverge from the contested assertion, it ought not be packaged as an apodictic gospel truth anymore. This is of course presupposing the other half thereof is reliable. I proffer we take it out of the lead and summarize the disagreement in the section earmarked for it. MBlaze Lightning (talk) 04:28, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

  To the editors I have pinged above, and below: I've added the references listed below. Please read the quotes that accompany their citations.

  • Stanley Wolpert, A New History of India, New York, Oxford University Press, 2004. Google Scholar citation index (i.e. the number of times the book has been cited by publications in Google Scholar) = 1,285
  • Burton Stein and David Arnold's A History of India, 2012, Wiley-Blackwell, Google Scholar citation index 543
  • Barbara D. Metcalf and Thomas R. Metcalf's A Concise History of Modern India, 2012, Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar Citation index 930
  • Judith M. Brown's Gandhi: Prisoner of Hope, Yale University Press, 1991, Google Scholar Citation index 530
  • Ian Talbot and Gurharpal Singh's Partition of India, Cambridge University Press, 2009. Google Scholar Citation Index 331
  • Ian Talbot, A History of Modern South Asia, Politics, States, Diasporas, 2016, Yale University Press.
  • Balcerowicz, Piotr; Kuszewska, Agnieszka (2022). Kashmir in India and Pakistan Policies. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-138-48012-4. Quote: As the partition atrocities continued, on 13 January 1948, Mahatma Gandhi, the widely cherished leader of India's non-violent independence movement, commenced his fast to restore peace between the Hindu, Sikh and Muslim communities and to pressure the reluctant Indian government to transfer to Pakistan a due share of the unified, British Indian military assets and financial reserves.
  • Babb, Lawrence A. (2020). Religion in India: Past and Present. Edinburgh: Dunedin Academic Press. ISBN 9781780466231. Quote: But like a recessive gene, Hindu nationalism had been there all along, and now it had sprung back into high visibility. At the time of the assassination, Godse was no longer a formal member of the RSS, but he was strongly anti-Muslim and considered Gandhi a Muslim appeaser, a view shared by many others, especially among Hindu nationalists. With the first Kashmir war in progress, the Congress had decided not to pay money owed to Pakistan as its share of India's assets prior to partition. Gandhi opposed this position and went on a 'fast-unto-death' to get it reversed, which in fact was done in early January 1948. The assassination soon followed. Godse was caught, tried and hanged.
  • Rotem Geva Delhi Reborn: Partition and Nation Building in India's Capital, Stanford University Press, 2022.
  • Ahmed, Raja Qaiser (2022). Pakistan Factor and the Competing Perspectives in India: Party Centric View. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 11. ISBN 978-981-16-7051-0. Quote: Hindu nationalists viewed Pakistan through a communal lens and this embittered context, ingrained in their view of history and culture, plagued India-Pakistan relations. ... Hindu traditionalists in the Indian National Congress (INC) ranks also urged the pursuit of hawkish and chauvinist policies towards Pakistan. Sardar Patel's approach and statements concerning Pakistan were the manifestations of this mindset—many like him wanted to nullify Pakistan's significance. ... The Mahasabha, RSS and other Hindu nationalists were increasingly perturbed over what they saw as INC's meek policy towards Paksitan. ... They hated secular plurialism in India. Nathuram Godse also admitted killing Gandhi on his palpable pro-Pakistan sentiments and his fast unto death to make sure the division of financial assets between India and Pakistan proceeded in a just manner.
  • Joseph Lelyveld's Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle with India, Knopf, 2011. Google Scholar Citation index 226

  The sum total of the citations of the list at the top of this section does not add up to any one of the first four in my list. (Note: The website of Cambridge Scholars Publishing, which has published, Mahatma Gandhi in Cinema, one of the film histories listed at the top of the section, says, "Please note that Cambridge Scholars Publishing Limited is not affiliated to or associated with Cambridge University Press or the University of Cambridge." Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:37, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

You can find too reliable sources for many types of claims regardless of their credibility, but in this case, you have to ensure that the source is addressing the dispute. We can't see that here.

• For a name, Judith M. Brown's Gandhi: Prisoner of Hope, Yale University Press, 1991 states as per your own addition on the article that: "He said he would fast until communal peace was restored, real peace rather than the calm of a dead city imposed by police and troops. Patel and the government took the fast partly as condemnation of their decision to withhold a considerable cash sum still outstanding to Pakistan as a result of the allocation of undivided India's assets because the hostilities that had broken out in Kashmir; ... But even when the government agreed to pay out the cash, Gandhi would not break his fast: that he would only do after a large number of important politicians and leaders of communal bodies agreed to a joint plan for restoration of normal life in the city." See the bolded part. It tells that it was a misunderstanding and Gandhi was NEVER concerned about paying the amount owed to Pakistan but over restoring "communal peace".
• You have cited Rudolph (1987) but see what your own added quotation said? "Patel was not a committed or convinced secularist. His call for Muslims to pledge their loyalty to India as a condition of citizenship after partition, his one-sided defense of Hindus during the communal rioting and carnage that accompanied partition, and his refusal to honor India's commitment to turn over to Pakistan the assets due it were the occasion of Gandhi's last fast in January 1948. The riots in Delhi abated; Patel, after being told by Gandhi on the verge of death, "you are not the Sardar I knew," turned over the assets and deferred to Gandhi's call for brotherhood and forgiveness." It tells that Patel took an additional step in deal with the carnage that was happening.
• Your addition of Wolpert (2004) notes "Mahatma told his prayer meeting audience that afternoon at Birla House, where he lived. “Let my fast quicken conscience, not deaden it. Just contemplate the rot that has set in in beloved India.” It was the last of his fasts. He ended it in less than a week, following messages of sorrow and prayer, including one from Sardar Patel promising to pay Pakistan forty million pounds sterling in cash assets, hitherto withheld by India." It tells that Patel was merely informing what he did. The source is not saying it anywhere that Mahatma Gandhi made this demand or had any motives for it.

Your sources can be used only for saying something like: "Mahatma Gandhi undertook several hunger strikes to stop the religious violence. In order to deal with the violence, Patel and the government took the decision to release assets it owed to Pakistan. However, Gandhi broke his fast only after significant politicians and leaders of communal bodies showed their commitment to a joint plan for restoration of peace." Though, this does not belong to this article, it belongs to Dominion of India instead. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 07:03, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

• Also pinging more old South Asia hands: @Joshua Jonathan, BusterD, and Martin of Sheffield: As I've stated above, I'm flat out of time these days for careful attention to Wikipedia. Please keep an eye on this page if you can. As for the editors who have appeared in this thread—like George Mallory 99 years before them on the slopes of Everest—on the excuse, "Because it is there," I cannot do much more than bury their attempt under an avalanche of scholarly sources. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:38, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

This new addition by you is factually wrong because Godse never made mention of any "financial assets" as reason. The problem with nearly all of your sources is that they only provide a passing mention, contrary to the sources I had provided which meet WP:CONTEXTMATTERS and they significantly discuss the credibility of this false claim that Gandhi demanded release of assets owed to Pakistan. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 16:15, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

• A final note to all those I have pinged. As I don't have any more time, or patience, to waste, I am leaving more scholarly sources here which I have not added to the article.

• The first is a new book by Harvard historian Caroline Elkins and the 2022 winner of the Pulitzer prize for nonfiction.

• Elkins, Caroline (2022). Violence: A History of the British Empire. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 9780307272423. LCCN 2021018550. A few months later, with war-fueled tensions over Kashmir mounting and India refusing to pay Pakistan 550 million rupees, Pakistan's share of Britain's outstanding war debt, Gandhi began to fast. "This time my fast is not only against Hindus and Muslims," the Mahatma said, "but also against the Judases who put on false appearances and betray themselves, myself and society." The elderly and frail man who was India's symbolic political and spiritual leader went three days without food before India's cabinet agreed to pay Pakistan, something Nehru had long promised Jinnah he would do.

• Walsh, Declan (2020). The Nine Lives of Pakistan: Dispatches from a Precarious State. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 9780393249910. Godse, who belonged to a neo-fascist Hindu group called the R.S.S., was furious at Gandhi for his conciliatory attitude towards Muslims, and for his insistence that Pakistan should receive its fair share of the assets of the former colonial state.
• Ceplair, Larry (2020). Revolutionary Pairs: Marx and Engels, Lenin and Trotsky, Gandhi and Nehru, Mao and Zhou, and Castro and Guevara. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. p. 134. ISBN 9780813179193. Gandhi undertook his last fast, in January 1948, to protest the Indian government's decision to withhold a large settlement payment due to Pakistan until the Kashmir problem was solved.
• Blinkenberg, Lars (2022). India-Pakistan: The History of Unsolved Conflicts: Volume I. Lindhardt og Ringhof. ISBN 9788726894707. Sardar Patel decided, in the middle of December 1947, that the recent financial agreements with Pakistan should not be followed, unless Pakistan ceased to support the raiders. ... Gandhi was not convinced and he felt—like Mountbatten and Nehru—that the agreed transfer to Pakistan of a cash amount of Rs. 550 million should be implemented despite the Kashmir crisis. Gandhi started a fast unto death, which was officially done to stop communal trouble, especially in Delhi, but "word went round that it was directed against Sardar Patel's decision to withhold the cash balances"... Only because of Gandhi's interference, which was soon to cause his death, Sardar Patel gave in and the money was handed over to Pakistan.
• This shows that my words of 2011 have stood the test of time. I will now be bowing out of this thread. Best, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:04, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

"fast unto death, which was officially done to stop communal trouble, especially in Delhi, but "word went round that it was directed against Sardar Patel's decision to withhold the cash balances", yes it meets #1st point I mentioned above which was "accidental mix-up".

I am sure release of payment helped in reducing down the violence and related tensions but it was not asked by Gandhi. This is also evident from few of your sources that state Gandhi still continued fast until peace was established. That's the whole point. Capitals00 (talk) 01:45, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

"Gandhi undertook his last fast, in January 1948, to protest the Indian government's decision to withhold a large settlement payment due to Pakistan until the Kashmir problem was solved."

What is it you don't understand? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:41, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

"Godse, who belonged to a neo-fascist Hindu group called the R.S.S., was furious at Gandhi for his conciliatory attitude towards Muslims, and for his insistence that Pakistan should receive its fair share of the assets of the former colonial state."

What is it you don't understand? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:42, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

"This time my fast is not only against Hindus and Muslims," the Mahatma said, "but also against the Judases who put on false appearances and betray themselves, myself and society." The elderly and frail man who was India's symbolic political and spiritual leader went three days without food before India's cabinet agreed to pay Pakistan, something Nehru had long promised Jinnah he would do."

What is it you don't understand? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:45, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

"With the first Kashmir war in progress, the Congress had decided not to pay money owed to Pakistan as its share of India's assets prior to partition. Gandhi opposed this position and went on a 'fast-unto-death' to get it reversed, which in fact was done in early January 1948. The assassination soon followed. Godse was caught, tried and hanged."

What is it you don't understand? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:46, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

"Sardar Patel's approach and statements concerning Pakistan were the manifestations of this mindset—many like him wanted to nullify Pakistan's significance. ... The Mahasabha, RSS and other Hindu nationalists were increasingly perturbed over what they saw as INC's meek policy towards Paksitan. ... They hated secular plurialism in India. Nathuram Godse also admitted killing Gandhi on his palpable pro-Pakistan sentiments and his fast unto death to make sure the division of financial assets between India and Pakistan proceeded in a just manner."

What is it you don't understand? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:51, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

"Just before his death, Gandhi made one last decisive intervention in the Indian political process. By a combination of prayer and fasting, he forced a contrite ministry to hand over to Pakistan its share of the cash assets of undivided India, some 40 million pounds sterling, which had so far been retained in defiance of the partition agreements."

(That's Metcalf and Metcalf. She was the president of the American Historical Association).

What is it you don't understand? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:54, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

"Mahatma Gandhi, the widely cherished leader of India's non-violent independence movement, commenced his fast to restore peace between the Hindu, Sikh and Muslim communities and to pressure the reluctant Indian government to transfer to Pakistan a due share of the unified, British Indian military assets and financial reserves."

What is it you don't understand? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:56, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

"He undertook a fast not only to restrain those bent on communal reprisal but also to influence the powerful Home Minister, Sardar Patel, who was refusing to share out the assets of the former imperial treasury with Pakistan, as had been agreed. Gandhi's insistence on justice for Pakistan now that the partition was a fact, ... had prompted Godse's fanatical action."

(That is from Burton Stein's A History of India, read by hundreds of thousands of students around the world.)

What is it you don't understand? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:58, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

"Of less symbolic significance was the division of post-Partition assets. Not until December 1947 was an agreement reached on Pakistan's share of the sterling assets held by the undivided Government of India at the time of independence. The bulk of these (550 million rupees) was held back by New Delhi because of the Kashmir conflict and paid only following Gandhi's intervention and fasting. India delivered Pakistan's military equipment even more tardily, and less than a sixth of the 160,000 tons of ordnance allotted to Pakistan by the Joint Defence Council was actually delivered." (Talbot)

What is it you don't understand? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:01, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

What I don't understand is that why you are inclined to think that this gish galloping is going to work. It won't.

These sources are not addressing the argument in question but only repeat a debunked myth from a later period. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 05:18, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

Final note

• Final note I have added 17 new sources to the older version of 6 March 2023 (which had three sources [12] through [14] for the relevant sentences) and seen now in this version of 7 March 2023 in the sources and citations numbered [12] through [31]. Of these, fully seven ([15], [19], [20], [22], [23], [25], and [27] were published in 2022; one, [16], in 2020. Together, these sources, support the following text:

  As many displaced Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs made their way to their new lands, religious violence broke out, especially in the Punjab and Bengal. Abstaining from the official celebration of independence, Gandhi visited the affected areas, attempting to alleviate distress. In the months following, he undertook several hunger strikes to stop the religious violence. The last of these, begun in Delhi on 12 January 1948 when he was 78,[12][13] also had the indirect goal of pressuring India to pay out some cash assets owed to Pakistan,[14][15][16][17] which the Indian government, especially its home minister, Sardar Patel,[18] had been resisting.[19][20][21][22][23] Although the Government of India relented,[24] as did the religious rioters, the belief that Gandhi had been too resolute in his defence of both Pakistan and Indian Muslims, most recently those besieged in Delhi, spread among some Hindus in India.[25][26][13] Among these was Nathuram Godse,[27] a militant Hindu nationalist from Pune, western India who the Hindutva ideologue V. D. Savarkar had inspired.[28] Godse assassinated Gandhi by firing three bullets into his chest at an interfaith prayer meeting in Delhi on 30 January 1948.[29][30][31]

The authors include major historians and political scientists of South Asia (Judith M. Brown, Barbara D. Metcalf, Thomas R. Metcalf, Lloyd I. Rudolph, Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, Stanley Wolpert, Burton Stein, David Arnold, Ian Talbot and Gurharpal Singh. It includes a major historian of the British Empire and Pulitzer Prize Winner for General Nonfiction Caroline Elkins. Major journalists: Declan Walsh and Joseph Lelyveld (the Pulitzer prize-winning former executive editor of the New York Times and authors of a major biography of Gandhi), the Swedish diplomat and scholar of international conflicts Lars Blinkenberg, and not to mention the scholars and authors of the academic monographs published in the last year. I have also made the role played by Sardar Patel more explicit as I have the connection between Godse and the conspirators and the ideologue of Hindu nationalism, V. D. Savarkar. The citation for this belongs to Sumit Sarkar, professor of history at the University of Delhi, in the city where Gandhi was assassinated. There is no danger that anyone will interpret the text to offer an excuse for Gandhi's murder in the manner sometimes attributed to Hindu nationalists, or not see why Patel has become their latter-day darling. I shall now be returning to my off-Wikipedia activities. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:06, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

PS In case someone is wondering why there is so much focus on the assassination, I can only quote from Burton Stein's A History of India:

Gandhi was the leading genius of the later, and ultimately successful, campaign for India’s independence. His innovative techniques created an aura of almost mystical reverence not only for his followers but for the global audience he acquired thanks in large part to fortuitous and new developments in communications, most notably the cinema newsreel. His martyr’s death completed the conditions for his canonization.

In other words, Gandhi's assassination is an important aspect of his biography (even more perhaps than Abraham Lincoln's is in his). Of course, Stein goes on to say:

As a result, two aspects of his role have tended to be masked or discounted. The first was the idiosyncratic authoritarianism of his style of leadership, which often disconcerted his most loyal followers and admirers. The second, paradoxically, was his comforting (to adversaries and beneficiaries) refusal to disturb the status quo of the Indian social and economic hierarchy, which was screened by his patronizing concern for the victims of the curse of untouchability and his insistence on unity across class and caste. While his ideal of a nation consisting of autonomous villages whose inhabitants lived in Spartan simplicity was consigned to the realm of utopian fantasy, he successfully prevented other, more radical forms of social and economic idealism from being realized.

But to flesh that out will require a lot more work in the article. That goal remains, though, in my view. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:38, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

This part has been already covered in both Mahatma Gandhi#Gandhian economics and Mahatma Gandhi#Untouchability and castes with more information and it includes high quality sources like Christophe Jaffrelot, Nicholas Dirks, Ramachandra Guha and others. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 04:28, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Sumit Sarkar said "last fast seems to have been directed in part also against Patel’s increasingly communal attitudes", which provides no clear indication. This has been clarified above.

It was only after reading Judith M. Brown, Rudolph, Stanley Wolpert and others that I came up with this wording:-

"Mahatma Gandhi undertook several hunger strikes to stop the religious violence. In order to deal with the violence, Patel and the government took the decision to release assets it owed to Pakistan. However, Gandhi broke his fast only after significant politicians and leaders of communal bodies showed their commitment to a joint plan for the restoration of peace."

There is nothing wrong with it and it is the actual description of the entire thing that happened. I believe this should be in Dominion of India though, not this page.

But the sentences like "also had the indirect goal of pressuring India to pay out some cash assets owed to Pakistan,[14][15][16][17] which the Indian government, especially its home minister, Sardar Patel,[18] had been resisting.[19][20][21][22][23]" should be removed from the lead. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 04:28, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

>>>"Mahatma Gandhi undertook several hunger strikes to stop the religious violence. In order to deal with the violence, Patel and the government took the decision to release assets it owed to Pakistan."

You have misinterpreted what Brown, Rudolphs, or Wolpert have said. I have not only read them for 40-odd years but had interacted with the Rudolphs and quite a few South Asia historians from 1980 onward, over weekly meetings that continued for many years, with them visiting my home. There was nothing unambiguous about the reason for the funds to be withheld. It was one reason alone: fear of Pakistan getting the upper hand in the Kashmir conflict by having more funds at its disposal. After initial Indian success in late October, Indian fears had begun to mount about the preparedness and acclimatization of the Indian army, especially in view of the approaching winter in Kashmir. (Today's (March 8, 2023) Guardian expose on the classified letters between Nehru and Gen Sir Roy Bucher, (Kashmir letters cast doubt on claims Nehru blundered by agreeing to a ceasefire) speaks to this very issue. The phrasing in the lead is very precise. It says that India was legally required to pay Pakistan for its share of monetary assets. The government of India, its initiative led in this instance by Patel, decided to withhold the payment in order to reduce Pakistan's power to buy weapons on the international market. Gandhi opposed this immoral, if not also illegal, action. Mountbatten, agreeing with Gandhi, or Gandhi agreeing with Mountbatten, called it "Independent India's first dishonourable decision." In the end, Patel had no choice but to give up the unprincipled nationalistic stance he was advocating, that Gandhi, Mountbatten (and to some extent Nehru) were not. I am afraid I am done with this discussion. You are welcome to pursue your concerns in the manner you see fit. All the best, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:41, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

I detailed how Brown, Rudolphs, or Wolpert fit for the proposed wording, just right above (read it for full analysis of mine). I would repeat only Brown, who writes "He said he would fast until communal peace was restored, real peace rather than the calm of a dead city imposed by police and troops. Patel and the government took the fast partly as condemnation of their decision to withhold a considerable cash sum still outstanding to Pakistan as a result of the allocation of undivided India's assets because the hostilities that had broken out in Kashmir; ... But even when the government agreed to pay out the cash, Gandhi would not break his fast: that he would only do after a large number of important politicians and leaders of communal bodies agreed to a joint plan for restoration of normal life in the city." As per the bolded part, it becomes clear that its a misunderstanding and Gandhi was NEVER concerned about paying the amount owed to Pakistan but over restoring "communal peace".

Now that there is no actual evidence that Gandhi demanded the release of the assets owed to Pakistan, and there are sources that actually debunk this speculation as misinformation, I am very sure that it is unwise to keep this information on this article (that too on lead).

Since none of the editors you pinged have responded so far, I am pinging APPU, Kautilya3 (other long term editors having edited this talk page) to help out with the dispute. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 04:58, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

K3 has already responded to your “verbal gimmickry” on Talk:Indo-Pakistani War of 1947–1948, with, “So unless there is a strong reason for change, for which WP:CONSENSUS can be obtained, the STATUSQUO should remain. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 19:09, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]” He has also urged reliance on multiple high quality reliable sources for supporting the kind of India boosterism you display on that page. I have provided 20 high quality sources for four sentences.

Your exchange with K3 on that page gives a new perspective on your preoccupations here, which now seem to be about avoiding any mention of Gandhi’s deep reservations about the manner in which India had acquired Kashmir and had continued to hold on to it by 12 January 1948. Seen in this light, your pieties about “Hindutva disinformation” at the top of the thread is a red herring. For to project no implications or hints of Gandhi doubts about Patel’s unprincipled nationalism over Kashmir is very much a contemporary Hindu nationalist preoccupation. Only Nehru is projected to be weak willed. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:14, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

You must back off from cherrypicking sentences to cast WP:ASPERSIONS because it is not only misleading but also toxic.

In which world do you think that saying "Indian control over the majority of territory" is more accurate than "Indian control over remainder of Kashmir" becomes "India boosterism"?

If you really want to discuss my "preoccupations" about both of the articles, then you need to work more on that. Any Hindutvawadi will dislike my edits on 1947-1948 war (Hindutvawadis claim that entire Kashmir was controlled by India and Congress failed to retain it[1]) and also on this page of Mahamta Gandhi ("55 crore" is an excuse used by Hindutvawadis to justify murder of Gandhi).

What is a Hindu nationalist POV is clearly confirmed by one of the sources I cited above, "it is important to note that the hunger strike was not for that purpose. The Hindutva forces have consistently made false propaganda"[2] about assets being owed to Pakistan.

Fact that you don't understand this shows your own poor understanding of this subject. Now here is another one by The Quint, which tells: "Pandey has brought out details here that nail the “55 crore”-to-Pakistan lie, often cited as the reason why the Mahatma was disposed of. India needed to transfer arrears due to Pakistan under the terms of division of assets and liabilities. Of the Rs 75 crore to be paid, the first instalment of Rs 20 crore was already released. Invasion of Kashmir by Pakistani Army supported covert raiders happened before the second instalment was paid out. Government of India decided to withhold the payment. Lord Mountbatten was of the opinion that it was “unstatesmanlike and unwise” and he brought it to the notice of Gandhi on 12 January. Gandhi, keen that India stick to what was agreed, concurred with that view. But nowhere in the course of the last fast he undertook did he invoke this."

Your sources (some of which I mentioned have been misused by you) are not exactly discussing the dispute. This contradicts the sources I provided. Those that I have provided conclude this claim to be baseless claim.

If this was a solid fact then we would know that from the beginning rather than decades later distortions when the Hindutva movement started to rise again. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 14:50, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

My own poor understanding of the subject? The Kashmir angle was there right from the start. See the Illustrated London News, February 7, 1948, page 144 which states, "ΤHΕ LAST FAST IN JANUARY 1948 , UNDERTAKEN ON ACCOUNT OF THE KASHMIR CONTROVERSY : MAHATMA GANDHI , SUPPORTED BY HIS TWO GRANDDAUGHTERS ..." I am done with this discussion. You have no history of contributing to this article, to the British Raj article, to the Dominion of India article, or to Partition of India article, in all of which I have made a major contribution, in some for 16 years. (See the authorship of British Raj, Partition of India, Dominion of India.)

And not to mention Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi(see its authorship and the WP article on the American who apprehended Godse after the murder on that fateful evening, Herbert Reiner Jr. (see its authorship; there is a reason that Wikipedia has that utility—it is a record of the hard and rigorous work some of us have done.

You are welcome to pursue your concerns at the venue of your choosing, but if you edit war on this page or change the lead without a exceptional consensus (befitting an exceptional figure), I will report you for disruption. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:35, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

You have confirmed your understanding with your latest misrepresentation of the source with this cherrypicking of a single sentence that appears to be an image caption, rather than the description of the subject. Look at the page 145, it says "THE FAST WHICH HE BEGAN ON JANUARY 13 AND TERMINATED ON JANUARY 18, EMACIATED AFTER А TWENTY-ONE DAY FAST TO RECONCILE MOSLEMS AND HINDI'S."[3]

The biographical article provides a few images with captions and then it continues: "KARAMCHAND GANDHI, greatest figure in modern Indian history, assassinated on January 30, 1948, was born on October 2 assassinated on January 30, ' 1948, was born on October 2, 1869." And: "The Mahatma's pacificism and opposition to violence were the warp and woof of his being. Even his opponents were unanimous in admiration of his lofty ideals, and all who met him felt his personal charm."

There is no mention of anything that concerns assets owed to Pakistan in the entire article.

A different article from 1948:-

"( a ) Mr. Gandhi's fast to stay the killing of Muslims in Delhi, started on 12th January 1948.
( b ) The fast broken on 17th January 1948.
( c ) A bomb exploded in the audience, which Mr. Gandhi was addressing on 20th January 1948.
( d ) A man carrying bombs evidently for throwing them on Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru was arrested at Amritsar on 29th January 1948.
( e ) Mr. Gandhi was killed on 30th January 1948.
( f ) The Akalis at Amritsar on 30th January 1948 passed a resolution to the effect that congregational speeches of Mr. Gandhi should not be broadcast from the All - India Radio.
( g ) Rashtriya Swayam Sewak Sangh was declared an un- lawful association by Government of India, on 4th February 1948.
( h ) Among the persons arrested for Mr. Gandhi's murder up to date are: - - 1. Nathu Ram Vinayak Godse, editor of Hindu Rashtra (the assassin of Mr. Gandhi) . 2 . V. G. Damle, Secretary to Mr. V. D. Savarkar...."

It interprets Gandhi's fast "to stay the killing of Muslims in Delhi", but Gandhi was concerned about killings elsewhere too. Nevertheless, just like the The Illustrated London News you cited, it makes no mention of fast having any association with assets being owed to Pakistan.

Read LIFE Magazine's article published on 9 February 1948 with a great amount of research. It notes:

"GANDHI'S LAST FAST WON SOLEMN PLEDGE OF PEACE"

"A "fast to death" was Gandhi's political weapon of last resort against unruly followers and opponents. On Jan. 12, appalled by the religious warfare that followed India's new freedom, he began the last of 11 such important fasts, some of which have lasted as long as 21 days. At first fanatical Hindus and Sikhs dared to jeer, "Let Gandhi die!" But soon huge parades and meetings for peace again revealed his almost magical control over the masses. On the sixth day, when 50 leading Moslems, Hindus and Sikhs, like chastened schoolboys, signed a peace pledge, Gandhi broke his fast. He announced he hoped to live another 47 years but 12 days later a fanatic's bullets killed him. A stunned India waited to see whether peace or catastrophe would follow."

Instead of using words like "Kashmir controversy" or "killing of Muslims in Delhi", it says "religious warfare". But just like the other 2 sources above, it also makes no mention of fast having any association with assets being owed to Pakistan.

This is why I am firm with the fact that such misinformation was created only after some decades with the re-emergence of the Hindutva movement.

Regarding your contributions to some of those articles, it is absolutely irrelevant to this dispute. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 02:39, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

• What is this in Atkinson's Evening Post, and Philadelphia Saturday News, Volume 221, Issue 1, 1948: "It took Gandhi's January threat of a fast unto death to get Vallabhbhai Patel to part with a large instalment of cash - balance payments due to Pakistan. The postindependence breakdown in transport also halted the transfer to Pakistan of her share of other spoils of the partition - especially military stores and equipment, after hostilities began in Kashmir"? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:21, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

It means that the fast got Patel release the amount but it does not say that it was demanded by Gandhi. This is addressed by The Indian Review (1948): "He explained that this ( 15th ) fast of his was not for the sake of his health nor as a penance for the wrongs done. In these fasts, the fasting one need not believe in Ahimsa. There is, however, a fast which a votary of non-violence sometimes feels impelled to undertake by way of protest against some wrong done by society and this he does when he, as a votary of Ahimsa, has no other remedy left." And "Meanwhile leaders and responsible and women of all parties and communities bent their energies in bringing the communities together and ensuring peace. The Government of India took the extraordinary step of rescinding their order to withhold payment cash balance to the tune of 55 crore Pakistan, which only a couple of members before Sardar Patel, the Home member Mr. Shanmukham Chetty, the Finance minister had felt bound to declare."

See the words "extraordinary step". It was not a demand by Gandhi but Patel's own solution to cease the violence. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 03:39, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

Also take a look at this Time magazine article from 26 January 1948. It states: "Vallabhbhai Patel left town for a few days. During his absence, the Indian government agreed to reinstate a financial agreement with Pakistan, a step which Patel had blocked only 48 hours before." This casts doubt whether Patel really agreed to release the payment or someone else did it.

The article noted[4] that Patel "inclined also to crack down on Moslems within India: "Mere declarations of loyalty to the Indian Union will not help Moslems at this critical juncture," said Patel. Later he became bolder, and darkly hinted at open war with Pakistan. Most Sikhs and many Hindus applauded Patel. Obliquely, Gandhi observed that Patel had "thorns on his tongue." Without warning, one day last week the Mahatma began to fast." And: "Not until the fifth day of his fast did Gandhi list the specific conditions under which he would break his fast. Moslems, he said, should be guaranteed freedom to worship, travel, earn a livelihood, keep their own houses. After Gandhi had gone without food for 121 hours, 50 Hindu, Moslem and Sikh leaders gathered at Birla House, to pledge themselves to meet his conditions." Abhishek0831996 (talk) 04:24, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

If it is a question of how the modern reliable sources have interpreted the fast, there is no doubt. The connection is already there in the 20 sources with a combined Google scholar citation index of 4,300. If it is a question of whether a connection was seen in 1948, my last source clearly points to it. Remember, the WP:ONUS is yours. A vital Wikipedia article requires an exceptional consensus to change something that has been in the article for ten years.

In other words, I am not going to engage in the game of arguing using primary sources (from the time of the murder in 1948). Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:01, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

To say that reliability of the sources matter only when you cite them is a poor logic. A good number of your "20 sources" are not saying Gandhi made the demand. A number of modern sources have also debunked such connection as baseless. Your Philadelphian regional source also does not say Gandhi demanded the release. Reliable sources from 1948 as detailed above clearly made no such baseless claim. You should better work on finding reliable sources that have written rebuttal against the debunking of this particular claim. You have been told about this above as well, but you are just not getting it. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 06:35, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

Final reply of Fowler&fowler

Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, left, prime minister of Bengal (1946–1947) and later prime minister of Pakistan, and Mahatma Gandhi during their 73-hour fast in Calcutta to stop religious violence in the days after India's Independence Day

The WP:ONUS for changing a ten-year-long consensus in a vital WP article, edited and implicitly upheld by dozens of administrators, is yours, Abhishek0831996. It is WP policy. The relevant portion of the third lead paragraph (without the wikilinks):

In the months following, he undertook several hunger strikes to stop the religious violence. The last of these, begun in Delhi on 12 January 1948 when he was 78,[12][13] also had the indirect goal of pressuring India to pay out some cash assets owed to Pakistan,[14][15][16][17] which the Indian government, especially its home minister, Sardar Patel,[18] had been resisting.[19][20][21][22][23] Although the Government of India eventually relented,[24] as did the religious rioters, the belief that Gandhi had been too resolute in his defence of both Pakistan and Indian Muslims, most recently those besieged in Delhi, spread among some Hindus in India.[25][26][13] Among these was Nathuram Godse,[27] a militant Hindu nationalist from Pune, western India who the Hindutva ideologue V. D. Savarkar had inspired.[28] Godse assassinated Gandhi by firing three bullets into his chest at an interfaith prayer meeting in Delhi on 30 January 1948.[29][30][31]

has been cited to 20 modern reliable sources whose authors include: scholars such as Judith M. Brown, Barbara D. Metcalf, Thomas R. Metcalf, Lloyd I. Rudolph, Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, Stanley Wolpert, Burton Stein, David Arnold, Ian Talbot and Gurharpal Singh, and Sumit Sarkar. It includes a major historian of the British Empire and Pulitzer Prize Winner for General Nonfiction Caroline Elkins. Major journalists: Declan Walsh and Joseph Lelyveld (the Pulitzer prize-winning former executive editor of the New York Times and authors of a major biography of Gandhi), the Swedish diplomat and scholar of international conflicts Lars Blinkenberg, and not to mention the scholars and authors of the academic monographs published during the last year. Together, the Google Scholar citation index of those sources is well above 4,000, i.e. they have been cited in more than 4,000 scholarly articles. That I am the lead author, besides, of the FA India, and of the articles Company rule in India, Indian rebellion of 1857, British Raj, Partition of India, Dominion of India, Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, Kashmir, and History of Pakistan at least demonstrates that you are dealing with a competent editor. All the best and goodbye. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:34, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

I have now also cited to Percival Spear's book, which I had used in a discussion of Gandhi's last fast in the Dominion of India page, but forgot to add it here and to the 3rd edition of the widely used Sources of the Indian tradition, Columbia, 2014:

• Spear, Percival (1990) [1978]. History of India, Volume 2: From the sixteenth century to the twentieth century. Penguin. p. 239. ISBN 978-0-140-13836-8. Gandhi came to Delhi from Bengal in October and now directed his reconciling mission from there. This time it was the Muslims he was championing and he found he was opposed by some elements within the government itself. It was the noblest and most courageous moment of his life. He had quelled the last outbreak of communal rioting in September and in January 1948 the inner voice spoke again. This time the issues were twofold, the payment to Pakistan of her agreed assets which had been withheld owing to the Kashmir dispute and the restoration of peace in the capital. Only when the money had been paid and a peace pact, including the evacuation of the mosques, had been signed, did he give up his fast, on 18th January. The Google Scholar citation index of this book is 603
• McDermott, Rachel Fell; Gordon, Leonard A.; Embree, Ainslie T.; Pritchett, Frances W.; Dalton, Dennis, eds. (2014). Sources of Indian Traditions, Volume 2: Modern India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh (3rd ed.). New York: Columbia University Press. p. 344. ISBN 978-0-231-13830-7. In January 1948 he fasted successfully again in Delhi to stop Hindu attacks on Muslims and to coerce his own Indian government into payment of large sums of money that were due to Pakistan. He prevailed, extracting both government payment and pledges of peace by leaders of all groups. This enabled him to end his fast; but on January 30, as he was en route to his regular evening prayer meeting, he was shot by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu extremist who believed him too lenient toward India's Muslims and Pakistan.

And:

• Dodwell, H. H.; Mahajan, Vidya Dhar (1962). The Cambridge History of India: The Indian Empire, 1858-1918, with chapters on the development of administration, 1818-1858, edited by H. H. Dodwell, and chapters 34 to 38 (1919-1969), edited by V. D. Mahajan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 974. In January 1948 Mahatma Gandhi insisted that India must pay to Pakistan her agreed assets of Rs. 55 crores which had been withheld owing to the war in Kashmir and peace must be restored in Delhi and the Muslim mosques must be evacuated by the Hindus. It was on 18 January 1948 that Mahatma Gandhi gave up his fast when the money was paid to Pakistan and the mosques were evacuated by the Hindus in Delhi
• Bell, J. Bowyer (2017) [2005]. Assassin: Theory and Practice of Political Violence. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-4128-0509-4. The key to the conspiracy was Vinnayak Damodar Veer "The Brave" Savarkar, sixty-five, a Hindu ascetic, slender, intense, with steel-rim spectacles and a dedication to the concept of a greater Hindu India. He opposed the British raj, the concept of partition, the idea of Pakistan and, in 1947, the emerging reality of all those things. Trained in the Inns of Court, he had been imprisoned on the Andaman Islands with a double life sentence for the murder of a British bureaucrat, then freed by a postwar amnesty. He had been involved at a distance in previous attempts on the lives of the governors of Punjab and Bombay. His organization, Rashtriya Swayam Sewak Sangh (RSSS), had an inner and violent core, Hindu Rashtra Dal, established on May 15, 1942, made up of Chitpawan Brahmans fanatically dedicated to the Greater Hindu State. ... By January 1948, he and his followers had grown increasingly frustrated by the direction of events: India had been partitioned, Pakistan existed, and Moslems and Hindus had indulged in a long orgy of massacre that had finally largely ended because of mutual exhaustion, the flight of the vulnerable, and the last fast of Gandhi. On January 18, 1948, after fasting for 121 hours and 30 minutes, Gandhi had forced the government to agree to a series of accommodations and concessions—including turning over 550 million rupees to Pakistan as promised. For the RSSS this was treason, a betrayal of Hindu India, not simply a maneuver to end mass murder but an open recognition of Pakistan by India's most renowned figure—the moral blessing of treachery.

A book used in both the FA India and WP's article British Raj:

• Copland, Ian (2001). India 1885-1947: The Unmaking of an Empire. Seminar Studies in History series. London and New York: Routledge. p. 77. ISBN 978-0-582-38173-5. Gandhi was adamant that the debt to Pakistan had to be paid, and in March 1948 he announced that he planned to embark on another indefinite fast to ensure that the Indian government fulfilled its legal and moral obligations. The Mahasabha and the RSS denounced this plan as tantamount to treason. In the early evening of 30 March, as he addressed a prayer meeting at Birla House, New Delhi, India's prince of peace was shot and killed by a member of an RSS splinter-group, Nathuram Godse. (Note: "March" is an unfortunate misprint in two places. Obviously, January is meant, for Gandhi was assassinated on 30 January 1948.) Google scholar citation number = 51

I hope this issue is now settled. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:22, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

Please do not comment in this subsection. Do so below. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:11, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

Comments continued

No. These sources only repeat the same mistaken claim in question instead of verifying it's credibility. You can sure find dozens more saying the same thing but that isn't even helpful. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 17:27, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

Response to third opinion request:

I've read through this full discussion, and from the quotes and arguments presented here, was originally in support of the proposed change. However, I did some more digging and consulted Ramachandra Guha's Gandhi: The Years That Changed the World, which has a very detailed account of the fast. Sometimes, a single, relevant source is more persuasive than a mountain of sources with passing references. I now oppose the proposed deletion (with some serious asterisks). If you'll bear with me, I want to quote Guha at length (this is from Part V, Chapter 37, Section VIII. I encourage you to read the full, unabridged section if you can): "On 12 January, Gandhi informed his prayer meeting that he was commencing a fast the next day. The recent riots had been contained by police and military action, but there was yet a ‘storm within the breast. It may burst forth any day.’ So, he had decided to go on a fast, which would end when he was ‘satisfied that there is a reunion of hearts of all communities brought about without any outside pressure, but from an awakened sense of duty’. The Hindustan Times, edited by Gandhi’s son Devadas, reported that the decision to fast had come ‘as a complete surprise to his colleagues and the members of the Government’. Gandhi’s close associates ‘cannot conceal their anxiety’ at his decision, said the paper, as his health was still frail, after the fast in Calcutta. But Gandhi disregarded them, for ‘he had been very much affected by the all-round misery and chaos, thousands of refugees streaming to him with tragic tales’. [...] On the morning of the 12th, [Gandhi] went to the Viceregal Palace to inform Mountbatten of his fast. Later, Nehru came to Birla House and sat with Gandhi for two hours. Although the stated reason for the fast was the deteriorating communal situation, it seems Gandhi was also upset with the government’s decision to withhold from Pakistan its share of the sterling balances owed by Britain to (undivided) India after the Second World War. Because of Pakistan’s invasion of Kashmir, the Indian government had delayed the payment. But in Gandhi’s view of the world, financial debts to another person or entity, whether friend, enemy, or neither, had to be discharged immediately. On the 13th, Gandhi had his usual morning meal [...] Then he had a long conversation with Vallabhbhai Patel. The fast formally began at 11.15 a.m., after which some prayers were said. [...] On the evening of the first day of his fast, Gandhi attended the daily prayer meeting and gave his address as usual. He spoke of, among other things, the perception that Indian Muslims trusted both him and Nehru, but not Patel. Gandhi thought this slightly unfair. ‘The Sardar is blunt of speech,’ he remarked. ‘What he says sometimes sounds bitter. The fault is in his tongue.’ He asked his Muslim friends to ‘bring to the Sardar’s notice any mistakes which in their opinion he commits’. On the 14th, the second day of his fast, Gandhi met members of the Indian Cabinet, a deputation of refugees from the NWFP, and a large number of other visitors, including the maharaja of Patiala and G.D. Birla. [...] On the evening of 14 January, a batch of angry men arrived on bicycles at Birla House and raised what were described as ‘communal and anti-Gandhi slogans’. Inside the house, speaking with Gandhi, were Patel, Azad and Nehru. [...] At evening prayers on the 15th, Gandhi [...] explained that his fast was on behalf of the minorities both in Pakistan and India. Conducted in the first instance ‘on behalf of the Muslim minority in the [Indian] Union’, it was ‘necessarily against the Hindus and Sikhs of the Union and [against] the Muslims of Pakistan’. After the meeting, the crowd filed past him, one by one, bowing with folded hands, first the children, then the women, finally the men. Meanwhile, news reached Birla House that the government had agreed to pay the sterling balances owed to Pakistan, as their contribution ‘to the non-violent and noble effort made by Gandhiji, in accordance with the glorious traditions of this great country, for peace and goodwill’. The Government of India had bowed to Gandhi’s will; when would the city of Delhi do likewise?" Guha goes on to detail the rest of the fast, including the seven conditions for breaking the fast that Gandhi had published on the 17th. The order of events is crucial here. Gandhi decided to fast before he met with Mountbatten, and if Ashok Kumar Pandey is correct as referenced in the Quint article that it was the Governor General who informed Gandhi of the payments issue on the 12th, then it's clear that Gandhi's fast wasn't only or mainly about the payments. This is reinforced by the fact pointed out by Judith Brown that Gandhi's fast continued long past the announcement that payments would resume. The sources that go so far as to say or imply that the fast was only/mainly because of the payments (e.g., Copland, Babb, Ceplair) are guilty of oversimplification to the point of falsehood. However, the story doesn't end there. After the meeting with Mountbatten, Gandhi had a long conversation with Nehru. The next day, Patel came to see him first thing in the morning. The day after that, Patel, Nehru, and Azad all came to Gandhi to discuss... something. And finally, the day after that last meeting, Patel announces that the government has decided to resume payments to Pakistan, explicitly citing Gandhi's fast as the motivation. Given that we know Gandhi was strongly opposed to ending the payments, it's almost certain they were a topic of discussion in those meetings, if not the main topic of discussion. And it seems immanently plausible that Gandhi would have laid down resuming the payments as one of his conditions for stopping/ending his fast. So is there an alternative explanation? Well, we can safely dismiss the idea forwarded by Blinkenberg that Patel's decision was based on the "word [going] round" Delhi. Patel had spoken directly and at length with Gandhi twice in the days before his decision; he would not have made such an important decision based on rumors. Likewise, the presence of Nehru and Azad at the final meeting reduces the possibility that Patel simply misunderstood Gandhi's intentions. The Indian cabinet was clearly very invested in fully understanding Gandhi's reasons for the fast. In my opinion, the only semi-plausible alternative that doesn't involve Gandhi making the payments a precondition for ending his fast is the possibility that such a demand was never even necessary. Perhaps Gandhi's moral arguments or the spirit of repentance engendered by the fast genuinely moved Patel and the cabinet to make such a gesture of goodwill without needing a threat from Gandhi. But it feels like a painful splitting of hairs to argue that Gandhi convinced Patel to resume payments during his fast but not because of his fast. So in summary, I find the conclusion of most historians that Gandhi used his final fast to pressure the Indian government into paying Pakistan what they were owed to be by far the most reasonable explanation for Patel's decision. Nonetheless, my opposition to removing the claim in the lede is contingent on two changes. First, the wording is currently imprecise: resuming the payments could be described as a "secondary" or "unofficial" goal, but it was in no way "indirect". It might also be better to say that the fast "gained" the payments as a secondary goal, since the fast was announced before Gandhi was aware of the issue. Second and more important, given the evident importance of this topic to contemporary debates over Gandhi's legacy in India, I agree with User:MBlaze Lightning's suggestion that the article needs a few sentences or a short paragraph on this topic in the Current impact within India section. Additionally, a bit more detail on the goals and results of his final two fasts would be welcome in the section on Partition and Independence. In either case, the article should clearly and unambiguously state that Gandhi's primary motivation for fasting was the continued threat of communal violence in Delhi and elsewhere, and that pressuring the government to resume payments to Pakistan was a secondary (and never official) goal. If for whatever reason the editors here don't want to add clarifying information to the body and rephrase the claim, I would support removing it from the lede. It's too controversial/liable to misinterpretation to be left without context, and not important enough to Gandhi's life to override that consideration. Hopefully this helps, SilverStar54 (talk) 02:00, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

• @SilverStar54: This should be added only under "Partition and independence" section in the last paragraph but before the sentence "Some writers credit Gandhi's fasting and protests..." Do you agree with this wording? "Mahatma Gandhi undertook fast on 12 January to stop the religious violence. While his official motive for fasting was restoration of peace between the people, it also saw the Indian government release the assets it owed to Pakistan. Gandhi broke his fast only after significant politicians and leaders of communal bodies showed their commitment to a joint plan for the restoration of peace by 17 January." Longer text will require denial too and it will get unnecessarily lengthy. That's I think it's best to keep it this much succinct. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 13:26, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

I like it, but I have a few quibbles about the wording. How about: "Mahatma Gandhi undertook his final fast on 12 January to preempt the threat of more religious violence in Delhi and elsewhere. After learning of the Indian government's decision to suspend payment of assets it owed to Pakistan until the Kashmir crisis was resolved, Gandhi probably also used his fast to pressure the government into reversing that decision. Gandhi broke his fast only on 18 January, after significant politicians and leaders of communal bodies showed their commitment to a joint plan for the restoration of peace. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SilverStar54 (talk • contribs)

@SilverStar54: I'm sorry but Guha is a popular historian, the author of trade histories (pitched mid-way between a Shashi Tharoor's and a William Dalrymple's) and a maverick (his biography says, economics, sociology, environmental history and ....).

Please see WP:TERTIARY about the value of textbooks in determining due weight. Guhu has never written a textbook. He has no academic background in history, or training in how to read and interpret primary sources in history in graduate school.) Judith Brown'a books, on the other hand, both on Modern India and Gandhi might be a little dated, but they are serious academic histories, used around the world in universities. I have used Brown, the Metcalfs, Sumit Sarkar, and Ian Copland in a number of India-related articles, as I have the Rudolphs, including in the FA India and the article Dominion of India. I wouldn't dream of touching anything written by Tharoor or Guha for use in any vital India-related article.

The references in the academic historians to Gandhi's last fast might be brief but the summary or precis is rigorous. It is well nigh impossible that would not have chosen their words with much deliberation. They have all edited major academic works. (Brown for example edited the Oxford History of the British Empire.) So, I wouldn't put too much stock in Guha's details.

I do agree with you that "indirectly" is not needed (and in fact redundant as we also say "also" which, in addition, lets us off the hook in choosing the primary reason for the fast, especially in light of major WP:SCHOLARSHIP not making that determination. I am happy to go along with:

In the months following, he undertook several hunger strikes[[hunger strike|fasts unto death]] to stop the religious violence. The last of these, begun in Delhi on 12 January 1948, had the additional goal of pressuring the Government of India to pay out some cash assets owed to Pakistan. Although the religious rioters relented as did the Government, the belief that Gandhi had been too resolute in his defence of both Pakistan and Indian Muslims spread among some Hindus in India. Among these was ...

The expression "hunger strike" is more commonly applied to prisoners, not so much to Gandhi.

I don't believe this detail is excessive in the least. The last two years of Gandhi's life are also his finest. Without a martyr's death, Gandhi would have been only half the historical figure he is today. Several scholars mention this in admiration, criticism, or irony (see Burton Stein's A History of India quoted above for example).

I have nothing to say to the person who sought the third opinion on this page. They have written precious little on modern Indian history. A single-issue editor, they seem to be. WP's banalities aside, a lead does not stay in an article for ten years, edited by many competent editors of India-related content, including admins, for it to be overturned lightly by passers-by of the moment with quirky obsessions.

In contrast, your comments SilverStar54, aim to be balanced, even though I do not agree with all of them. Thank you. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:49, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

@Fowler&fowler: So first you say "I have nothing to say to the person who sought the third opinion on this page" and then you go ahead to make WP:NPA? I have already told you before that what matters in Wikipedia is what you do, not who you are, but you are still not getting it.

You need to read WP:CONSENSUSCANCHANGE. If anything, your WP:OWN (with regards to lead) is again clear with this new edit of yours. Nothing was wrong with Thinker78 improving the wording.[5] What was wrong with the edit by Robertus Pius? He was just adding the voice.[6]

Ramachandra Guha is a historian, not a popular historian. See WP:TE, especially this section which tells you are not allowed to dispute reliable sources.

Problem here is that your sources are not discussing this particular claim, they are only making a passing mention of it and some don't even support the claim whereas the sources I provided are actually debunking this claim.

No, this text won't remain on lead. All of the editors except you of course have agreed. This means we have consensus to remove the debunked claim from the lead.

@SilverStar54: WP:CONTEXTMATTERS clearly tells that: "In general, the more people engaged in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the writing, the more reliable the publication." The problem here is as I said that we have various reliable have debunked this claim, but we don't have any reliable sources that have addressed the debunking of this claim. This means we should not give more weight to the claim that lacked any existence in the initial reporting from 1948 sources as I have already proven above. Instead, it found mention in the sources from a later period.

How about "Mahatma Gandhi undertook his final fast on 12 January to preempt the threat of more religious violence in Delhi and elsewhere. Although it has been sometimes suggested that Gandhi, after learning of the Indian government's decision to suspend the payment of assets it owed to Pakistan, also used his fast to pressure the government into reversing that decision, however, this claim has been rejected by others citing that Gandhi never stated such a goal. Ultimately, Gandhi broke his fast only on 18 January, after significant politicians and leaders of communal bodies showed their commitment to a joint plan for the restoration of peace." Abhishek0831996 (talk) 06:33, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

You are wasting community time with your original research. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:51, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

• I'd like to weigh in a second time here. Abhishek flags a substantive point about the imperative to duly afford due weight to the diverging scholarly perspectives on the question of whether Gandhi sought to impel the Indian government to settle its outstanding arrears that it owed to Pakistan by dint of his penance. I think a special thanks is in order for SilverStar54 for their painstaking inquiry into the subject and special efforts they invested in marshalling resources for their instructive 3O.
  Ramachandra Guha is amongst the most oft-cited scholar of history of independent India, and I, for one, can't fathom, nay make sense of arguments that discount his exhaustive, over a thousand pages long academic tome on Gandhi as one transcribed by "a popular historian" (apparently used to trivialize the scholarly work but without basis in facts). Guha's exposition of Gandhi's fast, which is as good as it gets, contextualizes it. It helps us plug into the chain of events that transpired in the aftermath of Gandhi's avowed resolve for observing penance. He notes, and I paraphrase, that Gandhi was moved into taking the decision by an impulse to hedge the society against what he apprehended was a looming spectre of internecine communal strife. This is a recurring motif amongst other scholarly accounts of the event too. It can truly be held apodictic and sufficing our NPOV requisites.
  What remains ambiguous, however, is the incidental question concerning the disbursement of arrears that has been brought out as being probably on Gandhi's agenda. Guha is eminently less definitive on this score. He observes that it was seemingly tacit. It lends itself well for SilverStar5's phrasing that it was an unofficial goal. I also concur with them that the extant phrasing in lead of it being an indirect goal is a travesty of sources. The alternative phrasing, After learning of the Indian government's decision to suspend payment of assets it owed to Pakistan until the Kashmir crisis was resolved, Gandhi probably also used his fast to pressure the government into reversing that decision, which they proffer is felicitous and seems to have gained traction with Abhishek also countenancing it. Having said that, there is an obverse of the foregoing too: a litany of scholars quite categorically discredit the very proposition that Gandhi used his fast as a vehicle for arm-twisting the Indian government into acquiescing to extending alms to Pakistan. Ideally, it would serve the NPOV purpose best to spell out the scholarly disagreement in an apposite section as a starting point. There would be nothing OR in adumbrating diverging perspectives, but giving them a short-shrift would decidedly flout the overriding dictates of NPOV. MBlaze Lightning (talk) 19:09, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

On WP due weight is not determined by editors casting a vote, but by the treatment of the topic in textbooks, reviews of the literature on the topic which has been published in a journal or in speciality encyclopedias or companions (as mentioned in WP:TERTIARY). Similarly, WP:SCHOLARSHIP remains WP's benchmark for reliability. Mr Ramachandra Guha is not a professional historian. He has written no textbook in history. He has written no academic monograph in history either. He is an author of trade books on many topics, among which are the environment, cricket, and history. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:35, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

The policy says that tertiary sources can provide an instructive avenue for discerning due weight in cases where the secondary sources and the primary ones don't correspond in their substance. That isn't the case here. And it is not the only index for gauging due weight. It can not be used to exclude the more incisive secondary sources. Guha is an acclaimed historian; his is a monograph on Gandhi that runs in over 1000 pages. In fact it is the second of the two volumes he authored on Gandhi. Published in 2018, it accrues a citation count of a hundred which tells us that it has been vetted through peer review. The Times critiques the work as The result, the second of two volumes, is the most exhaustive account yet of Gandhi’s temporal and spiritual crusades. Why do you believe everyone expounding their informed views on the matter is casting a vote? Abhishek0831996 (talk) 06:15, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

• Now that this talk page has got some new faces and it was only Fowler who wants to preserve this misinformation in question, I would like to relitigate this since new experienced editors have appeared here. @Iskandar323 and Randy Kryn: Can you both chime in here too? The dispute here concerns the misleading sentence on the lead "The last of these, begun in Delhi on 12 January 1948 when he was 78, also had the indirect goal of pressuring India to pay out some cash assets owed to Pakistan, which the Indian government had been resisting. Although the Government of India relented". Gandhi never had any "goal of pressuring India to pay out some cash assets owed to Pakistan". Enough sources have been provided here which confirm that Gandhi never made this demand. TIME magazine article from 26 January 1948 states: "Not until the fifth day of his fast did Gandhi list the specific conditions under which he would break his fast. Moslems, he said, should be guaranteed freedom to worship, travel, earn a livelihood, keep their own houses. After Gandhi had gone without food for 121 hours, 50 Hindu, Moslem and Sikh leaders gathered at Birla House, to pledge themselves to meet his conditions. Pakistan's high commissioner in New Delhi brought an inquiry from his government asking what Pakistan could do. Gandhi, cheerful again, addressed the conference for ten minutes. Then he agreed to break his fast." Note how it does not list release of "assets owed to Pakistan" at all. Its a misleading claim created at a later period. WP:CONTEXTMATTERS clearly tells that: "In general, the more people engaged in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the writing, the more reliable the publication." So far, Fowler hasn't provided a single source that would address the debunking of this misleading claim. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 03:24, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

  My initial observation is there is a lot of variety if not outright confliction in the sources. Many reference only the transfer of assets; others do not mention it at all. Many mention that the fast was more of a general protest in favor of, among other things, reconciliation between India's different communities. At least one source says on the assets side of things that it was "military and financial" assets that were in question. It certainly does appear that Gandhi had more than one motive for fasting, other questions aside. And if he only stopped fasting a week after it was agreed that assets would be released, and in conjunction with other concessions, then that does somewhat suggest that the assets issue was less primary than the page's current text makes out. The situation is not helped by the assets part of the material being unmentioned in the body (AFAICS), where the different explanations in sources might have been expounded and better contextualized. The absence of a mention in the body is of course also a MOS:LEAD issue, and, especially for something with two sentences in the lead, it's quite the remarkable omission. Iskandar323 (talk) 09:12, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

  If no sources back up Mohandas Gandhi actually saying or implying "transfer cash or I'll starve myself to death, ha!" then no. To be more serious, there are no indirect goals in the science of nonviolence. Requests (not demands, real nonviolent movements do not make demands) by movements that actually follow the science of nonviolence, as developed by Gandhi and others after him, do not make monetary demands. For example, America's 1960s Civil Rights Movement simply affirmed that the focus of their actions was to assure that the American government complied with the United States Constitution and that the American public understood that and had an open dialogue about these goals. Everything was made public, there were no hidden variables or agendas in the Civil Rights Movement nor, as far as I know, in Gandhi's movements. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:11, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

First sentence seems to be too long

The first sentence at the time of this writing[7] seems to be too long. I tried to shorten it[8], but User:Fowler&fowler reverted[9] with the rationale that it has been like that for years. I have been long enough in Wikipedia to know that there are articles without references or citations for years. It doesn't mean that's how it should be. Although of course many articles have been fine for years. Each case is different.

The general advice for writing is to use short sentences. According to the Harvard Library Writing Guide, "Ideal sentence length is around 15 to 20 words."

Although we are not bound to that guide, we can infer from MOS:INTRO, "The lead section should briefly summarize the most important points covered in an article". "Editors should avoid lengthy paragraphs and overly specific descriptions". "Readers should not be dropped into the middle of the subject from the first word; they should be eased into it."

After this, we can go to a more specific guideline, MOS:FIRST. It states, "Try to not overload the first sentence by describing everything notable about the subject. Instead use the first sentence to introduce the topic, and then spread the relevant information out over the entire lead."

According to the GA criteria, a good article "complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections". It is an open question as to whether this article does regarding the first sentence. Regards, Thinker78 (talk) 06:06, 25 March 2023 (UTC) Minor copyedit 1 May 2023

I agree. The first sentence compared to the GA version is actually long today. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 06:44, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

I've reduced the lead sentence. All lead sentences were mine, before the GA or after. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:31, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

References

Length

At over 19k words of readable prose, this article is too long to read and navigate comfortably. It would benefit from being made more concise. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:31, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

The length seems fine. Remember, this is an encyclopedia, and encyclopedias contain some topics which are too important to limit because of a guideline about someone being comfortable. Gandhi seems like such a topic (as are many others you've put this tag on recently). Navigation does not seem difficult. If you have a problem with the table of contents then please address that, but saying the page isn't comfortable to navigate doesn't ring true. As for being too long to read comfortably, that's an opinion and a generalization about the ability of Wikipedia's readers to choose to read as much or as little as they want, in one sitting or a half dozen. The vast majority of Wikipedia readers only read the first paragraph of the lead or, if lucky, the entire lead. After that come those who really want to get into the topic, and these people are more likely to be comfortable with full encyclopedic content than without. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:54, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

As per WP:DETAIL, we serve different readers by providing a lead for a quick summary, a full article for moderate detail, and separate subarticles for "those who really want to get into" a topic. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:22, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

There are already dozens of sub-articles about the topic. See {{Mahatma Gandhi}} for the navigation map. Or see category:Mahatma Gandhi. Please make some actual suggestions and not just count words, place a tag, and leave. In other words, please describe the problem that you found here - what needs to be fixed? Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 04:33, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

More of the details need to be decanted to those subarticles. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:43, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Gandhi did quite a lot of work, so it is rather obvious his article would a bit long. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 21:30, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

It's considerably more than "a bit long", at this point. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:27, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Should a biography really have "biography" as a subhead? Isn't everything under that just the core of the biography that should already be level-2 headers/visible in the contents? Iskandar323 (talk) 12:48, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

@Nikkimaria: I agree that the article is too long. 19,000+ words is 10,000 more than it should have. The "Principles, ..." section alone has 9,000+ words. I recommend that the article be whittled down to between 9,000 and 10,000 words, with the biography taking up no more than 7,000 words and the Principles no more than 2,000. A major world figure such as Gandhi needs high quality precis writing.

I don't mean to toot my own horn, but please read the lead which I wrote years ago and then the meandering later sections that have mushroomed in size and you'll see the difference. There should be two spin-off pages Biography of Mahatma Gandhi (which currently redirects to Mahatma Gandhi, i.e. it will need to be freed) and Principles, practices and beliefs of Mahatma Gandhi, and these two should be drastically reduced here, especially the latter. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:03, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Reducing it as you would like would harm the page, especially if information on Gandhi's use and development of nonviolence is removed (which you've already tried to do in the lead, not understanding that nonviolence and nonviolent resistance are two different things and calling the difference between them a "needless distraction"). Randy Kryn (talk) 12:11, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

And now FF has reverted again and seemingly wants to create a time-sink of arguing that nonviolence is the same as nonviolent resistance. Please explain how they are the same (and if you can't, please put the wording and link back in the lead) Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:22, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

@Randy Kryn: Please open a new thread and attempt to achieve a consensus for this sort of hairsplitting in the lead. A new thread not a perfunctory jargon-ridden run-on sentence. A new consensus takes time, at least a week, if not longer. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:23, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Pinging some @Abecedare, RegentsPark, El C, Vanamonde93, and Nikkimaria: admins. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:25, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

"Hairsplitting"? FF, you seem to have no or maybe little understanding of the difference between nonviolence and nonviolent resistance, which indicates that maybe you should consider not working on this page or anything to do with nonviolence or the people who have refined and analyzed it and then used it successfully to change the world. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:29, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

FF, why do you want to call in a group of admins? Let's ping Tamzin, who may not want to miss this. Please note, everyone, that the conflict here was the addition of two words "nonviolence and" in the lead (and by adding two words, nonviolence, linked, and "and", not linked in the lead, the suggested lead paragraph opens up an entire study and lifestyle to the readers and to the understanding of Gandhi and those who came after him). Randy Kryn (talk) 12:40, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

• I think a whole new Practices and beliefs of Mahatma Gandhi should be created and the whole Mahatma Gandhi#Principles, practices, and beliefs can be moved there. This move will significantly address the whole issue since this section is alone taking more than 103k bytes. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 16:44, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

  Yes, it's a huge section and a very viable, self-contained, good split candidate. Iskandar323 (talk) 20:47, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the support. I created the article as agreed above. @Nikkimaria: Are you fine with removing the tag now? Thanks Abhishek0831996 (talk) 05:47, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

The tag, obviously, cannot be removed unless the Mahatma Gandhi page—whose dereliction by the prolixity I am sad witness to—is whittled down to 9K words, or at the most, 10K. I mean look at my tight lead, and compare it to the garbage that has been scattered in the rest of the article during the last six or seven years. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:55, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Have brought back the sections on Gandhi's thoughts on nonviolence, which defined his life and his legacy. There is certainly no talk page agreement to move this section out of this article. To hide Gandhi's thoughts and creation of the use of nonviolence to remedy societal legalized inequity between people in a one-sentence link degrades this page and Gandhi's importance. Maybe some trimming, but total removal not agreed to in a quick one-day discussion between a few editors does not reverse many years of work and accurate encyclopedic effectiveness of this page. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:20, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Of course there is and you are in a miniscule minority. In an RfC you and your POV will be blown out of the water. You are that much in the fringe. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:56, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Okay... (slowly backs into the foliage, Homer Simpson style). Randy Kryn (talk) 12:12, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

There is a problem edit war here, Fowler keeps removing the returned section on nonviolence, has returned a no longer applicable "too long" tag, and seems to insist on owning this page past all realistic comprehension. I have never gone to ANI first on a topic but this is too important to the Gandhi page to walk away. Please stop edit warring which can be described as vandalism at this point, thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:24, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

It has nothing to do with WP:OWN. This page used to be a featured article. It is still a good article. It is also a WP:VITAL article. It cannot be populated with highly detailed and eccentric POV. As I've already stated, the sections you have added are not only excessively verbose, not only are written in a term paper style (according to this author, but according to that ...), but they also over-emphasize the Hindu (or Vedantic) contribution to Gandhi's thinking on nonviolence, completely ignoring the aspects that are more commonly emphasized in his standard biographies (by Rajmohan Gandhi or Joseph Lelyveld) and which give great credit to the very fact of his sojourns in England and South Africa, to Henry David Thoreau, John Ruskin, Leo Tolstoy, Hermann Kallenbach, and C. F. Andrews among others. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:34, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Then let's stop throwing stones at each other and edit that valued section until it shines. The influences are important and accurate, and then Gandhi refined nonviolence both in philosophy and in active use throughout the rest of his life. I've wondered how much Alice Paul's work in the 1910s influenced Gandhi if at all, but Paul was practicing its use with dramatic effect in America. And of course the words "nonviolence and nonviolent resistance" should appear in the lead as a unit - which you keep reverting - they are two different things (one a philosophy and way of public life and the other its actual use to attempt to make good faith change in a societal condition). Randy Kryn (talk) 12:47, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

I think it is better that the section be polished first in the Practices and beliefs article. Then a distilled precis can be included in the Gandhi article. I have left the "long" tag in because the long-windedness afflicts the biography section as well. People have suddenly stepped in and removed long-winded, unencyclopedic, prose from this article and moved it to some other article. Capital00 did that in the Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi article. I know it does not matter in WP, but had I made 0.4% contribution in an article, I would not have been able to muster the gumption of making this prose dump without a post on the talk page first. The inability to summarize in a competent fashion, to write adequate precis, is WP's bane. It is especially the case in South Asia related articles. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:08, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

That last part is certainly true. Everything here is essay length. Iskandar323 (talk) 13:15, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

I think the way to do this is to first whittle down the biography section to 7,500 words, and then bring back distilled Assassination and Principles and Practices sections of no more than 1,500 words. The total word count of the article should not be more than 9,000 words. Re-adding either Assassination or P&P now, even if they have been distilled is highly inadvisable, as their inclusion will hamper the summarizing that needs to be undertaken in the Biography section. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:21, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Setting hard word limits is quite inadvisable. The page should not be whittled down at the cost of accurately depicting the material. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 13:49, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

@CapnJackSp: I must respectfully disagree. Thinking in terms of word-limits and allocation is a very good and universally advised approach in planning one's writing both on and off wikipedia since it instantly focuses ones attention on article/section/para/sentence-level structure and to what content may or may not be due when discussing a subject at a particular length and for a particular audience. And the tradeoff is not between length and accuracy. It is between length and resolution/details. See Summary Style for more. Abecedare (talk) 17:38, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

• Breaking it up into sub articles (Biography/Principles sounds good to me) is a good idea (thanks Abhishek0831996 - for taking the lead on that). The nonviolence section does partly seem to be WP:SYNTH with multiple sources strung together to make each point (Borman says, Carr says, Watson says, Richards says). Might make more sense to organize it around a few established texts. Finally, if I may F&f, best not to get hung up on keeping a tag if there are objections to it. Abhishek0831996's removal has, after all, dropped the length by a third. RegentsPark (comment) 19:26, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

  Thanks @RegentsPark: for your wisdom. I'm happy to remove the tag from the top of the article. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:29, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

The sources in the lead

Various editors, who espouse some version, near or distant, of a Hindu nationalist-viewpoint have been changing the text in the lead that has been in place for upward of ten years. It is a given of modern Indian history—as displayed in this sourced lead—that Gandhi's last fast before his assassination in January 1948 was undertaken to pressure Indian nationalist leaders, especially those in the conservative pro-Hindu wing of the Indian National Congress, such as Vallabhbhai Patel. Gandhi wanted them to stick to the promise of handing over the assets of the recently decolonized British India that were owed to Pakistan and at the time were being held in India, where the main institutions of the colonial state had been located.

As you might have seen above, I had added dozens of scholarly sources (that those who know my edits) I add with the greatest rigor. Using that the excuse that the lead was too long, these editors first removed the sources, but without summarizing their content anywhere else in the article (i.e. to affirm the WP principle that the lead is a summary style precis of the article). Then as the lead appeared to be arbitrarily written, they began to have their way with the rigorously sourced content. I cannot even edit with the "inuse" tag in place, so inveterate they are in promoting this POV. Most had barely edited the page before—dropped out of the sky as it were. Please help. I am at my wits end. @RegentsPark, Abecedare, Vanamonde93, Kautilya3, TrangaBellam, Johnbod, Doug Weller, Sitush, Bishonen, Drmies, Valereee, and MelanieN:

Surely, this is not what Wikipedia should be about. Contrast this with Bengal Sati Regulation, 1829, where too I added sources (earlier this morning, in fact). The other editor built on what I had done. See here. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:00, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

A number of editors, except you, have already shared their views and found the removal of this information to be an appropriate step. Why you are starting this new section when this is being already discussed for months at Talk:Mahatma Gandhi#Misinformation on lead? Who is exactly espousing some version, near or distant, of a Hindu nationalist-viewpoint? First read WP:ASPERSIONS and then read this earlier message of mine. I am the one removing Hindutva POV here.

None of your sources: 1) have addressed the debunking of this claim, 2) provided proof that Gandhi made the demand.

If you are really serious about this dispute then continue this at Talk:Mahatma Gandhi#Misinformation on lead or otherwise move this discussion below Talk:Mahatma Gandhi#Comments continued. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 16:20, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

In your last edit, you changed:

The last of these, begun in Delhi on 12 January 1948 when he was 78, also had the indirect goal of pressuring India to pay out some cash assets owed to Pakistan, which the Indian government, had been resisting. Although the Government of India relented, as did the religious rioters, the belief that Gandhi had been too resolute in his defence of both Pakistan and Indian Muslims, spread among some Hindus in India.

which had been in the article for a very long time and indeed had been there in your own previous edit of a few days ago (see here) to:

The last of these, begun in Delhi on 12 January 1948 when he was 78, led to the belief on (sic) some Indian Hindus that Gandhi had been too resolute in his defense of both Pakistan and Indian Muslims.

Do you see how silly your last revert was? How would the last of these by some magical happenstance of being the last lead to an accusation of resolute defense of Pakistan and Indian Muslims? You don't even think your sentences through!! You made that last edit. On you lies the WP:ONUS of making it bear some consonance to your own previous edit. The buck, my dear @Abhishek0831996:, now stops with you. Please also don't brandish WP:ASPERSIONS lightly. It seems to be the latest arsenal in the revamped, slightly more sophisticated, Hindu nationalist attack on Wikipedia. The mere fact of saying that edits bear some similarity to Hindu-nationalist POV is not casting aspersions.Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:16, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

"last of these" refers to what is already described in the earlier sentence "he undertook several hunger strikes to stop the religious violence".

It still makes no sense for you to mislabel my edits as ideologically driven especially when I am removing the misinformation. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 17:48, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Those sentences had been in the article since 2013. Gandhi being Gandhi was edited by all manner of experienced WPians, including many administrators, with not a single objection, until you and your newly-found cohorts-in-ideology parachuted into the article recently.

(Among the editors who had edited the article many times before you were: admin RegentsPark in September 2013; admin SpacemanSpiff in October 2013; admin Abecedare in October 2013; Nikkimaria in October 2013 (whom I forgot to ping (apologies @Nikkimaria:, especially as she began the latest attempt to improve the article)); historian @Rjensen: also in October 2013 and 195 edits thereafter; (later to be admin) Vanamonde93 in July 2014; even Randy Kryn of recent-edit-war-fame in October 2014; Kautily3 in July 2015; admin Titodutta in February 2016; @Ms Sarah Welch: in June 2017 ... and that is just a smattering of the thousands of edits since 2013. Please view the part that they have played in the creation of the article, not authorship, which has no meaning on WP, but the sheer number of their edits

So that silent majority which pays little attention to the endless back-and-forth has no say in the matter and you with your newly-found zeal amid a record of two edits—one of the day before yesterday, which had the abhorrent, "the indirect goal of pressuring India to pay out some cash assets owed to Pakistan, which the Indian government, had been resisting. ...," and the other of the hour before the present one, which did not—both deletions, and rank 1,149 have everything? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:23, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Read WP:CCC. Your explanation is beyond inadequate in the light of the very long discussion in the above sections that completely went against you.

Read WP:FOC. This is not the right venue for discussing the unrelated content history of this article. This page is for resolving current disputes. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 07:03, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

If there was consensus to change

Version A: The last of these, begun in Delhi on 12 January 1948 when he was 78, also had the indirect goal of pressuring India to pay out some cash assets owed to Pakistan, which the Indian government had been resisting. Although the Government of India relented, as did the religious rioters, the belief that Gandhi had been too resolute in his defense of both Pakistan and Indian Muslims spread among some Hindus in India.

to

Version B: The last of these, begun in Delhi on 12 January 1948 when he was 78, and led to the belief on (sic) some Indian Hindus that Gandhi had been too resolute in his defense of both Pakistan and Indian Muslims.

in that discussion of many months ago, then why did you not change it then? Why did you wait until July 21, 2023 for an editor who was not a part of the discussion to make a perfunctorily defended edit with summary,

"removed incorrect information in lead and edited for brevity (although a four-month talk page discussion is still in progress this obvious incorrect characterization of the goal of Gandhi's fast should not be presented in Wikipedia's voice as fact"

and then dig your heels in? Your contributions to the Mahatma Gandhi page, need I remind you, are in the nature of two edits: one made on July 20, 2023 and the other on July 22, 2023, the first in the nature of a deletion to reduce the prose size, and the second to edit war.

Indeed your own edit of July 20, 2023 had Version A. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:00, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

Fowler&Fowler, you seem good faith invested in your point of view, and have mentioned my edit a couple of times, so I'll try to explain again. Gandhi did not list the money in his seven reasons for his fast. That should do it right there, he did not say he was doing it for that reason. In nonviolence nothing is hidden, so Gandhi was fasting for exactly the reasons he said and nothing more. The distribution of the funds seems to have occurred as a byproduct of his fast, but not because of any do-or-die extortion on Gandhi's part. The parties involved with the money may have thought he was extorting them, probably misled by their own thoughts or the opinions of others. But saying in Wikipedia's voice that Gandhi had an "indirect goal" implies a hidden agenda, a concept which does not have a foothold in a correctly run nonviolent action. When it comes to nonviolence Gandhi has to be taken at his word or, in this case, his lack of it. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:25, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

On Wikipedia what matters is not what Gandhi said, but how the reliable sources interpreted his actions. Do you realize what kind of rigorously sourced sentences you had removed in your casual edit with edit summary, "removed incorrect information in lead and edited for brevity (although a four-month talk page discussion is still in progress this obvious incorrect characterization of the goal of Gandhi's fast should not be presented in Wikipedia's voice as fact"? We are talking over nearly two dozen scholars, including a dozen of the finest, who did not mince their words, did not pussyfoot around with "implicit" or "indirect." They were clear that getting the Indian government to give Pakistan the cash assets was a direct goal. These are authors of major text-books published by academic publishers and used around the world:

Please note that were are talking about a combined Google Scholar Citation Index of 42 + 1579 + 65 + 965 + 1470 + 560 + 261 + 613 + 53 + 928 + 439 = 6,975. It is true that Stanley Wolpert and Judith M. Brown view the payment of cash assets to be an outcome, not an explicit goal, but they are in a minority (with Google Scholar citation index 560 + 1,348 = 1,898')

I think @Randy Kryn:, you don't appear to be practising the very non-violence you are both so ardently championing and perhaps less than accurately attributing to Gandhi. Gandhi was both a spiritual and political animal. His ouster of Subhas Chandra Bose was not entirely transparent. He accurately viewed Bose to be harmful to the Indian National Congress's goals (both as a result of Bose's ambivalence about nonviolence and his tendency to veer toward authoritarianism), but once having come to that determination, Gandhi used back-channel political means to oust Bose. It was ruthless. It took two years. When Bose died in a plane crash, Gandhi wrote to a mutual friend, "Bose has died well. He was a patriot, but misguided." That is not exactly the kindest assessment of a man who was an immensely popular president of the Indian National Congress

I think also both you, Randy Kryn, and @CapnJackSp: are being less than generous when you respond to my reliably sourced edits with what are personal musings. Please read WP:TERTIARY, in particular, WP policy: Many introductory undergraduate-level textbooks are regarded as tertiary sources because they sum up multiple secondary sources. Policy: Reliable tertiary sources can help provide broad summaries of topics that involve many primary and secondary sources and may help evaluate due weight, especially when primary or secondary sources contradict each other. I have produced such textbooks above. Many are used in the FA India. You don't seriously think that if I receive this accolade on the FA India, and this on the FA Darjeeling, I don't know how to source accurately, reliably, and with due weight? If I were you, Randy Kryn, I would self-revert that edit. That would be the honorable thing to do. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:59, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

Replying here since I was pinged.
I appreciate your accolades, but I dont think those are of any value wrt whether or not you are right in this instance. You did some good work earlier, bravo, but that does not mean you can brush off concerns raised by others.
I also dont agree with some of the rather weird ways you have used to denote the weight of sources.
Not going to opine on the issue itself (whether or not getting money to pakistan was an intent of the fast or not), as I have yet to dive into that matter. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 17:50, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes, there are many things that are falsely attributed not only to Gandhi but also to other giant figures like Lincoln, Voltaire and many others.

But when the claim or say misinformation (such as the payment thing here) has been already debunked by reliable sources then you are required to provide the counter instead of repeating the same sources that have merely made the mention of the false claim. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 18:04, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

Do you have sources that match the Google Scholar citations (see above) of Burton Stein, David Arnold, Hermann Kulke, Dietmar Rothermund, Barbara D. Metcalf, Thomas R. Metcalf, Percival Spear, Dennis Dalton, Leonard A. Gordon, Sumit Sarkar, Ainslee T. Embree, Carolyn Elkins, Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, Lloyd I. Rudolph, [ Ian Talbot], [ Ian Copland] that together are nearly 7,000, i.e. they have been cited nearly 7,000 times in scholarly publications? Do you have sources that have been cited in the featured article, India, Wikipedia's oldest country featured article now nearly 19 years old?

Actually, Judith M. Brown (Beit Professor Emerita of Commonwealth History at Oxford), thinks that the implicit goal of the fast was indeed to pressure Patel, the conservative in the Indian National Congress who was sympathetic to the Hindu right. Says Brown:

Despite and indeed because of his sense of helplessness Delhi was to be the scene of what he called his greatest fast. The fast was his answer to helplessness, the last weapon of a true satyagrahi, where the violent man would use a sword. His decision was made suddenly, though after considerable thought – he gave no hint of it even to Nehru and Patel who were with him shortly before he announced his intention at a prayer-meeting on 12 January 1948. He said he would fast until communal peace was restored, and real peace rather than the calm of a dead city imposed by the police and troops. Patel and the government took the fast partly as a condemnation of their decision to withhold a considerable sum of money still outstanding to Pakistan as a result of the allocation of undivided India's assets, because of the hostilities that had broken out in Kashmir; it seems that Mountbatten had invoked Gandhi's support on this issue. The Mountbattens actually visited the fasting Mahatma as a symbol to the world that they supported him. But even when the government agreed to pay out the cash, Gandhi would not break his fast.

Brown states that Mountbatten had invoked Gandhi (in the meaning of cited, posited, or appealed to Gandhi) in support of this course of action. In other words, it was implicitly made known to the government was Gandhi's position was on this issue. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:38, 23 July 2023 (UTC) Updated Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:08, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

You seem quite knowledgeable about Gandhi, which is helpful to Wikipedia and its articles. Nonviolence, maybe not as much (harkening back to your claims that "nonviolence" and "nonviolent resistance" mean the same thing). The major nonviolent activists were not nonviolent in their personal lives, just ask Mrs. Gandhi, nor did they claim to be. Sinners and skalliwags, the same as the rest of us mortals. But they had learned to be nonviolent, and the importance of staying nonviolent, in their public actions. Most politicans wouldn't understand their motives, they had no life experience with these personality types. Not to get into a four-month discussion with you, but please understand that the above quote shows no indication that Gandhi had a hidden motive or agenda, nor was fasting to extort money. As you quote, "Patel and the government took the fast partly as a condemnation of their decision to withhold a considerable sum of money..." - they "took" it as, meaning they were reading into Gandhi's actions based on their own understanding of the world. Gandhi pronounced seven reasons for which he was fasting, and those were the only reasons. Your quote concludes "But even when the government agreed to pay out the cash, Gandhi would not break his fast." - he would not break it because the money had nothing to do with his fast. Randy Kryn (talk) 00:57, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

@Randy Kryn: Per Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (history)#What is historical scholarship? :

Historical scholarship is a group process by a community of experts on a specialized topic of historiography, who read and critique each other's work. Material submitted for scholarly publication is vetted by editors and outside advisers. Scholarly books typically have a page or more of acknowledgments naming the people who assisted in finding, and evaluating sources, and helping the author avoid mistakes. Editors give a high priority to ensuring that the authors have dealt with the current standard scholarly historiography on the topic. A submitted paper or manuscript that is unaware of major relevant scholarship will be sent back for revision, or rejected. Scholarly books are reviewed in the history journals, with the goal of evaluating the originality and contribution, and pointing out misinterpretations or mistakes. The results of the scholarly process appear in numerous forms: Books published by academic and scholarly presses by historians, as reviewed in scholarly historical journals or as demonstrated by past works of a similar nature by the historian. ...

I have listed 18 major historians of modern South Asia. Together, as I've stated above, they have been cited nearly 7,000 times in other scholarly publications. Judith Brown, whom I added at the very end was an after thought as I had originally included her in the list of two that did not mention the cash assets owned to Pakistan as an implicit aim of the fast, which upon re-reading I did. But there are 17 other historians of political scientists in my list above. They are quite explicit. These include, Barbara D. Metcalf, the Alice Freeman Palmer emerita professor of History at the University of Michigan and past president of the American Historical Association, and Thomas R. Metcalf, the Thomas R Kailath emeritus professor of South Asia at the University of California, Berkeley. They are authors of one of the most widely used textbook in modern Indian history, (A Concise History of Modern India, Cambridge, 3rd edition, 2012), have been reviewed dozens of times in scholarly history journals. Not one reviewer has objected to their characterization:

Just before his death, Gandhi made one last decisive intervention in the Indian political process. By a combination of prayer and fasting, he forced a contrite ministry to hand over to Pakistan its share of the cash assets of undivided India, some 40 million pounds sterling, which had so far been retained in defiance of the partition agreements.

An argument about authors is not between you and me, but the reviewers of their works. I strongly encourage you to present reviewers, not your own arguments. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:00, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Do any of them quote Mohandas Gandhi as saying or writing that the indirect purpose and goal of his fast was to make sure money changed hands? If not, and maybe I missed it in your worthwhile defense in the several discussions above, then it certainly does not belong in the lead of the Gandhi article. At best it is guesswork, by Gandhi's people, by political officials at the time who spread and probably acted on a hunch and a rumor, by later historians and learned professors, and while widely discussed, as you've quoted, it cannot be set in stone in Wikipedia's voice unless Gandhi is directly quoted from an extremely reputable source. Especially not in the lead. Because if such a quote doesn't exist, we have his seven reasons, which, if a primary source, is a pretty major primary source Enough to leave it out of the lead. You asked me to revert my edit, sorry, I can't do that, because I do not purposely add incorrect information into Wikipedia (the cat thing was a hopefully one-time exception) and unless you can show a newsreel or a tape-recorded quote from Gandhi himself, I cannot, as a principal, add it back, and would regard his seven stated reasons as his sole reasons (your quote above actually proves that, when the government was surprised that Gandhi didn't start eating when they agreed to fork over the money). Randy Kryn (talk) 02:27, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

>>> "Money changed hands?"

OK @Randy Kryn: I will take this issue to Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard.

Please note the response above admins: @RegentsPark, Abecedare, Vanamonde93, and El C: who have edited the Mahatma Gandhi page during the period from 2013 until a few days ago when the reference to the cash assets owed to Pakistan was very much present in the lead

Randy Kryn (talk · contribs) removed it in this edit of 21 July 2023. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:40, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Where is the direct quote? Wikipedia's voice cannot be used to say that part of the reason Gandhi was doing this fast was to make sure that money was given unless that was backed by reputable sources in Gandhi's own words. Especially in the lead. Randy Kryn (talk) 02:50, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

You may make that argument at WP:RS/N. All the very best. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:56, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

PS The same applies to you @Abhishek0831996:, it is not enough to write:

>>> "But when the claim or say misinformation (such as the payment thing here) has been already debunked by reliable sources then you are required to provide the counter instead of repeating the same sources that have merely made the mention of the false claim

Per WP:DUE

Paraphrased from Jimbo Wales' September 2003 post on the WikiEN-l mailing list:

• If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with references to commonly accepted reference texts;
• If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents;
• If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small minority, it does not belong on Wikipedia, regardless of whether it is true, or you can prove it, except perhaps in some ancillary article.

So, Abhishek0831996: Do you have any commonly accepted reference texts of a majority viewpoint, or prominent adherents of a significant minority viewpoint? If so, what are their names and in which scholarly publication did they write this critique? Best, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:54, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Fowler&fowler, much of this disagreement centers on one word: goal. Wikipedia cannot say the payment was in any way Gandhi's goal. Why not just change "indirect goal" to "indirect result"? That seems accurate and well-sourced. Why are you insisting on using the word "goal"? Randy Kryn (talk) 02:59, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

It might be your disagreement, but again, you need to produce scholars who have disagreed in the fashion you have or have presented an argument emphasizing result. When 17 major historians and political scientists make the payment of cash assets to Pakistan to be a very purposeful aim of Gandhi's fast, I shall certainly not be second guessing them.

There is a reason that sentence had been in the article's lead for ten years. It's a long time. It was edited during that time by many experienced South Asia hands. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:11, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

The same applies to @Aman.kumar.goel and Capitals00: who have edit-warred around this issue, though I might have misunderstood Capitals00's rationale (in which case I apologize) Please clarify that you do not consider the collapsed list of 17 scholars above to reliably and with due weight make the case for the inclusion of the text that was removed by user:Randy Kryn in this edit, so I know what the various positions are before I move the matter to WP:RS/N. Thanks. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:49, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

There is no deadline on Wikipedia. Misinformation can be removed just anytime.

Why you are asking others to "produce scholars who have disagreed" with your views? See Talk:Mahatma Gandhi#Misinformation on lead where more than enough sources have been provided that debunked your views. In response, you have provided nothing substantial but only repeated yourself.

You will benefit from reading WP:STICK. Capitals00 (talk) 03:45, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

You can make that case at WP:RS/N. All the best. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:50, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Read WP:FORUMSHOPPING. RSN is for asking "is this source reliable?" Its not for asking "is this source enough to ignore the dispute surrounding a false claim?" Capitals00 (talk) 03:56, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

The problem, aside from not implementing the easy solution of using the word "result" instead of "goal", may have been that after my edit was reverted by someone it was allowed to be removed again without the entire dispute being decided by an administrator. I was pinged to have a look at the dispute and made a decision to remove the information in Wikipedia's voice that the payment of the funds was one of Gandhi's reasons for fasting without Gandhi himself being quoted as saying so to someone. As far as I can tell he never did, and the payment is not among his seven stated reasons. I was reverted and didn't remove the information again, but others did, several times, and hopefully, with the page blocked from edits, administrators and reliable source page editors can sort this out. Randy Kryn (talk) 04:32, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Administrators don't resolve content disputes. That is what RS/N is for in its de facto version for comparing the heft of the sources. I've been there several times before. People there are experienced. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:36, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

And thereafter [that is what] (<---added 12:45, 24 July 2023 (UTC)) formal RfCs are for which have been advertised in WikiProjects History, etc. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:49, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

But RSN is only for checking the reliability of a source, not for checking the authenticity of a particular information.

You can try RfC though but until the conclusion you will have to abide by the existing consensus. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 05:02, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Arbitrary break 1

Oh I definitely will go to WP:RS/N first to see someone there defend the sources in your opening salvo of 5th March 2023, someone, for example, who will take up the mantle of saying that: A Testa Setalvad of google scholar citation index 1 fame is just as reliable as Barbara D. Metcalf and Thomas R. Metcalf of citation index 965 Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:11, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Or perhaps someone at will RS/N will contrast your B Chunilal Vaidya, author of The Truth Behind the Assassination of Gandhiji of Google Scholar citation index 0 favorably with Burton Stein and David Arnold of Google Scholar citation index 560 Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:26, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Again, nobody is disputing the reliability of the sources. We are only disputing the authenticity of a particular information because it has been disputed by enough reliable sources. Just more hits on Google Scholars are irrelevant to this dispute. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 05:30, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Again, I very much am saying your sources are unreliable, unfit for consumption on Wikipedia. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:32, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

If hits on Google Scholar were any relevant then the Time magazine (which does not attribute the demand to Gandhi)  is ahead of any sources you are citing when it comes to Google scholar hits. To say that all of these sources are unreliable then you must carefully read this section on WP:TE. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 05:39, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Not Time magazine, but that article in the magazine. It has Google Scholar citation index 0

I request that you not argue without knowledge of what it is we are arguing about. All the best, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:58, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Or perhaps someone at RS/N will say that C: Nagendra Kaushik, author of Mahatma Gandhi in Cinema, published in 2020 by "Cambridge Scholars Publishing," which has nothing to do with scholars at Cambridge University and with Google Scholar citation index 0 will contrast favorably with Rotem Geva's 2022 book Delhi Reborn: Partition and Nation Building in India's Capital published by Stanford University Press and with already Google Scholar citation index 2 not to mention a 2023 scholarly review by Stephen Legg, Professor of Historical Geography, University of Nottingham, which begins,

In this exceptional piece of historical scholarship, Rotem Geva walks the reader through a harrowing Indian landscape. The five substantive chapters take us from the dreams about, and campaigns for, independence in India’s colonial capital, to the violence that shattered many of these dreams in August 1947, when Pakistan was partitioned out of India and hundreds of thousands of refugees migrated to new countries, and cities. ... The fifth chapter demonstrates how reluctant the new national government was to give up the authoritarian and surveillance mechanisms of the colonial state, although the influence of the Hindu right within the first Congress government meant that communists and socialists were more harshly policed than the militant Hindu RSS. This was even after the latter had been banned over its connections to the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi in the city in January 1948. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:50, 24 July 2023 (UTC) scratched (06:56, 24 July 2023 (UTC))

This review is not even close to discussing the misinformation in question that Gandhi made the demand, let alone fact-checking the misinformation. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 05:59, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Apologies. I made an error. I mistakenly thought I had included this book in the list of 17 in the collapsed list above. I had not. Apologies. I am scratching it. It should have been contrasted with: Ian Copland, India 1885-1947: The Unmaking of an Empire, Routledge, 2001, Google Scholar Citation Index 53, says, "Gandhi was adamant that the debt to Pakistan had to be paid, and in January 1948 he announced that he planned to embark on another indefinite fast to ensure that the Indian government fulfilled its legal and moral obligations. The Mahasabha and the RSS denounced this plan as tantamount to treason. In the early evening of 30 January, as he addressed a prayer meeting at Birla House, New Delhi, India’s prince of peace was shot and killed by a member of an RSS splinter-group, Nathuram Godse.

It is way past my bedtime. Good night. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 06:45, 24 July 2023 (UTC) Updated Fowler&fowler«Talk» 06:56, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes this is yet another source that only repeats that problematic claim instead of fact-checking it or providing any evidence behind it. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 11:17, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Or perhaps per the importance of reviews in WP:HISTRS, someone at RS/N will contrast another source in your opening salvo of 5th March 2023: D Dilip Hero, whose book, The Longest August: The Unflinching Rivalry between India and Pakistan was reviewed in the New York Times by Declan Walsh, using these words among others:

“The Longest August” — a reference to the month in which India was partitioned in 1947 — also squanders the rich material at its disposal. The narrative is unwieldy, often plodding, in places, with long lists of events that lack even a sprig of analysis to draw them together. Efforts to personalize major figures can come across as clumsy, even unkind. He describes Indira Gandhi’s face as “a cross between the refined, sinewy features of her father and the bloated visage of her mother.” Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the Pakistani leader, is a “prematurely balding man with a sharp nose in a buttery face.”

favorably
with Lloyd I. Rudolph and Susanne Hoeber Rudolph's In Pursuit of Lakshmi: Political Economy of the Indian State, Google scholar index 1,470 which states: Patel was not a committed or convinced secularist. His call for Muslims to pledge their loyalty to India as a condition of citizenship after partition, his one-sided defense of Hindus during the communal rioting and carnage that accompanied partition, and his refusal to honor India's commitment to turn over to Pakistan the assets due it were the occasion of Gandhi's last fast in January 1948. The riots in Delhi abated; Patel, after being told by Gandhi on the verge of death, "You are not the Sardar I knew," turned over the assets and deferred to Gandhi's call for brotherhood and forgiveness.. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:45, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Not all reviews of the books are required to be positive. The review by NYT is not discussing this dispute so it is not relevant here.

What we all know is that the dispute is valid and it has been highlighted by a good number of authors. Unless the dispute can be addressed by the sources, in support of your views, then only we should be doubting the disputes. For now, there is no source that is addressing this dispute in favor of your views. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 13:30, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

I will attempt to extract at RS/N the judgment that your authors don't meet the standards required in WP:HISTRS, and therefore are unfit as ripostes to the 17 scholars (with quotes and combined Google Scholar citation index 6,995) in the collapsed list above. As Dilip Hiro's book is not scholarly, it has not been reviewed in scholarly journals. It has been reviewed in newspapers, not just the NY Times, quoted above, but also the Indian newspaper, Indian Express, whose review begins with, "Why did Dilip Hiro write The Longest August? This is the question that starts bothering the reader within the first 50 pages of this 503-page book. And it is not answered even when she finishes the book. Hiro has written 34 books so far, with one — and sometimes even two — books coming out every year. Unlike some of his earlier work from the 1990s, this book does not have anything new to say on the subject."
or the Pakistani newspaper Dawn whose review of Hiro's book concludes with these words:
Ultimately, this is a frustrating book. That it inevitably falls short of its ambitions should not be surprising given that it seeks to distil over a century of animosity and rivalry into just over 400 pages. Its problems are compounded by its lack of fresh ideas, its regurgitation of well-known facts, its rehashing of established nationalist tropes, its exclusion of deeper explanations, and its distracting tangents into the realm of speculation. Hiro writes with skill, and The Longest August is an accessible read, but its failings make it difficult to recommend this as anything more than yet another generic account of the Indo-Pak relationship." Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:31, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

That has no connection with the false claim that has been similarly rejected by other reliable sources. Capitals00 (talk) 15:10, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Only sources count, not generic language. Please name the sources (with Google Scholar citation index) that together match the reliability of Percival Spear, Barbara D. Metcalf, Thomas R. Metcalf, Burton Stein, David Arnold, Judith M. Brown, Ainslee T. Embree, Denis Dalton, Leonard A. Gordon, Lloyd I. Rudolph, Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, Hermann Kulke, Caroline Elkins, Sumit Sarkar, Dietmar Rothermund. The total Google scholar index of their books which were bing cited in the lead is 6,995. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:04, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Which of these sources are addressing the debunking of this misinformation? Judhith M. Brown said that the demand was a misunderstanding and Gandhi was never concerned about paying the amount owed to Pakistan but over restoring "communal peace". That is clearly against your point of view. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 17:18, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Tweaking the lead and restoring the sources in the Partition and Independence section

Dear @Randy Kryn: As a last attempt to achieve a consensus on this page before I take the issue of the reliability and due weight of @Abhishek0831996:'s sources to WP:RS/N, I have tweaked to sentences in the lead to accommodate your cogent point about not speaking in Wikipedia's voice. I have moved the sources to the Partition and Independence section, and have added the source Geva (2022) (footnote 181, here), which takes a viewpoint similar to yours, but still the minority viewpoint in the reliable scholarship. The lead now reads: "In the months following, he undertook several hunger strikes to stop the religious violence. The last of these, begun in Delhi on 12 January 1948 when he was 78, has been interpreted by many historians to have had the underlying goal of pressuring India, especially its home minister Vallabhbhai Patel, to pay out some cash assets owed to Pakistan from its share of the former imperial treasury. Although the Government of India soon relented, as did the religious rioters, the belief that Gandhi had been too resolute in his defence of both Pakistan and Indian Muslims spread among some Hindus in India. Among these was Nathuram Godse, ..." I hope this will be acceptable to you. That the majority of the 18 cited historians have made this interpretation is undeniable. Three of the five sources presented by Abhishek0831996 are neither reliable nor of due weight. I want to prevent a visit to RS/N which will only bear this out. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:04, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

PS @Randy Kryn: This by the way is not a minor point, undeserving of a mention in the lead. Gandhi was praised then and has been praised since for upholding universal moral values in the face of the pressures of aggressive nationalism, championed in newly post-colonial India by Vallabhbhai Patel and others in the Congress Party increasingly in sympathy with the Hindu Right. Patel had been a disciple of Gandhi from the Kheda Satyagraha of 1918, the first in Gandhi's India campaign. A 30-year friendship. much older than Gandhi's with Nehru, was at stake. It was no mean thing to have preferred the right action to the expedient. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:18, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Seems fine to me, although still not needed in such detail. I'd prefer a simple "resulted in" rather than unneeded extra wordage in the lead alluding to it as one of Gandhi's goals. But yes, all I was personally concerned about was adding an extra and hidden goal to Gandhi's seven stated goals for going on the fast. Thanks for the ping and your continued attention to detail. Randy Kryn (talk) 00:35, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

@Randy Kryn: How about: The last of these, begun in Delhi on 12 January 1948 when he was 78, has been interpreted by many historians to have pressured the Government of India to pay out some cash assets owed to Pakistan from the former imperial treasury. The belief that Gandhi had been too resolute in his defence of both Pakistan and Indian Muslims spread among some Hindus in India.? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:48, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

The sort of information is entirely WP:UNDUE for the lead because there is no evidence that Gandhi made this demand and it's clearly a creation from later years. Lead is not supposed to include dubious information. Capitals00 (talk) 02:34, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

• "majority of the 18 cited historians have made this interpretation is undeniable"? I can cite more than 100 scholars who say Voltaire made this false quote. It won't become right. If you are going to attribute it as "many historians" then you are only setting a bad precedent for not only this article but also others. Overall, this claim has no effect on the biography of Gandhi. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 02:50, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

• Why not just: "The last of these, begun in Delhi on 12 January 1948 when Gandhi was 78, indirectly resulted in the Government of India paying cash assets owed to Pakistan from the former imperial treasury." The seems entirely accurate, fair, and hard to find fault with. Randy Kryn (talk) 04:14, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

• That is certainly better. Capitals00 (talk) 04:26, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Criticism

Promising a separate section for criticism with a different headline (not criticism) জয় হিন্দ জয় বাংলা (talk) 21:51, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

You are right, this stupid man should be criticised heavily. Non-violence only furthers violence by the violent. Meowkiti (talk) 05:35, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

He might not have succeeded against a Narendra Modi, for example; but he made the accurate determination that the British played by certain rules, and used those rules to test equality for Indians. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:24, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

:::Well, just for a bit of personal info, I'm a part of Anti-Modi or movement in India; I'm totally against pro Hindutva and I do believe in pluralism and diversity. Just check User talk:Proctorr127 for instance. জয় হিন্দ জয় বাংলা (talk) 17:49, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

No worries. I was responding to the now-banned red-linked editor. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:53, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

Father of the Nation?

Who exactly has conferred this title to Gandhi? He was too meek a guy to ever deserve a title of such grandiose. Most of the work for India's independence was done by the Germans who severely weakened English power and the British left sensing a repeat of the 1857 rebellion. Meowkiti (talk) 05:29, 23 July 2023 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by জয় হিন্দ জয় বাংলা (talk • contribs)

C. R. Attlee, broadcast to the British nation, 30 January 1948:

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

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:29, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

It was Netaji:

https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/when-netaji-gave-gandhi-the-title-of-father-of-the-nation-8399485/ Withmoralcare (talk) 09:55, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

References

Protected edit request on 24 July 2023

Please remove the tag father of the nation because according to constitution article 14 persons belongs to government military and education department we can give them title so the title father of nation is not given legally so please remove the title from the page 103.42.250.78 (talk) 02:01, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

 Not done There is no need for the title to be formal. Sun Yat-sen, George Washington and many others are also informally called 'the father' of their nations.[10][11] Capitals00 (talk) 03:43, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Why is the page “full protected”

I’m wondering why it’s “full protected” Coltshark (talk) 14:38, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Some ECP editors were edit warring. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 15:47, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Basically, this is an article that attracts a lot of people with very strong opinions who are prone to vandalizing the page and adding unsourced additions, so full protection helps prevent random people from constantly changing the page without discussing on the talk page first. AryKun (talk) 15:20, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

@Coltshark: It was temporary. Lifted now. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:26, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Edit of 11 July

Hello @Ayubist: You may not have known this, but in an edit of 11 July 2023, you took out the carefully placed citations in the lead which had supported the lead's sentences, clauses, phrases, and, sometimes, even single words, and moved them to various parts of the main body without, I'm afraid, the same careful regard to placement.

Thus B. R. Nanda in the lead sentence was meant to support the label "lawyer" in the very short description of Gandhi (lawyer, anticolonial nationalist, political ethicist, ...). That was the reason the citation was chosen from Nanda's article in Britannica, another tertiary source; for tertiary sources indicate due weight. You have moved the citation to the end of the sentence about Gandhi completing his law degree in London, which was not the point B. R. Nanda was making; he too was offering a short description of Gandhi in his lead sentence. Similarly the reference to Rajmohan Gandhi's book in the first paragraph was about the word "Mahatma" being first applied to Gandhi in South Africa, not about the meaning of "Mahatma," which seems to be its current function.

You may not have known this, of course, but the lead was not a summary of the article as it ideally is. Rather it was a reliable template of due weight which awaited expansion into the article. That is the reason the citations had quotes. They were placed there so that they could be summarized in various relevant parts of the article.

For now, may I request that you restore the citations in the lead except, of course, those currently in dispute. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:15, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

F&f's sources: Gandhi's last fast & cash assets owed to Pakistan

The citations below support the disputed sentences, which are in green and have been deleted:

In the months following, he undertook several hunger strikes to stop the religious violence. The last of these, begun in Delhi on 12 January 1948 when he was 78, also had the goal of pressuring India to pay out some cash assets owed to Pakistan, which the Indian government had resisted. Although the Government of India soon relented, as did the religious rioters, the belief that Gandhi had been too resolute in his defence of both Pakistan and Indian Muslims spread among some Hindus in India.

Note

If you don't like "undertook several hunger strikes," and I have to say, I'm not entirely comfortable with that construction, we could change it to: "he went on hunger strikes several times to stop ...."

Note 2

Although, Gandhi made a distinction between a hunger strike and a "fast to the death," or "unto death," the “fast,” being a religious experience of self-transformation and an exemplary act ... (See Banu Bargu Gandhi's fasts), in an encyclopedia, "hunger strike" is probably more widely understood. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:56, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

30 sources on Gandhi's last fast

Please note: WP:SOURCETYPES: When available, academic and peer-reviewed publications, scholarly monographs, and textbooks are usually the most reliable sources. and WP:TERTIARY: "Many introductory undergraduate-level textbooks are regarded as tertiary sources because they sum up multiple secondary sources. Policy: Reliable tertiary sources can help provide broad summaries of topics that involve many primary and secondary sources and may help evaluate due weight, especially when primary or secondary sources contradict each other. WP:SCHOLARSHIP: Citation counts – One may be able to confirm that discussion of the source has entered mainstream academic discourse by checking what scholarly citations it has received in citation indexes or lists such as DOAJ. Works published in journals not included in appropriate databases, especially in fields well covered by them, might be isolated from mainstream academic discourse, though whether it is appropriate to use will depend on the context. WP:HSC: Historical scholarship is a group process by a community of experts on a specialized topic of historiography, who read and critique each other's work. Material submitted for scholarly publication is vetted by editors and outside advisers. ... Scholarly books are reviewed in the history journals, with the goal of evaluating the originality and contribution, and pointing out misinterpretations or mistakes. ... Historical scholarship may include: University level textbooks that summarize the scholarly literature. Introductory undergraduate or graduate textbooks written by scholars Spear, Percival (1990) [1978], A History of India, Volume II: From the sixteenth to the twentieth century, New Delhi: Penguin Books India, ISBN 978-0-140138-36-8, ... in January 1948 the inner voice spoke again. This time the issues were twofold, the payment to Pakistan of her agreed assets which had been withheld owing to the Kashmir dispute and the restoration of peace in the capital. Only when the money had been paid and a peace pact, including the evacuation of the mosques, had been signed, did he give up his fast, on 18th January. Google Scholar Citation Index 613 McDermott, Rachel Fell; Gordon, Leonard A.; Embree, Ainslie T.; Pritchett, Frances W.; Dalton, Dennis, eds. (2014), "Chapter 6: Mahatma Gandhi and his responses", Sources of the Indian Traditions: Modern India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, vol. 2 (3rd ed.), New York: Columbia University Press, p. 344, ISBN 978-0-231-13830-7, In January 1948 he fasted successfully again in Delhi to stop Hindu attacks on Muslims and to coerce his own Indian government into payment of large sums of money that were due to Pakistan. He prevailed, extracting both government payment and pledges of peace by leaders of all groups. This enabled him to end his fast; but on January 30, as he was en route to his regular evening prayer meetins, he was shot by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu extremist who believe him too lenient toward India's Muslims and Pakistan. Google Scholar citation index (volume 2) 33Google Scholar Citation Index (volume 1) 252 Stein, Burton (2010), Arnold, David (ed.), A History of India, The Blackwell History of the World series (2nd ed.), Wiley Blackwell, ISBN 978-1-4051-9509-6, He undertook a fast not only to restrain those bent on communal reprisal but also to influence the powerful Home Minister, Sardar Patel, who was refusing to share out the assets of the former imperial treasury with Pakistan, as had been agreed. Gandhi's insistence on justice for Pakistan now that the partition was a fact, ... had prompted Godse's fanatical action. Google Scholar citation index 560 Lloyd I. Rudolph and Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, In Pursuit of Lakshmi: The Political Economy of the Indian State, University of Chicago Press, [Google Scholar citation index 1,470, who say, "Patel was not a committed or convinced secularist. His call for Muslims to pledge their loyalty to India as a condition of citizenship after partition, his one-sided defense of Hindus during the communal rioting and carnage that accompanied partition, and his refusal to honor India's commitment to turn over to Pakistan the assets due it were the occasion of Gandhi's last fast in January 1948. The riots in Delhi abated; Patel, after being told by Gandhi on the verge of death, "you are not the Sardar I knew," turned over the assets and deferred to Gandhi's call for brotherhood and forgiveness. Barbara D. Metcalf (past president of the American Historical Association) and Thomas R. Metcalf, authors of A Concise History of Modern India, Cambridge, 2012, Google Scholar citation index 965, say, "Just before his death, Gandhi made one last decisive intervention in the Indian political process. By a combination of prayer and fasting, he forced a contrite ministry to hand over to Pakistan its share of the cash assets of undivided India, some 40 million pounds sterling, which had so far been retained in defiance of the partition agreements. Sumit Sarkar, author of Modern India, 1885–1947, Macmillan, Google Scholar citation index 1,579, who says, "This last fast seems to have been directed in part also against Patel’s increasingly communal attitudes (the Home Minister had started thinking in terms of a total transfer of population in the Punjab, and was refusing to honour a prior agreement by which India was obliged to give 55 crores of pre-Partition Government of India financial assets to Pakistan). ‘You are not the Sardar I once knew,’ Gandhi is said to have remarked during the fast." Ian Talbot, author of A History of South Asia, Yale University Press, 2016, Gooogle Scholar citation index 42, says: "Disputes over Kashmir and the division of assets and water in the aftermath of Partition increased Pakistan’s anxieties regarding its much larger neighbor. Kashmir’s significance for Pakistan far exceeded its strategic value; its “illegal” accession to India challenged the state’s ideological foundations and pointed to a lack of sovereign fulfillment. The “K” in Pakistan’s name stood for Kashmir. Of less symbolic significance was the division of post-Partition assets. Not until December 1947 was an agreement reached on Pakistan’s share of the sterling assets held by the undivided Government of India at the time of independence. The bulk of these (550 million rupees) was held back by New Delhi because of the Kashmir conflict and paid only following Gandhi’s intervention and fasting. India delivered Pakistan’s military equipment even more tardily, and less than a sixth of the 160,000 tons of ordnance allotted to Pakistan by the Joint Defence Council was actually delivered. Ian Copland, India 1885-1947: The Unmaking of an Empire, Routledge, 2001, [ Google Scholar Citation Index 53], says, "Gandhi was adamant that the debt to Pakistan had to be paid, and in January 1948 he announced that he planned to embark on another indefinite fast to ensure that the Indian government fulfilled its legal and moral obligations. The Mahasabha and the RSS denounced this plan as tantamount to treason. In the early evening of 30 January, as he addressed a prayer meeting at Birla House, New Delhi, India’s prince of peace was shot and killed by a member of an RSS splinter-group, Nathuram Godse. Hermann Kulke and Dietmar Rothermund, in History of India, Routledge, Google Scholar citation index 938, say, "While Jinnah departed with such good advice Gandhi was trying hard to stop the carnage which broke out after partition and to work for good relations between India and Pakistan. When the violence in the Panjab spilled over into India he rushed to Delhi from Bengal, where he had been at the time of partition. With a great fast he attempted to bring his countrymen to their senses. Then the Kashmir conflict led to an undeclared war between India and Pakistan and at this very point it was debated how and why the funds of the Indian treasury should be divided between India and Pakistan. Many Hindus felt that Pakistan had forfeited its claim to a share of these funds by attacking India in Kashmir, and that it would be the height of folly to hand over such funds to finance an aggressor’s war effort. Gandhi, however, pleaded for evenhanded justice. The Congress had approved of partition and was in honour bound to divide the assets equitably. To radical Hindus, this advice amounted to high treason, and one of them, a young Brahmin named Nathuram Godse, shot Gandhi on 30 January 1948. Rhode, Deborah L. (2019), Character: What it Means and Why it Matters, New York: Oxford University Press, p. 173, ISBN 9780190919870, LCCN 2018058188, The violence, however, persisted, and in 1948, Gandhi began what was to be his final fast. He demanded that Hindus and Muslims agree to live in peace, and that India, despite its financially precarious circumstances, make the restitution payments it had promised to Pakistan for lost territories. As he approached death, India announced that it would make the payments. A vast procession of Hindus and Muslims marched toward his house, and 130 leaders met to discuss reconciliation. Gandhi ended his fast. Monographs, book chapters, or journal articles written by scholars Rothermund, Dietmar (2015) [2010], Paine, S.C.M. (ed.), Nation building, state building, and economic development: case studies and comparisons, London and New York: Routledge, ISBN 9780765622440, In 1948 Mahatma Gandhi became the most prominent victim of the partition. He did not grasp the full meaning of partition immediately: When he was told that it would also mean the division of the British Indian Army, he could not believe it. But when he saw that it would be the logical consequence of the territorial partition, he predicted that the two armies would fight each other—which they soon did. The the problem of dividing the financial assets of British India also came up. Being at war with Pakistan, the independent Government of India was reluctant to transfer to Pakistan 550 million rupees, which would fill the enemy's war chest. Gandhi pleaded for fairness and started his last fast in order to persuade the Indian government to part with this money. Hindu nationalists regarded this as high treason and one of them assassinated him on 31 (sic) January 1948 Dennis Dalton in Mahatma Gandhi: Non-violent power in action, Columbia University Press, Google Scholar citation index 439, quotes A. C. B. Symon, the British High Commissioner to India, whose office was across the street from Birla House, where Gandhi lived during the last five months of his life, and who observed Gandhi closely, "It would be a mistaken impression, however, to suppose that Gandhi devoted these last months of his life exclusively to social and humanitarian tasks. Through this constant stream of visitors he was able to keep in remarkably close touch with Indian opinion and continued to play a most important role as the principal adviser of the Indian government on all major political issues. Scarcely any important decision was taken without his prior advice, whether the subject was the movement and rehabilitation of refugees, Congress policy or the Kashmir issue. And when he disagreed with any decision taken it was not long, as in the recent case of the non-implementation of the Indo-Pakistan financial agreement, before he took determined and successful steps to have it revoked.... Gandhi entered upon what proved to be the last of his many fasts. His actions immediately evoked expressions of goodwill from all over the world including Pakistan and on the third day of the fast the Indian Government as a gesture to him announced their willingness, in flat contradiction to their determination of a few days previously, to implement the recently concluded Indo-Pakistan financial agreements. Gandhi, Rajmohan (2002), "Religion, the Gujarat Killings, and Gandhi", India International Centre Quarterly, 29 (2): 1–10, On January 13, 1948, he announced a fast that would end only if certain conditions were met. Muslims, Gandhiji said, should be allowed to hold their annual fair at the ancient mausoleum of Khwaja Qutbuddin. Also, mosques converted into temples and gurdwaras should be returned. Muslims should be ensured safety in their homes and on trains. The economic boycott imposed against Muslims in some Muslim localities should be lifted. He also asked for Pakistan's share of the cash assets of undivided India. By agreement between India, Pakistan and Britain, this share was fixed at Rs 55 crores. Citing the Kashmir conflict, which started in October 1947, the Indian government had announced that it would withhold the payment. Gandhi asked that Pakistan's share should be handed over. After six days of fasting, during which lakhs of Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims urged Gandhiji to break his fast and offered to meet his conditions, the fast ended. The government of India said that the Rs 55 crores would be made available to Pakistan. The RSS and the Hindu Mahasabha of Delhi agreed with the others in the capital that the boycott of Muslims would end, and that mosques and tombs would be returned. Lal, Vinay (Fall 2022), "Gandhi, the Last Fast, and the Call of the Conscience" (PDF), APA Studies on Asian and Asian American Philosophers and Philosophies, 22 (1), American Philosophy Association: 53–57, There was yet another delicate matter, one that a legion of commentators has described as the catalyst that finally moved Gandhi to take up a fast. In consequence of the war that had broken out between the two countries, India decided to withhold the amount of Rs 55 crores, amounting to about $200 million of the gold reserve, that was Pakistan's share of the assets of undivided India. The members of Nehru's cabinet were strongly in agreement that to hand over the money to Pakistan at this juncture would be imprudent in the extreme, as these assets would be used by Pakistan to advance its interests in Kashmir and wage war against India, and that no financial settlement was possible until an agreement had been reached on Kashmir. "A state freezes the credit of the other party in such circumstances," Nehru told the press on January 2, 1948, while denying that the Indian government had done any such thing: "All that we have said was that we accept the agreement, but there must be an overall settlement [including Kashmir] and we shall honour it completely." From Gandhi's standpoint, this attitude was more than unstatesmanlike and unwise: forsaking a purely legal view, he was inclined to see the action not only as something that would provoke Pakistan to further fury and poison future relations between the two countries but also as unprincipled and unethical conduct on the part of India ...To a Sikh friend who had written to him asking him to explain his conduct, Gandhi replied: "My fast is against no one party or group exclusively, and yet it excludes nobody. It is addressed to the conscience of all, even the majority community in the other dominion."11 But conscience is a prickly thing. Gandhi would not have been unaware that at least some members of the cabinet who acceded to his view that withholding from Pakistan its share of the assets of undivided India was morally unjustified did so because in all likelihood they did not want to have Gandhi's death on their conscience. Noting: the title has "the call of the conscience" (rather than the more common "the call of conscience") Gandhi, Rajmohan (2008), Gandhi: The Man, His People, and the Empire, Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press, ISBN 978-0-520-25570-8, (page 639) Another disturbance was caused by a Cabinet decision to withhold the transfer of Pakistan's share (55 crore rupees) of the 'sterling balance' that undivided India held at independence. The conflict in Kashmir was cited as the reason: Patel said (either on 3 or 4 January) that India could not give money to Pakistan 'for making bullets to be shot at us'.! But Gandhi was not convinced that a violent dispute entitled India to keep Pakistan's money. ... 12 Jan. 1948: Though the voice within has been beckoning for a long time, I have been shutting my ears to it lest it might be the voice of Satan ... I never like to feel resourceless; a satyagrahi never should. Fasting is his last resort in the place of the sword ... I ask you all to bless the effort and to pray for me and with me. ... (page 640) In another tactical move, Gandhi went to Mountbatten immediately after the prayer- meeting and asked for the Governor-General's support for his step. Accepting Gandhi's decision, Mountbatten said that if things in India were rectified as a result of the fast, improvement in Pakistan would inevitably follow. He added that he agreed with Gandhi's view on the 55 crore. ... (p. 641) On 13 January a 'very much upset'" Vallabhbhai repeated his offer to resign and thought that his departure might end the fast, but by now Gandhi had returned to the view that Patel and Nehru had to stay together. However, Gandhi raised the question of the 55 crore rupees with Patel. On the afternoon of 14 January the Cabinet met and decided to release the money, but not before Patel broke down and wept. ... (p. 644) For all his grievance about the fast and the reversal of the 55-crore decision, Patel said on 15 January: 'Let it not be said that we did not deserve the leadership of the greatest man in the world.' The next day, in a public talk in Bombay, Patel remarked, "We take a short-range view while he takes a long-range one.'" Google Scholar citation index 161 Sharma, Arvind (2013), Gandhi: A Spiritual Biography, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, ISBN 978-0-300-18596-6, Years later, Gandhi lost his life for insisting that the Indian government honor a promise to the Pakistani government. The Indian National Congress and the Muslim League had accepted, in the summer of 1947, what is known as the Mountbatten Plan (named after the viceroy who promoted it). According to the plan, British India was to be divided into the two independent dominions of Pakistan and India on August 14 and 15, respectively, in 1947. The partition naturally involved a division of assets. India's payment to Pakistan would be made in three installments, two of which had been already paid when the war broke out over Kashmir, after its ruler officially acceded the province to India, on October 29, 1947. The Indian government held up the release of the third installment of the payment. The two nations were at war now; paying it would amount to funding an active enemy. Gandhi, however, insisted that the promise be kept and went on a fast to the death to make the point. The Indian cabinet met again three days later, changed its decision, and released the amount. On the very day Gandhi went on a fast to ensure this outcome, the man who would assassinate Gandhi began making his plans. Gandhi began his fast on January 13, 1948. He had many reasons for undertaking it, but the one that rankled most in the mind of his assassin-to-be, Nathuram Godse, was Gandhi's insistence that the government of India should stop withholding payment of 550 million rupees to Pakistan. Google Scholar citation index 35 Arnold, David (2001), Gandhi, Edinburgh and London: Longman/Pearson Education Limited, p. 224, ISBN 0-582-31978-1, Nine months later, on 11 January 1948, he appealed in vain for the Congress to give up power and dissolve itself rather than continue as it had now become, fall of 'decay and decline', a place of 'corruption' overrun by 'power polities'. Reiterating his longstanding belief in the importance of social action, he called for a new 'Lok Sevak Sangh' (a People's Service Society) to replace the Congress, which had 'out- lived its use'. This was to be made up of dedicated self-sacrificing workers who would help to bring genuine swaraj, 'social, moral and economic independence' to India's villages.' Again on 27 January 1948 Gandhi observed that the Congress had 'won political freedom' but had yet to win 'economic freedom, social and moral freedom'. These freedoms were harder to attain than political freedom 'because they are constructive, less exciting and not spectacular'. Gandhi was dismayed at the policies followed by Nehru but even more by India's Home Minister, his old associate, Vallabhbhai Patel, who now appeared to be drifting close to right-wing Hindu communalism and insensitive to the needs of the large number of Muslim refugees in Delhi and elsewhere. Gandhi undertook a new fast, this time to protest against anti-Muslim violence in Delhi from 13 to 18 January, but it was also by implication a fast against Patel's apparent indifference to Muslim suffering and the Government of India's unwillingness to pay the Rs 550 million (equivalent to £40 million) promised to Pakistan under the Partition agreement. In a bitter conversation shortly before his death Gandhi remarked to Patel, 'You are not the Sardar I once knew.' Google Scholar citation index 43 Ceplair, Larry (2020), Revolutionary Pairs: Marx and Engels, Lenin and Trotsky, Gandhi and Nehru, Mao and Zhou, and Castro and Guevara, Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, p. 134, ISBN 9780813179193, Gandhi undertook his last fast, in January 1948, to protest the Indian government's decision to withhold a large settlement payment due to Pakistan until the Kashmir problem was solved. Blinkenberg, Lars (2022) [1972], India-Pakistan: The History of Unsolved Conflicts: Volume I, Lindhardt og Ringhof, ISBN 9788726894707, OCLC 620393, Sardar Patel decided, in the middle of December 1947, that the recent financial agreements with Pakistan should not be followed, unless Pakistan ceased to support the raiders. Sardar Patel underlined that the all-round agreement had included an undertaking by Pakistan to withdraw the raiders from Kashmir, and since that had not happened, India was entitled not to carry through the agreement. Gandhi was not convinced and he felt—like Mountbatten and Nehru—that the agreed transfer to Pakistan of a cash amount of Rs. 550 million should be implemented despite the Kashmir crisis. Gandhi started a fast unto death, which was officially done to stop communal trouble, especially in Delhi, but 'word went round that it was directed against Sardar Patel's decision to withhold the cash balances', adds Durga Das.<Footnote 350: Durga Das, op. cit., page 276, i.e. Durga Das, From Curzon to Nehru & Afterwards, London: Collins, 1969. See below.> Only because of Gandhi's interference, which was soon to cause his death, Sardar Patel gave in and the money was handed over to Pakistan. Das, Durga (1969), India from Curzon to Nehru & After, Foreward by Zakir Hussain, President of India, St James Place, London: Collins, pp. 275–276, ISBN 9780002113519, OCLC 58936, A crisis occurred around New Year. The Partition Council had arrived at several decisions regarding the division of assets. A financial agreement between India and Pakistan had also been reached and it had been further decided that all the outstanding disputes which eluded settlement be referred to an arbitration tribunal. Accord was subsequently reached on all points, including the withdrawal of Pakistani raiders from Kashmir, and Patel made a statement in Parliament that the agreement would have to be implemented fully. The Pakistani leaders changed their mind on Kashmir, insisting at the same time that India honour the financial clauses of the agreement, which included the payment of cash balances amounting to Rs. 550 million to Pakistan. Patel took a firm stand against turning over this sum to Pakistan until the other provisions of the pact were honoured and the Finance Minister, Shammukham Chetty, strongly backed him. When Pakistan's Prime Minister said this was an attempt to "strangulate" his country, C. D. Deshmukh, the Governor of the Reserve Bank of India and Pakistan, saw Gandhi and pointed out that Pakistan had been provided with the required ways and means. Liaquat Ali's charge, he added, was a political stunt. But Gandhi, who had made the restoration of peace and harmony in Delhi an issue on which he staked his life, announced an indefinite fast at this stage. Word went round that the fast was directed against Patel's decision to withhold the cash balances. Mountbatten and Nehru were, in fact, known to have told Gandhi that India was morally bound to transfer the balances to Pakistan and that, as both Patel and Chetty had adopted an unbending position on the issue, he alone could save the situation. Patel finally yielded and Gandhi broke his fast at the behest of leaders of all communities. Das, Durga (1973), "Introduction to Volume VI", in Das, Dugra (ed.), Sardar Patel's Correspondence, 1945–50: Patel-Nehru Differences—Assassinaton of Gandhi—Services Reorganised—Refugee Rehabilitation, vol. VI, Primary authors: Sardar Patel and his respondents, Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, p. liv, This rift, by a strange combination of circumstances, coincided with the period when Gandhi was undergoing agony over Hindu-Muslim riots precipitated by the country's partition, and the mounting tension between Pakistan and India over Pakistan's behaviour regarding Kashmir and India's stand on the cash balances to be shared between India and Pakistan. Gandhi undertook an indefinite fast on 13 January 1948, which it was believed was partly in protest against the technically correct stand that Sardar Patel and Finance Minister Shanmukham Chetty had taken in holding back the cash balances to make Pakistan honour its pledges. As the fast advanced, the cash balances were paid. Gandhi's fast ended on 18 January. Twelve days later, an assassin's bullet laid low the Father of the Nation. Gandhi's martyrdom had an electrifying effect on the nation and, in particular, on his chief lieutenants. Sarwar, Firoj High (2021), "Gandhi and Fasting: An Analytic Review", IASI Quarterly: Contributions to Indian Social Sciences, 40 (2), The ultimate fast of Gandhiji's life was against the Communal conflict in Independent India which began on 13 January 1948. He demanded the resolution of the communal issue in Delhi (the after-partition genocide of Muslims) and the protection of the Muslim community in India. He also appealed to grant Pakistan's share of the cash assets of undivided India. But Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, then the Home Minister of India, ignored the demands of Gandhi. So, Gandhi said that he had now no option but to use his last weapon, fast until the situation changed. He further stated that "I must however expiate through my own suffering and I hope that my fast will open their eyes to real facts"(Azad. 2009: 235). The moment it was known that he had started his fast, not only the city of Delhi but the whole nation, was deeply stirred. In Delhi, the effect of his fast was something like an electric shock. His fast had changed the hearts of thousands and brought back to them a sense of justice and humanity. Thousands now pledged that they would regard the maintenance of good relations among the communities as among their fast task (Azad. 2009: 236-239). Gandhi made it clear that the object of his fast was nothing less than the self-purification of all the communities in the sub-continent (Bandyopadhyaya, 1969: 289). Wolpert, Stanley (2006), Shameful Flight: The Last Years of the British Empire in India, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 189–191, ISBN 978-0-19-539394-1, (Gandhi) tried to end that political power game by earlier advising the Congress to 'disband' its party entirely, but neither Nehru nor Patel, and certainly no other members of Congress's Working Committee, liked that idea. Gandhi then tried to convince them to stop fighting in Kashmir, but that too evoked no positive response. He understood that Nehru and Patel hoped to bankrupt Pakistan by escalating the Kashmir war and by continuing to withhold overdue payments of a substantial sum of money India owed to Karachi's treasury, Pakistan's share of British India's cash assets, all kept in Delhi's Central Bank. He urged his friends as earnestly as he could to remit those funds, since it was not 'honorable' to withhold promised payments. Gandhi had always been as scrupulous about paying his debts as he was about keeping vows. By mid-December (1947) Gandhi was convinced that by airlifting "everything to support the war" in Kashmir, India was recklessley throwing away its fortune while ignoring the needs of its 'starving millions.' ... On January 12, 1948, Mahatma Gandhi launched his last fast, the 'finery' ultimate weapon of his passionate nature, which he used to delver his message of love to ears deaf to any verbal appeal. 'I yearn for heart friendship between Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims," Gandhi told his friends. ... 'This time my fast is not only against Hindus and Muslims but also against the Judases who put on false appearances and betray themselves, myself and society.' He was thus fasting for much more than the simple payment to Pakistan of the 550 million rupees of British India's cash balance debt, long since promised by Nehru and Patel. Many Hindus believed, however, that his desire to pay Pakistan was Gandhi's sole reason for launching, this final 'blackmail' fast, and cried alout that he should 'fast unto death,' not simply to 'capacity,' as he had initially announced he would. Three days after he stopped taking food, India's cabinet announced its agreement to transfer the funds to Pakistan, and on the fourth day Gandhi thanked the cabinet, hoping this would lead to 'an honourable settlement not only of the Kashmir question, but of all the differences between the two Dominions. Friendship should replace the present enmity.' He was too weak to stand but soon recovered enough strength to walk to his evening prayer meetings. Then on Friday, January 30, 1948, hate-crazed Hindu Brahman Nathuram Godse fired three bullets at close range into Mahatma Gandhi's chest. Google Scholar citation index 228 Kapoor, Rita (2022), Making Refugees in India, Oxford Historical Monograph Series, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, pp. 114–115, ISBN 978-0-19-285545-9, The Hindu nationalists' censure of the state's handling of the Hindu refugees is perhaps most evident in the courtroom statement of Nathuram Godse. On trial for the assassination of Gandhi, Godse would devote a considerable portion of his testimony to discussng the removal of Hindu refugees from the mosques in which they had taken up residence. Godse deplored that Gandhi and the government made no demands of Pakistan to improve the treatment of those Hindus and Sikhs who were now a minority there, nor did they ask for temples and gurudwaras to be emptied of Muslim refugees as Gandhi demanded of Hindu refugees in mosques as part of his fast unto death. ... Noted Gandhian and Congress activist J.B. Kriplani was also critical of Gandhi's fast and the motives behind it, through equally disparaging of the 'fanaticism' that motivated Godse's assassination of Gandhi. Besides the evacuation of mosques, he was also critical of Gandhi's demand that a payment of Rs. 55 crores be made to Pakistan by India, despite Pakstan's continued failures to take care of its minorities. Trade books written by scholars Elkins, Caroline (2022), Violence: A History of the British Empire, New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, ISBN 9780307272423, LCCN 2021018550, A few months later, with war-fueled tensions over Kashmir mounting and India refusing to pay Pakistan 550 million rupees, Pakistan's share of Britain's outstanding war debt, Gandhi began to fast. "This time my fast is not only against Hindus and Muslims," the Mahatma said, "but also against the Judases who put on false appearances and betray themselves, myself and society." The elderly and frail man who was India's symbolic political and spiritual leader went three days without food before India's cabinet agreed to pay Pakistan, something Nehru had long promised Jinnah he would do. Google Scholar citation index 65 Trade books written by others (journalists, etc.) Walsh, Declan (2020), The Nine Lives of Pakistan: Dispatches from a Precarious State, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, ISBN 9780393249910, Godse, who belonged to a neo-fascist Hindu group called the R.S.S., was furious at Gandhi for his conciliatory attitude towards Muslims, and for his insistence that Pakistan should receive its fair share of the assets of the former colonial state. Hajari, Nisid (2015), Midnight's Furies, Boston and New York: Houghton Miffline Harcourt, p. 224, ISBN 978-0-547-66921-2, Gandhi could look on passively no longer. He had decided to fast until "heart friendship" returned to Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs in Delhi, or until his own heart gave out. Although he had seen both Nehru and Patel that afternoon, he had given them no hint of his plans lest they try to stop him. The news angered the Sardar, who understandably believed that the fast was directed at him. The next day, he was "very bitter and resentful," Mountbatten recorded, and felt Gandhi was "putting him in an impossible position. Gandhi himself denied any such intention. But, encouraged by Mountbatten, the Mahatma did press Patel and the Indian Cabinet to stop blocking the funds owed to Pakistan. On the morning of 14 January, rapidly weakening, Gandhi summoned Nehru and Patel to his bedside. Tears ran down the Mahatma's face as he pleaded with them. For India to try and starve her sister dominion into submission was, Gandhi declared, using a word Mountbatten had chosen to prick his conscience, "dishonourable." The money should be paid immediately. Patel responded with "extremely bitter words," he later admitted. At a cabinet meeting later that day, he, too, shed tears as the others decided to heed Gandhi's request. "This is my last [cabinet] meeting,' Patel vowed,' The next day, he left for a tour of the Kathiawar states in his native Gujarat. Google Scholar citation index 110 Tidrick, Kathryn (2013) [2006], Gandhi: A Political and Spiritual Life, London and New York: Verso, ISBN 978-1-78168-239-5, Gandhi began his last fast on 13 January 1948. Its aims were peace in Delhi, peace in India and peace in the world. "I flatter myself,' he said, 'with the belief that the loss of her soul by India will mean the loss of the 'hope of the aching, storm-tossed and hungry world.' The 'reward' of the fast would be 'the regaining of India's dwindling prestige and her fast-fading sovereignty over the heart of Asia and throughout the world.' Its targets were the malefactors of all communities, but especially Hindus and Sikhs in Delhi, the government of Pakistan which was denying equality to Sikhs and non-Muslims, the United Nations which was about to begin its debate on the crisis in Kashmir, and implicitly it appears the Indian government for its decision to withhold from Pakistan, pending resolution of the crisis, its remaining share of the cash balances of undivided India. Pyarelal suggests that it was the question of the cash balances which tipped Gandhi towards fasting rather than waiting for the assassin's knife.<Footnote 132: Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi – The Last Phase, Vol. 2, 700–701. (See below)> ... When the Indian government decided to stop payment of the 550 million rupees owed to Pakistan he asked Mountbatten for his opinion. Mountbatten's reply was that it would be the 'first dishonourable act' of the Indian government. This set Gandhi 'furiously thinking', in Pyarelal's words, and he realized that he must do something to retrieve India's honour. The final push towards fasting came. The final push towards fasting came when a delegation of Delhi Muslims came to Birla House and castigated him for not being able to guarantee their safety. Once the fast had started, it became apparent that there was no obvious way to end it. The government announced on the third day that the cash balance would be paid. But Gandhi's other concerns were so large and the criteria for assuaging them so vague that he could, had he chosen, have gone on until he died. He may have wished to reserve the possibility. After the government's announcement, he said he would end his fast only when 'the Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs of Delhi bring about a union, which not even a conflagration around them in all the other parts of India or Pakistan will be strong enough to break.' Nayyar, Pyarelal (1958), Mahatma Gandhi: The Last Phase, vol. II, Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, pp. 699–706, To the numerous causes of mounting tension between India and Pakistan was now added another—the issue of Pakistan's share of the cash balances of undivided India. Under the decision of the Partition Council, out of a total cash balance of rupees 375 crores, 20 crores were paid to Pakistan on the day of the transfer of power. The allocation was provisional and subject to readjustment that would have to be made when the balance to be paid to Pakistan was finally determined. This amount was subsequently fixed at rupees 55 crores after a series of conferences between the representatives of the two Dominions in the last week of November. ... The Government of India, in the course of negotiations, made it clear that it would not regard the settlement as final until agreement had been reached on all outstanding issues, and that no payment would be made until the question of Kashmir was also settled. ... On the 6th January, 1948, Gandhiji discussed the question with Lord Mountbatten and asked for his frank and candid opinion on the Government of India's decision. Mountbatten said, it would be the "first dishonourable act" by the Indian Union Government if the payment of the cash balance claimed by Pakistan was withheld. It set Gandhiji furiously thinking. He did not question the legality of the Indian Union's decision. Nor could he insist on the Union Government going beyond what the strict letter of the law required and permitted them. And yet he felt it would be a tragedy if in a world dominated by the cult of expediency and force, the India that had made history by winning her independence by predominantly nonviolent, i.e. moral means, failed in that crisis to live up to her highest ancient tradition that would serve as a shining beacon light to others. For that, he would have to transform the overall situation and to create a new moral climate which would make it possible for the Indian Government to go beyond the strict letter of the law. ... On the 12th January in the afternoon, Gandhiji was as usual sitting out on the sun-drenched spacious Birla House lawn. As it was Monday, his day of weekly silence, he was writing out his prayer address. As my sister looked through sheet after sheet that she was to translate and read out to the prayer congregation in the evening, she was dumb-founded. She came running to me with the news—Gandhiji had decided to launch on a fast unto death unless the madness in Delhi ceased. From the time that he had returned to Delhi, after his Calcutta fast, Gandhiji had never ceased asking himself where his duty lay in the face of what was happening. ... Out of the depth of his anguish came the decision to fast. It left no room for argument. Sardar Patel and Pandit Nehru had been with him only a couple of hours before. He had given them no inkling of what was brewing within him. The written address containing the decision was read out at the evening prayer meeting. The fast would begin on the next day after the mid-day meal. There would be no time limit. During the fast, he would take only water with or without salt and the juice of sour limes. The fast would be terminated only when and if he was satisfied that there was "a reunion of hearts of all communities brought about without outside pressure but from an awakened sense of duty." ... He asked all to bless his effort and to pray for him and with him. The issue was nothing less than "the regaining of India's dwindling prestige and her fast fading sovereignty over the heart of Asia and therethrough the world." ... The fast commenced at 11:55 a.m. on the 13 January with the singing of Gandhiji's favourite hymn Vaishnava Jana To, and "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross" sung by Sushila, followed by Ramadhun. Only a few intimate friends and members of the household were present. The company was impromptu. ... Neither Sardar Patel nor Pandit Nehru tried to strive with him though the Sardar was very much upset. A believer in deeds more than words, he simply sent word that he would do anything that Gandhiji might wish. In reply, Gandhiji suggested that the first priority should be given to the question of Pakistan's share of the cash assets. Guha, Ramchandra (2017) [2007], India after Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy (10th Anniversay ed.), New Delhi: Pan Macmillan India, ISBN 978-15098-8328-8, With attacks on Muslims continuing, Gandhi chose to resort to another fast. This began on 13 January, and was addressed to three different constituencies. The first were the people of India. To them he simply pointed out that if they did not believe in the two-nation theory, they would have to show in their chosen capital, the 'Eternal City' of Delhi, that Hindus and Muslims could live in peace and brotherhood. The second constituency was the government of Pakistan. 'How long', he asked them, 'can I bank upon the patience of the Hindus and the Sikhs, in spite of my fast? Pakistan has to put a stop to this state of affairs' (that is, the driving out of minorities from their territory). Gandhi's fast was addressed, finally, to the government of India. They had withheld Pakistan's share of the 'sterling balance' which the British owed jointly to the two dominions, a debt incurred on account of Indian contributions during the Second World War. This amounted to Rs 550 million, a fair sum. New Delhi would not release the money as it was angry with Pakistan for having recently attempted to seize the state of Kashmir. Gandhi saw this as unnecessarily spiteful, and so he made the ending of his fast conditional on the transfer to Pakistan of the money owed to it. Raghavan, T. C. A. (2019), The People Next Door: The Curious History of India's Relations with Pakistan, London/New York: Hurst & Co./Oxford University Press, pp. 7–8, ISBN 9781787380196, The communal situation, Partition massacres and refugee movements combined with the Junagadh events and the Kashmir war tended to vitiate every aspect of the India-Pakistan interface at this stage. The war in Kashmir was, however, an undeclared war. The newly established diplomatic relations between the two nascent governments continued, the high commissioners remained in place as indeed did intergovernmental discussions and even cooperation on resolving the administrative debris of Partition—the division of assets, deciding on a framework for trade, separation of currencies, etc. But in the vitiated atmosphere of two armies fighting it out, an obvious issue arose over the partitioning of military assets—spares, armaments, ammunition, etc. Then cash balances of the Reserve Band had to be divided between the two countries and Pakistan's share of Rupees 750 million released to it. The details of the divisions had been finalized earlier and the first tranche of Rupees 200 million paid on 14 August 1947. The balance Rupees 550 million remained. By the end of 1947 and early 1948 the question before the new Government of India was a difficult one. Given the ongoing war against Pakistani troops and proxies in Kashmir, was it correct to release Pakistan's balance share of Rupees 550 million? Release of the finances would straightaway have an impact on the military operations in Kashmir. Most in India at that time saw this as a no-brainer and the cabinet also agreed. Where was the question of releasing funds when it was evident that they would be used by Pakistan for the purchase of arms for the Kashmir war where Indians were being killed? At this point, Mahatma Gandhi, already distressed by the mayhem in Punjab and the killngs still taking place in Delhi, decided to take matters in his hands. To him, withholding of Pakistan's share was an act of bad faith regardless of the Kashmir situation. He went on a fast—for communal amity, to cleanse a vitiated atmosphere and to persuade the Government of India to release the funds due to Pakistan. Mahatma Gandhi had no doubt that the military action being taken by the Government of India on the ongoing Pakistan invasion in Kashmir was the right and merited one. But withholding of th efunds was a different matter. Mountbatten's comment to him that this was 'the first dishonourable act' of the Government of India, also appears to have made a deep impression. His fast begain on 13 January 1948, and it lasted five days; the Cabinet backed down and the funds were released.

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:23, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

• Please do not add your own sources here. You may in the discussion section below.

Discussion

First source (Rajmohan Gandhi) is not providing any evidence but only attached the misinformation like few of your earlier sources.

Second source (Vinay lal) is showing that the author of the book is making a connection based on his own opinion.

Third source (Rajmohan Gandhi) says "Venkatappayya referred to the moral degradation of Congress legislators who made money by protecting criminals. His last sentence was: 'The people have begun to say that the British government was much better.' Gandhi found the letter 'too shocking for words'. He had to do, or give, more. But what, and how? On the morning of 12 January he found complete peace. Every unease, sense of shame, and feeling of inadequacy left Gandhi as the 'conclusion flashed upon him' that he must fast and not resume eating until and unless firm steps are taken." This means that Pakistani payment did not caused him to protest but a number of various issues. Still, no evidence.

Fourth source (Sarwar) has the same issue as the first one.

So the 2 requirements are still not met. 1) Evidence that Gandhi demanded 55 crore to be handed to Pakistan, 2) The source is addressing the debunking of the said misleading claim. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 16:21, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

@Abhishek0831996: May I ask, what debunking? I haven't read the whole previous discussion yet but did check all the sources mentioned in your initial post and there is nothing worthwhile there (I can expand on the reasoning later if anyone wishes). Are there any better sources "debunking" the claim that the RS 55 crore transfer was one of Gandhi's (at least implicit) goals/motivation for the fast? Abecedare (talk) 16:34, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

I have added one more—Arvind Sharma's spiritual biography of Gandhi, Yale, 2013. Sharma is quite explicit. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:05, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

@Abecedare: Jawaharlal Nehru said on 15 January regarding this connection between the fast and 55 crore transfer: "That fast, of course, had nothing to do with this particular matter, and we have thought of it because of our desire to help in every way in easing the present tension."[12]

Raghuvendra Tanwar notes that "Looked at carefully each of the seven main issues was only an attempt by Gandhi to restore the confidence of the Muslims who had been traumatized. None of the points even remotely referred to the transfer of the cash balance to Pakistan." He added: "Prime Minister Nehru was naturally the first to state that even though Gandhi had been consulted on the issue, the decision to transfer the cash balance to Pakistan had nothing to do with his fast. The Prime Minister also said: 'we have come to this decision in the hope that the gesture in accord with India's high ideals and Gandhiji's noble standards will convince the world of our earnest desire for peace'."[13]

I am sure this is more than enough to put the issue at rest. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 11:09, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. The Nehru statement is a primary source whose veracity and politics is for historians, and not us, to judge and so wouldn't play any direct role in the discussion here. I will look up the Tanwar source though and add any comments later (busy IRL so may be later today or even the weekend). Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 11:43, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

@Abhishek0831996: I was able to read up several reviews of the Tanwar book (which are mixed, [14], [15], [16]) but unfortunately I don't have immediate access to the book itself. Could you email me the relevant pages where Tanwar discusses Gandhi's final fast so that I can view the quotes you provided in context? Let me know if that would be possible and I'll share my email id with you.

PS: There may be an expectation that one, two or a few sources will settle the issue by proving/debunking the link between the fast and the transfer of funds. Given the amount of scholarship on the subject, that is almost surely unreasonable. As I see it, the question is more about how the various views should be weighed and how the language in the lede and article body crafted to best summarize the scholarly corpus. Abecedare (talk) 22:45, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Emailed. Here is another reliable source which also rejects the claim about asset transfer to Pakistan: India-Pakistan: An analysis of some structural factors, Lars Blinkenberg, Odense University Press, p. 144.

It notes that: Mountbatten found some mystery in Gandhi's last fast, and Kripalani thought that Gandhi was under great mental strain and in poor health, but he underlines that the fast was not directed against Patel. He confirms that Gandhi personally denied this to his secretary, Pyarelal. Maulana Azad, on the other hand, just like Durga Das, confirms "that, in a sense, the fast was directed against the attitude of Sardar Patel, he ( Patel ) knew it". Azad also explains that Gandhi put forward the exact conditions he wanted fulfilled in order to terminate his fast (the list specifying these conditions did not mention the transfer of money to Pakistan). He received the undertaking from representatives of the Hindu and Muslim communities, that they would assure that further communal disturbances would not take place, in Delhi.[17]

It is true that while Maulana Azad wrote the fast "in a sense" was directed against the attitude of Patel, but the reason was: "Patel had not only failed to give protection to Muslims, but he lightheartedly dismissed any complaint made on this account."[18] It was not related to the payment to Pakistan. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 17:33, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

Also see Recording the Progress of Indian History: Symposia Papers of the Indian History Congress, 1992-2010, p. 254, Saiyid Zaheer Husain Jafri, Primus Books, "Only a tiny section of Maharashtrians brought up in a particular school of thought were vehement critics of Gandhi; they accused him of showing partially to Muslims, and of favouring Pakistan by his fast coercing the Nehru Government to transfer Rs. 55 crore to Pakistan, and finally killed him. In reality, according to C.D. Deshmukh the then Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, has recorded that the amount transferred was legitimately due to Pakistan."[19]

Jafri cited C. D. Deshmukh, Governor of the Reserve Bank of India. Deshmukh in his book says Gandhi's "advice was not accepted". He writes: "My view was that a promise made by Government in mis respect must be redeemed; as the ordinary ways and means requirements of Pakistan were around four to six crores rupees per month, it was also proper that, after having agreed to have a common central tank, the Reserve Bank should grant some accommodation to Pakistan until the establishment of a separate central bank for Pakistan, due to take place on April 1, 1948. I put this point of view before Government when I was called to Delhi for consultations but the suggestion was turned down. Early in January, Mr. ZafErullah Khan, the Pakistan Foreign Minister, complained about this blocking and the whole matter, by the sinister amalgam of accusation and abuse, received a most unholy publicity. Gandhiji naturally took the view that it would be wrong for India to go back on her word. Even his advice was not accepted; then came his last fast and the decision — announced by Shri Nehru — that the Financial Agreement would be implemented forthwith. I still feel that the emergence and aggravation of this unfortunate dispute was the result of a major mistake on our part; it led to the focusing of virulent communal feeling against Gandhiji. Whether a different attitude shown by Government at this critical time could have prevented the assassination of Mahatmaji is another imponderable in our history."[20] Abhishek0831996 (talk) 16:02, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Thank you Abhishek0831996 for emailing me the extract from the Tanwar book. I would like to read the whole chapter at some point but from the part I have seen it is clear that Tanwar regards Nehru's statement to be closer to the truth than the contemporaneous reporting by Pioneer, Tribune etc and concludes that the fast was unconnected to the money transfer. Till date this is the best source for this viewpoint and it can be weighed against other sources that reach a different conclusion when crafting the final language.

I don't think the Naik article in the IHC symposia or the Deshmukh statements add anything relevant to the claim about Ganhi's motivation for the fast (I can spell out the reasons if needed; trying to be succinct since the discussion is pretty long already). Is there any other source I should take a look at? Abecedare (talk) 19:22, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

@Abhishek0831996: Please see Lars Blinkenberg (2022), currently number 9 in Talk:Mahatma_Gandhi#Monographs,_book_chapters,_or_journal_articles_written_by_scholars.

Blinkenberg, Lars (2022), India-Pakistan: The History of Unsolved Conflicts: Volume I, Lindhardt og Ringhof, ISBN 9788726894707, Sardar Patel decided, in the middle of December 1947, that the recent financial agreements with Pakistan should not be followed, unless Pakistan ceased to support the raiders. ... Gandhi was not convinced and he felt—like Mountbatten and Nehru—that the agreed transfer to Pakistan of a cash amount of Rs. 550 million should be implemented despite the Kashmir crisis. Gandhi started a fast unto death, which was officially done to stop communal trouble, especially in Delhi, but "word went round that it was directed against Sardar Patel's decision to withhold the cash balances"... Only because of Gandhi's interference, which was soon to cause his death, Sardar Patel gave in and the money was handed over to Pakistan. Best, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:04, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

BTW, @Abhishek0831996: There are sources, scholarly ones, more reliable than the ones you've produced, which also don't see the payment to Pakistan as a sine qua non of Gandhi's last fast. I will soon add them, but in their totality they constitute a minority viewpoint. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:21, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

The 2022 link you are providing is just a reprint of the 1988 publication cited by Abhishek0831996. If you properly checked the source then you would know that the book cited by Abhishek0831996 already includes the quotes, that you are providing, at page 91.[21] This quote only confirms that the fast caused Patel to release the payment but that fast did not concern the payment. This is not supportive of your position. On p.144 (as cited by Abhishek0831996), Lars Blinkenberg has described that Gandhi was not fasting to release payment to Pakistan and that Gandhi denied fast as being against Patel. Capitals00 (talk) 18:37, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

Mine is an ebook reprint of the original 1972 edition of Volume 1. The quote I have copied above from that limited-page-view link makes a distinction between what was "official" and what happened behind the scenes. The proper link for it in Abhishek0831996's snippet view link (which is of the 1998 Volume 2) is not the one you have provided, but this. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:44, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

@Capitals00: I have now added the full quote from Blinkenberg's book (see Talk:Mahatma_Gandhi#Monographs,_book_chapters,_or_journal_articles_written_by_scholars. The quote footnotes Durga Das's 1969 book, India from Curzon to Nehru & Afterwards, London: Collins. I have also cited that book with a fuller quote, and also DD's introduction to Volume 6 of the Selected Correspondence of Sardar Patel, Ahmedabad: Navajivan. In each, what was implicit—what occurred behind the scenes—is described. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:30, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

No hurry, Abecedare, but I've added Nisid Hajari's prize-winning Midnight's Furies, which describes a tearful Gandhi applying very direct pressure on Nehru and Patel about Pakistan's 55 crores on the morning of the third day of the fast, Patel responding with bitter words then, but he too shedding tears that afternoon as the rest of the cabinet voted to heed Gandhi's request. In his entreaty to Nehru and Patel that morning, Gandhi had used Mountbatten's words, especially "dishonorable." Mountbatten had described the holding of the cash assets as, "Independent India's first dishonorable act." Enjoy the weekend. Best, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:47, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Earlier, on 12 January 1948—a Monday and Gandhi's day of silence—after the prayer meeting at which an associate had read out Gandhi's decision to fast, the Mountbattens had visited Gandhi as a gesture of concord and support. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:59, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Note I am still moving the references around to organize them better, so please refer to them by author and title, not "first ---," "second ---," etc. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:06, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

@Abecedare, RegentsPark, Abhishek0831996, Randy Kryn, CapnJackSp, Iskandar323, Capitals00, and TrangaBellam: I have completed my list of sources above. It includes the books of Durga Das, a journalist close to Patel and the editor of his selected correspondence and Pyarelal Nayyar, Gandhi's personal secretary. Nothing had given me a feel for the exceptional times during which Gandhi made his decision to fast than these books, especially Pyarelal's. I have no doubt now that although the reasons to fast Gandhi had aplenty, both said and unsaid, the withholding of Pakistan's cash assets by the Indian government was what tipped the balance—of his hesitations—into action. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:51, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

PS I forgot those who had edited the page, but not the talk page: @Johnbod, Aman.kumar.goel, Fylindfotberserk, Ayubist, and Ingenuity: Apologies, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:40, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes I took a whole day to read all of your sources and I still don't see any of them addressing the valid dispute regarding Gandhi having fasted over the payment to Pakistan. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 16:14, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

I took a few days off from looking at this page and, coming back, find what seems to be a stalemate between editors who have competing sources. My suggestion of July 26 still seems the best and fairest solution: "The last of these, begun in Delhi on 12 January 1948 when Gandhi was 78, indirectly resulted in the Government of India paying cash assets owed to Pakistan from the former imperial treasury." Followed by a paragraph break in the lead for wall of text.

It seems obvious that Gandhi and his associates, intelligent people, would have known that his fast would likely result in the asset transfer. But his determination to fast to help create some kind of peace in the nations seems his intention, and not the other. He issued seven reasons why he was fasting, and the asset question is not among them if I'm remembering correctly (I haven't memorized his points). Was he surprised when the asset transfer took place? Of course not, he knew human and political nature. But when fasting for specific publicly announced reasons Gandhi was not the politician, he was the nonviolent Mahatma (a title he rejected but knew he was saddled with). This gets too long, will just say that the wording I've suggested was endorsed by one participant in the overall discussion, has not been commented on by any other, and I can only offer it as possibly the fairest resolution to an extremely long and educational discussion. Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:48, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

• .TrangaBellam (talk) 15:54, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

Dr Besant

)Annie Besant, Gandhi's early compatriot and Indian Home Rule leaguer, is commonly called "Dr Besant." (See, here on the website of the theosophy-inspired boy's prep school in California, and here) in an obituary in Australia. @Qwerty12302: removed the "Dr" in a picture caption on this page—most likely for the correct reason, i.e. titles are inadmissible in page names. I have temporarily reverted the edit so we can have a discussion on her title. Do we have any evidence that she received a doctorate in any field? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:12, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Copying the message I just wrote on your talk page:

Re this: as per MOS:DOC, "Dr." should not be used unless it is a part of a "pseudonym or stage name" under which the subject is more widely known; this does not seem to be the case with Annie Besant, and so "Dr." should not be used. Unless you object, I will re-remove the "Dr."

--Qwerty12302 (talk | contributions) 14:15, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes, please do, but the question remains: Did she have a doctorate in the first place? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:17, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

I do not know the answer to that, and should perhaps rather be discussed here. --Qwerty12302 (talk | contributions) 14:19, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Bias

"Immediately upon arriving in South Africa, Gandhi faced discrimination because of his skin colour and heritage, like all people of colour."

I'm not sure how the bolded section adds to the value of the piece. The author's opinion surely should be kept to the author? 24.255.22.250 (talk) 13:55, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

I mean, this was ????ish racist South Africa at the time, and we all know how well that story of discrimination played out. Sounds like the author is well on the right side of history in that particular case. Iskandar323 (talk) 17:15, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

>>> “????ish racist South Africa” Really, you can say See You Next Tuesday on Wikipedia unbowdlerized about a regime that was once led by Jan Smuts who had a reasonable relationship with Gandhi and wrote on of the most eloquent messages of condolence at his assassination. Or are we attempting to sound hip as some prima donnas were at FAC until I began to nip the heels of their unreliably sourced edits. Probably better if you take out that allusion to feminine body parts with the meaning of something despicable. It doesn’t help a talk page discussion one whit. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:28, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

You mean Jan Smuts the "white supremacist who supported racial segregation". I used ????ish in the purely gender-neutral sense, but I'm equally happy to use arseholish instead. Iskandar323 (talk) 18:38, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Please take out that expression in its entirety. We are not permitted to use expressions of common abuse which may have transferred usage among our circle of friends either on Wikipedia proper or in articles’ talk page discussions. The IP had a point and I’ve removed the words from the MG page, for among other things, the use of that comparison “like all people of color.” implies that Gandhi’s experience of racism in SA was remotely comparable to Black South African’s. I don’t think you understand Iskandar. I haven’t taken any one to ANI in 15 years, maybe more, but if you continue to sound irresponsibly facetious, my next post will be on the user talk pages of some administrators. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:15, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

I'm sure you are aware that one is not supposed to edit comments that have been responded to, but if you wish to doctor the above further, you may do so. Or feel free to delete it all if you like, since you are the only respondent. Iskandar323 (talk) 19:21, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

You can certainly scratch offensive comments. It is not my task. If you don’t do that before you make an edit on any other page or a different edit here I will be posting on the user talk pages of some administrators. Please don’t play slippery in defending offensive language. I have already warned you twice. Final warning: scratch the whole expression out. Again it is not my task. It is yours. Best regards Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:33, 8 August 2023 (UTC)