Talk:History of India

History of Indian Subcontinent

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

As per this discussion I am starting this RFC to ask for the rename of this article to History of Indian Subcontinent or redefine the scope of this article as discussed ahead. The article itself states that it covers the history of the subcontinent and the lede even starts that way. Background for the unaware: Indian subcontinent has historically been known as just India but now the primary topic for the word "India" is the Republic of India which already has its history article at History of the Republic of India. See also that the word "India" redirects to Republic of India which means there's consensus for that being the primary topic and that standard should be followed so as not to create confusion (an editor got blocked due to this confusion by trying to make a split at another article discussed later although they were also using their IP and account together as sock to get their work to stick). Renaming this article will not only disambiguate and clarify things further for new editors and more importantly for readers, it will also be more neutral towards the current day Indian Subcontinent (a name by which it is still known as) and towards other countries in this region like Pakistan, Bangladesh etc. Once renamed, the current title can either redirect to this article or be split into a new article if needed to specifically talk about the historical region that encompasses the modern India as compared to the formation and independence of India which can be discussed at History of the Republic of India. A similar split is being made at History of Pakistan to focus on the region historically and for creating History of Islamic Republic of Pakistan to cover the history of country's formation and the 60 years till present.. and this is totally per WP:MOS as the article has grown twice the allowed size and still covering WP:DUE content just in summaries and is agreed upon by editors from all points of view here. This will also make navigation a lot easier (a template can be created if needed to further enhance navigation) and will also be following the same type of categorization and naming for clarity as covered in scholarly works and textbooks. If this article is mainly covering the history of modern India then moving the details related to the Indian subcontinent and its history to Indian subcontinent and redefining the scope of this article.

• Support splitting by renaming to History of the Indian Subcontinent (or in the same effect move everything related to the subcontinent to Indian subcontinent and redefine the scope of this article specifically to only the region encompassing India and redirect History of Indian Subcontinent to Indian subcontinent) as per my rationale, below suggestion of Bladesmulti, the prior discussion and as nom. --lTopGunl (talk) 07:32, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

By History of India#Medieval and Late Puranic Period - Late-Classical Age .28500.E2.80.931500 CE.29, article has included almost only about the present day India. Making a new History of Indian subcontinent could be better suggestion. Bladesmulti (talk) 07:43, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

A one paragraph summary of present day is due in this article like at the end of the article... the one you are talking about can simply be moved with attribution to a new History of India article focusing on only the regional history or to History of the Republic of India if it focuses on the country. --lTopGunl (talk) 08:02, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Actually Indian subcontinent has so less content, and almost overlaps South Asia and after many tries they didn't have a consensus for a merge, so I can also support History of Indian Subcontinent redirected to Indian Subcontinent and let it grow before it needs to split. So you are right, I can support your suggest as well (in effect it would be the same thing ie. to remove the history of the whole subcontinent from this article and take it to Indian Subcontinent. I've changed my 'support comment' a bit to agree to your suggestion. --lTopGunl (talk) 08:05, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Both, South Asia and Indian subcontinent are indeed small articles. Bladesmulti (talk) 08:22, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes, but some editors wont let us merge so it might be a great idea to use Indian subcontinent for history by moving all related content there and keeping South Asia for content that has context (mostly current events I guess). --lTopGunl (talk) 08:25, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

• Note if the scope of this article is redefined as per Bladesmulti (and I support that option as an equal alternative to this), then the hatnote of this article will also have to be changed to reflect that this is about the history of the region of India not the whole subcontinent and the subcontinent's history can be found at Indian subcontinent and other regional histories can be found at History of Pakistan and History of Bangladesh etc. Much of the content from this article and the lede will have to be moved. --lTopGunl (talk) 08:15, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
• Comment TopGun, from the beginning of the RfC it feels this was meant to be a move request. Probably you can update and rephrase the RfC question at the top for clarity (A smaller one). Thank you. --AmritasyaPutra^T 15:54, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

If this was a plain move request, I would have done that.. but as you can see from Bladesmulti's comment, there are other solutions to this as well and the move is not the only option available. RFC seemed better.. I've added a phrase to the start to address your suggestion. --lTopGunl (talk) 15:57, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

• Comment: For better or for worse, academic histories of India include both the present Republic of India as well as the past pre-independence India and Pakistan and, therefore, the title "History of the Indian subcontinent" doesn't align well with what reliable sources would say. Lacking sources that explicitly separate out the history of pre and post independence India into a Republic of India and an Indian subcontinent part, I'd say this is a non starter. --regentspark (comment) 22:11, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

I'd say there would be just as many sources for the term Indian Subcontinent. But if you are right, shouldn't India be the primary topic for "Indian Subcontinent"? Once we've identified a primary topic, we've to consider all articles or it starts getting confusing for those who've not studied the topic all their life like us. Secondly, "History of Pakistan" includes per-independence history similarly, what I am saying is for the country history articles focus on formation (per-independence) and modern (post) history and History articles go for the region while History of Indian subcontinent or Indian subcontinent covers combined history of India, Pak, Bang etc.. it might also help unify some ancient history content and not have POV forks in each country article. --lTopGunl (talk) 08:36, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

TG, Indian subcontinent is a geographical term with independent existence. Sort of like the Indian ocean which, hopefully, we won't rename Indian subcontinent ocean :). Though Pakistan is a distinct entity with an overlapping history with the Republic of India, historians almost uniformly discuss their shared histories under the umbrella of history of India. I don't see any way of getting around that.--regentspark (comment) 14:21, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

This argument was raised in the discussion for merge of Indian subcontinent and South Asia and it was decided that they were both historical terms for the region (often still and independently being used).. the geographical term is Indian plate. I know the history of the two countries are common, and* that is not the point here, the issue is of primary topic. India is the primary topic for the modern nation, which creates ambiguity. As both terms are equally used, a replacement wont be any kind of POV or ulterior motive that some POV editors have of removing everything India from Pakistani articles which is not really even Pakistan's POV (esp that both current and the proposed option still use the term "Indian"). --lTopGunl (talk) 15:35, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

You're misunderstanding me TopGun. Academic sources discuss the history of all of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh under "history of India". The Sikh empire, largely in what is modern day Pakistan; the Indus Valley Civilization which is almost entirely in modern day Pakistan, Alexander's trip to India which never crossed the border of modern day India, are all studied as a part of the "history of India". Like I said, how do we get around that? History of the Indian Subcontinent is practically inventing a new area of study, and that's something we should not be doing. --regentspark (comment) 19:27, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

It didn't have anything to do with technical geography such as Indian plate which relate to the earth's structure... a part of Pakistan and most of India are structurally distinct. I did get your stance about the history part.. where a part of my argument lies; by that logic, the India should redirect to the subcontinent article or to a blanket article in a similar way if the sources term India to be the whole region (I know the difference in context, but what should be the primary topic...). In similar way there might be an argument that sources only since 60 years can possibly identify the modern country as the primary topic where as 100s of years before that identify the complete region as the primary topic... does that also change the redirect for India? Or does it get its own page as a term like Hindustan? (not that I am in favour of changing it in that way, I'd rather have a page India (term) or Hindustan discuss that, but hope it makes my point). I do believe the primary topic is now the modern day country rather than the whole region and wikipedia should reflect it uniformly. A descriptive title is not inventing anything (it's norm in wikipedia to use descriptive titles for topics based on editor consensus or many articles would be deleted since that exact title isn't being used else where). I want this to ease the navigation and don't just want to go for a rename or something so if The history of Indian subcontinent lists all country history articles to be focusing on the actual history (as by your logic they do have scholarly coverage by each name), the country articles can focus on the over all history with focus on the region.. it would also reduce overly large article sizes.. but I fear it may result in POV forks so we may have to create some kind of check or a combined talkpage under WP:IAR to handle the issues that would arise from implementing this suggestion as discussed below. Anyway, the current state of the article may slightly represent a few sources with tunnel vision on this context but it lacks insight on all the other issues I mentioned. --lTopGunl (talk) 06:50, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

• Support. Today, when people speak of India, it refers to modern day state of India. Historically, it was used to refer to Hindustan, Dravida, Bengal, Ceylon (often) and sometimes other surrounding regions. Tibet and Burma was sometimes associated with India.

Now, if someone utters the phrase History of India most people would think about history of today's state India. But, if you tell History of Indian sub-continent it is very clear that, you are talking about history of South Asian regions including today's India, Bangladesh Pakistan, Nepal etc. Article title should better not be vague. – nafSadh did say 04:35, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Exactly, that makes it crystal clear with or without context. Esp. take the example of some one referring to the wikipedia article offline "look it up in 'history of India'". Hatnotes can only go so far and so does context... for an analogy, it's like I understand Urdu in any form but I can only read Arabic with full punctuation or I wont get a word right. --lTopGunl (talk) 15:43, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose The focus of the article is clearly modern-day India.

• • History of Bangladesh, History of Bhutan, History of Nepal, History of Pakistan, History of Sri Lanka exist. "This article is about the history of the Indian subcontinent with India in focus".
  • This is no discussions about Bhutanese, Nepalese or Sri Lankan kingdoms, which never ruled in modern-day India. A history of the complete Indian subcontinent should have had discussions these dynasties. This is clearly NOT a history of the Indian subcontinent then. This article should remain focussed on India, else this already longer article is going get longer.
  • There is discussion about Rashtrakutas, Cholas, Chalukyas etc. has nothing to do with the histories of Pakistan or Bangladesh. Redtigerxyz ^Talk 16:50, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

"With India in focus"... ? Which means it needs to be globalized as per WP:DUE and WP:NPOV. If it is only the history of India as Bladesmulti suggests, then we may have an argument of moving the content instead of renaming. This also covers much of the history of Pakistan which is not a part of the history of the regions of modern India and above that, the lede starts as "The history of the Indian subcontinent begins with evidence of human activity ..." That seems to be a claim of globalization but focusing on India and makes it a WP:COATRACK and has to be fixed in one way or another. --lTopGunl (talk) 17:34, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

The top hat asserts this article is about History of Indian Sub-continent and clearly states that there is another article for modern day state. Now, we do not need two articles to discuss History of the modern state India Either this article should not exist or discuss about the sub continent. Now, yet it fails to discuss Bhutan and other regions; mostly because some editors do not want to sync between content and subject. – nafSadh did say 17:57, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

IMO, I've made my proposal quite flexible with 2-3 solutions possible by incorporating others' suggestions... it would only help clarify to any such editors that this should include history of all regions of the subcontinent, keep the sync and prevent POV forks. --lTopGunl (talk) 18:03, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose While I believe I understand the rationale of the proposal, I hold that language is not always rational and we shouldn't view it that way. "India," to me, represents a historical/cultural unit whereas "Indian subcontinent" represents a geographical unit. I am not alone in this dichotomy. A search for "History of Indian subcontinent" on Google books brings absolutely nothing, whereas "History of India" brings up loads of books. We shouldn't kill a good living page for the sake of logic. That said, I would welcome all our friends from outside India to happily participate in contributing to the page as well as borrowing from it. Cheers, Kautilya3 (talk) 17:43, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Do you want to keep this article under the scope of the whole region or as Redtigerxyz said as focused on modern India? The lede should also start with "history of India" and should not include other regions for the latter, for the first, it needs amends and I would stand by my rationale of renaming or redistributing content. Also note some article titles are descriptive in nature rather than using a subject title. This might be one of them... I don't mind if Indian subcontinent is a better merge candidate if it has more mentions as a title term... it's a small article anyway and needs content. --lTopGunl (talk) 17:56, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

I am comfortable with the coverage and focus as it is at present. The historial India is the same as what we now call Indian Subcontinent. A page dealing with it does not necessarily make a commitment to deal with every present-day country in equal measure. It just depends on the significance of the events that need to be covered. This is no different from covering say, Bengal. Not every event in the History of Bengal would be covered in the History of India page, even though Bengal is very much a part of India. Kautilya3 (talk) 18:33, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose The name and scope of this article should be determined by scholars who work/write in the area and as RegentsPark and Kautilya3 have mentioned above, pre-partition history of the Indian subcontinent is invariably discussed under the rubric of "History of India" in standard reference works on the topic. See:
  • Stanley Wolpert's A new history of India (Oxford University Press)
  • Barbara D. Metcalf and Thomas R. Metcalf's A Concise History of Modern India (Cambridge University Press, 2012)
  • Hermann Kulke and Dietmar Rothermund's A history of India (Routledge)
  • Burton Stein's A history of India (Wiley-Blackwell)
  • Romila Thapar and Percival Spear's A history of India, Vol I and II (Penguin publishers);
  • Upinder Singh's A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India (Pearson Education);

I have provided the publishers' names and wikilinked the authors to establish that this is not just a cherry-picked list of nationalistic/popular writers, but covers the gamut of academic publishers and notable historians working in the area. So while I am open to refining the scope of the article (if it is needed to reflect the above sources better), moving the article or the bulk of its content to History of the Indian subcontinent is a non-starter for me too. The latter page need not be a simple redirect to the History of India though; it could perhaps serve as a disambiguation page guiding the reader to the various articles in the area and this option can be discussed separately. Abecedare (talk) 19:03, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

We can't have a disambiguation as per WP:DABCONCEPT. The two subjects need to have the same name (and hence the ambiguity) to have a disambiguation... such as Mercury (planet) and Mercury (metal). So if A + B = C, then C can't be a dab, but if A = C and B = C but A & B are not the same then a dab is due. For refining the scope of this article, the sources do focus on India rather than the whole subcontinent as the sources for specific civilizations go for the titles of those civilizations. As I said before, refining the scope is equally good but instead of dab maybe we can use the History of the Indian Subcontinent page having a summary of all these pages. Again in that case, this article needs to reflect that and exclude topics covered in the equivalent articles so as not to serve as a fork. --lTopGunl (talk) 17:50, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

We can have a DAB, as India may refer to Indian Subcontinent and Modern day state of India, hence History of India (subcontinent) and History of India (republic). – nafSadh did say 07:47, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes, in that context (for the term India only), definitely. My point was that it can not include the topics it comprises rather the topics that are the same name. So as per your point, the title "History of India" will become a dab because now there are two candidates, the republic and the subcontinent, both of which are referred to as this in sources (This also takes RegentsPark's stance into consideration). If this is what you mean, I can support that too.. infact I would support forming consensus for anything that fixes the current situation in anyway. --lTopGunl (talk) 09:36, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

• Support. It does sound more rational to split them. Dan Koehl (talk) 09:18, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
• Comment (leaning towards oppose). I actually find the current solution to the dichotomy (titling the page "History of India", but utilizing the phrase "The History of the Indian subcontinent" to open the lead) to be quite elegant. Reviewing the article and this discussion, I'm finding my position aligning most with Kautilya3's; we are talking about a number of distinct historical, geographical, and contemporary sociopolitical concepts when we discuss the history of "India" and we should try to balance the many varied perspectives and uses of this term amongst our sources here; as such, even as I view the current title as the most accurate and appropriate one, I also favour a somewhat inclusive approach as to what content should be found here, so long as it concerns any entity that sources have regularly referred to as India. Snow talk 02:20, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose. Bogus. Not worth discussing. Even a mediocre student of History can tell you that there is nothing called “History of Indian Sub-continent” in the studies of History or Historiography. “History of India” is an all-encompassing idea/subject/genre. History can not be re-written just because of the parochial sub-nationalistic identity politics of 1940s. It will be more appropriate if the article begins with "The History of India..."Ghatus (talk) 17:10, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose. The current title follows the mainstream of scholarship and usual usage of reference books. It should not be changed, in my opinion. Rjensen (talk) 17:14, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The history of South Asia, aka Indian subcontinent and history of a India,

The history of a subcontinent and the history of a country are separate topic. History of South Asia, and history of India should not be lumped into one page. This creates confusion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Weighty (talk • contribs) 01:07, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

The article clearly states-"This article is about the history of the Indian subcontinent with India in focus prior to the partition of India in 1947. For the modern Republic of India (post 1947), see History of the Republic of India. For Pakistan and Bangladesh in focus, see History of Pakistan and History of Bangladesh.". There is no confusion.Ghatus (talk) 09:48, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

As per the above discussion, the scope of this article as India was not changed. Reverting undiscussed change of title in Aug 2014 to original bold "History of India".--Redtigerxyz ^Talk 09:48, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Where is/are the Flag(s)

Looking for some links to the modern flag. I hear it has a spinning wheel on it. Without searching on "Flag" I have not found it in several Articles on India or their main holidays. Need some links.Kristinwt (talk) 06:00, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Travel to India

@Bongan:, this contribution [1] is well-written and interesting but it is too detailed for a History of India article. It needs to be condensed. Kautilya3 (talk) 21:45, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Travel to India (17:35, 4 February 2015) Good work Useless content edited out by @Ghatus:

but user also remove the main & imp. article reference link. I am just re-added the reference link Travel to India (21:07, 13 February 2015) just follow the protocol WP:INTEGRITY. The last article reference show only last one line. Thank you. Bongan (talk) 12:51, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for the explanation. I will put it back. (Remember to use indentation with colon symbols for your replies/messages.) Kautilya3 (talk) 14:36, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Periodisation

I've changed the periodisation from Flood's to Michaels' periodisation. refined the periodisation which was already in the article. Neither is It may not be perfect, as Tapar makes clear (which I've added as an explanantion), but Michaels' periodisation is more detailed accurate, though. As a compromise to Tapar's nuances, I've allowed for some overlap, with the Islamic period starting c.1100, while the first Islamic conquests took place already in the 8th century; and the beginning of western colonialism in a seperate section, which overlaps in time with the Mughal empire. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:59, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

1) Sind is near the frontier of South Asia in modern day pakistan, not in India or in North India. The first islamic dynasty in North India was delhi sultanate established in 1206/1211.

2) Who is Michaels? Any historian? I have told you many a time to stop confusing the History of Hinduism with History of India.

3) Know the difference between Mughal Dynasty and Mughal Rule/ Empire. Marathas destroyed mughal rule by 1720s, though the dynasty remained in Delhi with de jure power over delhi city only upto 1857.

4)British expansion started after 1780s. Before that, they were tiny regional power in India.

Regards.:-) Ghatus (talk) 13:03, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Dear both, I find this obsession with periodisation to be counter-productive. They are just labels. The only problem with these labels is that they have given rise to ideologies. No matter what Thapar says, Mill's periodisation is the obvious one that occurs to anybody looking at Indian history. It is not going to go away any time soon. So, let us just state the two periodisations and move on. Kautilya3 (talk) 14:56, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

And, I might add that the secularist air-brushing that Ghatus wants to do are also counter-productive. We have agreed that "India" on this page is the Indian subcontinent. So, you can't disown Sindh. Islam certainly did arrive there. The next stage was the Ghaznavid empire, which was thought of by Ghazni himself as the "Eastern Caliphate." These were undoubtedly "Islamic" enterprises. So you can't wish them away. The more interesting question that professional historians might want to answer is whether the Hindus of the time recognized them as Islamic enterprises, or whether they thought of them as just neighbourly rivals who happened to follow a different religion. Kautilya3 (talk) 15:10, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

"Mindless changes" is not a convincing argument, is it?

• Sind: this information already was in the article, under the heading of "The Islamic period (c. 1200-1850 CE)". It belongs to Indian history; if it is to be excluded, the Indus Valley civilisation is also the be excluded.
• "(1) want to see the book (written by any historian,) that dates classical period in such way ." diff - Axel Michaels is the one who uses this periodisation: Michaels, Axel (2004), Hinduism. Past and present, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press The info is properly referenced; you could check the source, instead of simply removing it. Axel Michaels is Professor of Classical Indology and Religious Studies at Heidelberg University; his book "Hinduism" is published by Princeton University Press. What's more, his periodisation, including the threefold division of the classical age, already was in the article, so what's your point here?
• Mughal Dynasty/Mughal rule: not a reason to do a mass-revert.
• Idem.
• Hoysala Kingdom (12th-14th century) and Pandyan Dynasty (13th-14th century) were under the wrong heading, under "Classical Period." No historian will extend the Classical period to the 14th century, I guess.
• "Independence and partition (1947-present)" were under "Colonial Era". Find me any person who would agree with this classification.
• You also removed Thapar, a source which was brought in by you, as far as I remember. The focus at dynasties is at the heart of Thapar's criticism of periodisations. This also touches at this Wiki-article in general, since most of its info is arranged under the heading of "X-Empire" and "Y-Dynasty".

Ghatus, please have a closer look at the arguments, and take a carefull look at the article, instead of calling my edits "mindless". Reverting it en mass, meanwhile also removing sourced info, and re-inserting wrong info, is not the best way to work together here at Wikipedia. If you think there are better periodisations, tell us which ones. NB: I've not reverted your other edits, except for one (I've already forgtten which one...). I believe your nuances about Mughal Dynasty and Mughal Rule/Empire rigth away. @Ms Sarah Welch: Would you have an opinion here on periodisation? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 15:17, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Thank you JJ for inviting me. The periodisations make sense. The current content in "Early Islamic conquests" section is poorly supported and has some OR. Someone should read the following texts, which discuss the 8th century to 12th century period, then revise it appropriately:

1. Andre Wink (2004), Al-Hind, the Making of the Indo-Islamic World, Brill Academic Publishers, ISBN 90-04-09249-8

2. Elliot and Dowson, The History of India as Told by Its Own Historians - The Muhammadan Period, Volume 1 & 2, Trubner (these are translations of Persian/Arabic texts)

3. Vincent A. Smith, The early history of India, 3rd Edition, Oxford University Press

4. Barbara Metcalf, Islam in South Asia in Practice, Princeton University Press, ISBN 978-0691044200

It is history of India. The best current understanding is that the 8th-12th century period was a complicated period of Islamic raids for khums, religious violence in Gujarat/parts of modern India, changing rulers in northwest 8th-12th CE India, and Al-Biruni-style Hindu-Islam cooperative scholarship where numerous Sanskrit texts were translated and circulated in Islamic ruled territories. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 16:40, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply, and for your extended list of literature. Quite some work left to do... Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 21:35, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

@Joshua Jonathan: , @Kautilya3:

1) Sindh is not a part of North India. It is on the western side of Indian Sub-continent/ South Asia. By the way, why 8th century? Start from 7th. Some parts of modern Pakistan was conquered by Muslims in mid 7th century also before 711/712.Wining one or two small parts on the western border of south asia and you are calling it the starting of a religious rule in north India. Ludicrous. A rule starts when an old system is replaced by another. Hence, British rule started in Bengal in the mid 18th century, not in 1600s. One power can win a town or small area, but calling it a rule on "some" parts of "north India"? Again, see the map-where is west and where is north.

2) The "historians" who provide such pharses like “Ascetic reformism”, “Late-Classical Hinduism”, “Islamic rule and "Sects of Hinduism", “Modern Hinduism” as periods of Indian History are anything but Historians. LoL!!! You are again trying to pass some phrases of Hinduism as The History of India.

3)"The Islamic period (c. 1200-1850 CE)" Another funny thing. What were the Vijaynagar, Rajputs, Marathas and Sikhs doing in this period. BTW, the British took India from Marathas and Sikhs in the 19th Century, not from the "Muslim" Mughals. Where are you getting dates from? 1850??? Period??? Tell me when in early 16th century when Vijaynagar was larger in size than the Delhi sultanate and Rajputs were constantly victorious, how can it be called that India is under Muslim period? Does Maratha and Sikh rule also include under the Muslim Period? Stop communal propaganda.

4) Have you started calling British rule as Christian rule like Hindu rule , Muslim rule etc? Why not?

Regards, Ghatus (talk) 04:07, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for your personal thoughts, and now start behaving yourself. You're edit-warring. My edits are based on a reliable source, which you completely ignored. You're also ignoring the comments of other editors. You're also not responding to the arguments above.

So far, you've made only 598 edits to Wikipedia, and received multiple warnings for edit-warring. You've also received recedmtly the Discretionary Sanctions notifications, so you should be aware that you have take double care in your edit-behavior at India-related pages. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:09, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

NB: it would be helpfull if you make separate edits for Romila Thapar, for Michaels' periodisation, and for the names of the headers, so we can properly discuss as separate topics. Thanks. And honestly, I really don't understand why you removed Thapar's comments on periodisation. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:14, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

@Joshua Jonathan:, Unfortunately, as per WP:BRD, Ghatus has priority here. He has a right to revert a bold edit, and you need to discuss. Much as I dislike his wholesale reverts, as per policy, he still gets the first call. Cheers, Kautilya3 (talk) 11:33, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

"Islamic period"

Ghatus objects to the term "Islamic period", instead opting for "Islamic powers." He's got a point there, since, the south of India was never completely conquered by the Islamic rulers. Maybe we should use Smart's term: "Hindu-Islamic civilisation". It does more justice to the Hindu-part, and "civilisation" sounds much more friendly than "rule" or "powers."
Another alternative is "Islamic rulers". Which terms do other writers use? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 07:33, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Burton Stein, A History of India (John Wiley and Sons), and Peter Robb, A History of India (Palgrave Macmillan), both use Early/Ancient, Medieaval, Modern. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 07:48, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

So, another periodisation (c.q. list of chapters for this Wiki-article) may be as follows:

• Early/Ancient India:

• Pre-history
• Indus Valley Civilisation (until c. 1750 BCE);
• Vedic period (c. 1750-500 BCE)
• "Second Urbanisation" (c. 500-200 BCE)
• Early empires (c. 200 BCE-300 CE)
• "Golden Age" (Gupta Empire) (c. 320-650 CE)

• Medieaval period:

• Early medieaval period (regional states and early Islamic conquests) (c. 650-1100 CE)
• Islamic conquests and Dehli Sultanate (c. 1100-1500 CE)

• Modern period:

• Early Modern period: Mughal empire, Maratha empire, beginning of western colonialism (c.1500-1850);
• Modern period: British Raj (1857-1947)
• Modern period: (from 1947)

Better? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 08:00, 15 February 2015 (UTC)