Talk:Kashmiris

Difference between intellectuals and witch doctors

I am an ethnic Kashmiri from the Kashmir valley, speaking Koshur and I think you are being prejudiced, there has always been a link with our fellow Kashmiris, who speak Pahari and are not Punjabi, they speak differently. I don't know much about anthropology, but you cannot say whatever may be the case I know they're not Punjabi, Its like saying the Scots are English, even though they both speak English, yet the Azad Kashmir people speak Pahari and the Punjabis speak Punjabi/Potohari. I sometimes wonder if these people with weird theories about the fellow Kashmiris in Azad Kashmir still think that the world is flat too. Some theories say Koshur is indo-Aryan anyway http://www.koshur.org/ , just like the Kasmiris in Azad Kashmir speak Pahari which is an Indo Aryan language too. Please research further with proper resources, I want us to be clear. The Yehudi (Jew) has now entered Kashmir (India) and has started the work the Jews are best known for; that is distort history and plant a fake Yedudi origin history. Aryan of Kashmir are not sleep in this Aryan Central Asian land.

You are a traitor who considers pahari speaking population of so called azad kashmir as "kashmiris". Just visit an area in azad kashmir and have a look at their language and culture, then go to the neighbouring areas of pakistani punjab and you will notice that these so called kashmiris of so called azad kashmir are plain punjabis. They have same ethnical surnames and roots like rajput, jatt or gujjar. Actually you jack pots who live in kashmir valley do not know about the ground realities of the area which is called azad kashmir for no reason´.

Comments by IP user

There is lot of ignorance and nonsense in this thread. There is no race by the name Aryan so there is no question of anyone being pure Aryan. The word Aryan was used to describe the nobility and other influential people among proto-Indo-European cultures, it is is not a race. And people migrate so even if there was ever any such race, they would have been diluted beyond recognition by now. As for Kashmiri being different from other Indians, this is a myth being cultivated by jihad gang. Kashmiris are as different from other Indians/South Asians as other Indians are from each other. The world Kashmiriyat is also a very misused word, these people who claim Kashmiriyat as basis for another country don't even know a single kashmiri word, they speak urdu at home. As for being fairer to other South asians, that is partly true because fairness mostly increases with distance from equator. Some of the fairness and lighter hair color can also be attributed to relative isolation of the people in mountain valleys. However to an outsider, am average kashmiri is not going to look much different from an average South Asian, you are still a brown person. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.247.207.157 (talk • contribs) 26 September 2017 (UTC)

A required administrative look

@GoldenRing:. I reverted a removal of verifiable content on scholarly discourse on the origins of the Kashmiri race. I then get another person, Razer2115, reverting me and saying this edit comes within the topic ban (in an extremely broadly construed extension of the actual topic ban area). As the administrator who imposed the sanctions you will know well the limits that you have set out. JosephusOfJerusalem (talk) 09:08, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

@JosephusOfJerusalem: In my view, the racial origins of Kashmiris falls pretty squarely into the topic of conflict between India and Pakistan. Please avoid this area. GoldenRing (talk) 09:17, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Interestingly, you were told that you "are warned that any further disruption or testing of the edges of the ban will be met with either an indefinite topic ban from all topics related to India, Pakistan and Afghanistan or an indefinite block, without further warning."[1] Your note here is covered by the topic ban as well. My Lord (talk) 09:26, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Avoiding edit war on origins

Edit-war

@CambridgeBayWeather: Given your experience with edit wars in South Asia topics, I would like you to monitor this page and ensure it remains on the last stable[2] version so that newcomers to this article do not cite WP:BRD to restore[3] the controversial new version[4] which I reverted.[5] That will be the best way to avoid edit war. Owais Khursheed (Talk to me)

Take a look at the consensus on Talk:Kashmiris/Archive 1#Kautilya3's new edits and bring some points that haven't been refuted. --RaviC (talk) 15:36, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

@Owais Khursheed: sorry but can you inform me if you are you going to self-revert yourself? You have violated 2RR. My Lord (talk) 15:54, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Which part of that discussion favours your preferred version? In particular the Gulshan Majeed content you keep on removing. Owais Khursheed (Talk to me) 16:15, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

My Lord, this page is not under 2RR. Bring an administrator who knows these sanctions, like Regents Park, to be the judge of that if you are unsure.Owais Khursheed (Talk to me) 16:23, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Everything falling under India-Pakistan conflict is under 2RR. Read this thing carefully. My Lord (talk) 16:27, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Regents Park can decide whether this page is under 2RR. This page and especially the "Origins" section has no relation to any Indo-Pak conflict. Nevertheless, if the administrator decides otherwise, I will self-revert when I am next online. And 2RR only applies if it is done without discussion, which is not the case here.Owais Khursheed (Talk to me) 16:43, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

What makes you think that Kashmiri people are not involved in the Indo-Pak conflict and why do you think that you reverted 2 times by complying with the rules when you initiated discussion after you reverted 2 times? My Lord (talk) 16:49, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

It must be possible to merge both versions. I don't see why the specific mention of Indo-Europeans should be removed. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 11:36, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

Proposal

According to Barbara A. West, "the origins of the Kashmiri people remain a mystery," while M. Ashraf Bhat notes that "scholars are divided on the issue of the ancestord of the Kashmiris." According to Bhat, scholars have proposed various theories concerning the origins of Kashmiris. Bhat refers to Dar, who argues that Kashmir was settled by subsequent waves of migrants, including Central Asians who came to study Buddhism, and Brahmins from India who came to study Sanskrit and Kashmiri Shaivism. Dar further notes that sufis from Iran and Iraq came in the 14th century "to spread Islam and expand their trade.

Bhat states that "many scholars hold the view that Kashmiris are a true specimen of the Aryan race," coming from Central Asia. According to Bhat, some scholars reject the notion of Indo-Aryan origins of Kashmiris, and believe they were migrants from "India proper"; West mentions "the more southern regions of India." Bhat further notes that "some scholars believe that Kashmiris belong to a 1200-year old race of the Pishachas and Nagas."

Bhat also mentions that some scholars and Kashmiri historians, such as R.K. Parmu, believe that the Kashmiri people have a Jewish origin, due to several similarities between Kashmiris and Israelites. This theory holds that Kashmiris descend from one of the Lost Tribes of Israel which settled in Kashmir after the dispersal of the Jews, and were "forcibly converted to Islam prior to the 12th century." According to Downie et al. (2016), "The claim of Israelite ancestry is widespread among Kashmiris, who cite historical records and the similarity of geographical names and cultural and social traditions." Yet, according to Downie et al. (2016), "there are no significant or substantial signs of [...] Jewish admixture in modern-day Kashmiris. According to Bhat, this theory has been refuted by most scholars.

[According to Downie et al. (2016), "Indo-European ethno-linguistic groups of northern India, including the Kashmiris, share a complex ancestral history with both west Eurasian and Indian populations." According to Narasimhan et al. (2018), prior to the coming of the Indo-Aryans, north-west India was populated by socalled "Indus Periphery" people, who were related to the IVC-people. The mixture of Indo-Europeans with Indus Periphery people in northern India resulted in Ancestral North Indians (ANI); at the same time, southern Indus periphery people mixed southwards with Archaic Ancestral South Indians (AASI, ancient hunter-gatherers), forming Ancestral South Indians (ASI). Most present-day Indians are a mix of ANI (IVC + IE) and ASI (IVC + AASI), though with varying degrees of the constituent ancestry.]

Notes

References

Sources

• Bhat, M. Ashraf (2017), The Changing Language Roles and Linguistic Identities of the Kashmiri Speech Community, Cambridge Scholars Publishing
• Downie (2016), "A Genome-Wide Search for Greek and Jewish Admixture in the Kashmiri Population", PLoS One. 2016; 11(8): e0160614
• Majeed, Gulshan (2011), "No Naga Presence in Ancient Kashmir The Past Never Is", in Khawaja, G.M.; Majeed, Gulshan (eds.), Approaches to Kashmir Studies, Gulshan Books
• Narasimhan, Vagheesh M. (2018), "The Genomic Formation of South and Central Asia", BioRxiv
• West, Barbara A. (2010), Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Asia and Oceania, Infobase Publishing

• PS1: it seems to me that Kashmir, prior to the coming of the Indo-Aryans, must have been populated by people related to the IVC-people, that is, a mixture of Iranians and AASI. Present-day Kashmiri are a mix of ANI ((AASI + Iranian) + IE) and ASI ((AASI + Iranian) + AASI). This info could be added, with WP:RS (before I noted that genetic research is not being used in caste-discussions, but this topic is not about caste. If there are no objections, I'm willing to collect, and double-check, the relevant sorces. Otherwise, I'm not going to waste my time on the Indo-Pakistan Wikipedia War).
• PS2: there is a difference between the Naga Kingdom from mythology, and the present-day Tibeto-Burman Naga people. According to Bhat, the Naga people come from Thailand; it seems to me that he is mixing up both mythology and contemporary ethnology. Frankly, Bhat is hardly WP:RS (I have another qualification in mind...).

Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 13:44, 10 June 2018 (UTC) / update Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 08:21, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Discussion

Today's version is decent. But on the whole, we are just taking one source (Ashraf Bhat), who is not even a historian, and beating his wording to death. I don't see why we have to use his precise words in quote marks.

For Nagas, please see:

• Hāṇḍā, Omacanda (2004), Naga Cults and Traditions in the Western Himalaya, Indus Publishing, pp. 97–, ISBN 978-81-7387-161-0
• Bamzai, P. N. K. (1994), Culture and Political History of Kashmir: Ancient Kashmir, M.D. Publications Pvt. Ltd., pp. 16–17, 59–60, ISBN 978-81-85880-31-0

There are loads of references to Nagas in Ancient India, but we don't know very much about them except that they probably worshipped or revered snakes. Reverence for snakes is widespread pretty much all over India. (Even Gurjara-Pratiharas in the 7th seventh century were using "kettle drum and snake", pratipad-haryam, as their flag. For all we know, "Pratihara" could have been a derivative of that phrase.) -- Kautilya3 (talk) 08:45, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

• I also think we should not use any terms like "mythology" anywhere. We are citing historians or cultural scholars, and they are trained to extract reliable information from "mythologies". -- Kautilya3 (talk) 08:49, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

• I also don't think we should cite Gulshan Majeed, who doesn't seem to have published any peer-reviewed work in his life. The article cited here is a conference talk, and edited by himself. His claim that there is no archaelogical evidence of Naga presence is squarely contradicted by Handa. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 09:31, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

• I am replying both to Kautilya3 and the above proposal from Joshua Jonathan that was made in good-faith. I am reminding of Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 236#Linguist's history, the discusion where uninvolved editors agreed that the source is not reliable and furthermore the publisher (Cambridge scholars) can produce bad quality of content but we can't tell the same for many other WP:RS. Still when I was restoring the consensus version I dedicated some parts of the content to this source. Current version is just better than the previous one. My Lord (talk) 09:52, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

I have no objectio to removing all of Bhat, and search for other sources on the Nagas. NB: West isn't great either. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 10:29, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Its a shame this already solved subject is repeated every 6 months. I have to login just to make a few things clear again.

1. Genetic studies are generally unreliable and these studies are constantly changing their findings. There are error margins and issue of how reliable the methodologies are. Acceptable statistical modelling is constantly changing. In fact in the whole field the findings are subject to constant changing. When even the findings from genetic studies about the maternal origins of chickens keep drastically changing how then can reliance be placed on genetic studies of social groups? Its absurd. Genetic studies should be discarded and not be used on this article. Its disrespectful.

2. Unfortunately, there are not a lot of studies into the origins of Kashmiris and even fewer are available online. Thats why its much more feasible to have a list of the various theories that we know have been propounded. And for that the scholar Bhat is more than fine. He has served as an officer in various cross-disciplinary fields. It was already decided at [[[WP:RSN]] that he is an acceptable source for saying that "scholar so and so said this" or "historians said this or that".[6] Of course if it was Bhat's own research then it would have been a different case. But since he is just saying that historians have said this or that, he is acceptable. The arguments for removing him are incredibly weak.

3. There is absolutely no evidence that Nagas ever inhabited Kashmir. There is no trace of them in Kashmir. No inscriptions, no archaeological evidence. Nothing. Unlike in the rest of India where Naga traces are still found. Numerous historians like Professor Gulshan Majeed, Professor Abdul Lone and Ahad have said this. All these are history professors at universities, Lone also teaches Indian archaeology.

Any authors (all Hindu) who have written about Nagas in Kashmir are merely regurgitating Hindu mythology, which historians like Lone note is their only source for the idea that Nagas ever were in Kashmir. ~~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by FreeKashmiri (talk • contribs) 14:19, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

If "there are not a lot of studies into the origins of Kashmiris", it would still not permit us to use a source that is either way not credible. Sorry, but we don't evaluate author's credibility by his religion, you have to evaluate it with the publisher, credentials. Though some argue if information is commonly accepted or not and in this case, it is not. My Lord (talk) 14:40, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

FreeKashmiri, please note that your personal views constitute WP:OR and have no bearing on what goes into Wikipedia. There were two noticeboard discussions regarding this section: RSN and NPOVN. You need to consider the whole feedback and not pick and choose what suits your POV. If there is a division between "Hindu scholars" and "Muslim scholars" that is fine to note, except that we haven't been provided with any decent reading material from the Muslim scholars. In any case, I suppose F. M. Hassnain counts as a Muslim scholar:

The Nagas were not serpents but were a predominant element in the population of Kashmir when Buddhism entered the valley. There is an old legend to the effect that it were the Nagas, who first accepted Buddhism. There is no doubt about the significance of the legend, despite the miraculous element in it for in early Buddhist literature there are other references to the Nagas as paying homage to the Buddha.[37] Naga-arjuna is always referred to as a Siddha and so as Naga-Bodhi. Indeed, the Nagas and the Siddhas are often associated together in the ancient Indian tradition. This undoubtedly means that besides Naga-arjuna and Naga-bodhi, there were many other Siddhas among the Naga people. One of them was Kapila, the reputed founder of the Sankhya system and he was in all likely hood, a Naga by race.

So this division you imagine seems to be in your own imagination. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 17:09, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

The "Consensus" claim

RaviC, You have claimed[7] in your edit summary that there was consensus on the talkpage for the version you reverted to (although you were not a participant). Given that I was a participant in the January discussion[8] I know what went on and can verify that your and My Lord's claim that there was consensus for this version[9] is totally wrong.

A listing of the content your version removed.

• Opening line: "Scholars have proposed various theories concerning the origins of Kashmiris."
• Naga theory: "The presence of Nagas in ancient Kashmir has been contested in historical scholarship."
• End paragraph: "According to Dar, Kashmir being at crossroads of India, China, Afghanistan and central Asia, was settled by several waves of migrants. Central Asians and Brahmins from India pursuing studies who either mixed with or removed the earlier Nagas. Dar also includes the arrival of Sufis from Iran and Iraq among these migratory waves. Several historians have argued that the Kashmiris migrated directly from central Asia, citing similar customs, lifestyle and complexion as evidence for their stance.'

Then look at this discussion.[10] Which part of that discussion (point out a specific diff) supports the removal of each of those three bits of content? DarSahab (talk) 12:37, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes look at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 236#Linguist's history, you are just overtly depending on a source that we have agreed to wholly remove. My Lord (talk) 12:40, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

References