Talk:Onam

Onam festival

Moved from User talk:DBigXray

BJP-RSS propaganda in Onam article to make it more Hindu than secular and to alter its myth by diminishing the importance of Mahabali over Vamana. Ms Sarah Welch is restoring problematic content by Snowcream without discussion. Onam is celebrated all over Kerala irrespective of religion. 2409:4073:30D:F96:6431:C9DF:B49E:479D (talk) 06:18, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

I would agree, I have reverted some of the problematic content, Waiting to hear back from MSW. --Happy Holidays! ᗙ DBigXrayᗙ 08:52, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

Please read the cited sources. We need to reflect what the secondary and tertiary reliable sources are stating. Many of these cites, already have embedded quotes. In light of these sources, please explain any mass reverts you make. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 01:10, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

can you please stop edit warring. You added something controversial and it has been reverted. Please make consensus before re-adding this --Happy Holidays! ᗙ DBigXrayᗙ 01:23, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

the ip has raised some valid concerns on pov and I find them serious. This needs to be discussed. --Happy Holidays! ᗙ DBigXrayᗙ 01:36, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

What are those concerns and how are they valid given what the cited scholarly sources are stating? Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 01:51, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

please read this thread carefully. You should be able to see the concern. --Happy Holidays! ᗙ DBigXrayᗙ 02:01, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

DBigXray: We do not change content because someone alleges something is BJP-RSS propaganda, or is or is not X-Y-Z. Wikipedia is not a blog or an advocacy platform. We summarize high quality RS, preferably peer-reviewed scholarly sources. Let us look at the sources cited with the lead sentence:

• Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica (1974), Quote: "Onam, Hindu festival in Kerala State, India.
• Elaine Chase; Grace Bantebya-Kyomuhendo (2015), Oxford University Press. p. 312, Quote: "Onam (Hindu festival)..
• Caroline Osella; Filippo Osella (2006), Anthem Press, p. 174, Quote: "The 2000 Onam (Hindu festival)..

Despite what these sources are stating, you deleted "Hindu" from the article without explaining what is wrong with these sources and why not reflect what the secondary and tertiary sources are stating. In the main article, as well, you have deleted sources and sourced content. Why delete Hindu, when the RS saying it is a Hindu festival (the lead and the article does acknowledge the broader, cultural side of this featival)? What was wrong with these sources or the summary? Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 02:35, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

• Comment.DBigXray I also got the same message from the IP and I’m fully convinced that these editors are violating WP:NPOV and WP:ADVOCACY by cherry picking the sources.Their additions sounds exactly how the IP alleges. The festival commemorates the Vamana avatar of Vishnu this is a sheer RSS propaganda 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and many BJP leaders were openly saying this for many years now.1 As a keralite, I know the reaction from kerala toward this.1. Akhiljaxxn (talk) 05:38, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

Akhiljaxxn: We rely on scholarship, avoid blogs/newspaper/opinion columns. On admin Bishonen's talk page, earlier this year, we had a discussion about the reliability of Indian news media. There was a general concern about their media's reliability and Paid news in India (contact User:WBG for more). The Indian media unreliability issues apply to both the media that supports BJP-RSS and the media that supports their left/Congress/another political party. We should avoid these for pretty much everything except current news and such information. Scholarly sources are particularly important for topics such as this article, as WP:HISTRS and many topics. A relevant note from an admin, from another wikipedia-article-talk page:

Newspapers can be RS for news, but not RS for history / other information

Journalists virtually never have scholarly training in history/anthropology/ethnography/etc. — they're generalists as far as this kind of thing goes, not knowing more than what's needed for background purposes, and as such we mustn't consider them reliable sources for such fields. Exceptions can exist, of course, and we can't discount a journalist merely because of his job (e.g. he could be an avocational anthropologist so dedicated to the field that he's a member of a learned society), but even then we should only trust his writings if they've gotten reviewed by other experts; the most scholarly journalist will have his newspaper writeups reviewed by nobody except the newspaper's editors, whom again we can trust to know a lot about news reporting but we can't trust to know much of anything about "olds" reporting. We can take newspaper reports as authoritative if we're writing a middle school report for our teachers, but encyclopedia writing demands better sources: whether they're written by professional academics, journalists with a lot of experience in scholarly work, or anyone else, they need to have gone through a scholarly review process. – Nyttend

With that caution, please look at the links you gave: all Indian newspaper (these include some known problematic ones). Contrast these with the independent scholarly sources cited and the summary in this article. As an example, consider the list of three RS – Encyclopedia Britannica, Oxford Univ Press, etc – that I provided above. It is simply wrong and inconsistent with our community-agreed content guidelines to suppress what these multiple scholarly sources are stating, e.g. this is a Hindu festival. There is also no need to repeat what is already in the lead/main article, e.g. harvest festival, broadly observed cultural festival, etc - all derived from WP:RS. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 06:21, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

• Akhiljaxxn I agree with you that this is a blatant Hindu fundamentalist propaganda (RSS propaganda) and this is not the first or the only page where Ms Sarah Welch has been doing this. The usual tactics used here are WP:CHERRY PICKING to push the Hindu fundamentalist side of the story followed by massive filibustering on the talk page and wiki lawyering on admin noticeboards such as ANI and Edit warring. The festival is celebrated by Christians and Muslims as well and hence it is rather misleading to blatantly call it a Hindu festival and CHERRYPICK sources that say that. Reliable sources (See below) say that it is harvest festival for Mahabali, but these sources doesnt help to push the Hindu Fundamentalist POV so it is understandable that they are being sidelined here.

This (Onam) 10-day harvest festival welcomes home the mythical King Mahabali

--Happy Holidays! ᗙ DBigXrayᗙ 11:05, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

References

Culture Shock is not a scholarly publication, you call a tourist guide with chapters on getting visa, hotel accommodations, etc as a reliable source. You ignore three academic sources I provided above, use a tourist guide to question motives of other editors? Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 12:30, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

Alright, I will agree that culture shock is a kind of tourist guide. But there are tonnes of RS also stating the same, Check out.

References

DBigXray: you used what you now admit is a kind of a tourist guide (first calling it RS), to personally attack me with "a blatant Hindu fundamentalist propaganda". That is wrong. Have you carefully read these sources? Or just done a google search for the two words: Onam harvest? It will take time to carefully read these sources. A quick check of a few I did, and I see Onam links to Hinduism are discussed in these new ones too. For example, the Coogan's source published by the Oxford University Press says on page 152 (Chapter title is Hinduism: Sacred Time), amongst other things, that Onam is a harvest festival (...) celebrated in the honor of god Vishnu.) A festival can be a Hindu festival and a harvest festival. Is there any source that states that it is "not a Hindu festival"? Have you read the article carefully. Both the lead and the main article, before your recent edits, already stated that Onam is a harvest festival too. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 13:12, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

Ms Sarah Welch you are deliberately twisting my statement. I had said that "this (CONTENT) is a blatant Hindu fundamentalist propaganda (RSS propaganda) " I never said that "Ms Sarah Welch is a a blatant Hindu fundamentalist propaganda" There obviously a huge difference between the two lines. Check out this report from The Hindu to understand why I called it Propaganda. Also where did I used the source Culture shock ? Here in the talk page and not in the article. I added it here on the talk page as I quickly found it. Yes, take your time and review all of them. --Happy Holidays! ᗙ DBigXrayᗙ 19:45, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

DBigXray: You now allege "Also where did I used the source Culture shock ? Here in the talk page and not in the article." But this edit-diff clearly shows that you "did add" that Culture shock source to the article! It is just a fact, that you now deny you did. You also removed the Encyclopedia Britannica source while doing so. That is puzzling because that tourist guide (ref name="Seow") you added to the article is neither a better or equivalent to the Encyclopedia Britannica. You wrote, "this is a blatant Hindu fundamentalist propaganda (RSS propaganda) and this is not the first or the only page where Ms Sarah Welch has been doing this". This is a false, harassing and defamatory allegation from you, inappropriate on an article talk page, and one without edit-diff. On the newspaper link, I already addressed the newspapers-as-sources issues above. This article should not mirror newspapers, rather it should rely on scholarly sources. Yes, I would welcome and support a short summary of any news related to Onam and local nationalist/leftist/other politics or disputes to the extent it is not already covered in the article and per our content guidelines. I have already checked the sources again, including Coogan etc you linked. They all mention the Hindu links. They also mention "harvest festival" as has this article for a long while. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 20:39, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

DBigXray: After you deleted scholarly sourced content and sources in recent edits, you also added a source published by "Partridge Publishing" (#3 in your list above), which is a self-publishing source and therefore unreliable. I plan to remove that WP:SPS and any other non-RS, after a respectful wait for any clarifications from you or other editors. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 20:52, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

And I am waiting for you to review and tell me which of the above sources you will accept to replace Seow Lynelle.--Happy Holidays! ᗙ DBigXrayᗙ 20:58, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

It is disappointing that you did not self-revert those bad sources you added, for so long, even after you agreed the Lynelle source you added "is a kind of tourist guide". Please reread my reply, with particular attention to my comments on Encylopedia Britannica, what I found in the Coogan etc sources in your list, and the need to follow scholarship. You just can't delete scholarly sources you don't like and replace them with WP:SPS or tourist guide sources such as the ones you have inserted instead. Also note that when disputes arise, the long-standing stable article version with scholarly sources is generally preserved. You need consensus to make changes as much as I or another editor needs consensus. We are equal, and you must follow the same principles and rules that you ask me or others to. If you disagree, you are welcome to try whatever you consider as the appropriate next step: dispute noticeboards / ANI / etc. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 01:07, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Ms Sarah Welch, I had said "And I am waiting for you to review and tell me which of the above sources you will accept to replace Seow Lynelle". Do you want me to explain what that line means ? instead of responding to my Q, you went ahead and started adding the content into the article ignoring this ongoing discussion. This is highly disruptive of you. And I would still want to hear back on "which of the above sources you will accept to replace Seow Lynelle". Happy New Year! ᗙ DBigXrayᗙ 16:40, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

DBigXray: Instead of your bossy and silly hounding with "Do you want me to explain what that line means", perhaps you can try reading my lines above carefully and understanding those lines. You can also try dispute/admin noticeboards if you insist on using non-RS such as tourist guides/self-published source while deleting scholarly sources, like the one you added again today. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 17:07, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Now, you have called me "bossy", "silly" and accused me of "hounding". these are all blatant Personal Attacks and I ask you to strike them off or else I will be forced to seek admins to take action. I will not tolerate your personal attacks any more. Are you claiming that all of the 12 refs I listed above are non-RS ? I am not sure how your comment above answers my question on these 12 refs. Please clarify. --Happy New Year! ᗙ DBigXrayᗙ 13:58, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

New year

The Onam festival marks the Malayali new year.

References

I note that Ms Sarah Welch has used the ref and stated in the article (diff)

"It is the New Year day for Malayali Hindus."

One wonders on this edit, is this not blatant hindu POV Pushing ? --Happy Holidays! ᗙ DBigXrayᗙ 10:42, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

First of all, you misquote the edit and misrepresent. The sentence had two cites (diff). Here is the exact, complete version (I have filled in the first cite's full details):

It is the New Year day for Malayali Hindus.

References

The first one supports that text. The article on Onam in the second source is written in a different style and we avoid Copyvio and summarize in our own words. In case you missed, the second source is an Encylopedia of Hinduism. Neither of these sources state or imply that Onam is the new year day for Malayali Christians or Malayali Muslims. Your projecting/questioning motives on the article talk page is inappropriate. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 12:55, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

So please clarify your actual intentions behind ignoring the second source and framing your prose on first. I am sincerely curious.--Happy Holidays! ᗙ DBigXrayᗙ 12:56, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

I already did. Reread my reply. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 13:14, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

Ms Sarah Welch, do not change or twist the facts with an excuse of avoiding WP:COPYVIO. If there are no other ways of saying something then it is said as such. Please familiarize yourself with WP:LIMITED. And in this case you could have easily phrased it as "Onam festival is celebrated as New year day by the Malayalee people."--Happy Holidays! ᗙ DBigXrayᗙ 13:34, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

Again reread my reply. The sources are clearly discussing it in the context of Hindu Malyalis, while one source indeed has the simpler sentence. This is not a big deal though. I have revised the sentence to "It is the New Year day for Malayalis.[13][14]", a version that is fine with me. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 01:07, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Cultural festival section

DBigXray: With this edit you changed the text from,

The festival is also celebrated by Christians of Kerala, in its churches.

to the following text:

The festival is also celebrated by Christians and Muslims of Kerala.

References

I have checked the source again, and I could not find any support for that change. Can you identify which para in the three cited pages in the Ponnumuthan source, directly or indirectly, support your change. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 13:24, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

page 289. And here is another one. Happy Holidays! ᗙ DBigXrayᗙ 13:17, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

References

DBigXray: If you carefully look at the two versions above and the change you made, you added "Muslim" and alleged it is supported by the Ponnumuthan source. I do not see the word Muslim anywhere on page 289. By inserting the word "Muslim" and thereby alleging Ponnumuthan states "Onam is celebrated by Muslims", you misrepresented the source. The new Chaturvedi source you cite is fringe-y and questionable. B. K. Chaturvedi is non-RS, casual non-scholarly writer, one who has written books on astrology, tourist centers, etc. So your Chaturvedi source is questionable, not RS. If you can find high-quality scholarly sources, I would welcome adding Muslims celebrate Onam somewhere separately, with an explanation of the rituals they follow / celebrations they participate in. Since you have been given an opportunity to explain, and you have failed to show where Ponnumuthan supports the word Muslim, I am going to remove your OR and your improper edit that misrepresented the Ponnumuthan source. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 00:19, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Secular Festival

The secular festival is actively celebrated by people of all religions and communities in the state.

References

MSW, please explain why you are removing this. --Happy New Year! ᗙ DBigXrayᗙ 14:59, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

DBigXray: I already explained it above. It is a self-published source (see WP:SPS). My edit comment too pointed out the SPS-issue. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 15:48, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Vaman

Hi MSW, Stop edit warring and please learn to discuss your additions on the talk page after you are reverted. It seems you have problem in following WP:BRD. The source does not support what you are claiming here --Happy New Year! ᗙ DBigXrayᗙ 15:50, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

DBigXray: Actually, in this case, the stable version is one before your recent edits over the last week. You are the one that has made a "bold revert" and so you should discuss it. To aid the discussion, I have already embedded quotes from the two cited sources. These support the content. You wrongly alleged it is OR and is not supported in the source. Please explain/discuss what your concern really is? Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 15:54, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

You are repeatedly adding controversial content that has been objected to by multiple editors on the talk page, that inclued the ip, User:Akhiljaxxn and myself. Without consensus you have no right to restore this content to the article. It is you who is adding the content, so please explain with quotes and refs, why it is needed. I can respond once you make your case for addition--Happy New Year! ᗙ DBigXrayᗙ 15:58, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

DBigXray: You state above, "the source does not support what you are claiming here". If you read the cited scholarly sources, from which I have added the embedded quote, you will see that you are wrong, and it is a mistake to allege it is OR. Here is what you are edit-warring over:

The festival commemorates the Vamana avatar of Vishnu, the subsequent homecoming of the legendary emperor Mahabali and mythologies of Hinduism related to Kashyapa and Vishnu.

Are you insisting that the two cited sources do not have the quoted text? On consensus, please note this content on Vamana etc is not only supported in the scholarly sources, it was in the long term, old stable version. Other editors such as Snowcream have restored it and therefore it is the last best consensus (there was a minor cite error in an old version, later fixed). Just because IP/some editor comes along and incorrectly alleges OR... when any review of the sources shows that it is not OR, we are not going to drop all our content and editing policies. We must reflect the quality RS and scholarship. Once again, I ask you to please look at those two sources, aided by the embedded quotes, then explain what your concern really is? Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 16:21, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

References

Thank you, you should have added the quotes and the refs while making your first reply to this thread. From this ref and the quote it supports the line that "The festival commemorates Mahabali" and instead you are misrepresenting this to write "The festival commemorates Vaman". Understand that no one is disputing that these 2 are part of the story, but The Malayalees don't commemorate Vaman, in fact they consider him a villian who removed their beloved king Mahabali. So you are way out of line here. It is understandable why local editor an IP and Akhiljaxxn are objecting. 2. regarding Kashyapa, Where does it say that Onam festival "commemorates" the mythologies of Hinduism related to Kashyapa and Vishnu.--Happy New Year! ᗙ DBigXrayᗙ 16:37, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

DBigXray: You should have read the edit and the embedded the quotes. Neither of those two sources, nor others cited in this article, support your claim "in fact they consider him [Vamana] a villian". Will you be okay if we quote exact or more closely paraphrase the sources? Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 16:55, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

I don't see the justification for the line "the festival commemorates Vaman". The sources are not saying anything remotely close. What am I missing? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 20:24, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Onam as a secular festival

• @DBigXray and Ms Sarah Welch: I am not familiar with the topic at hand. But when I noticed this section, I did recall reading a relevant passage in Robin Jeffrey's book, which mentions Onam as a secular festival:

However, aspects of Kerala's unique Onam festival, a harvest celebration held in August-September, also suggested that ideas of equality were not totally excluded from the minds of Malayalis, both high and low. One of the folksongs about the festival begins:

“ When Mahabali was ruling,

All people were equal.

”

King Mahabali's generosity brought about his downfall, and with it, misery entered Kerala's world. Onam celebrates Mahabali's brief annual return to earth when his subjects do their best to show him that life is as he left it. The festival appears to have been celebrated from at least 1000 AD and to have involved all sections of the population – including the lowest castes and non-Hindus.

I checked a few other sources and found that the Onam's protagonist Mahabali is labelled as a demon or a Dravidian:

The final contestants performed various enactments of the role of King Mahabali, whose benevolent, mythic reign is celebrated at Onam. Kerala is often depicted as the land of Asuras (demonic demi-gods), ruled by the demon-king Mahabali, who defeated the Vedic gods (the gods of the early Hindu texts) only to in turn be tricked by the god Vishnu, in his avatar as the dwarf Vamana. Within the textual tradition, Mahabali makes a transformation from an enemy of the gods to a demon-devotee, who through charity and religious rectitude finds liberation at the feet of Vishnu. Within the larger context of the Bali tradition, interpretations that stress Mahabali as a Dravidian, lower-caste-affiliated demon who contests the Brahmanical pantheon are rife (Omvedt 1998).

Anyway, I have access to the two books cited by me. In fact, out of the scholarly sources cited on this talk page, I have access to the following: [1], [2], [3], & [4]. If anyone doesn't have access to them, then feel free to email me. And after reading them properly, it will be easier to develop consensus. Also, we should obviously stick to scholarly sources – see WP:HISTRS & WP:SOURCETYPES. Thanks. - NitinMlk (talk) 18:36, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

References

Thanks for joining in NitinMlk. Those are two good sources on the modern politics associated with the Onam festival. The article has already cited a Lukose source. The Jeffrey source provides the "perfect socialist king" and "Socialism" anachronistic interpretations/perspective of Mahabali and Onam (pp. 21-22). This is also worth summarizing in the main article, along with more from Lukose articles. For the lead, we need a balanced summary per WP:Lead guidelines. How about the following version that more closely follows the wording in the sources:

The festival is tied to mythical legends about King Mahabali, whose spirit is said to visit Kerala at the time of Onam.[8][9] The legends link king Mahabali and the Vamana avatar of Vishnu.[1] These mythologies are recounted in the Shatapatha Brahmana, the Mahabharata and the Puranas through the stories of Mahabali, Prahalada and Kashyapa.[2][3][4] According to Nanditha Krishna, the story is likely an allegorical representation of harvest and a thanksgiving offering (Bali) after the summer season (solar Vishnu).[3]

We can also quote exact. [1] and [2] are in the reflist above, [3] is the Nanditha Krishna source published by Penguin and cited in this article, [4] is the Sarma (1971) source in VIJ, volume 9. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 18:49, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

The main purpose of my comment was to mention that I have access to some relevant scholarly sources. But I am hardly familiar with the topic. So, as of now, I am not in a position to discuss any change to the article. - NitinMlk (talk) 19:06, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

@NitinMlk: Since you have access to these sources, it would help if you can check which sources mention (or do not mention) each of the following in the context of Onam mythologies/legends: [a] Mahabali, [b] Vamana, [c] Vishnu, [d] others (who, which religion). Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 00:09, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

I feel it will not help looking into the religious background of the mythological figures. Onam, as a concept, has gone through mainly three types of transformations, through its history. The Aryanization of Onam, originally a Dravidian festival, was the first among them. It was during this phase, the various mythological figures, such as Mahabali, Vamana, Kashyapa, and Parashurama, entered the Onam concept, which was originally a celebration during the good days of harvest when everyone had enough to eat and enjoy. The second phase coincided with the start of Brahminical influence and the original thoughts became influenced on a regional basis. This is one of the reasons the Onathappan is considered a symbol of Mahabali in some parts of Kerala while at certain other areas, it represents Vamana. The third was the recent attempts to bring Hindutva into the festival. A clear evidence is the attempt by a few to mark Onam as the birthday of Vamana, Vamana Jayanthi, and relegate Mahabali to a lower status. There are a number of scholarly books on Onam available in Malayalam, and a few in English such as Onam: A Festival of Kerala, by A. M. Kurup. S. Janardhanan Nair, in his book, Onam and Thrikkakkara, mentions about the origin of the festival as, Every year, on thiruvonam day of the month Karkidakam, ruler under Chera king used to visit the temple. A month later in Chingam, again on thiruvonam day, all kings gathered together at the temple’s premises and used to conduct their annual meeting, along with celebrating Onam festival. Fifty-six Kerala kings were the conveners of the fest and and the responsibility to conduct the festival each day was assigned to two among them. The festivities of atham day was jointly organized by the Kochi and Zamorin Kings. It is still reminisced in Thrippunithura Athachamayam and family celebrations of samuthiri kovilakam, thus pointing to the secular origin of Onam. The fact that the state of Kerala, ruled by leftist parties than any other during it's history, has accepted Onam as the state festival evidences its secular nature.--jojo@nthony (talk) 09:11, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

I was asking to email so that I could provide some soft copies, but I haven't received even a single email. Anyway, see edit summary. I have access to one more source which has a (26 pages long) chapter about Onam. And its page no. 139 clearly states that Onam "is celebrated equally by Hindus and non-Hindus". In fact, it covers the topic thoroughly. Note that there are already a few sources of Filippo/Caroline Osella in the article, but they contain just passing mentions about Onam. – NitinMlk (talk) 14:40, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

References