Talk:Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by CapnJackSp (talk | contribs) at 14:17, 5 March 2024 (→‎3O: reply to Thebiguglyalien). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.


WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS

"During the colonial period, the RSS collaborated with the British Raj and played no role in the Indian independence movement."

Why is this mentioned in the lede? Why is a negative fact important. Well RSS didn't play any role in the Russian Revolution either for all that matters, so why mention its (lack of) role in the Indian Independence movement. Seems like a thinly-veiled statement aimed at equating the RSS with the Colonial British. LΞVIXIUS💬 20:55, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It needs mentioning as it's a part of the organisation's historical political profile, but I agree it should not be in the lead. Feel free to move it to the body. — kashmīrī TALK 20:59, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree; that fact is mentioned in prominent histories of the Hindu nationalist movement, and as such belongs in a summary of the RSS's history. Vanamonde (Talk) 21:36, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, but not sure it helps the reader understand what the article subject is at present. — kashmīrī TALK 21:54, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In enhancing the lede of the Wikipedia article, the inclusion of the statement "During the colonial period, the RSS collaborated with the British Raj and played no role in the Indian independence movement" serves to uphold historical accuracy and offer readers a nuanced perspective on the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's (RSS) role during a pivotal era in India's history.
By explicitly noting the organization's lack of involvement in the armed struggle against British colonial rule, the lede provides crucial context, preventing potential misinterpretations and fostering a more precise understanding of the RSS's historical position.
This addition highlights the diversity of approaches within the Indian independence movement, acknowledging the varied strategies and ideologies employed by different groups. Furthermore, it contextualizes the RSS's founding principles, emphasizing its focus on cultural and social revitalization rather than direct engagement in armed resistance.
Ultimately, this addition encourages readers to engage in a more nuanced analysis of the RSS's historical role, prompting exploration into the organization's philosophy, objectives, and the reasons behind its decision not to actively participate in the struggle for Indian independence. 94.205.38.119 (talk) 07:34, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Text written can be misleading

there is no proper evidence of origination of RSS from fascist ideas it is just a Hindu organization not meant to do anti Muslim but to do justice for hindhu people in India (just participating in religious activities)kindly remove such phrases which could be misleading,thank you. Kraa45 (talk) 08:12, 16 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. See the reliable sources cited in the article, including:
  • Atkins, Stephen E. (2004). Encyclopedia of modern worldwide extremists and extremist groups. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 264–265. ISBN 978-0-313-32485-7. Retrieved 26 May 2010.
  • Casolari, Marzia (2000). "Hindutva's Foreign Tie-Up in the 1930s: Archival Evidence". Economic and Political Weekly. 35 (4): 218–228. ISSN 0012-9976. JSTOR 4408848.
  • McDonald, Ian (1 December 1999). "'Physiological Patriots'?: The Politics of Physical Culture and Hindu Nationalism in India". International Review for the Sociology of Sport. 34 (4). Sage Journals: 343–358. doi:10.1177/101269099034004003. ISSN 1012-6902. S2CID 144111156.
  • Natrajan, Balmurli (2009). "Searching for a Progressive Hindu/ism: Battling Mussolini's Hindus, Hindutva, and Hubris". Tikkun. 24 (5). Duke University Press: 58–61. doi:10.1215/08879982-2009-5024. ISSN 2164-0041. S2CID 171206784.
— Newslinger talk 09:16, 16 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 21 January 2024

Please remove the words far right 193.11.110.59 (talk) 19:22, 21 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

 Not done Please get consensus for this removal. RegentsPark (comment) 20:18, 21 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Addition of Social Service to the lead

While RSS has been criticised for being extremist, it has provided critical services during major disasters, as mentioned in the body also. In order to give a non-biased perspective, their humanitarian acts must be mentioned in the lead also. Smart Sherlock (talk) 07:05, 24 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Far-right

There were recent lead changes to the article which replaced "right wing" with "far-right". Since such labelling can be contentious, and the previous lead being WP:STABLE for years, I have reverted these edits for want of consensus here.

There was a brief discussion (but nonconclusive) regarding the same on this Talk page recently (archive) but it was for the infobox not the lead and for the it being typified as "extreme right" (which redirects to far right).

I do see some sources for the far-right categorization in the article, but also note that general reference sources (e.g. [1], [2]) refrain from characterizing it at all. A discussion, if the lead is sought to be changed by editors, should be had. Gotitbro (talk) 04:36, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Something being contentious doesn't make it false. The organization is far-right, and more than enough RS's support this. Brusquedandelion (talk) 06:48, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That would still require consensus, the current lead achieved its current form after much back and forth edit warring. I would urge either you start an RfC and expand upon the political characterization within the body (which is very lacking). Issues upon the same (as linked above) have been raised in the past with no headway and as such its better to have WP:BROADCONSENSUS here rather than a limited discussion between some editors.
Also, that characterization of sources is not entirely accurate as noted above variance is observed within general reference sources. And what many a RS say is not entirely a criteria for labelling here on enwiki, see for e.g. Tucker Carlson: where though noted as "far-right" in a variety of sources (e.g. [3]) that labelling is not applied in the lead para with the lack of consensus there. Gotitbro (talk) 03:33, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There is no need to seek consensus: we go by what reliable sources say, and they say far-right. You, Gotitbro, are going against what the sources say by reverting far-right to right-wing. Gaia Octavia Agrippa Talk 15:30, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have no stake here, a consensus is always better when a need is seen to insert contentious wording.
It would also be better if sources are added for the same here (as of now only one source attests to political classification that is being added); and to expand that within the body of the article as well. Drive-by lead changes should always be avoided. Gotitbro (talk) 19:11, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There is absolutely a need for consensus - WP:BOLD turns into WP:BRD once the edit is challenged. As for reliable sources, feel free to go through [4][5][6]. Exceptional claims need exceptional sourcing. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 23:52, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The claim is not remotely exceptional. Reliable sources agree: the RSS is a far-right wing organization. None of the sources you link to refute this claim. Remember: all far-right organizations are right organizations, by definition. Thus, a source only referring to an organization as "right" is not evidence against the organization being far-right. The only relevant sources for this discussion are reliable sources that either make the explicit claim that the RSS is far-right, or which explicitly reject this characterization. Or the former, there many; of the latter, none. Brusquedandelion (talk) 13:57, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is a logical fallacy - saying that lack of denial against an exceptional (and largely, fringe) claim somehow makes that claim more legitimate. The majority of RS call it "right-wing". If you want to replace it with the more contentious label of "far right", then you have to have exceptionally strong sourcing and consensus among RS. This isnt somthing you can hand wave about. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 17:39, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Which logical fallacy, exactly? You will find there is no such logical fallacy here. On the contrary, you are commiting the fallacy of denying the correlative. Again, the only relevant sources are are those which either explicitly accept or reject the far-right label, or those which reject any label that is a strict superset of far-right. A source that says the RSS is not right wing is thus relevant, but a source that says it is right wing is not.
  • There's nothing actually contentious about this amongst reliable sources, only amongst the general public (which necessarily includes members of the RSS and those aligned with its agenda). Not one reliable source actually casts any doubt on the legitimacy of the "far right" label. If such a source existed, we would not be having this discussion as you would have already offered it by now.
  • The reality is, though, that even if you don't agree with the above, numerous reliable sources actually do claim the organization is far-right. It is not at all a "fringe position". In support of my argument, I offer the following additional sources that describe the RSS as far right, all of which are reliable and none of which can be described as "fringe", including academic books, peer-reviewed scientific journals, and numerous reputable news articles:
  1. The Routledge Companion to Fascism and the Far Right refers to the RSS as "the most prominent far-right militia group in India" (p. 123); and asserts that the Indian far-right is "represented by the Bharatiya Janata Party' (BJP) and its militia-like affiliate, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)" (p. 103).
  2. Leaving the Hindu Far Right, already cited in the article.
  3. Conservatism and Ideology, already cited in the article.
  4. Hindu Nationalism and Right-wing Ecology: RSS, Modi and Motherland Post-2014, published in the peer-reviewed academic journal Studies in Indian Politics.
  5. The European Consortium for Political Research, consisting of over 350 academic research institutions in Europe, clearly states the RSS is "radically far-right, hierarchical, authoritarian, and founded on the premise of Hindu supremacy."
  6. This article in Vice.
  7. This article in The Nation.
  8. Another article in The Nation.
  9. This article in Al Jazeera.
  10. Another article in Al Jazeera.
  11. This article in HuffPost.
  12. This article in Times of India.
  13. This article in The Guardian.
  14. This article in NBC News.
I could go on. The reality is there are literally dozens if not hundreds of reliable sources that make this claim. There are also numerous sources which term the RSS "right", it is true, even including some of the same sources that term it "far right"— because there is no contradiction! What you will not find is reliable sources which claim that the RSS isn't far-right. None whatsoever.
The real irony here, though, is that both sources presently in the lead for the claim is the RSS is right-wing (sources 2, 3 above) both explicitly refer to it as far or extreme right! Imagine that. Brusquedandelion (talk) 02:12, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I do see some sources for the far-right categorization in the article

Glad we could agree on this! Not sure why anything else is relevant, except for reliable sources that explicitly claim the organization is not far-right (you will not find any). Brusquedandelion (talk) 14:01, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Brusquedandelion, please make your case here and obtain WP:CONSENSUS. Also, note that as per MOS:LEAD, the lead summarises the body. So you can't add stuff to the lead without a detailed discussion in the body. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 16:15, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I just did make my case. None of you are actually responding to my points, merely rehashing the abstract need for "consensus".
  • The WP:STABLE version of the body already describes the organization as far-right, and indeed, the lead should summarize the body. This is another excellent argument for modifying the lead to say "far-right," thank you.
Brusquedandelion (talk) 01:21, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
how is rss far right when its political wing bjp is not far right? far right is literally fascism. just because some criminal minded people think bjp and rss are fascist dosent make it a reality. They are normal conservatives/Hindu nationals who apparently serve everyone regardless of religion. membership is also open to everyone. not like far right parties eg. nazi party where only white germanics were allowed.do read about Muslim Rashtriya Manch too. 2409:40E3:6E:A553:EC5F:751:48B3:37BC (talk) 16:44, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is your WP:OR I'm afraid. Brusquedandelion (talk) 01:19, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"I just did make my case." And, that is a very poor case, exhibits no understanding of how Wikipedia is written. Please read WP:RS and WP:NPOV from top to bottom. RSS was founded in 1925, with almost a hundred years of history. There are many scholarly books written on it, published academic publishers. What they say takes priority over what some random news commentators say. See WP:SOURCETYPES. Also claims made in passing carry little weight. See WP:CONTEXTMATTERS. if you are genuinely interested in contributing to this article, please go get a book on RSS published by an academic publisher and read it. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 12:28, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I literally enumerated 14 different reliable sources attesting to the edit I want to make, 12 of which are new. I can add literally dozens more. Many of these come from non-news sources, including extremely reputable and authoritative sources on far right and Fascist movements in general. Conversely, none of you have not been able to localize a single reliable source that explicitly rejects this label— only sources which, at best, in passing, refer to it "only" as "right". I agree that the quality of sources matters, and the fact is, the sources that refer to the RSS as only "right" (without rejecting the far-right label) do so in passing. As you correctly point out, claims made in passing carry little weight. See WP:CONTEXTMATTERS, so thank you. Conversely, several of my sources are extended academic treatises specifically about far right movements, and thus clearly carry higher weight.
Also, again, the WP:STABLE body has called the RSS far right for years. As you yourself so correctly pointed out, the lead should summarize the body. Brusquedandelion (talk) 15:36, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Lets take The Routledge Companion to Fascism and the Far Right (2002) that Brusquedandelion references above. This is a textbook reliable source. It states:
  • Introduction (p. 1): These trends go beyond Europe: we could include the rise of Hindu nationalism in India, as reflected in the ascendancy of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), or the prominence of some of the more violent and conspiratorial ‘militia’ groups in the US. At an instinctive level, all of these are called ‘far right’, just as fascism is. The other groups/parties mentioned in this paragraph are: Italy's Alleanza Nazionale (described as "right-wing" on Wiki); France's Front National (right wing in intro, far-right in infobox); Austria's Freedom Party of Austria (right-wing to far-right); Germany's National Democratic Party of Germany (far-right); and Russia's Pamyat (far-right).
  • In its chapter "Evolution of Ideology" (p. 103): Thus, if the Indian far right, as represented by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) or its militia-like affiliate, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), want to use Hindu chauvinism as a political tool, the central state apparatus will not be an ally. Nonetheless, the antiquity of Hindu traditions, the multiplicity of gods and the richness of its epics provide an attractive basis for a powerful myth to accompany any far-right movement that chooses to exploit them to the full. Indeed, Hindu fundamentalist movements in the 1920s and 1930s did precisely that, and it is from this period of ideological ferment and communal tension that the RSS gained its original impetus. I.e. the RSS developed from far-right movements.
  • In its chapter "Nation and race" (p. 123): the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the most prominent far-right militia group in India. Speaks for itself.
  • In its Glossary under "Hindu Fundermentalism" (p. 293): In power, under the leadership of Atal Behal Vajpayee, the BJP has pursued moderate policies, it has not stoked militant Hinduism and has gone even further than Congress in co-operation with Western countries. Critics still fear the influence of a more militant sister organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), whose assertive and military-style parades are reminiscent of far-right behaviour in other countries. I.e. while the BJP party has moved from far-right to right wing, the RSS remains far right.
  • Glossary entry for "RASHTRIYA SWAYAMSEVAK SANGH (NATIONAL VOLUNTEER FORCE) (RSS) (pp. 335-336): Secretive and militant Hindu nationalist organisation in India, dating from the 1920s. It idolises a specifically Hindu Indian nation or rashtra. It is associated with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), though the BJP itself is much more moderate. With a discourse that emphasises the significance of warrior gods and military drill for young members, it is reminiscent of far-right organisations in inter-war Europe. Since the BJP’s rise to a party of government in the 1990s, it has distanced itself from the RSS.
Gaia Octavia Agrippa Talk 18:22, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Gaia Octavia Agrippa, thanks joining the discussion. So what, according to these authors, makes the RSS a 'fascist' or 'far-right' organisation? What would you put in the article body to explain this grading? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 22:04, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The excerpts Gaia provided go quite a ways in answering your question already, speaking as they do of the RSS' "use [of] Hindu chauvinism as a political tool", "militant Hinduism/Hindu nationalism", "assertive and military-style parades" and so on. For the purposes of the lead, this is ample evidence for labeling the organization far-right. As far as the body goes, we need to work on a more extended treatment of this label, of course. Brusquedandelion (talk) 02:28, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sources (TB)

  • Shakuntala Banaji (2018) Vigilante Publics: Orientalism, Modernity and Hindutva Fascism in India, Javnost - The Public, 25:4, 333-350, DOI: 10.1080/13183222.2018.1463349

Please do not write in this subsection, thanks. TrangaBellam (talk) 23:02, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Image of the new uniform

Please add the image of the new RSS uniform below the old so one can distinguish. Attaching a link to the image that can be used:

https://m.economictimes.com/thumb/height-450,width-600,imgsize-594641,msid-59087957/in-sangh-country-25-days-914-men-and-full-brown-pants.jpg 2409:40C4:1002:CEF2:B0E8:F82F:F54E:5440 (talk) 05:49, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Unsubstantiated inspirations from European Fascism

I have removed this fragment of a sentence from the lead:

Drawing its inspiration from European fascist movements and groups such as the Italian Fascist Party,[1][2][3][4]

References

  1. ^ Atkins, Stephen E. (2004). Encyclopedia of modern worldwide extremists and extremist groups. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 264–265. ISBN 978-0-313-32485-7. Retrieved 26 May 2010.
  2. ^ Casolari, Marzia (2000). "Hindutva's Foreign Tie-Up in the 1930s: Archival Evidence". Economic and Political Weekly. 35 (4): 218–228. ISSN 0012-9976. JSTOR 4408848.
  3. ^ McDonald, Ian (1 December 1999). "'Physiological Patriots'?: The Politics of Physical Culture and Hindu Nationalism in India". International Review for the Sociology of Sport. 34 (4). Sage Journals: 343–358. doi:10.1177/101269099034004003. ISSN 1012-6902. S2CID 144111156.
  4. ^ Natrajan, Balmurli (2009). "Searching for a Progressive Hindu/ism: Battling Mussolini's Hindus, Hindutva, and Hubris". Tikkun. 24 (5). Duke University Press: 58–61. doi:10.1215/08879982-2009-5024. ISSN 2164-0041. S2CID 171206784.

As per MOS:LEAD, the lead should summarise the body, and there is nothing about this in the body. So, this is against policy in the first place. Moreover, this particular passage has a chequered history.

  • When I first came to the page, it had something like this. we see Darkness Shines, copy-editing the "drawing inspiration from European right-wing groups during WW II". The source cited "Atkins2004" is not an RS by Wikipedia norms. (Only signed articles in Encyclopedias are reliable sources.) Nevertheless, all that the source says is, "During World War II, leaders of the RSS were open admirers of Adolf Hitler." That is a factual statement, but doesn't imply "drawing inspiration". The actual quote, from Golwalkar, does say, "a good lesson for us in Hindusthan to learn and profit by," which might suggest drawing inspiration. But we need a scholarly source criticially examining whether such inspiration was actually drawn in practice. Hindutva was written in 1923, which Hedgewar read in the same year. RSS was started in 1925. Both were well ahead of WW II. So, this particular source says nothing about RSS having been created with inspiration from "European Fascism".

Three more sources have since been added. So I look at each of them in turn. First, some general remarks about Moonje and Savarkar, both of whom show up in all three papers. Moonje was no doubt a political patron of Hedgewar. He was a member of Congress as well as Hindu Mahasabha. Savarkar was still in prison when RSS was started, but his brother Ganesh Savarkar, a Hindu Mahasabha member, was also a patron of the RSS. See the section Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh#Hindu Mahasabha influence. But the problem is, once RSS started, it became entirely independent. The Hindu Mahasabha patrons wanted it to be named "Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh", and for it to be the youth wing of Hindu Mahasabha. Hedgewar understood that and made sure that they couldn't exert any influence on it. What was more, he groomed Golwalkar as his successor, precisely because he thought he would be able to resist their pressure unlike the other more experienced RSS functionaries. (This is well-documented in the sources, and I can add content to the main page if necessary.) So, the claim that the Europenan Fascists exerted their influence on the RSS through Moonje and Savarkar doesn't fly.

  • Casolari is talking about a lot of stuff, but very little about RSS. "An accurate search of the primary sources produced by the organisations of Hindu nationalism, as well as by their opponents and by the police, is bound to show the extent and the importance of the connections between such organisations and Italian fascism". "Bound to show"? Hardly scholarly. Further she claims that people like Jaffrelot, Basu etc. didn't know what they were dealing with because they were "political scientists", not "historians". Well, Jaffrelot has studied 50 years of history of RSS, and cites hundreds of citations to primary sources like Organiser and government reports as well as other people that wrote about RSS affairs. He doesn't agree that RSS was inspired by European Fascism. He traces all the elements of RSS ideology to events and influences within India. Casolari does talk extensively about Moonje and Savarkar. As explained above, they are irrelevant.
  • MacDonald claims, "V. D. Savarkar, who is generally credited with defining the Hindu nationalist project, openly admired the fascist Mazzini and his 'Young Italy' organization". Yes, Mazzini's influence on Savarkar is well-acknowledged, but Mazzini (1805–1872) is from an earlie era, and it is odd to call him a "fascist". Mazzini argued for Italian integration, and he can be called a cultural nationalist. But "fascism" wasn't born in his time. Other than this, there are a lot of parallels drawn in this paper, but nothing that can be called an "influence".
  • Natrajan debunks his own theory in the very first paragraph by quoting Moonje: "In his diary Moonje wrote: “The idea of fascism vividly brings out the conception of unity amongst people. India and particularly Hindu India need some such institution for the military regeneration of the Hindus.... Our institution of Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh of Nagpur under Dr. Hedgewar is of this kind, though quite independently conceived." Independently conceived. End of story.

These are just a bunch of Eurocentric scholars who want to claim that only the Europeans knew how to bake bread. Vande Mataram was written in the 1870s. Vivekananda was lecturing in Chicago in 1893. Who knows, may the Indians taught the Europeans cultural nationalism? I hope I don't have to see this kind of nonsense again on Wikipedia. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 22:33, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, but this is overwhelmingly your WP:OR (with a sprinkling of WP:SYNTH). Wikipedia articles report on what reliable sources say, not how we interpret those sources. The reality is the claim you removed is extremely well-cited, and there are an abundance of other sources that we could happily add to the article that would agree on this point, but it would just result in citation bloat. Unfortunately, this is often what happens with article subjected to tendentious editing by parties that have biased views on the subject matter, but if we need to do this for your satisfaction, let us know and we will discuss. Also:

Vande Mataram was written in the 1870s. Vivekananda was lecturing in Chicago in 1893. Who knows, may the Indians taught the Europeans cultural nationalism? I hope I don't have to see this kind of nonsense again on Wikipedia.

Besides (again) being WP:SYNTH (and WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS), these facts are actually irrelevant. The Indian independence movement and Indian nationalism more broadly are not synonymous with RSS, and in fact, as the article notes, the RSS played at best an ambiguous role in the independence movement. Brusquedandelion (talk) 02:20, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This isnt OR, its called analysing sources. Just because someone put it in a paper doesnt make it the gospel, we can analyse their work and reject them as a source if it is of poor quality.
Also, please dont revert changes citing "stable version", the lead's stable version was significantly different from the wording used. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 09:26, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I am not analysing the "sources". I am analysisng the content which is not verified by the sources. None of these sources has said RSS was inspired by the European Fascist movements. The claim was made up by editors. That is called WP:OR. It is also a common misconception. The article body explicitly contradicts it citing high-quality scholars that have studied RSS and Hindutva. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 11:13, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, but you absolutely are "analyzing" the sources (or attempting to, anyways, but your success at doing so is necessarily beyond the scope of discussion here). You are pointing out what you think are apparent contradictions, or shoddy scholarly work (e.g. when you sarcastically remark Hardly scholarly), or straight up challenging the conclusions of the text (for example, where you dispute that Mazzini was a Fascist). The fact is numerous reliable sources concur: the RSS drew inspiration from Fascist movements, as attested to even by the very quotes you yourself have so helpfully aggregated for us above. Brusquedandelion (talk) 15:31, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This isnt OR, its called analysing sources. Just because someone put it in a paper doesnt make it the gospel, we can analyse their work and reject them as a source if it is of poor quality.

Sorry, but that's exactly how Wikipedia defines OR. I suggest you revise that page to better understand what original research is— and I also suggest checking out WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. Your friend Kautilya3, of course, knows this, so they deny the facts, whereas you deny the consequence. In this sense, you ironically provide support for my argument.

Also, please dont revert changes citing "stable version", the lead's stable version was significantly different from the wording used.

This just isn't true. I reverted to the version that was in place both before Kautilya3's edits and my own. The article has claimed the RSS drew inspiration from Fascist/European far right movements for at least four years, quite possibly much longer; I stopped looking past January 2020. Brusquedandelion (talk) 15:40, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
So I finally sat down and read the Casolari piece at length, and I have to ask— did you read it? Or just an abstract or preview? As the article is not easily accessible without e.g. a JSTOR subscription or institutional access, you can be forgiven for not reading all of it, but you should have made that clear in your original message. Because it is impossible to understand how anyone who actually did read the paper could come away with a conclusion like Casolari is talking about a lot of stuff, but very little about RSS or that the expression is bound to show represents a conclusion rather than an introduction, after which she proceeds to do exactly that: show that the RSS drew inspiration from European Fascism.
Let me state, in no uncertain terms: the express, undisputable purpose of the paper, in her own words, is to show that Hindu nationalism, and in particular the RSS and its chief ideologues, borrowed from Fascism, repeatedly expressed their admiration for authoritarian leaders such as Mussolini and Hitler and the Fascist model of society, and that [t]his influence continues to the present day. In other words, she shows the very thing that you lead us to believe she left as a question for future research. If you did read the article, this is the height of dishonesty.
In response to your aggressively worded demand for quotes above, I will soon be placing quotes from the Casolari article into the citations of the Wikipedia article here shortly, but again, I must ask: did you actually read the paper? The assertion that Casolari talks about a bunch of stuff that has nothing to do with the RSS is particularly galling given the sheer number of times she references the RSS (no less than 58 times, by name; more via means of anaphora, etc.) Brusquedandelion (talk) 04:07, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Here is Ian Talbot, a top historian of modern South Asia, describing the context of 1920s and 1930s, in which RSS was born:

Their emergence coincided with the rise of fascist movements in troubled inter-war Europe. But the sound and fury of the storm troopers [fascist movements] was only a faint whisper in the mohallas of India.[4] Its volunteer movements were rooted in the practice of landlords and rais employing goondas in factional disputes and in the tradition of proficiency in lathi-bearing practiced in open spaces and gymnasia by youths and professional wrestlers. Communities and political parties institutionalized the employment of volunteers, as communal conflict increased in India's towns and cities during the early 1920s. Thus the scheduled castes formed the Samata Sainak Dal, whilst the Arya Samaj established the Arya Vir Dal. Subhas Chandra Bose, the nearest equivalent to a budding Indian Mussolini, set up the Azad Hind Dal of the Forward Bloc following his spat with Gandhi in 1939.[1]

This should lay to rest any claims of "inspiration" from the European Fascist movements. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 13:37, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The text is quite literally comparing the RSS to Indian Fascists. While this excerpt does not establish a direction of causality here, that just means it neither provides evidence for or against the edit you want to effect. But it does provide evidence for retaining some comparison of the RSS with Fascism in the article, since clearly this is a comparison scholarly sources repeatedly make, in one way or another.
Is your point perhaps that the RSS did Fascism even better than the Europeans? This is what this source is effectively stating, for example. Brusquedandelion (talk) 15:34, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, but that's exactly how Wikipedia defines OR. I suggest you revise that page to better understand what original research is— and I also suggest checking out WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. Your friend Kautilya3, of course, knows this, so they deny the facts, whereas you deny the consequence. In this sense, you ironically provide support for my argument.

Nope. Kautilya3 may disagree on what their argument was based on, but that is not OR. OR is analysis or synthesis of published material that reaches or implies a conclusion not stated by the sources. Simply pointng out faults with sources and discounting them based on those faults is not OR, please read the policies you cite.
I would also caution against throaway accusations of WP:RGW, as well as dropping edit warring notices at talk pages after yourself repeatedly reverting to your preferred version. It is highly disruptive. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 16:55, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

OR is analysis or synthesis of published material that reaches or implies a conclusion not stated by the sources

Yes, and that is exactly what Kautilya3 does. As an example, do you think the source that Kautilya3 calls "hardly scholarly" reaches the conclusion that it itself is unscholarly? Obviously not, but Kautilya3 seems to think WP:IDONTLIKEIT is a valid reason for rejecting a source's conclusions, without citing independent, reliable sources that make the same argument. As another example, he specifically disputed one source which claims Mazzini was a Fascist. Wikipedia doesn't care what you personally think about whether Mazzini was a Fascist or not! If you can find reliable sources making the same argument (not just regarding Mazzini, but specifically about Mazzini and how he inspired the RSS, as otherwise this would be WP:SYNTH), that is a different matter.

I would also caution against throaway accusations of WP:RGW, as well as dropping edit warring notices at talk pages after yourself repeatedly reverting to your preferred version

For the umpteenth time, my last revert was to a version prior to my own edits as well as Kautilya3's. Thus, you should heed your own warning. Brusquedandelion (talk) 17:01, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is either a WP:CIR issue or you are deliberately misreading policy.

As an example, do you think the source that Kautilya3 calls "hardly scholarly" reaches the conclusion that it itself is unscholarly

Are you seriously saying that we cant find a source's commentary insufficient or unreliable unless the source calls itself insufficient or unreliable? What sort of an argument is this?
As for your revert, not only is it to a version that is effectively the same as your preferred version (separate issues with that as well - The sentence was modified incorrectly in between as a "copyedit" from the older longstanding version), but your excuse would be invalid even if it was true. Please read WP:EDITWAR. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 17:14, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Are you seriously saying that we cant find a source's commentary insufficient or unreliable unless the source calls itself insufficient or unreliable?

You cannot find a source's commentary insufficient or unreliable, but you can cite other independent, reliable sources which make that argument. Kautilya3 has not done this, and therefore their rationale is purely OR.

As for your revert, not only is it to a version that is effectively the same as your preferred version

Again, this is just false! Why are you lying when anyone can see the page history? The lead has claimed that the RSS drew inspiration from Fascist movements for at least 4 years. Notably, this is not a version that refers to the organization as "far right," which would indeed be my "preferred version." Brusquedandelion (talk) 17:30, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, and how could I forget. This quote doesn't even reference the RSS! Yet again, more WP:SYNTH from you. Brusquedandelion (talk) 16:55, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Brusquedandelion, you are writing a lot of stuff here, but you are not processing the points that I had made. So I went back and put in bold face, the key points. Please read them again and process them. A couple of points of explanation. "Bound to show" in Cassolari's text means that she hasn't shown it. She simply believes that it will show. That is not evidence. Regarding Mazzini, Mazzini was dead long before Fascism was born. So, it doesn't make sense to call him "fascist". Why the scholar called him a "fascist", I have no idea. It is also wildly beyond the topic of this page. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 18:09, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Once again, this is your WP:OR. You have bolded your original research, but that does not make it any less your original research, I'm afraid.

"Bound to show" in Cassolari's text means that she hasn't shown it.

She makes this claim early in the article. She then proceeds to do exactly that: to show it. It is an introductory remark, and not a conclusion of the text. This is readily apparent even from the title of the article.

Regarding Mazzini, Mazzini was dead long before Fascism was born. So, it doesn't make sense to call him "fascist"

This is your WP:SYNTH, I'm afraid. The fact is the source refers to him as such. Brusquedandelion (talk) 18:15, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Talbot, Ian (1996), "Crowds, Ceremonial and State Symbolism: The Role of the Muslim National Guards in the Pakistan Movement", Ibid, pp. 59– – via archive.org

3O

I am afraid that I do not really see much (any?) reason in Brusquedandelion's rather-simplistic arguments. One shall ideally start by reading Ben Zachariah's A Voluntary Gleichschaltung? Indian Perspectives Towards a non-Eurocentric Understanding of Fascism to appreciate the complexities and why the line obfuscates more than it clarifies. TrangaBellam (talk) 17:53, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Although the connections of proponents of a militant Hindu nationalism (now simply referred to as the Sangh Parivar or Hindutvabadi) as a völkisch nationalism with Fascism and Nazism, not to mention with its leaders, are well worked out, [source: Casolari; contrasted with Jaffrelot who is said to "specifically avoid the fascism question"] it remains unclear how much the appeal of the Hindu ideologues M.S. Golwalkar, K.B. Hegdewar, or V.D. Savarkar actually depended upon the borrowings of their ideas from fascists, rather than the similarities that they recognised and perhaps reformulated in the language of fascism. The Sangh Parivar, and especially those who organised its paramilitary wings and wrote its ideological treatises, were familiar with European fascism, particularly its most successful Italian and German variants, and found them good, worthwhile, and useful models to emulate. This is not to suggest, however, that all of their ideas were merely imitations. It is not clear whether the fascist connection garnered any further support for the Hindutva brigade amongst their following, or whether the family resemblances of the ideologies brought them closer together.

Another example can be seen in a “Muslim” group: Inayatullah Khan al-Mashriqi, the founder and leader of the Khaksar movement, which was also called fascist in its own time, claimed to have met Hitler in 1926; later he even claimed that Hitler had learned from him!

TrangaBellam (talk) 18:03, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Your own source affirms that the connections of proponents of a militant Hindu nationalism (now simply referred to as the Sangh Parivar or Hindutvabadi) as a völkisch nationalism with Fascism and Nazism, not to mention with its leaders, are well worked out. It only disputes the exact mechanism and degree of this connection. The disputed line, which Kautilya3 removed, only makes the very weak claim that the RSS "dr[e]w... its inspiration" from these movements, which is clearly supported even by your own source.
Also, are you seriously claiming that Kautilya3's arguments are not OR? Note that, unlike you, they do not actually reference any other sources. They merely cast aspersions on the existing sources. Brusquedandelion (talk) 18:20, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
OR is only prohibited in article-space; source analyses on talk pages are necessarily OR. It's when that OR strays beyond the bounds of Wikipedia's definitions of NPOV and RS that it becomes a problem. In any case, this talk page is intended for discussion of article improvements, not about the quality of another editor's arguments. It is patently obvious there are lots of sources discussing the similarities, connections, and differences between Hindutva and European fascism. The focus here needs to be on how to summarize them accurately: what's currently in the article fails to do this. Vanamonde93 (talk) 18:28, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, so, first, you agree their analysis is OR. That's a good starting point.
The problem here is that they have deleted a well-sourced claim, that has been, in one form or another, in the WP:STABLE version of the article for at least half a decade, based on their own original research. Notably, they have not substituted the claim with any other regarding the connections between RSS ideology and Fascism.
I agree that the present article fails to accurately summarize these connections. However, deleting this sentence and not adding anything in its place is a clearly substandard "solution". It is a non-solution, in fact, and results in a article that fails to meet WP:NPOV guidelines by omission. Brusquedandelion (talk) 18:32, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm saying that being OR doesn't disqualify talk page source analysis in any way, and as such it's not relevant whether it's OR or not. I've restored the stable version, per below.
Let's focus on identifying some good sources and summarizing them, please. The ones I have in my notes are several Jaffrelot works; Bhatt & Mukta 2000; Bhatt 2001; Freykenburg 2008; Kurien 2017; and Leidig 2020. I will dig out full citations when I've a little more time, but hopefully the many voices here are already aware of these. Vanamonde93 (talk) 18:44, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, I agree with this. I am presently working on summarizing the sources I have access to, and will share my work soon. I invite the other parties in this discussion to do the same. Brusquedandelion (talk) 18:48, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I do not agree with K3 either but more importantly, I do not agree with you or the line. If after consulting Zachariah's article, you do not see the problems with our reductive formulation, what can I say? And, no, "drew its inspiration from" is not a weaker version of what Zachariah notes — quite the opposite rather! TrangaBellam (talk) 20:20, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Again- it isn't my formula. However I think removing what little mention there is in the article of a connection between European Fascism and the RSS results in an objectively worse article.

no, "drew its inspiration from" is not a weaker version of what Zachariah notes

Yeah, I don't understand this logic at all. Brusquedandelion (talk) 01:20, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have now actually read the Casolari piece, which Kautilya3 incorrectly or perhaps dishonestly summarized as only making the claim that future research is "bound to show" the connection on question— in fact, this remark is merely introductory, and subsequent to this, Casolari explicitly provides archival evidence for this assertion, and indeed this is the whole point of the essay. I have to ask, TrangaBellam— did you read this piece? It is impossible to understand how someone could honestly read that piece and agree with Kautilya3's assessment of it, for reasons I have summarized above (Ctrl+F the string "As the article is not easily accessible without" and you will find my comment). This completely casts into doubt the rest of Kautilya3's assessment of the sources, whether or not they read this piece (as if they did read it, they are guilty of dishonesty; and if they did not, they are clearly unfamiliar with the pieces they are critiquing). Brusquedandelion (talk) 04:18, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have not read Casolari's essay but I assume her ~100 page book — In the shadow of the swastika: the relationships between Indian radical nationalism, Italian fascism and nazism (Routledge; 2020) — is the best exposition of her thesis and I had read it, long ago. Chapter 2 is the relevant one:
So, Casolari starts by noting (p. 33-34):

It is hard to assert whether Fascism had a part to play in the birth of militant organisations such as the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) [...] Initially, the RSS must have been very closely modelled on the akharas, the Bengali gymnasiums where martial arts and paramilitary training were performed – and the secret societies founded in Maharashtra by young militants close to Tilak, including the Savarkar brothers.

However, she cautions (p. 34-36) that the contemporary Marathi press (1920s) held Fascist politics in immense regard and given certain similarities between fascist militias and RSS since inception, it is not improbable that the founders were influenced by Fascism. In the next couple of sections, Casolari's excruciating focus is on Moonje's maneuvers in Italy during Jan-Feb 1931 including on his meeting with Mussolini — Moonje, in his diary, had noted (p. 42) about the relevance of the symbol of the ‘fascio’ to Indian context and of his plans to replicate it in India esp. by paramilitary training on a mass-scale. She ends the section by noting that:

the impact [of the trip] on the future development of Hindu militancy can hardly be underestimated.

In the next section, Casolari shows how across the 1930s, Moonje waxed about the need of militarily organising the Hindus along the lines of Mussolini and, in 1938 (p. 51; c.f. p. 47: 1934), would eventually open the Bhonsla Military School in association with RSS. However, as she notes in footnote 56:

Moonje had already shown some interest in the question of military education by the end of 1920s. He was in favour of the “Indianisation” of the army... In [1929] he founded the Rifle Association in Nagpur.

Fwiw, the idea of "militarily organising the Hindus" againsta an amorphous other (British/Muslims/...) has been a prominent component in multiple strands of Indian Nationalism since 1920s (if not before; see Franziska Roy's unpublished dissertation) — while I am sympathetic to the argument about how Moonje might have augmented it, she does not show any cognizance of the complexity of the issue! Nonwtheless, even she had to concede (p. 51):

[T]he values and practices that Moonje considered the roots of military education were more or less those of the akharas and the secret societies.

So, now, all that said and done, how does Casolari transpose Moonje's flirtations with fascism onto RSS except by a guilt-of-association? She takes recourse to an IB note from 1933 that had the RSS characterized as would-be Nazis and a meeting in 1934 where HMS leaders spoke approvingly of RSS for organizing a volunteer corps of Hindus.
To wrap up, as Zachariah (2020) notes:

[D]eeper intellectual, institutional and organisational, or social histories of engagements with fascism are not available. Many histories or analyses of Hindutva [eg: Jaffrelot] simply avoid the uncomfortable question of fascism; those that do not [eg: Casolari], rely mainly on the connections some of these Hindutva ideologues had with fascism in Europe.

I have nothing else to add except that as much as Casolari's scholarship is based on meticulous archival work, it is methodologically shabby, refusing to think of Fascism except as a Western import — having some not-very-clear minimums — for Indian consumers and, in the process, missing the forest for the trees. History, done Casolari's way, takes away focus from the multilocal longue durée histories of fascist repertoire of ideas. TrangaBellam (talk) 11:16, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

References

First, what's at dispute here is not whether you personally find Casolari's conclusions convincing. What is of primary dispute is whether Kautilya3's interpretation of them is accurate— and in particular, whether or not she herself is making the argument that the RSS is inspired by Fascism. And the fact is, as you have conceded at this point, she absolutely is! Thus, Casolari is a perfectly valid source for inserting a claim of this form into the article. This is what I asked you, and it is regrettable that you answered not by telling us what Casolari actually believes, but instead by deflecting and answering the (frankly, irrelevant) question of how her words make you, personally, feel.
Unfortunately, you are just some guy on Wikipedia, as am I, and your or my analysis of Casolari can never serve as the primary basis for her treatment in this Wikipedia text, although you are free to air your grievances on the talk page. Unless reputable sources argue what you are arguing, they simply cannot form the basis for editing the article! To my knowledge, reputable sources have not made the argument that Casolari is being "methodologically shabby" (a contention you don't give any real evidence for, by the way, besides vibes, a veritable morass of contradiction, and general WP:IDONTLIKEIT— but more on that later). Some have arrived at perhaps slightly different conclusions than her, and whatever text we decide on the article should reflect the multiplicity of such claims. However, the specific analysis you are making will not be amongst them because, actually, reputable sources don't concur in your assessment.
Now to get into the actual meat of your comment. There is a delectable irony running throughout your critique where, on the one hand, you use any sort of nuance in Casolari's position as evidence of weakness in her general thesis, while simultaneously accusing her of lacking nuance! What are we to conclude from this particular hypocrisy, other that that you have convinced yourself of the lack of merit of Casolari's thesis, and are now mission-bound to show it by any "evidence" necessary— even by flatly contradictory lines of evidence? Such a treatment is something anyone can post on a Wikipedia talk page, which is why it appears here and not in, for example, a review article in a peer-reviewed historical journal, because such drive-by analysis would never fly in the latter. Yes, Casolari permits that the RSS was not singularly inspired by European Fascism. But no one was arguing otherwise. You have only to compare your assessment of Casolari's text as lacking "cognizance of the complexity of the issue" with her own words, which roundly put to rest any such characterization of her work: If it is true that the Hindu society elaborated its own patterns of militarisation — I refer to the shakas as a typically Indian phenomenon — it is equally true that a most relevant result of fascist influence was the transmission of a more functional organisation and a stronger political character to the already existing organisations of political Hinduism.
To claim anyone was arguing otherwise is is fundamentally a strawman you and Kautilya3 have set up because you know the actual argument being made (that European Fascism, via a variety of means, played an integral role in shaping the rise of the RSS) is essentially unimpeachable. All reliable sources do is debate the specific mechanisms by which it happened. Casolari's contribution, in the main, to this body of work is showing, via archival evidence (none of which you actually mention in your comment), the specific ways that direct contact between Fascist leaders and Hindutva ideologues acted to shape the ideology of the latter, and on the ideological level, how fascis[m] influence[d]... the way in which Hindu nationalism developed its own concept of diversity, transforming 'diverse' people into enemies. This is why she focuses on the Moonje-Mussolini meeting, not because she believes in a "guilt-of-association" but because this meeting actually very concretely shaped the evolution of Moonje's ideology, and because direct contacts are the very focus of her work. And since you quote her assertion that the impact [of the trip] on the future development of Hindu militancy can hardly be underestimated without giving us any real reason to doubt it, I must conclude you have conceded on the veracity of this specific point, at least.
I must say, by the way, the flippant characterization of her work as simple "guilt-of-association" is particular galling when you consider (inter alia) the sheer amount of textual evidence she gives for RSS/Hindutva ideologues expressing admiration for specific aspects of Hitlerite and Italian Fascist ideology (some of which you even reference yourself!), for example, this passage from Golwarkar (from the article; not sure if it is in the book), written the year prior to his becoming general secretary of the RSS:

To keep up the purity of the nation and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the semitic races - the Jews. National pride at its highest has been manifested here... a good lesson for us in Hindustan to learn and profit by.

(She goes on to show that this feeling of admiration for the Jewish policy of Germany seems to have been shared by the entire circle of Hindu nationalism at the end of the 1930s..)
I'm sorry, but if one of the RSS' chief ideologues literally, nakedly saying "that Hitler guy really went off when he put humans in ovens, we should try something like that here" strikes you as mere "guilt-of-association", I must conclude you have made up your mind on this issue and that no sort of evidentiary standard will actually convince you.
Now, regarding this statement:

Fwiw, the idea of "militarily organising the Hindus" against an amorphous other (British/Muslims/...

The idea of ganging up on your (perceived) enemies is not novel in any culture, ever; arguably, even animals do it. That is not what at contention here. Your reductive strawman formulation (and in particular, the conflation of "external" enemies e.g. the British with "internal" ones e.g. for Hindutva, Muslims and to a lesser extent Congress; for Hitler, the Jews) conflates and flattens any and all such categorizations and conceptions of the enemy. Casolari, as an actual historian, is much more nuanced. Her treatment shows how the Hindutva/RSS conception of "internal enemies" was specifically influenced by the Fascist conception of the same— The theme of the 'internal enemy' is a further element of affinity between the ideology of fascism and of Hindu nationalism, expressed by a similar rhetoric (and in particular, how the development of such ideology was mediated by direct contact between Fascist and Hindutva ideologues— the very thing you frivolously dismiss as "guilt-of-association"). In favor of this thesis she cites, inter alia, the many lines of evidence showing the RSS had an at best ambivalent and vacillating attitude towards British rule (the "external" enemy); and correspondingly, the relatively unimportant role they played in the Indian independence movement. By this means she differentiates the RSS from other Indian organizations a very superficial analysis (such as your own) might analogize to the RSS, and in particular she shows how this difference was mediated by means of influence from Italian and German Fascism.
In conclusion— I strongly suspect your analysis would never pass muster at e.g. a peer-reviewed publication, and thus what I am about to suggest is an impossible task; but if you can find reliable sources making the same critique of Casolari as you are, we can certainly discuss working it into the article.
Until such time, the main takeaway here is: your implicit agreement that Kautilya3 misreads the sources (given that both of your readings of her fundamentally and starkly differ); and that Casolari does, in fact, argue at great length for the influence Fascism had on the development of the RSS, your personal feelings about the efficacy of such an argument notwithstanding, and thus she is a perfectly valid citation for the claim that the RSS was inspired and shaped by European Fascism. Brusquedandelion (talk) 13:24, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Huh? The reply is bizarre (have you even read — much less understood — Zachariah (2020)? Can you, maybe, summarize his critiques for me?) but more to the point, do you understand that Casolari is not the end-of-everything in this area? She is contradicting Jaffrelot — a far-reputed scholar — in explicit; perhaps, you can let us know what does footnote 84 in Ch. 2 of Casolari (2020) speak to? Thanks, TrangaBellam (talk) 13:56, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't support Brusquedandelion's line as written; it's an obvious over-simplification. Yet what we have at the moment is pretty bad; there's numerous scholars analyzing both the similarities and the differences between Hindutva and European fascist movements of the 20th century, and the notion that Golwalkar and Savarkar drew inspiration from ethno-nationalist movements is most certainly not restricted to "euro-centric" scholars. The article as a whole is pretty bad, but the ideology and analysis sections could be greatly fleshed out with contemporary scholarly sources, and a summary of the links to fascism certainly belong in there. It is also worth remembering that in contemporary usage fascism is used by scholars to denote particular structural and ideological features of a movement, irrespective of chronology. The timeline therefore doesn't preclude the usage of the term with respect to the Hindutva movement. Vanamonde93 (talk) 18:04, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • +1. And, indeed, the whole debate on whether - and to what extent - the founding fathers of RSS/... depended on ideas of fascism emanating from Europe is quite misplaced and oblivious of recent scholarship that shuns such a derivative-model (as Ben Z writes) approach. TrangaBellam (talk) 18:08, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    That's all fine and well, but the change Kautilya3 is proposing does not actually make the article more nuanced and in line with this recent scholarship. On the contrary, it removes what little mention there actually is in the article of a connection between the RSS and Fascism. This is an objectively worse edit in that sense, even by your own argument. Brusquedandelion (talk) 18:24, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't support Brusquedandelion's line as written

It isn't my line. It is the WP: STABLE line, some version of which has been in this article for half a decade or longer, which Kautilya3 has removed without reaching talk page consensus. Brusquedandelion (talk) 18:17, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You are correct; it was the stable version, or the closest thing we have to it. As such I've restored the stable version, and hopefully that will drive more pro-active discussion here. Vanamonde93 (talk) 18:40, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Please, V, this is a grossly poor line — almost parody-worthy. What needs to be emphasized upon — in no uncertain terms — is the similarities between RSS' ideology and fascism; not this. TrangaBellam (talk) 20:20, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
WP:STABLE doesn't mean the article is frozen. When a policy-based edit is made and no policy-based objection has been made, crying out STABLE doesn't help. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 20:23, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Your edit was not "policy-based", I have repeatedly argued. Reiterating the claim that it is does not make it any more so. Brusquedandelion (talk) 01:15, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What do you suggest and why? M.Bitton (talk) 20:44, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree about the emphasis, but I'm seeing a lot of stone-walling about that similarity above and very little substantive engagement with the sources. That combined with the lack of consensus for outright removal prompted my revert. I'm not going to make another. Vanamonde93 (talk) 20:47, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • What do you think of this?

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is the Indian counterpart of the western alt-right ideologies today and the flag-bearers of ultra-nationalism in this part of the world. Founded in 1925, primarily with an objective of consolidating Hindus against Muslims, RSS is driven by a divisive communal “Hindutva” ideology. They always had close links with fascist ideologists and organizations since the very beginning. One of the founders of RSS (B.S. Moonje) had visited Italy in 1931 to study the methods of the Italian fascist youth organization “Ballila” and had personally met up with the fascist dictator Mussolini. RSS founders had, in fact, drawn their inspiration and ideas from Italian and German fascists, and modeled their ideology of ethnic nationalism and built their organization emulating the Nazis. RSS’s slogan “one flag, one leader and one ideology” is a direct adaptation from Nazis and other European fascist outfits. RSS wants to transform India into a “Hindu Nation,” where Muslims and Christians are treated as second-class citizens. RSS ideologue Golwalkar (1939) was a staunch follower and admirer of Hitler and Nazism. He had never supported a secular India and was of the view that Hindus and other non-Hindu religions cannot coexist in India. He was, in fact, a strong proponent of using Nazi model to purge India of non-Hindu races. In his book We or Our Nationhood Defined, Golwalkar (1939, p. 87–88) wrote:

To keep up the purity of the race and its culture, Germany shocked the world by purging the country of the Semitic race—the Jews. Race pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has also shown how well-nigh impossible it is for races and cultures having differences going to the roots, to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindustan to learn and profit by.

One of the reports filed in 1933 by the British Home Department had categorically identified RSS as an organization that aspired to be in the future India what the “Fascists” were to Italy and the “Nazis” to Germany.

The above was copied from this source. The one nation, one culture, one people slogan is also mentioned in this source. M.Bitton (talk) 20:49, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That you need to brush up on WP:RS? TrangaBellam (talk) 22:59, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What part of what has been quoted do you disagree with? M.Bitton (talk) 23:09, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Moonje and the Golwalkar quote is discussed right at the top of this section. Please read it. As for the British administrators WP:CRYSTAL, see that policy page. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:34, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Feel free to link to whatever you're asking me to read (assuming it's directly related to what has been quoted). Also, why are you citing WP:CRYSTAL? M.Bitton (talk) 23:53, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, you are editor that reinstated the disputed content? Please note that I have put a Failed verification tag on it. Please provide quotations from the soruces that support the disputed content. I will give you 24 hours. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 00:39, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I restored the stable version that was restored by someone else for the simple reason that a) it's been there for years, b) nobody has questioned it before now and c) those who are questioning it did not say anything about failed verification.
There multiple sources that are attached to that sentence: which source did you tag? I will add the source that I quoted above if I have to.
I can add so much sourced content, but the only reason that's preventing me from doing so is the idea that we are having a discussion and trying to understand each other's positions. If that's not the case, let me know and I'll let the reliable sources do all the talk. M.Bitton (talk) 00:49, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The fact that you do not like the conclusions of the text do not constitute a "failed verification", sorry. Brusquedandelion (talk) 01:17, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
M.Bitton When you revert somebody's edit and reinstate disputed content, you should be able to defend it and show how it satisfies WP:V and WP:NPOV. If you are unable to do that, you should self-revert and stay out.
Brusquedandelion, whoever knew that you come here and jump around like a big boy, but I have to teach you first grade math? WP:V says:

All quotations, and any material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, must include an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports[b] the material.

[b] A source "directly supports" a given piece of material if the information is present explicitly in the source so that using this source to support the material is not a violation of Wikipedia:No original research.

I have also now added a quotation requested tag. Please add quotations from any of those sources that "directly supports" the disputed content, and remove others that don't support it. You have 24 hours. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 03:24, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Brusquedandelion, whoever knew that you come here and jump around like a big boy, but I have to teach you first grade math?

Please refer to Wikipedia:No personal attacks and refrain from harassing me.

Please add quotations from any of those sources that "directly supports" the disputed content, and remove others that don't support it. You have 24 hours.

Sorry, but on Wikipedia there is no deadline. I'm happy to contribute to making this a better article, and I will do so with an appropriate amount of urgency, but I have zero interest in this sort of petty bullying and browbeating. Please do not ping me again if you intend to address me in this manner, or I will have no choice but to seek administrator intervention. Also,

When you revert somebody's edit and reinstate disputed content, you should be able to defend it and show how it satisfies WP:V and WP:NPOV

This is not how the WP:BRD cycle works, as regrettably, it is your edit to a WP:STABLE article that was disputed, and thus until such time as WP:CONSENSUS is reached, you should refrain from reintroducing your disputed edits. You should review that article to better understand Wikipedia policy on reverts. Brusquedandelion (talk) 03:32, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Deadline can be given as per policy.
Any material lacking an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports[b] the material may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source.
Since you have restored it (and that includes M.Bitton as well), you are under an obligation to provide a soure that directly supports the material. Or, you can remove the disputed content and take your own sweet time. Your choice. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 12:21, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Kautilya3: Already done, and besides, the drive-by tagging is clearly disruptive as all 4 cited sources support the statement (this has been confirmed by another editor today). Now, do me a bif favour and refrain from pinging me again. M.Bitton (talk) 12:47, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see where you have done anything. All 4 cited sources are the original ones, and I have already flagged them as failing verification and requested quotations that show that they "directly support" the content. You have not provided any quotations. (You have mentioned a longer work by Casolari here on the talk page, but again without any quotations.) How can you possibly make a disputed revert and then say stop pinging me? That doesn't make any sense. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 12:58, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If you try harder, you may be able to see my other comments (including the one below this). M.Bitton (talk) 13:07, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Kautilya3: I already have and left more reliable sources here that fully support what I restored. I personally don't think it's needed, but if it helps, I can easily add the above source and quote to the article and remove the drive-by fv tag. M.Bitton (talk) 03:36, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]


  • Here are a couple of reliable sources about the subject:
  1. In the Shadow of the Swastika The Relationships Between Indian Radical Nationalism, Italian Fascism and Nazism, by Marzia Casolari.
  2. RSS: Marketing Fascism as Hindutva (unlike the first, this one is easily accessible). M.Bitton (talk) 01:03, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is an excellent start, thank you. However it presently has a decidedly unencyclopedic tone that needs some work. Brusquedandelion (talk) 01:16, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

 Comment: I regret I have no time to dig into sources at the moment, but let me just note that:

  • The concept of a nation-state developed in Europe during the 19th century, culminating in two world wars that, unlike previous wars, were not simple land grabs but were underpinned by ethonationalism.
  • For most of the 19th century and much of the 20th century, that concept was relatively alien to India where the primary self-identification for a large part of population was, and still largely is, caste and/or ethnic group.
  • Vande Mataram or Anandamath, being works of high culture, didn't reflect the realities and sensitivities of the masses at the time. Chattopadhyay only called for the rise of Indian nationalism, and not reflected its existence.
  • While it can be argued that individual nationalist movements across the world did not necessarily need direct inspiration from Europe, several authors have noted direct contacts between Indian and European groups. It's thus hard not to notice the emergence of such common features as cult of violence, military-inspired civilian groups, structured intimidation (mass marches, weapon display), adoption of brown/khaki colour, focus on organised military training of children, special greeting rituals, and ideological polarisation (us vs everybody else). Most of that was alien to India until 20th century.
Whether the early RSS leaders simply tried to duplicate the Italian or German phenomena of the times, will likely never be known. What we know is that they saw European fascism. We also know that the very idea of militant nationalism, focused on a freshly conceptualised nation state, was only just taking off in Europe during fin de siècle, and, arguably, was alien to the Indian society at the time.
Interestingly, while large parts of Europe began to move away gradually from ethnonationalism after the experiences of WW2, leading to the modern-day European Union with much less in terms of borders and ethnic tensions, India has been following the path of nation building accompanied by aggressive nationalism and an ever-growing polarisation between us and everybody else, which incidentally led to several military conflicts with four of its neighbours.
Now, it's all OR by me, just a Wikipedia editor. Since i was approached directly, I'm posting it only as a justification for why I can't support Kautilya3, for whom I have high respect, in arguing that RSS was not inspired by the European fascist movements. To the best of my knowledge, aggressive ethnonationalism promoted as a state ideology and enforced through organised grassroot-level movements was not an indigenous Indian invention. Quite baffling in all this is Kautilya3's exclamation that "These are just a bunch of Eurocentric scholars who want to claim that only the Europeans knew how to bake bread", as it instantly reminds of the kettle and pot proverb. Except that bragging rights to fascism bring no honour. — kashmīrī TALK 01:50, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
To add to this— I have at this point, on several occasions, asked @Kautilya3 if their point is that the RSS did Fascism even better than the Europeans. Talbot, for example, a source they offered up, while it does not even mention the RSS, certainly does seem to be gesturing at something like this, as does Kautilya3's own assertion re: baking bread. Brusquedandelion (talk) 03:34, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I will give brief reply since I don't want us to digress. Not only the "nation-state", but the idea of "nation" itself is an import from Europe. There are no words for "nation" in Indian languages: rashtra (meaking kingdom, same as rajya) is an artificial translation. But nationalism can exist even if people don't have the language to articulate it. They might just express it in strange ways that we can't relate to. I believe Bharat-mata is one of those ways. Bankim Chandra Chatterjee was certainly a nationalist. Whether he was a "Hindu nationalist" or an "Indian nationalist" or whether he even saw any difference between the two is debatable.
The point of mentioning Vande Mataram and Vivekananda is to underscore the roots of these nationalisms in which Hindutva was born. This is amply analysed by Christophe Jaffrelot in his 600-page volume on Hindu nationalist movement. That is how the Indians baked their own "bread". -- Kautilya3 (talk) 12:21, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
But this is not what I asked you and indeed not what is being discussed. Vivekananda, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, etc. were not members of the RSS. If you think all nationalism is Fascism or vice versa, feel free to make that assertion, of course, but if not, that's fundamentally not what this discussion is about.

There are no words for "nation" in Indian languages: rashtra (meaking kingdom, same as rajya) is an artificial translation

This was also true in European languages— until it wasn't! The meanings of words change. The idea that in the 4,000+ year history of the Indian civilization, purely by happenstance nationalism just magically happened to arise precisely when it was ruled by a European power, concomitant with the rise of nationalisms all over the world, and that the first and chief ideologues of this nationalism were overwhelmingly upper class Indians brought up in the Anglo mould, educated at British-founded schools or universities, also by coincidence, is laughable. You should read Imagined Communities by Benedict Anderson (and The Indian Ideology by his brother Perry Anderson, for a specifically Indian treatment) if you sincerely believe this. The former, for his part, firmly roots the first nationalisms in the Americas, and only subsequently Europe, and then elsewhere (are we to conclude from this analysis that Anderson is a Latin American-centric scholar, who thinks Bolívar taught the world how to bake bread? Obviously not).
None of this is to deny the agency of Indians in baking their own bread! Far from it. This is the problem with reductive Hindutva (pseudo-)historiographies, which assume that if anything has had "foreign" influence it automatically makes it worse, somehow; or that if we can't show that everything from calculus to toilet paper was invented in India (ideally before anyone else) this is somehow an assault on the Indian national character. Such characterizations reek of a deep seated inferiority complex— ironically itself the result of centuries of colonial rule, yet another way the European leaves their imprint on India.
But again— that's besides the point. We aren't just discussing the origins of nationalisms in India, we are specifically discussing the origins of Indian Fascist and far-right ideologies. I have probably already committed a grievous error by entertaining your strawman, but it needed to be said. Brusquedandelion (talk) 13:48, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Kautilya3 I can't read that book atm but I see a distinction between "we all live in a single country" (a rashtra called Mother India, etc.) and "we are one nation".
As I wrote, I'm unconvinced that nationalism – at least in its classic, European flavour – really took off in India before the later half of the 20th century, and also more as a result of state propaganda than an actual self-identification of the population. Earlier attempts at fascism, like one of the RSS, were closer to what we'd call sectarianism than nationalism (again, because of the primary identification of the population being with a religious/ethnic group rather than with the entirety of India's inhabitants).
By the way, I'm yet to meet a person who'd introduce themselves as "I'm Indian" instead of "I'm from India", lol. — kashmīrī TALK 13:54, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Here from the OR noticeboard. I checked all four sources that are currently used to support the claim, and all four verified that European fascism was an influence on the movement. That should be the end of the discussion. One good point was raised though: this isn't sufficiently covered in the body. The correct response would be to add this information to the body. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 05:19, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    The argument isnt that nobody makes that claim, but that much better scholarship exists that contradicts the claims and the ones who support it are shabby or otherwise problematic.
    Its fine to say in the body "some scholars argue...... Others point to.... " etc, but stating as fact in the lead is plainly contrary to policy. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 14:17, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • This organisation had many inspirations. There is no need to single out just one entity on lead. Srijanx22 (talk) 06:32, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    WP:DUE requires us to cover topics in proportion to their coverage in reliable sources, and the reality is that no small amount of ink has been spilled on documenting the extent and nature of the inspiration European Fascist movements had on the RSS. Brusquedandelion (talk) 07:46, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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