Jump to content

User:Fowler&fowler/Kingdom of Mysore FAR

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Fowler&fowler's concerns and sources

[edit]

I came across this article (again) while working on some Colonial India-related articles on Monday. (I realized the next day that I had made a few edits to it in March 2008.)

Mysore is variously a city, a district, and a larger historical region in southern India. In its last manifestation, it is also a major topic of historical study.

Background

[edit]
Background

In my cursory read I noticed three things about the article

(i) the page name itself was a little unusual. The scholarly literature largely refers to the more long-lasting political entity (mid-seventeenth century to mid-twentieth) as the "State of Mysore" or "Mysore state," reserving "Kingdom" with capital "K" (in the sense of a supra-local and unambiguously independent monarchy) for the rule of Mysore's Muslim Sultans Haider Ali and Tipu Sultan which lasted from 1761 to 1799,
(ii) the Mysore Rulers Infobox, was rather different from the more conventional one, say, for example, this one in Encarta Encyclopedia Archived 2009-07-16 at the Wayback Machine, and
(iii) the bibliography was woefully inadequate and obscure, especially for one of the most studied topics in Indian history. (See my view of the works cited).

My spur-of-the-moment assessment at that time was that the primary authors of this article had committed a continuum fallacy of blurring the distinction between chiefdom, principality, petty kingdom, independent Kingdom, and princely state. Mysore, which was each of these entities but at different times, was being referred to—for the entire time period—as "Kingdom," which it really only was during the period 1761 to 1799. (For example, it was only in 1610, that the Wodeyar rulers of Mysore (town) managed to conquer the fort at Seringapatam 20 miles away. See map here. Mysore region is in yellow, Mysore town is at the lower end of this region.)

I was perturbed by the infobox as well, since it at least had the appearance of historiographical revisionism: not only was the Hindu dynasty of the Wodeyars, which is normally not the focus of historians, being given a long tenure (of over 500 years), but also the two Muslim rulers of Mysore, Haider Ali and Tipu Sultan, the overwhelming focus of historians, were being recognized only in parentheses and as "de facto" in the text. (I became more perturbed later when I realized that the Wodeyars had links to Hindu nationalism, in particular to VHP or the World Hindu Organization, whose first chairman in the late 1960s was the Wodeyar ex-ruler of Mysore. I should add that I don't mean to imply that the article is deliberately slanted because of Hindu nationalist sympathies of any of its authors, but that Hindu nationalist revisionism is a legitimate issue in the recent historiography of Mysore.)

I made a post, which I later wished had been more polite, on this article's talk page. The primary author of this article user:Dineshkannambadi, replied in a few hours, however, the replies did not address my concerns adequately. (See my post on talk page and reply.)

I made one more attempt, where I was more specific (see one more attempt); however, that didn't elicit any response from the primary author.

I next searched the literature myself. In a few hours on Monday night, I managed to collect a large number of supportive references that contradict many of the assumptions of this article. Moreover, the list of authors of these references include some of the best-known historians working in the fields of early-modern or modern India.

(i) List of authors.

(ii) Evidence for the statement: Mysore was more or less a chiefdom until 1610, that from 1610 until 1761 either a principality or a petty kingdom, or both, but was not unambiguously independent supra-local entity. See supportive evidence.

(iii) Evidence for the statement: Haider Ali and Tipu Sultan were rulers of Mysore (without the use of any qualification, such as "de facto"). See evidence here.

(iv) Evidence for statement: After Tipu Sultan's death in 1799, the Wodeyars were restored by the British in a puppet sovereignty; in particular, the British took the state back between 1831 and 1881, and that this entity is usually called a princely state, not a kingdom. See evidence here. Although, the lead does now refer to it as a "princely state" as well, it had not done so until my edits of March 2008. See for example, Wikipedia pages for the other, larger, states: Hyderabad state, Princely state of Kashmir and Jammu.

(v) A little later, I also became aware of some possible ideological issues related to this article: (a) the connections of the Wodeyars to the Hindu right, and (b) the "revised" views of Tipu Sultan and Haider Ali constructed by some Hindu nationalist historians in the 1990s. Please see this section for the evidence.

After I posted the sources, the primary author user:Dineshkannambadi made a post, Dinesh's sources; however, I felt that it didn't address my concerns either.

My concerns

[edit]
My concerns

I want to say at the outset that I am aware that a lot of hard work has gone into this article. However, I feel that the article has some deficiencies. Here are my concerns:

  1. (Violation of FA criteria 1(b)) The article uses a few relatively obscure sources over and over again for its claims. (See the References and see also my assessment of them). Compare these with the list of some mainstream authors for this topic. This remains a major problem for the page.
  2. (Violation of FA criteria 1(c)) In my view, the authors of this article fall prey to a continuum fallacy in blurring the distinctions between chiefdom, principality, petty kingdom, (supra-local and unambiguously independent) Kingdom, and princely state. Overlaid on this is a likely fallacy of ambiguity resulting from the many meanings of Mysore (original town and historical capital, historical district, and larger historical region).
    1. The mainstream literature refers to the rule of the Hindu Wodeyar rulers of Mysore before 1610 as a chieftancy. Between 1610 and 1761 the region ruled by the Wodeyars is usually described as a principality, or petty kingdom (or both).
    2. Please read some descriptions of the Wodeyar rule up to 1761 in the mainstream literature. Contrast it now with the subsection, period of sovereignty in the article.
  3. (Violation of FA criteria 1(c) and 1(d). In my view, the authors overvalue the historical role of the Hindu Wodeyar rulers, and simultaneously undermine the importance of the Muslim rulers Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan.
    1. Mainstream authors consider Mysore during the years 1761–1799 to be an (unambiguously) independent Kingdom ruled by the Muslim Sultans Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan. After Tipu's defeat and death at the hands of the British in 1799, mainstream authors regards Mysore to be a nominally sovereign princely state "ruled" by the restored Wodeyars first from 1799 to 1831 and then again from 1881 to 1947, with the British directly governing Mysore between 1831 and 1881.
    2. Please read the lead of the article where the Muslim rulers are referred to as "de facto rulers." Please also examine the Mysore Rulers Infobox, where Haider Ali and Tipu Sultan are shown in parentheses. Contrast these descriptions with the mainstream's views of Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan. Not only are they not referred to as "de facto rulers" as they are in this article, but they are also often called "Sultans."
    3. Similarly, please also read the article's subsection, Princely State and contrast it with mainstream views on the Wodeyar "rule" in the princely state. Please also see the Wikipedia page for the larger Hyderabad state, which, like Mysore, traced its history back to an earlier time. Please note too that until my edits of March 2008, even Mysore's "princely state" status not acknowledged without qualification on this page.
  4. (Violation FA criteria 1(c) The use of the appellation "Kingdom of Mysore" for the "Princely State of Mysore" during the years 1799–1947 is a neologism and, consequently, violates criterion 1 (c). Please see Neologism and Other Princely States.
  5. (Violation FA criteria 1(c) The article makes errors of what could be called chronological-spatial correspondence. It includes under the cultural achievements of the "Kingdom of Mysore," the achievements made in regions that were not contemporaneously part of the Mysore kingdom, but that came to be included only later in time, and sometimes only briefly then. For example, the poet Sarvajna grew up in the Dharwar region in the 16th century. In the early 20th-century, Dharwar was 80 miles outside the north-west boundary of the princely state of Mysore (see here). In the 16th-century, however, the dominion of the chiefdom of Mysore did not extend even to the town of Srirangapatam 20 miles away. The poet is nonetheless mentioned in the article and discussed at greater length in the daughter article Kannada literature in the Kingdom of Mysore. That daughter article has many more errors of this sort: indeed its sub-section, Contemporary developments suggests that the primary author is not unaware of this problem.
  6. (Possible violation of FA criteria 1(d)) Finally, by not presenting the perspective of mainstream historians (described in my various lists), the article at least appears—with no intent imputed to any editor—to present a revisionist perspective that could be associated with the historiography of Hindu nationalism, alluded to, for example, in these scholarly articles. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:57, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

List of authors of Fowler&fowler's sources

[edit]
List of authors who have published on the topics covered in Kingdom of Mysore

Sources for nature of Wodeyar "rule" up to 1761

[edit]
Sources for nature of Wodeyar "rule" up to 1761

Note: "Wodeyar" is sometimes spelled "Wodiyar," "Wadiyar," or "Wadiar."

  • Stein, Burton (1987), Vijayanagara (The New Cambridge History of India), Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 156, ISBN 0521266939 Quote: "Odeyars (or 'wodeyars,' to add the Dravidian phonological glide) of Mysore arose as minor chiefs during the Vijaynagara times; they are first glimpsed in the early sixteenth century in a Kannada literary work of the time of the chief Chamaraja (1513–53), purportedly a local subordinate of Achyutadevaraya. Chamaraja's domain began as a handful of villages along the Kaveri where he established a small fortified place called Mahisura-nagara (from which Maisur and Mysore). The first inscriptions of these modest chiefs came in the time of Timmaraja Wodeyar, in 1551. By the 1570s the chieftaincy had expanded to thirty-three villages protected by a force of 300 soldiers, and in 1610, the last of the Vijayanagara agents at Srirangapatanam sold the fortress to Raja Wodeyar (1578–1617) under whom the chiefdom expanded into a major principality. (page 81)"
  • Bandyopadhyay, Sekhar (2004), From Plassey to Partition: A History of Modern India, New Delhi and London: Orient Longmans. Pp. xx, 548., ISBN 8125025960. Quote: "Originally a vice-royalty under the Vijayanagara empire in the sixteenth century, Mysore was gradually transformed into an autonomous principality by the Wodeyar dynasty. Its centralised military power began to increase from the late seventeenth century under Chikkadevaraja Wodeyar (1672–1704), but it reached it reached its real period of glory under Haidar Ali. A man of humble origin, Haidar had started his career as a junior officer in the Mysore army and gradually rose to prominence. By 1761 he took over political power in Mysore by ousting the corrupt dalwai (prime minister) Nanraj, who had in the meanwhile usurped real power in the kingdom by reducing the Wodeyar king into a mere titular head. (page 33)"
  • Ramusack, Barbara (2004), The Indian Princes and their States (The New Cambridge History of India), Cambridge and London: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 324, ISBN 0521039894 Quote:"(p.28) The Hindu dynasty of Mysore traditionally dates its origin to 1399 and so it might possibly be considered an antique state. However, because its greatest territorial and governmental expansion occurred from the late seventeenth century onward, Mysore seems more similar to warrior/conquest states such as Bhopal. Located in peninsular India, the rulers of Mysore were petty chieftains in the Vijayanagara state where the ruler held ritual sovereignty over little kings (known to the British as poligars) who collected the revenue and maintained law and order. By 1610 the last agent of the Vijayanagara king sold the Srirangapatanam fortress to Raja Wadiyar (1578–1617), who began the transition from petty chief to little king."
  • Manor, James (1975), "Princely Mysore before the Storm: The State-Level Political System of India's Model State, 1920-1936", Modern Asian Studies, 9 (1): 31–58, doi:10.1017/S0026749X00004868, JSTOR 311796 Quote:"(p.33) Prior to the rise of Haidar Ali in the 176os, the area which was to be known as Mysore state was a patchwork of highly localized agrarian 'little kingdoms'. A number of ambitious chieftains claimed to control portions of this area. But at best they exercised only a very loose suzerainty over the little kingdoms, most of which remained virtually autonomous. The Wadiyar family, ancestors of the Maharajas of Mysore, may be found among these chieftains and had at times claimed control over the southern and eastern parts of this area. But it was not until the time of Haidar Ali-a usurper who rose from the military service of the Wadiyars-and his son, Tipu Sultan, that the integration of these little kingdoms under supra-local authority began in earnest."
  • Robb, Peter (2004), A History of India (Palgrave Essential Histories), Houndmills, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Pp. xiv, 344, ISBN 0333691296.Quote: "(p.103) New states also arose where Mughal authority had been weak or indirect. Mysore was established as an independent state in the seventeenth century; it was extended under Chikka Deva (1672–1704)."
  • Keay, John (2001), India: A History, Grove Press. Pp. 578, ISBN 0802137970 Quote: "(p.394) The so-called "kingdom" of Mysore had been one of the several dependent chieftancies of nayak-ships to survive from the ruins of the Vijayanagar empire. Although vulnerable to expansionist ambitions of the Deccan sultanates in the seventeenth century and of the Marathas in the eighteenth century, its relations with the Mughal empire had been inconspicuous. Exceptionally, therefore, it was not a legatee of Mughal authority. Unlike, say, Hyderabad or Awadh, it did not correspond to a Mughal province; unlike the rajput and Maratha ruling families, its Wodeyar rulers, had not been top-ranking mansabdars; and unlike the Nawab-Nizam of Hyderabad, the Nawab of Awadh or the Nawab of Bengal, the Mysore Wodeyars and their successors lacked the stature and legitimacy of high imperial office."
    • Ibid. Quote: "(In 1799) Mysore was pared down to something not much bigger that the statelet it was before Haidar Ali's conquests (p. 401)."
  • Subrahmanyam, Sanjay (2008), "India: Regional States, c. 1700–1850:The Marathas:Mughal mystique in the 18th century:The case of Mysore", Encyclopaedia Britannica Quote:"This was the case, for example, in Mysore in the 1720s and '30s. Mysore had come under the sovereign umbrella of the Mughals in the late 1690s, as the result of an embassy sent to Aurangzeb by Cikka Deva Raja Vadiyar, the ruler of Mysore at the time. In effect, this meant that Mysore was to pay a periodic tribute (peshkash) to Mughal representatives in the south, but there was a problem in doing so. As Mughal authority in the Deccan and the south was itself fragmented, several possible channels of tribute existed. Mysore thus sought to make use of this ambiguity, playing off Chin Qilich Khan (still known as Nizam al-Mulk, a title his descendants would inherit), a powerful Mughal noble who in these years founded a dynasty at Hyderabad, against the Mughal representative at Arcot, thereby putting off the tribute payment. A further variable in the fiscal politics of Mysore was the presence of the Marathas; and some clans, such as the Ghorpades, made it a regular practice to raid the Mysore capital of Seringapatam. In this way, overlapping and at times conflicting claims were justified with reference to a Mughal centre that was distant and for the most part lacked interest in these affairs."
  • Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. II (1908), The Indian Empire, Historical, Published under the authority of His Majesty's Secretary of State for India in Council, Oxford at the Clarendon Press. Pp. xxxv, 1 map, 573. Quote: "(p.470) After the death of Aurangzeb in 1707, the whole of Southern India became practically independent of Delhi. In the Deccan proper the Nizam-ul-Mulk founded an hereditary dynasty, with Hyderabad for its capital, which exercised a nominal authority over the entire South. The Carnatic, or the lowland tract between the central plateau and the eastern sea, was ruled by a deputy of the Nizam, known as the Nawab of Arcot. Farther south, Trichinopoly was the capital of a Hindu Raja; Tanjore formed another Hindu kngdom under a degenerate descendant of Sivaji. Inland, Mysore was gradually growing into a third Hindu State; while everywhere local chieftains, called poligars, or naiks, were in semi-independent possession of citadels or hill-forts. These represented the deputies of the Hindu kingdom of Vijayanagar, and many of them had maintained a practical independence since its fall in 1565."
  • Bayly, C. A. (1990), Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire (The New Cambridge History of India), Cambridge and London: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 248, ISBN 0521386500 Quote: "The distinction between 'tribal' and Hindu India was never simple or static. But throughout north and central India and the Western Ghats (hills) were peoples only lightly touched by the major cultures and religions who lived in part by the skills of the pastoralist, the slash-and-burn farmer or the hunter and gatherer. Some of these people had chieftains who were designated rajas by outsides potentates, though often the individual nomadic camp or hunting family was the key political unit and the state hardly existed as an entity. The relationship between these petty kingdoms and local forms of production varied greatly. Sometimes as in the newly powerful state of Travancore on the south-west coast or Maratha Tanjore on the east coast, rulers intervened very closely in the production of rice or other valuable crops ... Between about 1600 and 1780 for instance the old Hindu state of Mysore progressively upped its nominal tax revenue progressively upped its nominal tax revenue from under 10 per cent of the gross produce to about 40 per cent under Tipu Sultan in the 1790s. Of course much of the enhanced revenue was never collected, but the growing costs of warfare and the desire for a new grandiose form of kingship spread across the subcontinent. (p.25)"
  • Bayly, Susan (2004), Saints, Goddesses and Kings: Muslims and Christians in South Indian Society, 1700-1900, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 532, ISBN 0521891035 Quote: "The nayaka stronghold of Jinji was overrun by Bijapur in 1638 and taken by the Marathas in 1677. In the seventeenth-century another new regime was formed up in Mysore, home of the Kannada-speaking Wodeyar rajas; this realm was taken over in the eighteenth century by the much-feared Muslim rulers Haidar Ali (c. 1722–82) and his son Tipu Sultan (1753–99) the famous 'tiger of Mysore'.) (p. 63)"
  • Michell, George (1995), Architecture and Art of Southern India: Vijayanagara and the successor states: 1350–1750, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 250, ISBN 0521441102 Quote: "The Telugu warriors were not the only viceroys to rise to power under the Aravidus; several military groups in the Kannada region also achieved autonomy at this time. The most important were the Nayakas of Keladi. The first known member of this family Chaudappa, hailed from Keladi, a small town in the wooded hills in the western part of the Kannada zone, and was active by 1506. ... The Wodeyars of Mysore began their careers as provincial governors in the southernmost part of the Kannada region. The first prominent Wodeyar, Hiriya Bettada Chamaraja, also known as Timmaraja (1513–53) was responsible for laying out the fort beneath Chamundeshvari hill in 1524, naming it Mihisuru (Mysore). His son, Timmaraja II (1553–72), was a subordinate of Tirumala. ... The next Wodeyar, Raja (1578–1617), sought mastery of the adjacent territories belonging to the Aravidus of Penukonda. The Gowda chiefs of Yelahanka, an insignificant town in the country immediately north-east of the Wodeyar kingdom, also served as provincial governors under Vijayanagara. Hiriya Kempe I (1513–69), who was much favored by Krishnaraya and Achyutaraya, erected a fort at Bangalore in 1537, making it his headquarters. All the later Gowdas ruled from this city, which steadily grew in prosperity and influence. (p. 18)"
    • Ibid. Quote: "He was succeeded by his younger brother, Tirumala (1623–59), the outstanding personality of the era and perhaps the most powerful of all Nayaka rulers. Tirumala's first task was to restore Madurai as the principal Nayaka headquarters of the kingdom. He waged wars against the Wodeyars of Mysore, and in turn subjugated lesser chiefs, such as those of Ramanathapuram (Ramnad), often with Portuguese assistance. (p. 19)
    • Quote: "A number of lesser chiefs who rose to prominence at the same time as the Gowdas and Wodeyars were also active temple builders. The Nayakas of Chitradurga are of interest since they chose a strikingly archaic manner for their construction. (p. 71)"
    • Quote: "The renewed fortunes of several local dynasties in the nineteenth century led to the revival of large-scale building projects. The Wodeyars, who were restored to the throne by the British, sponsored temples at Mysore and nearby Nanjangud; ... (p. 275–76)"
  • Alam, Muzaffar; Subrahmanyam, Sanjay, "Exploring the Hinterland: Trade and Politics in the Arcot Nizamat (1700–1732)", in Mukherjee, R.; Subramaniam, L. (eds.), Politics and Trade in the Indian Ocean World: Essays in Honour of Ashin Das Gupta, New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Pp. 294, pp. 113–164, ISBN 0195664558 Quote: "(pages 113–114) As elsewhere in the Indian subcontinent, the early eighteenth century in the northern Tamil country saw the rise to prominence of a new type of state, the autonomous nizamat, or what the British were apt to call the 'Nawabi' state, operating under the carapace of Mughal sovereignty. In the northern Tamil country or Karnatak Payanghat in the Mughal terminology of the epoch, is another story. ... The present essay attempts to sketch, ..., the main lines of development in the hinterland, or the Arcot nizamat under first Da'ud Khan Panni, and then the founder of the Nawayat 'dynasty', Muhammad Sa'id, or Sa'adatullah Khan. ... (p.118) In the second half of the 1690s, Kumara Yachana Naidu of the Recherla clan was given a jagir extending over Venkatagiri, Nellore and Tirupati ... To compensate these large alienations, additional tributes were occasionally levied on the Maratha Rajas of Tanjavur, on the Wodeyars at Srirangapatnam, and the Madurai Nayakas. ... (p. 138) In 1711, for example, the Dutch letters report the temporary absence of Sa'adatullah Khan in Mysore, where he had gone on a tribute gathering mission from the Wodeyars ..."
    • Ibid. Quote: "(pp. 152-53) The year 1724 witnessed a substantial crises in Deccan politics, with the defeat of the subadar Mubariz Khan by Nizam-ul-mulk Asaf Jah, who managed as a consequence to impose himself on Arcot as a superior authority. ... The next year, trouble in the Mysore area reared their head, and the nazim was obliged himself to lead an expedition there against the Wodeyars.

Sources for Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan as rulers from 1761 to 1799 (without "de facto")

[edit]
Sources for Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan (1761 to 1799)

Note: "Wodeyar" is sometimes spelled "Wodiyar," "Wadiyar," or "Wadiar."

  • Metcalf, Barbara; Metcalf, Thomas R. (2006), A Concise History of Modern India (Cambridge Concise Histories), Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Pp. xxxiii, 372, ISBN 0521682258. Quote: "As they grew ever more desperate for funds, some rulers adopted an opposite scheme, that of bypassing intermediaries and collecting directly from the peasantry. This was the solution adopted by the Muslim conquest state of Mysore, founded by Haider Ali in 1761. Haider and his son Tipu Sultan introduced into their state a rigorous revenue management founded upon the encouragement of peasant agriculture and the elimination of zamindars and farmers. In so doing they bought Mysore an enviable degree of prosperity, and the funds to maintain an army of 60,000 men." (No mention of Wodeyar, Wadiar, or Wadiyar.)
  • Wolpert, Stanley (2003), A New History of India, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Pp. 544, ISBN 0195166787. Quote: "... especially the rich land of Mysore, which had been conquered in 1762 by an energetic Muslim soldier of fortune name Haidar Ali Khan. .... Haidar Ali was probably the most farsighted Indian monarch of his day, recognizing that Hindu-Muslim unity alone could successfully combat the ever-growing force of the British, who might still have been beaten in 1780, but who would never be stopped a decade or more later. (p. 193)." (No mention of Wodeyar, Wadiar, or Wadiyar.)
  • Kumar, Dharma (1983), "South India", in Kumar, Dharma; Raychaudhuri, Tapan; et al. (eds.), The Cambridge Economic History of India: c. 1757 - c. 1970, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 1078, ISBN 0521228026 {{citation}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |editor2-last= (help) Quote: "By 1772, nearly all of south India was under three Muslim rulers: the Nizam in the north, the Nawab of Carnatic in the south-east and Haidar Ali in Mysore and parts of Kerala. The only Hindu rulers to survive were in Travancore and Thanjavur. (p. 208)."
  • Metcalf, Thomas R. (1997), Ideologies of the Raj, Cambridge and London: Cambridge University Press, Pp. 256, ISBN 0521589371 Quote: "While the Mughals, perceived as 'mild and humane' rulers, were largely exempted from severe criticism, such was not the case with their eighteenth century successors. These, whom the British set out to supplant as they extended their rule, had to be painted in the darkest colours. The archetypical representative of Islam in this period was unquestionably Tipu Sultan of Mysore (ruler from 1782 to 1799). As both a Muslim sovereign and as an implacable of the British Raj, he was portrayed (with no factual basis) as a man driven by a zealous fanaticism, while his regime was described as "the most perfect despotism in the world." In keeping with the differing characterizations projected onto Muslims and Hindus, his "Mahommedan tyranny" was contrasted unfavourably with the "ancient Hindoo constitution" allegedly enjoyed by Mysore before Tipu's father Haider Ali took over the throne in 1761. Tipu's fall in Seringapatnam in 1799 unloosed an orgy of self-congratulation among the British as their triumph ...(p. 139)" (No mention of Wodeyar, Wadiar, or Wadiyar.)
  • Majumdar, R. C.; Raychaudhuri, H. C.; Datta, Kalikinkar (1960), An Advanced History of India, London: Macmillan and Company Limited. 2nd edition. Pp. xiii, 1122, 7 maps, 5 coloured maps.. Quote: "(p.689) After some hesitation the Nizam surrendered Guntur to the English in 1788 and in return sought their help, according to the treaty of 1768, to recover some of his districts which Tipu had siezed. Lord Cornwallis, the then Governor-General, found himself in a delicate position, because the right of the Mysore Sultans to those very territories had been recognised by the English by two separate treaties concluded with Hyder and Tipu respectively in 1769 and 1785."
    • Ibid. Quote: "(p.688) After some preliminary negotiations, the Treaty of Seringapatam was concluded in March, 1792. Tipu had to surrender half his dominions, out of which a large portion, stretching from the Krishna to beyond the Penar river, was given to the Nizam ... Some writers have criticised Lord Cornwallis for having concluding the treaty with the Sultan of Mysore instead of effecting his destruction, which, in their opinion, could have been easily done."
    • Ibid. Quote: "(p.682) Mysore under Hyder and Tipu was a source of danger to the rising British power in India during the second half of the eighteenth century. While the Carnatic was distracted by wars, and Bengal was passing through political revolutions, Hyder steadily rose to power in Mysore. Originally an adventurer, he entered the service of Nanraj, the Dalwai or prime minister of Mysore, who had made himself the practical dictator over the titular Hindu ruler of the State. Though uneducated and illiterate, Hyder was endowed with a strong determination, admirable courage, keen intellect and shrewd common sense. Taking advantage of the prevailing distractions in the south, he increased his power and soon supplanted his former patron."
  • Stein, Burton (1985), "State Formation and Economy Reconsidered: Part One", Modern Asian Studies, 19 (3, Special Issue: Papers Presented at the Conference on Indian Economic and Social History, Cambridge University, April 1984): 387–413, doi:10.1017/S0026749X00007678, JSTOR 312446 Quote: "Under the sultanship established by Haidar Ali, the structure of chiefly polities which had existed under the Vijayanagara state, and had survived the reforms of Chikkadevaraja, was brought under the vigorous and expanding power of Mysore. In the time of Haidar Ali (1761-82), a new system of fiscalism was gerry-built upon the foundation laid by Chikkadevaraja. Large territories were auctioned off to ambitious warriors-mostly Hindu-who as tax farmers ('amildars') pressed the accumulated liquidity from lesser of their likes, the many chieftains who had commanded rural resources in peninsular India during and after Vijayanagara. Sovereignty claims of the most militarily aggressive of such chiefs, paleyagararu in Karnataka, were rejected and such chiefs were driven off by Haidar Ali or his amildar agents; the locality dominance of most other chiefs was more slowly eroded, essentially by limiting the scope of their activities, rather than by abolishing their traditional authority."
  • Encyclopaedia Britannica (2008), "Hyder Ali" Quote: "Muslim ruler of Mysore and military commander who played an important part in the wars in southern India in the mid-18th century. ... Hyder received an independent command in Mysore in 1749. Eventually, he displaced Nanjaraj, the prime minister, made the raja a prisoner in his own palace, and around 1761 made himself ruler of Mysore. He then conquered Bednore (now Haidarnagar), Kanara, and the petty poligars (feudal chiefs) of southern India."
  • Encyclopaedia Britannica (2008), "Tipu Sultan" Quote: "Sultan of Mysore, who won fame in the wars of the late 18th century in southern India. Tippu was instructed in military tactics by French officers in the employ of his father, Hyder Ali, who was the Muslim ruler of Mysore."
  • Bose, Sugata; Jalal, Ayesha (2003), Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy, London and New York: Routledge, 2nd edition. Pp. xiii, 304, ISBN 0-415-30787-2. Quote: "The migration of peasants and weavers from Arcot to Mysore and the military strength of the Mysore sultans produced a confluence of interest between the company and its servants working in their private capacity. ... The state of Mysore and the Maratha confederacy presented the most formidable obstacle to British colonial expansionism in India. Haidar Ali and his son Tipu Sultan constructed a powerful state characterized by efficient revenue management and the elimination of the special privileges of intermediate social groups. Haidar Ali is generally acknowledged to have ruled over a prosperous peasantry and a thriving but not overweening merchant community. Tipu Sultan died fighting gallantly at the gates of his capital, Seringapatam, prefering to live a day like a tiger than a lifetime as a lamb cowering before the British. (p. 49-50)" (No mention of Wodeyar, Wadiar, or Wadiyar in the book.)
  • Smith, Vincent A. (1921), India in the British Period: Being Part III of the Oxford History of India, Oxford: At the Clarendon Press. 2nd edition. Pp. xxiv, 316 (469-784) {{citation}}: Unknown parameter |unused_data= ignored (help). Quote: (pp. 585–86). "Lord Wellesley's intention had been to cripple permanently rather than destroy utterly the power of Tipoo. The absolutely complete success of the operations of General Harris and the death of the Sultan were a surprise to the Governor-General, who was obliged to reconsider the problem of the disposal of Mysore. Wellesley explained in a dispatch addressed to the Directors that the Company and the allied Nizam enjoyed the "free and uncontrouled (sic) right of conquest," while the Marathas, having taken no share in the war, had "forfeited every pretension to share in the advantages of peace." ... The Governor-general was of opinion that the simple plan of dividing the conquests equally between the Company and the Nizam, who had given some help, would unduly aggrandize that Prince (i.e. the Nizam), while giving offense to other powers. He was convinced that no member of Haidar Ali's family possibly could prove an efficient and friendly ruler. After reviewing all conceivable alternatives, he came to the decision that the wisest course would be for the Company and the Nizam to take the districts that best suited each party and to make over the residue to a prince of the Hindu royal family which had been dispossessed by Haidar Ali. The prince selected for restoration as Raja being a child of five years of age, the whole of Mysore, except the districts assigned to the Nizam, practically became British territory." (No mention of Wodeyar, Wadiar, or Wadiyar by name.)
  • Kulke, Hermann; Rothermund, Dietmar (2004), A History of India, 4th edition. Routledge, Pp. xii, 448, ISBN 0415329205 Quote: "At this stage, in 1782, Haider died but his equally brilliant son, Tipu Sultan, continued the war and, in 1784, imposed the peace treaty of Mangalore on the governor of Madras – which was very favourable to him. ... Tipu was defeated and died defending his capital, Seringapatam, in 1799. The British annexed north and south Kanara, Wynad, Coimbatore and Dharapuram and, in the much reduced Mysore state, they reinstated the old Hindu dynasty whose throne Haider Ali had usurped. (p. 240)" (No mention of Wodeyar, Wadiar, Wadiyar)
  • Brittlebank, Kate (1995), "Sakti and Barakat: The Power of Tipu's Tiger. An Examination of the Tiger Emblem of Tipu Sultan of Mysore", Modern Asian Studies, 29 (2): 257–269, JSTOR 312813 Quote:"(p.261) The choice of emblem seems often to have been related to the religious affiliation of the holder. For example, the Wodeyars of Mysore, who were Vaishnavas, had among their insignia the boar, the discus (Chakra) and the garuda, all of which are associated with Vishnu. As for the tiger as an emblem, this was adopted by the Colas, who were Saivites, who used it on their crests and banners, as did the Hoysalas of Dvarasamudra. That there is an association of the tiger with rulers of Mysore is also suggested by the fact that the old city (later destroyed by Tipu) is described in the early eighteenth century as having 'tiger-faced' gates. The Wodeyars, however, do not appear to have used it as an emblem, which may have been significant from Tipu's point of view, since, no doubt, he would have wished to distance himself from the previous ruling dynasty."
    • Ibid. (p.265) Quote 2: "Rao, in his History of Mysore, wrote that 'The tiger . . . was adopted by Tipu as emblematic of himself and his power'. What is this power to which they refer and why should it be so represented? That a ruler should be seen to be powerful was extremely important. Buchanan found that the Wodeyar family had '. . . been so long in obscurity, that it [was] no longer looked up to in awe; which among the natives in general [was] the only thing that supplie[d] the place of loyalty.'"
  • Encarta Encyclopaedia (2008) mentions only two Mysore rulers Archived 2009-07-16 at the Wayback Machine:
    • Ali, Hyder Archived 2008-10-15 at the Wayback Machine Quote: "Haidar Ali (1722-1782), Muslim ruler of Mysore, who figured prominently in the fight against British encroachment in India during the 18th century. A soldier of fortune, he deposed the previous raja in 1761, soon extended his dominions over most of south India, ..."
    • Tipu Sahib Archived 2008-10-07 at the Wayback Machine Quote: "Tipu Sahib (1749-1799), Muslim ruler of Mysore, the son and successor of Haidar Ali. He fought in his father's campaigns against the British and after Haidar's death in 1782 continued his war to a successful conclusion."
  • Keay, John (2001), India: A History, Grove Press. Pp. 578, ISBN 0802137970 Quote: "(p.395) ... in the 1730s the incumbent Wodeyar raja had been relieved of authority by two brothers, and it was in their service that Haidar Ali Khan, a devout Muslim whose ancestors had fought in the armies of the sultans of Bijapur, rose to prominence. In 1749, while participating in the succession struggle which followed the death of Nizam-ul-Malik of Hyderabad (the first nizam), Haidar Ali had obtained both considerable wealth and the services of some French deserters. ... Thus in 1758, when Mysore was attacked by the Marathas, Haidar Ali was the obvious choice for commander of the Mysore forces. He acquitted himself well and, following a brief trial of strength with the incumbent brothers, had by 1761 become the undisputed ruler of Mysore."
  • Dirks, Nicholas B. (2001), Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Pp. 372, ISBN 0691088950 Quote: "The Mysore rulers Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan had to be engaged four times before their final defeat in 1799, before which many commentators noted the possibility of a very different political future for the subcontinent. (p. 28)"
    • Ibid. Quote: "Until the fall of Srirangapattinam in 1799, the most aggressive new state system was ruled from Mysore, first by Haidar Ali and then his son Tipu Sultan, who succeeded in large part because of their capacity to capitalize on the cultural transitions of the time even as they put in place new forms of bureaucratic systemization and regulation. Much of Haidar Ali's and Tipu Sultan's attention was taken up by an attempt to establish a central bureaucracy. They funded and provided the political basis for these innovations by attempting to absorb ... (p. 67)"
    • Ibid. Quote: "The rajas ("polligars," from palaiyakkarar) of places like Chitradurga had already been substantially subdued by Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan in the last decades of the eighteenth century. Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan had systematically attacked the forts of the rajas, capturing their entire royal family and carting them off to their capital city of Srirangapattinam. In their place, Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan place amildars or managers who were charged with the task of maintaining order and collecting revenues. ... If anything, Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan succeeded rather better than the British in dispensing with and displacing the local political elites of the Deccan, ... Colonialism had to ease into the forms of direct rule that the sultans of Mysore had already deployed, as part of their own strategy of developing the administrative infrastructure that would enable them to oppose the spread of British rule in India. (p. 87)"
  • Ramusack, Barbara (2004), The Indian Princes and their States (The New Cambridge History of India), Cambridge and London: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 324, ISBN 0521039894 Quote: "p.28) After a successful coup in 1761, Haidar Ali became the effective ruler of Mysore, though the Wadiyar king remained his nominal suzerain. Once again an aspirant to autonomy retained a militarily impotent source of legitimacy, much as the governors of successor states used the Mughal emperor. Haidar Ali sought to create a centrally controlled military force that would enable him to subdue the petty chieftains within his state and to oppose external threats. ... When Tipu Sultan (1753–99) succeeded his father in 1782, he bolstered revenues to support a centralised military machine and intensified state control downward into local political units. ..."
    • Ibid. Quote: "As a Muslim ruler of a predominantly Hindu kingdom and a staunch opponent of the East India Company, Tipu Sultan had multiple personae in the historical record, ... Kate Brittlebank has explored his diverse strategies to establish the legitimacy of his kingship, which was grounded on the material resources of a strong military force, an expanded tax base, and extended penetration of local politics. First, Tipu acted as a king, claiming universal kingship authorised by a farman (decree) from the Ottoman Caliph and minting coins in his own name. Second, he incorporated former enemies, neighbours and officials into a hierarchy of subordination ..."
  • Stein, Burton (2001), A History of India, New Delhi and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pp. xiv, 432, ISBN 0195654463 Quote: "(p.209) Yet there were a few native rulers who did sense the way the wind could blow. In Mysore, from the 1770s, Haidar Ali and his son Tipu Sultan set out to beat the Company at its own game; to this end Haidar concentrated on acquiring an independent army, free from Company influence, and on improving centralized control over his fiscal system. (p. 209)
    • Ibid. Quote: "All these attempts to resist the rising power of the Company came to nought. In Mysore, at least part of the reason lay in the failure of other rulers to share Haider's perspicacity and their great fear of his growing strength. ... in 1799, when Seringapatam was finally captured and Tipu killed, the Company received substantial help from scribal, commercial and gentry groups inside Mysorean territory itself. Indeed, following Tipu's death and the restoration of the Hindu dynasty that Haidar had replaced, ..."
  • Bayly, C. A. (1990), Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire (The New Cambridge History of India), Cambridge and London: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 248, ISBN 0521386500 Quote: "Only Tipu Sultan of Mysore, uneasy as a newcomer with the traditions of the Indo-Persian nobility and contemptuous of the flaccidity of Mughal power, took up the title of emperor. Even Tipu maintained a respectful communication with the imperial (Mughal) court. (p. 16)"
    • Ibid. Quote: "This skein of peculation was coming to be seen as 'corrupt' in both England and India. It might have survived had not the further development of the Muslim state in south India exposed the impossibility of reconciling the interests of European creditors, the Company and the many varieties of indigenous fiscal and commercial entrepreneur. The Sultanate of Mysore, the major threat to British power in the South, became the catalyst for change. In 1769 and again in 1781–83 Mysore forces penetrated and ravaged the coast. Until its final defeat in 1799, Mysore was the sword of Damocles suspended over the Madras revenues. (p. 60)"

Wodeyar "rule" in princely state 1799 to 1947

[edit]
Sources for Wodeyar "rule" 1799 to 1947

Note: "Wodeyar" is sometimes spelled "Wodiyar," "Wadiyar," or "Wadiar."

  • Manor, James (1975), "Princely Mysore before the Storm: The State-Level Political System of India's Model State, 1920-1936", Modern Asian Studies, 9 (1): 31–58, doi:10.1017/S0026749X00004868, JSTOR 311796 Quote: "(p. 33) After the British defeated Tipu in 1799, they cast about for an Indian who could rule over that portion of Tipu's dominions which they did not wish to administer themselves. They turned to the Wadiyars and raised one of their number from ignominy to be styled Maharaja of Mysore. The rulers of Mysore, then, owed their position almost wholly to British power."
    • Ibid. Quote: "(p.34) But what the British had bestowed, they could also take away. In I830, trouble developed among the fiercely independent inhabitants in the northwestern part of the state. These people had never been subjects of the Wadiyars before I80o and local magnates chafed bitterly under the zealous encroachments upon their little kingdoms by the Maharaja's lieutenants. The situation mushroomed into open insurgency and British forces had to assist in the restoration of order. This provided the British with an excuse to supersede the princely government in 1831. The British Commission or caretaker government was to rule for a half century and it was only with great difficulty that the princely house won reinstatement in 1881. The lessons of 1831 were clear. The approval of the British was crucial to the survival of princely authority. And disruptions by powerful elements at the local level could upset relations with the British and were to be avoided at all costs."
    • Ibid. Quote: "The task of the princely regime of winning British favour after the reinstatement was made easier by the policies of the British Commission prior to 1881. When the Maharaja was reinvested with powers, he was presented with a fully-developed administrative structure based upon Madras and Bombay models. The British had also inserted an Indian official of the highest calibre as Dewan, or head of the administration. He soon established the tradition of a strong centralization of powers in the Dewan's hands which was to be carried on by a number of brilliant successors. These men were able to maintain the high quality of the administration which the British had bequeathed to them. Consequently, before the century was out, Mysore was being cited by knowledgeable and highly critical British observers as 'the best administered native state in India'."
  • Keay, John (2001), India: A History, Grove Press. Pp. 578, ISBN 0802137970 Quote: "The "settlement" which followed left the British unchallenged throughout the peninsula. Mysore was pared down to something not much bigger that the statelet it was before Haidar Ali's conquests. This was then awarded to a child of the old Wodeyar dynasty, assisted by a sufficient British presence, and burdened by a sufficient British safeguards, to ensure subordination. (p. 401)"
    • Ibid. Quote: "(p. 416) ... and further military intervention was required in Mysore in 1830 to wrest the government from the perceived incompetence of its restored Wodeyar maharaja and in Coorg in 1834 to end by annexation the ambiguous status of this hilly enclave in the south-west corner of Karnataka. And all this, be it noted, during a twenty-year period of vigorous British retrenchment which is usually accounted one of peace and consolidation."
  • Ikegame, Aya (2007), "The capital of rajadharma: modern space and religion in colonial Mysore", International Journal of Asian Studies, 4 (1): 15–44, doi:10.1017/S1479591407000563 Quote: "... Our examples are drawn from the state of Mysore, where the royal family was actually (re-) installed in power by the British following the defeat of the former ruler Tipu Sultan in 1799. After 1831, Mysore further saw the imposition of direct British control over the state administration. ... it is also possible, more than any other Indian State, to call Mysore a 'child of imperialism' or a 'puppet sovereignty'."
  • Wolpert, Stanley (2003), A New History of India, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Pp. 544, ISBN 0195166787. Quote: "The other half of Mysore, its isolated center, was restored to the child maharaja, whose Hindu family had been deposed by Haidar Ali. The subidiary alliance system, as perfected by Wellesley in his dealings with Mysore and the nizam, proved a most economical and convenient method for the rapid expansion of British power and effectively removed from the commonplace position it had acquired in the hitherto turbulent world of native states' politics. By reducing all Indian princes–one at a time–to virtual impotence, British power gradually brought an almost revolutionary state of peace and tranquillity to most of the subcontinent. (p. 201)."
  • Majumdar, R. C.; Raychaudhuri, H. C.; Datta, Kalikinkar (1950), An Advanced History of India, London: Macmillan and Company Limited. 2nd edition. Pp. xiii, 1122, 7 maps, 5 coloured maps. {{citation}}: Unknown parameter |unused_data= ignored (help). Quote: "Mysore was at the disposal of the English. ... The English took for themselves Kanara on the west; Wynaad in the south-east; ... A boy of the old Hindu reigning dynasty of Mysore was given the rest of the kingdom. This new State of Mysore became virtually a dependency of the English. ... A subsidy was to be paid by its ruler which could be increased by the Governor-General in time of war; and the Governor-General was further empowered to take over the entire internal administration of the country if he was dissatisfied on any account with its government. This arrrangement, Wellesley hoped, would enable him "to command the whole resources of the Raja's territory." The Governor-General "acted wisely," in Thornton's opinion, "in not making Mysore ostensibly a British possession. He acted no less wisely in making it substantially so." Because of misgovernment, Lord William Bentinck brought Mysore under the direct administration of the company, and it remained so till 1881, when Lord Ripon restored the royal family to power."
  • Ramusack, Barbara (2004), The Indian Princes and their States (The New Cambridge History of India), Cambridge and London: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 324, ISBN 0521039894 Quote: "(p68) After the defeat of Mysore in 1799, the British treaty added some Mysorean districts to their expanding Madras Presidency and rewarded their ally Hyderabad with other districts. As noted earlier, the British then returned a truncated by geographically compact Mysore to the Wadiyars, the Hindu dynasty that had been usurped in 1761 by its Muslim military ally, Haider Ali. They emphatically proclaimed the subordinate position of the restored infant ruler, Krishnaraja Wadiyar, by mandating the exclusion of all French influence and the stipulation that Mysore could not communicate with any foreign power without the prior knowledge and sanction of the British. A more onerous sign of Mysore's subordination was the imposition of an annual subsidy of Rs 24.5 lakhs, which represented 57 per cent of the presumed state revenue. This sum came to constitute 50 per cent of the British tribute collected from 198 princely states. Burton Stein has argued that the need to secure revenues to pay this subsidy was one of the factors that led the durbar to reform its tax-farming system. Subsequently, this extension of central control into previously semi-autonomous local areas in Mysore provoked the Nagar insurrection in 1830–31. The British then used their suppression of this disorder to legitimate their direct management of Mysore state for the next fifty years."
  • Kumar, Dharma (1983), "South India", in Kumar, Dharma; Raychaudhuri, Tapan; et al. (eds.), The Cambridge Economic History of India: c. 1757 - c. 1970, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 1078, ISBN 0521228026 {{citation}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |editor2-last= (help) Quote: "After the defeat of Tipu and the restoration of the Wadeyars in 1799, the famous Divan Purnaiya attempted to restore the old system of direct revenue collection ... After Purnaiya's death the contracting out of revenue collections increased greatly. During this period, too, the ruler gave lavishly to temples and charities. The general fall in prices contributed to the decline in receipts since a fifth of the revenue were collected in kind. As a result the treasury that Purnaiya had built up was exhausted and the state borrowed heavily from the moneylenders. This financial incompetence was one of the major reasons cited by the British for taking over Mysore in 1831. (p. 226)"
  • Nehru, Jawaharlal (1946), The Discovery of India, The John Day Company, OCLC 186312138 Quote: "How did these states come into existence? Some are quite new, created by the British; others were vice-royalties of the Mughal Emperor, and their rulers were permitted to continue as feudatory chiefs by the British; yet others, notably the Maratha chiefs, were defeated by British armies and then made into feudatories. Nearly all these can be traced back to the beginnings of British rule; they have no earlier history. If some of them functioned as independent states for a while that independence was of brief duration, and ended in defeat in war or threat of war. Only a few of the states, and these are chiefly in Rajputana, date back to pre-Mughal times(p. 309-310)"
    • Ibid. Quote: "Hyderabad, the premier state today, was small in area to begin with. Its boundaries were extended twice, after Tipu Sultan's defeat by the British and the Maratha wars. These additions were at the instance of the British, an on the express stipulation that the Nizam was to function in a subordinate capacity to them. ... Kashmir, the next largest state, was sold by the East India Company after the Sikh wars to the great-grandfather of the present ruler. It was subsequently taken under direct British control on a plea of misgovernment. Later the ruler's powers were restored to them. The present state of Mysore was created by the British after Tipu's wars. It was also under direct British rule for a lengthy period. The only truly independent kingdom in India is Nepal ... (p. 310)"
  • Copland, Ian (2002), Princes of India in the Endgame of Empire, 1917-1947, (Cambridge Studies in Indian History & Society). Cambridge and London: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 316, ISBN 0521894360. Quote: "(p.7) Of Sir Mirza Ismail, the chief minister successively of Mysore, Jaipur, and Hyderabad, the American ambassador in New Delhi wrote effusively: "I have not ... met anyone else in India ... either Indian or European, who is in his class." <footnote 22: Ambassador to sec. state Washington 13 June 1945, US State Dept. decimal file 845.00/1-1345. In Mirza's case, the hierarchy was reversed: it was the dewan who to all intents and purposes rule Mysore. During the reign of Krisnarajendra Wodeyar, Mirza had absolute control over administration. When his successor came to the throne in 1941 he found a situation in which, in effect, "he was merely presented with a while sheet [of paper] with Sir Mirza Ismail's decisions typed upon it, and asked to sign." Note of interview between viceroy and maharaja of Mysore 6 March 1941, Mirza Ismail Papers, SF1.>
  • Brown, Judith M. (1994), Modern India: The Origins of an Asian Democracy, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Pp. xiii, 474, ISBN 0198731132 Quote: "The British had never annexed territory for its own sake, but for political, strategic or commercial reasons, or a complex blend of these. Consequently, where an Indian ruler was prepared to enter into an alliance and seemed able to secure his territory, the British welcomed him as a part of a cheap method of indirect rule, involving them in none of the expense of direct administration or the problem of gaining the acquiescence of alien subjects. They undertook to defend such subordinate allies, and treated them with traditional respect and marks of honour. But they also sent a political officer as 'resident' to each princely court to keep a watching brief on events and to tender advice, to control succession and to educate heirs, and to eliminate undesirable influences at court: or at times to remonstrate with the prince if his administration seemed through corruption or inattention to threaten a minimum degree of order and local content. In the early part of the nineteenth century considerable intervention did sometimes occur, as in the case of Mysore. (p.68)"
  • Smith, Vincent A. (1921), India in the British Period: Being Part III of the Oxford History of India, Oxford: At the Clarendon Press. 2nd edition. Pp. xxiv, 316 (469-784) {{citation}}: Unknown parameter |unused_data= ignored (help). Quote: "The administration of the territory reserved for the child Raja was entrusted to Purnia or Purnaiya (Poornea), the capable Brahman minister who had served Tipoo to the end. The arrangements were embodied in the supplementary treaty of Seringapatam, which included the usual articles providing for the payment of a subsidiary force, prohibiting political relations with other states, and excluding Europeans from employment. Articles 4 and 5 went far beyond the standard model by giving the Governor-general power to introduce regulations for the better internal government of the country, or even, if he should think proper, to bring the state under the direct management of the servants of the Company. ... Although the independence of Mysore was avowedly destroyed by orders clothed in the form of a treaty, the mistake of introducing a British code of regulations was not committed. Purnia was allowed to manage his business in his own fashion. ...
  • Bandyopadhyay, Sekhar (2004), From Plassey to Partition: A History of Modern India, New Delhi and London: Orient Longmans. Pp. xx, 548., ISBN 8125025960. Quote: "(p.52–53) In 1799 Srirangapatnam, the capital of Mysore, fell to the Company, while Tipu died defending it. Mysore, then once again placed under the former Wodeyar dynasty, was brought under the 'Subsidiary Alliance' system of Lord Wellesley. This meant an end to the independent state of Mysore. Under this system, it would not henceforth enter into any relationship with other European powers; a contingent of Company army would be stationed in Mysore and the provision for its maintenance would come from the treasury. Part of Mysore territory was given to the Nizam who had already accepted a 'Subsidiary Alliance'; and parts of it, such as Wynad, Coimbatore, Canara and Sunda were directly annexed by the Company."
  • Nair, Janaki (2002), "Past Perfect: Architecture and Public Life in Bangalore", The Journal of Asian Studies, 61 (4): 1205–1236, doi:10.2307/3096440, JSTOR 3096440 Quote: "(p.1212) We may note here that British paramountcy left the princely states of India with a very circumscribed authority and little sovereignty in the strict sense of the term. Indeed, the grandeur of the palaces of the restored Wodeyar princely order was in inverse proportion to the power of the occupants."
  • Bayly, C. A. (1990), Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire (The New Cambridge History of India), Cambridge and London: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 248, ISBN 0521386500 Quote: "Residents such as Mark Wilks at Mysore and Mark Cubbon in Padukottai became 'step fathers' to royal heirs, assuming the position of close personal adviser which had been occupied by uncles or royal mothers in the independent courts. Through carefully selected tutors, residents began to implant western notions of 'progressive' governments in the minds of their Indian charges, ... (p. 111)"

Neologism and Other Princely States

[edit]
Neologism and Other Princely States on Wikipeida

Princely states in India were not referred to as "Kingdom of ...." In fact, other Wikipedia pages for the princely states do not use "Kingdom" in their page name. The use of the appellation "Kingdom of Mysore" to Mysore state during the years 1799–1947 is consequently a neologism and violates Featured Article Criterion 1 (c). Here some examples of other princely state:

The primary authors of this FA need to explain why the Kingdom of Mysore alone should get this special dispensation.

[edit]
Sources on ideological issues related to Kingdom of Mysore article

Note: "Wodeyar" is sometimes spelled "Wodiyar," "Wadiyar," or "Wadiar."

  • Jaffrelot, Christophe (1998), The Hindu Nationalist Movement in India, New York: Columbia University Press. Pp. 536, ISBN 0231103352 Quote: "As well as pursuing its own mission in the socio-cultural field, the VHP or World Hindu Organization expanded the edifice of Hindu nationalism. In symbiosis with the hard core cadres formed in the RSS – represented here by S. S. Apte – two new networks were established. One was linked to important personalities deriving their power either from landholdings or personal wealth who were attracted to the organisation because of its role in defending Hinduism in accordance with their traditional vocation as patrons of Hindu institutions; thus the Maharajah of Mysore served as president of the VHP before being succeeded by the Maharana of Udaipur in 1968. (p. 202)"
    • Ibid. Quote: "Moreover, except in Mangalore, the RSS-VHP-BJP cadres were not present in force and the latter had to nominate new recruits, often ex-Congressmen such as the son of the last Mahrajah of Mysore, S. N. Wodiyar, who lost in the capital of the former princely state. (p. 443)"
  • Bayly, C. A. (1994), "The British Military-Fiscal State and Indigenous Resistance: India 1750–1820", in Stone, Lawrence (ed.), An Imperial State at War: Britain from 1689 to 1815, London: Routledge. Pp. 372, pp. 322–354, ISBN 0415061423 Quote: "The great figures of anti-British resistance have also been the object of popular veneration, but, here again, it has proved difficult to assimilate them wholeheartedly into a nationalist pedegree. Tipu Sultan was revered as a martyr very soon after his death. Various outbreaks of millenarian revolt were associated with his name, and Muslim preachers invoked his spirit at the time of an outbreak of mutiny in the military station of Vellore in 1806. The myth of Tipu the 'Muslim fanatic' sedulously cultivated by the British had also taken root so that up to the present day there has been an argument between those who see him as a 'secular' (that is, confessionally dispassionate) ruler and the Hindu right which sees him as a Muslim 'communalist'. (p. 348)"
  • Nandy, Ashis, Exiled at Home: Comprising At the Edge of Psychology, The Intimate Enemy and Creating a Nationalityn, New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Pp. 244, ISBN 0195641779 Quote: "The VHP or World Hindu Organization was formally registered in 1966 with Swami Chinmayananda and S. S. Apte as its working President and General Secretary. Jaichamraj Wodeyar, the erstwhile Maharaja of Mysore and at the time Governor of Madras, was its first chairman. The decision to constitute the VHP was, however, taken in 1964, at the conference convened in Bombay at the instance of the then head of the RSS, Golwalkar.(Footnote: The decision to found the VHP during the mid-sixties was no accident. M. K. Gandhi's assassination by a Hindu nationalist in 1948, the political success of Nehru's secular policies, and the post-independence consensus on the style of 'nation-building', all combined to push the aspirations of the RSS leadership for a Hindu state into the background for well over a decade. The failure of their political wing, the Jan Sangh, in the general elections of 1952, 1957, and 1962 marginalized the RSS family even further. But in 1962, Nehru's image was severely damaged by the Indian debacle in the India-China border war. It marked the beginning of the end of the Nehruvian era. In 1963 the idea of founding the VHP was floated.)"
  • Farmer, Victoria L. (1996), "Mass Media: Images, Mobilization, and Communalism", in Ludden, David (ed.), Contesting the Nation: Religion, Community, and the Politics of Democracy in India, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Pp. 346, pp. 98–118, ISBN 0812215850 Quote: "What was depicted inside the public sphere created by Doordarshan, therefore, included a fuzzy conflation of state authority, Hindu legitimacy, Hindi supremacy, cinema tunes (filmi geet), and commercial promotions. Identifying what is absent from or marginal to this television public sphere is more difficult, but protests against specific Doordarshan presentations do indicate some boundaries. For example, Tipu Sultan—a story about an eighteenth-century Indian Muslim ruler who tormented British armies for decades before being conquered—did not fit easily into Doordarshan's nationalist paradigm, because it depicted Muslim, Tipu, as being modern and progressive, and it was broadcast on Doordarshan only after lengthy arbitration. The result of the court battle was that a disclaimer was aired before each episode to say that the story was fiction, not history, thus marginalizing Tipu Sultan as a historical figure and contributing to a nationalist history in which Muslims somehow become non-Indian."
  • Stein, Burton (1985), "Notes on 'Peasant Insurgency' in Colonial Mysore: Event and Process", South Asia Research, 5 (1): 11–27, doi:10.1177/026272808500500102 Quote: "In August of 1830, armed followers of a man calling himself the 'raja of Nagar' attacked but failed to seize a royal fortress in Shimoga district of Nagar in Mysore; shortly after, letters were circulated by the Nagar insurgents calling upon cultivating groups to protest against the government of the Mysore Raja's (Krishnajraja Wodeyar III, r.d. 1799–1831) by convening assembles of protest at government offices, by refusing to pay taxes, and by absconding from their villages. In late September, cultivators in all parts of Nagar were following this course, and by December of 1830 the cultivators of Chittledrug, 100 miles from Nagar, and of Bangalore, 180 miles away, had risen in armed revolt against the Mysore government, refusing to pay taxes, assembling in violent protest, and clashing with arms against state authorities. Early in 1831`, the rebel tide rolled on, with the fortress in Nagar previously attacked now taken from one of the best commanders of the Mysore durbar, and successful defences mounted of other previously seized places. East India Company troops were introduced at this point, and by June 1831 Nagar was taken and the revolt broken, though anti-government opposition was not completely quelled until 1834. By then the administration of Mysore had been taken over by the Company, and direct British administration was to obtain until 1881, during which time the state was ruled by Britons of the Mysore Commission. (para) The Governor-General, Lord William Bentinck, appointed a committee to investigate 'the recent disturbances in Mysore', and the report of that committee in December 1833, is the principal existing source of evidence about the event. Since the uprising of 1830–31 was the ostensible cause for the assumption of direct administration over Mysore by the Company, the government of Krishnaraja III was severely criticised for having permitted 'corrupt' agents of the durbar to perpetrate such oppressions as to drive the Mysore peasantry into rebellion, and thereby to risk what was most vital to the British, a deficiency in revenue collections to meet the heavy subsidy payments due to the Company! As if to expunge retrospectively that criticism of the Mysore royal family, possibly in the service of contemporary Karnataka nationalism (another complexity ignored by Guha) a century and half later, senior academics in Karnataka have discouraged most young scholars from writing about the event. (p. 187–188)"

My assessment of the sources in the current version of the article

[edit]
Assessment of sources by Fowler&fowler:

There are a total of 166 footnotes (counting repeats) in the article; of these, 75 belong to (a) lead and the first three sections: History, Economy, and Administration, and the remaining 91 to (b) the remaining two sections: Culture and Architecture.

In group (a) 45 footnotes refer to one book: Kamath, 2001 (see below), 11 to Chopra et al, and 7 to Pranesh. None of these books, in my view, would belong to a standard bibliography for this topic. The single exception is a minor reference to a book of Burton Stein. I should add that Group (a), i.e. the lead and the first three sections (History, Economy, and Administration) are my areas of concern.

Most of the remaining footnotes in group (a) are to facsimile reprints (actually, in these examples, likely xerox prints) of books published anywhere between 50 and a 100 years ago. These books have the tell tale "title page" printed in late-20th century type, followed by hundreds of pages in late 19th century type! However, the citations (and likely the books themselves) don't provide the publication year of the original, only of the reprint! This is inexcusable in any Wikipedia article, let alone an FA. For example, in the first example below, a dated reference, whose last edition was published in 1921, is masquerading in this article as a relatively modern reference published in 1982! These books, I might add, are not being used as primary sources, as they sometimes are by scholars, but as secondary sources!

  • Rice, E. P. (1982) [1921], Kannada Literature, New Delhi: Asian Educational Services, ISBN 8120600630

This is a facsimile reprint of the a book published in 1921; see also more publishing details in the Nepal National Library. Notice that the publisher has taken the liberty of changing the title of the book, "A History of Kanarese Literature" (as shown at the top of the even numbered pages) to the more modern, "A History of Kannada Literature" (as shown in the title page and the book ISBN information). This in turn has been reduced to simply "Kannada Literature" in the citation itself!

Although this source is listed as being published in 2004, it is in fact a facsimile reprint of a 1911 edition brought out by a publisher that has in recent years had been publishing many older works (sometimes illegally) in India. Here is a reference to the original 1911 edition. No acknowledgment is made on the Kingdom of Mysore page that this is really a 1911 publication! Notice though that the introduction is dated 1911, so it would be difficult to not notice that something doesn't quite add up.

The same problem here. This too is a facsimile reproduction of this 1934 book. No acknowledgment is made of this publication's earlier (1934) provenance on the Kingdom of Mysore page. It simply appears as a 1988 publication! (As an aside, notice in the above 1934 link that the author died in 1936. The author's copyright, which in India is valid for 60 after the death of the author, would have expired in 1996; however, the book was published in 1988. I can't say for sure, but my guess is that the publication was illegal in 1988. I've noticed other more glaring violations by the same (and other) publishers in India.)

  • Kamath, Suryanath U. (2001) [1980], A concise history of Karnataka : from pre-historic times to the present, Bangalore: Jupiter books, LCCN 8095179, OCLC 7796041 {{citation}}: Check |lccn= value (help)

The above book is a reprint of the 1980 edition. The book has not been reviewed in any journal that I could find in any of the databases. The publisher is little known even in India. I had an acquaintance in India call the publisher in Bangalore, and they said the book is now used in colleges and high-schools in the state of Karnataka (new name for Mysore) and sells for approximately Rs. 65 ($1.50). They bring out a new "edition" every year, which is more or less a reprint.

  • Chopra, Ravindran, Subrahmanian, P.N., T.K., N. (2003) [2003], History of South India (Ancient, Medieval and Modern) Part III, New Delhi: Chand publications, ISBN 81-219-0153-7{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

This book too has not been reviewed in any journal that I could locate. The publisher is better-known in India than Jupiter Books, but it too mostly publishes text-books, not scholarly works (which are published, for example, by Oxford University Press (India), Penguin (India), or Macmillan (India). In addition, it is not clear if the 2003 edition is a reprint of the 1979 edition or a new edition (since the ISBN refers to the 1979 edition).

  • Pranesh, Meera Rajaram (2003) [2003], Musical Composers during Wodeyar Dynasty (1638-1947 A.D.), Bangalore: Vee Emm

A Ph.D. dissertation submitted to the Department of Music, Bangalore University, and published in Bangalore by a local (i.e. not India-wide publisher). It is referenced seven times in the History section.

  • Sastri, Nilakanta K.A. (1955), A history of South India from prehistoric times to the fall of Vijayanagar, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-560686-8

This is a pioneering (but very much dated) history of South India published over 50 years ago. Here are two reviews:

  • Review 1: Harrison, Barbara J.; Sastri, K. A. Nilakanta (1956), "Reviewed work(s): A History of South India: From Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar. by K. A. Nilakanta Sastri", The Far Eastern Quarterly, 15 (3): 452–455, doi:10.2307/2941900, JSTOR 2941900 Quote:"It will not be long, if scholarship continues, until Nilakanta Sastri's book is outdated, for his is the initial South Indian history. His conclusions, even his facts, may be contested by others as additional data is produced. The history of South India will be written time and again as new interpretations are written. (p.455)"
  • Review 2: Allchin, F. R. (1960), "Reviewed work(s): A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar by K. A. Nilakanta Sastri", Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 23 (1): 206, JSTOR 609962 Quote:"The author presents his often unwieldy material in a brisk and balanced manner. The earlier chapters may appear somewhat lacking in integration: thus chapter 3 relies entirely on archaeological material, while 4 (which covers much common ground) turns to mainly literary sources. But this is an oft repeated device which reflects the unsatisfactory nature of the source material. We regret that, though this book is clearly aimed at the informed general reader, matters which are still under debate are not shown in this light."

Child or teenage royals?

[edit]

Here the details about the Wodeyar "rule" between 1714 and 1904, a period of 190 years:

  • Krishnaraja Wodeyar I: born 1702, rules from ages 12 to 30.
  • Chamaraja Wodeyar VI: born 1704, rules from ages 28 to 30.
  • Krishnaraja Wodeyar II: born 1728, rules from ages 6 to 38.
  • Nanjaraja Wodeyar: born 1748, rules from ages 18 to 22.
  • Chamaraja Wodeyar VII: born 1759, rules from ages 13 to 17.
  • Chamaraja Wodeyar VIII: born 1774, rules from ages 2 to 12 (deposed)
  • Interregnum under Tipu Sultan 1786 to 1799.
  • Krishnaraja Wodeyar III: born 1794, rules from ages 4 to 37 (when the British take over governance)
  • British Commission: 1831 to 1881.
  • Chamaraja Wodeyar: born 1863, crowned at age 4, governs from ages 17 to 37 (dies).
  • Krishnaraja Wodeyar IV: born 1884 rules from age 10 to 56 (dies).

Years of child or teenage rule: 1714 to 1722 (8 years); 1734 to 1748 (14 years); 1766 to 1768 (2 years); 1772 to 1776 (4 years); 1776 to 1786 (10 years); 1799 to 1815 (16 years); 1881 to 1884 (3 years); 1894 to 1904 (6 years);

In addition, there are the years of the Tipu Sultan's interregnum 1786 to 1799 (13 years), which, in any case, from 1786 to 1796 would have corresponded to Chamaraja Wodeyar VIII's ages 12 to 22 (when the latter died). And the years of British Administration 1830 to 1881

Total period of Wodeyar child, teenage, or non- rule = 4 + 14 + 2 + 4 + 10 + 13 + 16 + 50 + 3 + 6 = 126 years. Thus during the 190 years from 1714 to 1904, a full two thirds were ruled either by Wodeyar children or teenagers, by Tipu Sultan or by the British. In short by people other than the Wodeyars. Please don't bring up the technical difference between adulthood (18) and end of teenage years (20); it doesn't substantially change the computation. Please also don't bring up WP:OR, I have plenty of sources that attest to the years of Wodeyar non-rule between 1714 and 1904.

If you add to that the years of Haidar Ali's "de facto" rule 1761 to 1766 (5 years) and 1768 to 1772 (4 years), it becomes 135 out of 190 years, we can say that 70 per cent of the time from 1714 to 1904 a Wodeyar was not in control of the "Kingdom of Mysore."

  1. So when did the Wodeyars really govern? In the 17th century? If so, why is it not acknowledged more explicitly in the article?
  2. But, more importantly, don't you think the governing that was done 70 percent of the time between 1714 and 1904, by Prime Ministers, and British Commissioners, not to speak of the nannies and pediatricians, is all too anonymous? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:46, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Anatomy of a Revision

[edit]

Until late August 2007, the Kingdom of Mysore page was a short article and it had no references; however, it was ideologically more balanced and more in consonance with the work of scholars who have worked on Mysore. The page had several history sections consisting of:

  1. Early History, which said, for example, "In common with every other feudatory of that empire, Mysore, under the Wodeyar dynasty, then assumed the trappings of independence. ... It was in the reign of Raja Wodeyar and his successor, the celebrated Kantheerava, in the mid-1600s, that the kingdom really asserted its independence, and expanded to include most of the southern part of modern-day Karnataka, as also parts of neighbouring states." (italics mine)
  2. Arasus of Kalale: "After Chamaraja Wodeyar VI, the failure of the direct male line not only necessitated the adoption of an heir, but also precipitated a minority. The Arasus (feudal barons) of Kalale came to hold sway over the affairs of the Kingdom of Mysore, and the position of "Dalavoy" or supreme commander of the royal army became effectively hereditary in that family."
  3. Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan: "During the minority of Maharaja Nanjaraja Wodeyar, Hyder Ali rose to become the de facto ruler of the state, retaining the Wodeyars as nominal rulers. His son Tipu Sultan dispensed with this charade and assumed full royal powers. Tipu Sultan prosecuted a brilliant military career; his rule contributed a golden chapter to the history of India. Both Hyder and Tipu brought in many technological innovations, modernizing the Mysorean army and expanding Mysore's foreign trade. ... The British, who purported to wage that war in support of the legitimate dynasty, reinstated the Wodeyars on the throne in the person of the 5-year-old Krishnaraja Wodeyar III. (Italics mine.)
  4. British period (1799): "The 5 year old Krishnaraja Wodeyar III ascended the throne under the regency of his adoptive grandmother, .... The capital was moved to Bangalore in 1830. Charging the Wodeyars with financial mismanagement, the British took direct control of Mysore in 1831 and retained it for half a century."
user:Dineshkannambadi's revisions
  1. 04:15 26 August 2007 edit (edit summary, "added origin theory with citations"): in his first edit to the page, user:Dineshkannambadi added 3 paragraphs to the Early History section, citing Kamath (2001) (college text-book) and Pranesh (2004) (music dissertation), and moved the original paragraph to the last.
  2. 14:25 16 September 2007 edit (edit summary, "editing the History section in preparation for FA"), user:Dineshkannambadi replaced original paragraph in Early history by material from Kamath and Pranesh.
  3. 15:01 16 September 2007 edit (edit summary, "cpedits"): 2 more paragraphs are added, by user:DK, to Early History from Pranesh (2003) and Kamath (2001), including the anecdote about wrestling skills.
  4. 16:22 16 September 2007 edit (edit summary, "adding History"): 2 paragraphs (from Pranesh and Kamath) about Haidar Ali were added, by user:DK, to Early History.
  5. 17:12 16 September 2007 edit (edit summary, "removed repeat section that is already cited in "History" section.") user:Dineshkannambadi removed the Arasus of Kalale subsection. Although the Delvoys are mentioned, in the newly added version, the references to the minor rulers, to the arasus (feudal chiefs), which the Wodeyars themselves were, have all disappeared.
  6. 18:42 16 September 2007 edit (edit summary, "title") user:Dineshkannambadi changed section name Early history to History.
  7. 18:43 16 September 2007 edit (edit summary, "removed repeat section on Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan for Cpedit") the original section on Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan was also removed. There is no mention now about Tipu dispensing off with the "charade" of keeping the Wodeyars as nominal heads and assuming full sovereign powers.
  8. 18:53 16 September 2007 edit (edit summary, "finished History section") user:Dineshkannambadi added another long paragraph of Wodeyar hagiography citing Pranesh and Kamath.
  9. 18:55 16 September 2007 edit (edit summary, "removed redundant section on " British period" already detailed and cited.") the original British period section was also removed. The only sections that remained was Early History which had been changed to History.
  10. By 18:55 16 September 2007, the Notes section had 37 footnotes, of these:
    1. 22 were to Kamath (2001)
      1. a Karnataka college text book with no ISBN information,
      2. written by a former Reader in History, Bangalore University, who has one publication in Google Scholar on the subject of Mysore
      3. and who has publicly-stated Hindu nationalist sympathies;
    2. and the remaining 15 were to Pranesh (2003),
      1. a Banglore University Department of Music dissertation,
      2. published locally in Bangalore,
      3. which also has no ISBN information.
    3. This, in an an area of Indian history, modern and early-modern Mysore, that has attracted some of the world's best-known historians.
  11. 19:55 16 September 2007 edit (edit summary, "new sections that meet FA criteria that I will add data to shortly.") New sections were created on Culture (with its own subsections) and Architecture.
  12. 21:45 16 September 2007 edit (edit summary, "Culture:Music") 4 long paragraphs were added to the music subsection.
  13. 23:53 16 September 2007 edit (edit summary, "literature") a literature section was added from a mother article Mysore Kingdom literature
  14. On 26 October 2007, when it was nominated for a Featured Article Candidate on 26 October 2007, the article had had this History content, which although different in minor details, was substantially unchanged this History content on 21:45 16 September 2007
  15. On 4 November 2007, when it became an FA, the History section content was substantially unchanged
  16. In this edit of 04:59 28 March 2008 (edit summary, "not a kingdom after 1799, but a princely state; no kings after 1799, only rulers or princes"), user:Fowler&fowler introduces "Princely State" more explicitly. For example, user:Dineshkannambadi's version: "The British, however, restored the kingdom to the Wodeyars whom they saw as the rightful heirs to the throne. Mysore thus became a 'princely state' under the British Raj and the Wodeyars continued to rule it ... when the kingdom was merged with the Union of India." was changed to "The British, however, restored the Wodeyars in the smaller princely state of Mysore under the paramountcy of the British Raj. The Wodeyars continued to rule ... when the state was merged with the Union of India." More of the same was done in the next few edits.
Conclusion
Most of the current ideological slant of the article (or POV in Wikispeak) was introduced in a series of edits made by user:Dineshkannambadi between 14:25 16 September 2007 and 23:53 16 September 2007. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:15, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Accurate Lead Paragraph

[edit]

F&f FAR Post 1

[edit]
Fowler&fowler Post1
An apology, a plea for inclusion, and an actionable idea

Dear FAR reader:

Since the first FAR had quickly spiraled into a lengthy content dispute, I will make only this one post in this second FAR. (I assuming that you have either already read My concerns, referred to above, or will soon do. That's where the meat of my criticism is.)

In the History, Economy, and Administration sections of this featured article, the college text-book, A Concise History of Karnataka from Pre-historic Times to the Present, by historian Suryanath U. Kamath, has been footnoted 45 times (counting repeats) among a total of 57 footnotes (also counting repeats). Earlier, I had been dismissive of Dr. Kamath's book. However, I now realize my assessment had been premature. I would like to apologize to the FA's primary author user:Dineshkannambadi and also take this opportunity to both give the general FAR reader a flavor of Dr. Kamath's work and propose an actionable idea.

  • In a Google Scholar search in the topic "Mysore," out of a total of 7,490 scholarly publications in the Social Sciences and Humanities published between 1970 and 2008, Dr. S. U. Kamath has one publication. (The other Kamaths or Kamats are not him.)
  • Dr. Kamath is also known as the Chairman of the Editorial Committee of middle- and high-school text-books introduced in his home state of Karnataka in the late-1990s. The text-books garnered a review titled, Mis-oriented textbooks Archived 2007-09-16 at the Wayback Machine, in the magazine Frontline. Later, India's BJP-led government implemented some of the ideas in Karnataka's pioneering textbooks at an all-India level. Those textbooks in turn received wide international recognition, for example, in the review, titled, Hijacking India's History, in the New York Times.

So, there is strong evidence that Dr. Kamath is a widely known historian, and I welcome user:Dineshkannambadi's use of Dr. Kamath's widely used Karnataka college textbook in this History FA, and again extend my apologies for my earlier rush to judgment.

However, I feel that this Featured Article might also benefit from the views of other historians who too have publications in international journals. These scholars, some of whom appear in my list of scholars include James Manor. Dr. Manor has 17 publications listed in Google Scholar and he too is internationally known. In his paper, "Princely Mysore before the storm," Dr. Manor states that until 1761, the Wodeyars were "chieftains" who had only "claimed control over the southern and eastern parts" of Mysore. (To preempt any misinterpretations, I should like to clarify that "only claimed control over" is not the same thing as "claimed control over only.")

Since user:Sarvagnya had in an earlier post so wisely stressed the word "actionable," I was wondering if we might not turn Dr. Manor's ideas into action and thereby make them actionable. In particular, I was wondering if in the infobox for the period 1565–1761, we—as the FAR community—might consider the changing the current title, "Independent Wodeyar Kings" (see here) to:

Independent Wodeyar Kings/Wodeyar Chieftains Claiming Control Over Territory.

I feel the new title will be more inclusive of scholarly opinion. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:57, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

F&f FAR Post 2

[edit]

(Fowler&fowler Post2) Although I am staying away from entering into protracted content disputes here, I have to voice agreement with user:Dineshkannambadi when he says that the controversies that trail these scholars should not be followed here, only their footprints on the sands of scholarly time. So, just as Dr. Kamath has international recognition with his one publication on the topic of Mysore listed in Google Scholar, Dr. Romila Thapar too has a few publications here and there listed in Google Scholar, and these publications have been cited a few times by others. Similarly, just as Dr. Kamath's legacy in Ancient India has been covered in the international press, such as in the review, Mis-oriented textbooks Archived 2007-09-16 at the Wayback Machine, in the magazine Frontline, Dr. Thapar's contributions have been recognized as well, such as in the report, Historians Brown and Thapar Will Share $1 Million Kluge Prize in the Washington Post just a few days ago. Let us keep our focus on the scholarly record. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:30, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

F&f FAR Post 3

[edit]

(Fowler&fowler Post 3) My dear user:Sarvagnya, In response to the Frontline coverage, Dr. Kamath wrote a letter to the magazine's editors titled, The Saraswati river Archived 2005-03-29 at the Wayback Machine, which provided scientific evidence for the Saraswati River and justification for the appellation, Saraswati-Sindhu Civilization. After the BJP's defeat in the 2004 Indian elections, the new government led by Oxford scholar Manmohan Singh changed all the text books, consequently, Indian high-school students are no longer learning about Dr. Kamath's "Saraswati river" in their maps (see page 2 of this online chapter). However, our own Wikipedia, has acknowledged these ideas in the lead of its page Indus Valley Civilization. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:10, 10 December 2008 (UTC) (Scratched out some text that doesn't directly answer user:Sarvagnya's question. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:23, 10 December 2008 (UTC))

PS As you will readily see at the end of the letter, Dr. Kamath is the Chairman of the Editorial Committee and Dr. Nagaraju, Scrutiniser of the Standard VIII and IX Social Studies textbooks. Warm regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:13, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

F&f FAR Post 4

[edit]

(Fowler&fowler Post 4) Perhaps there has been some misunderstanding user:Sarvagnya. Nowhere in this second FAR have I said that Dr. Kamath, former Reader in History, Banglore University, is not a significant historian. My point is that just as Dr. Kamath as been honoured by interviews on private websites, such as Kamat.com, where, for example, in his closing remarks, he said, "The volunteers of organizations such as RSS need to rise to occasion to influence young minds into greater values of life," other scholars, like Dr. James Manor have also been recognized internationally. As I have already stated in my first post above, Dr. Manor regards the Wodeyars to have been Chieftains rather than Kings. I have suggested a very actionable plan there as a first step. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:32, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

F&f FAR Post 5

[edit]
Fowler&fowler Post 5
user:Mattisse, user:Docku, user:Dineshkannambadi's remarks about LCCN/ISBN information for text-book.

The Library of Congress call number provided by user:Dineshkannambadi for the book, A Concise History of Karnataka from Pre-historic Times to the Present is for the 1980 edition. For the last ten years, the book has been published in yearly revised editions by Jupiter Books, Bangalore, India. It is one of these revised editions (2001) that has been used by user:Dineshkannambadi for his citations. I had an acquaintance in India call Jupiter Books, and it turns out that the yearly revised editions do not have any ISBN information.

I tried to look for other book information numbers such as LCCN, however, searches for the publisher in both the Library of Congress On-line Catalog and the Copac Catalogue turned up empty. In fact, when I searched in IndCat: The Online Catalogue of Books in Indian Universities, I couldn't find anything published by "Jupiter Books, Bangalore" in the libraries of Dr. Kamath's own Bangalore University (Select tab "Books" in IndCat, select Bangalore University in the menu on the left; select "publisher" in pop-up window, and search for "Jupiter Books, Bangalore.")

So, I am not sure how best to deal with this conundrum pointed out by user:Mattisse. It is possible that I searched too narrowly, for, when I expanded the search to an unfettered Web Search for "Jupiter Books" AND "Bangalore" AND "Wikipedia," I found 769 links for this publisher. An even wider search for "Jupiter Books" AND "Bangalore," however, produced only 89 links, of which 75 were Wikipedia-related links (perhaps they removed the mirror sites). In either web search, user:Dineshkannambadi's other Wikipedia articles appeared in good measure, and I offer him my compliments. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:23, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

F&f FAR Post 6

[edit]
Fowler&fowler Post 6
Appropriate citations in Architecture section?

The Architecture section of Kingdom of Mysore is longer than either its Economy section or its Administration section. The section has five paragraphs and 21 citations (numbers 134 to 142) (counting repeats). These 21 citations are to the following works:

  1. Two travel guides:
    1. Raman, Afried (1994), Bangalore - Mysore: A Disha Guide, Bangalore: Orient Blackswan, ISBN 0863114318 (12 footnotes) and
    2. Bradnock, Robert (2000) [2000], South India Handbook - The Travel Guide, Footprint Travel Guide, ISBN 1900949814 (3 footnotes)
  2. Two commercial websites:
    1. OurKarnataka.com (3 footnotes)
    2. Mysore.org.uk (1 footnote)
  3. One newspaper website: Deccan Herald (1 footnote)

Are these citations appropriate in a History FA? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:00, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

F&f FAR Post 8

[edit]
Fowler&fowler Post 8
Tourist Guides for an Architecture section covering 600 years?

After my post of 11 December 2008 (Fowler&fowler Post 6), user:Dineshkannambadi asked for a day or two to change some of the sources used in the Architecture section of this History FA that covers the period 1399–1947. It bears pointing out that the new sources consist entirely of three tourist travel guides (one with advertisements). These are:

  1. Abram, Edwards, Ford, Sen, Wooldridge, David, Nick, Mike, Devdan, Beth (2003) [2003], South India, Rough Guides, ISBN 1843531038{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  2. Bradnock, Robert (2000) [2000], South India Handbook - The Travel Guide, Footprint Travel Guide, ISBN 1900949814)
  3. Raman, Afried (1994), Bangalore - Mysore: A Disha Guide, Bangalore: Orient Blackswan, ISBN 0863114318
  • Do tourist guides constitute adequate references for a History FA's section on Architecture that covers 600 years?
  • Also, since when did:
Hemingway, Ford, Fitzgerald, Ernest, Ford Madox, Francis Scott (1920), Three (Not Six) Guys in Paris, Doubleday{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
become an acceptable style of citation? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:22, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

F&f FAR Post 9

[edit]
(Fowler&fowler Post 9) Reply to user:Dineshkannambadi's reply
  1. Why did you not similarly provide "just the bare minimum information" and similarly cite tourist guides for
    1. the Architecture section of the FA Chalukya Dynasty, which has 27 footnotes (number 97 to 125), none of which seem to be tourist guides, but rather even includes some specialty books on architecture, or
    2. the Architecture section Hoysala Empire, whose footnotes 90 to 113 are not only not to tourist guides, but also to specialty books on architecture?
  2. If this architecture section provides the bare minimum material needed for an article written in WP:SS, then where is the mother article for this compressed section and what references is it using?
  3. If there are no scholarly books that you can cite in the way that the FAs mentioned in 1) above do, or if the mother article does not exist for the Architecture section, then why do we need such a section in this History FA.?
  4. Can you point to another History FA, which has a fairly long section that relies entirely on Tourist Guides? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:25, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

F&f FAR Post 10

[edit]

(Fowler&fowler Post 10) PS I just noticed that user:Dineshkannambadi changed the name of the mother article of the literature subsection from Kannada literature in the Kingdom of Mysore to Kannada literature, 1600–1900 CE without any notice anywhere on the talk page and with the "minor edit" box checked in the edit summary. This mother article is apparently also simultaneously undergoing a peer review in preparation for an FA drive. Since this change is not uncontroversial, and very much concerns not only the name "Kingdom of Mysore" on the anvil here, but also a subsection of an article in an FAR. I would like to request user:Dineshkannambadi to make no such moves that directly concern this FAR, unless he has gained consensus for them both here and on the talk page of the mother article. I have reverted the move. Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:46, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

F&f FAR Post 11

[edit]
Fowler&fowler Post 11

(unindent) Yes, I do understand that it is about this article; however, I am suggesting that when such a name change involves issues related to the FAR (and explicitly discussed in My concerns (#5)), it should be discussed on Talk:Kannada literature in the Kingdom of Mysore first and should be mentioned in the FAR.

user:Dineshkannambadi, you have done similar things before that are not transparent and that subtly distort the FAR process. In the FAR Talk Page, I have already complained about your adding content to posts that have already been replied to. I believe such a page move similarly clouds the picture. What, after all, will an independent reader of My concerns (#5) think if they find both the content of the literature section as well as name and content of the mother article changed. Such a change should be communicated to the FAR participants, as user:Docku also stresses above.

Since I subscribe to 1RR, I will, however, not revert user:Sarvagyna's revert move. Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:39, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

F&f FAR Post 12

[edit]
Fowler&fowler Post 12

If the FAR has nothing to do with the sub-articles, perhaps user:Dineshkannambadi would like to explain

  1. this edit of 12:54 13 October 2007, by copy-editor user:Damanmundine1, with edit summary, "moved Mysore Kingdom literature to Literature of the Kingdom of Mysore: consistency with other Kingdom of Mysore sub-articles," and
  2. why the page name stayed that way for a year.

Please see A record of the creation of this page and its name changes for more details. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:07, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

PS Since the record above was removed by user:Sarvagnya, I have now provided a perma-link. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:34, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Modern Kannada literature periodization

[edit]
  1. Malagi, S. R. (2006-01-01), "Inglisha Gitagalu", in Datta, Amaresh (ed.), Enyclopaedia of Indian Literature, Volume 2, New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, pp. 1716–1717, ISBN 8126011947
    1. Quote:"(p. 1716) The modern Kannada literature had dawned, broadly speaking, in the third decade of the 19th century with the publication of Kempunarayana's Mudramanjusha (A chest of seal, 1823), a prose romance which deals with the story presented in the celebrated Sanskrit play Mudrarakshasa in an original manner."
  2. Narasimha Murthy, K., "Modern Kannada Literature", in George, K. M. (ed.), Modern Indian Literature, An Anthology: Volume1, Surveys and Poems, New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, pp. 167–190, ISBN 8172013248
    1. Quote:"(p. 167) The Nineteenth Century: The development of a modern consciousness and a modern sensibility as well as of appropriate literary forms for their effective articulation was a long and complex process which started in the early years of the nineteenth century, a process involving challenge and response and continuity and change. ... The most impressive literary work of the first half of the nineteenth century is undoubtedly Mudramanjusha (The Seal Casket) by Kempu Narayana, also a writer at Krishnaraja's court."
  3. Shiva Prakash, H. S. (1997), "Medieval Kannada Literature", in Ayyappapanicker, K. (ed.), Medieval Indian Literature, New Delhi:Sahitya Akademi, pp. 163–214, ISBN 8126003650
    1. Quote: (p. 163) "In this survey, the works produced from the 12th century up to the beginning of the 19th will be considered as belonging to medieval literature."
  4. Viswanatha, Vanamala; Simon, Sherry (1999), "Shifting grounds of exchange: B. M. Srikantaiah and Kannada translation", in Bassnett, Susan; Trivedi, Harish (eds.), Post-colonial Translation: Theory and Practice, Routledge. Pp. 201, pp. 162–181, ISBN 041514745X
    1. Quote: (p. 166–167) "Translations served to help Kannada literature break away from these traditional forms. They were first undertaken by missionaries and by administrators in the service of colonial rule. Both Ferdinand Kittel (1832–1903) and B. L. Rice (1837–1927) translated Christian hymns according to the earlier metrics and the songs of Dasas, but others attempted to translate Christian texts into Kannada so that they could be sung to Western melodies. In the latter case, they were forced to modify the ancient rhyme schemes and metrical patterns in order to make their poems musically viable. For the first time in Kannada literature, the ancient rhyme schemes and metrical patterns were given up. According to Havanur, the modern Kannada short poem came into being around 1838 through the invocation poems translated by Christian missionaries. Another stimulus to modern Kannada literature came with the need to provide textbooks in Kannada for younger children. Many translated poems, specifically designed to provide an idiom familiar to the spoken language, were included in these textbooks. In 1873, the First Book of Kannada Poetry containing poems like "Advice to Young Girls," "Glory to Victoria," and "Monkey's Game," was published. This poetry was free from the bombast of traditional Sanskrit poetry, while aiming at simplicity and clearness compatible with the spoken dialect."

Careless or disingenuous?

[edit]

Dear Michael Devore, I'm disappointed both to see your post here and to see it copied on the FARC page.

I've taken you thus far to be a neutral and fair person, but I am surprised to see you inserting yourself in a situation, where, as a copy-editor, you should know better. You say, for example, "... the delist arguments made in the FAR because a copyedit is needed are not compelling." Who has argued for "delisting" on grounds of poor prose? I can't seem to find anyone. All that people have said is that in addition to issues of poor sourcing and factual accuracy, of lack of comprehensiveness and the presence of bias, it doesn't help the article any that the prose is so shabby. That's quite different from arguing for delisting because the article hasn't been copy-edited.

Many problems in the text that don't fall under bias, citations, or comprehensiveness, are in any case errors that a copy editor will likely not catch. The classic howler (which has since been removed) was, "The economy of the Kingdom of Mysore was based on agriculture, due to the majority of the population being villagers." Fixing the grammatical errors alone there won't do much, since the author has confused cause for effect!

Also, it is disingenuous, in my view, to characterize the FARC—in which the primary author of the article has been accused of bias—as a dispute between two equally biased parties which requires intervention by a neutral party (whatever that means). Perhaps you would like to do a Google Scholar search on each of user:Dineshkannambadi's sources and decide for yourself how obscure they are; contrast them then with the results for the major authors who have worked on the topic of Mysore.

I understand that you may have some empathy for user:Dineshkannambadi since you have worked with him for some time now, but as a copy-editor you need to stay above these frays. user:Dineshkannambadi might be a very hard working editor, but the topic of history requires certain skills, not only of accurately paraphrasing a source and of clearly expressing oneself, but also of understanding historical methodology and perspective, skills that, in my view, user:Dineshkannambadi doesn't display on his pages, however much we may admire his hard work and drive in putting them together.

I would like to request that you ask him to remove your post from the FARC. If you would like to add something to the FARC, you should do it yourself. At the very least, you risk your message being misused unwittingly. If you choose not do this, I will be copying this post to the FARC as well. Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:21, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

My comments were carefully structured not to take sides in the crux of the debate, and I believe them to be accurate within the scope of a disinterested party with no special knowledge of the subject, to be on point, and to be potentially helpful to those who are concerned, as some were, about the copyedit of the article. Since I do not recommend pass or fail at FACs, and I have no strong feelings on what is kept or delisted at FA (the article quality is the same regardless), I left the decision on whether to repost my comments to the primary party in the FARC interaction: Dineshkannambadi. My remarks clearly cannot not be found to support his basic content position, but do demonstrate a willingness to help out at the article in another possibly problematic area if the factual nature of the content was consensus approved. Various comments related to Delist at the FARC assuredly do significantly remark on the writing style and copy.
I prefer that you not imply that I have cast a special regard for Dineshkannambadi's side of the content debate because I "have worked with him for some time now". I do not know Dineshkannambadi any better than I do you. Moreover, I have worked with a number of other editors, several preceding him, although it is true that three of his articles have my highest edit counts. In fact, I would have no problems working on articles on which you are the primary author, as I note that the article you authored and mentioned twice at the FARC currently has its own copy issues. Dineshkannambadi's articles, your own, and all articles, should stand or fall on their own merits.
Since you have chosen to suggest in your section title that I have acted disingenuously, I will in turn choose to be blunt in commenting on one aspect of this dispute—in fact the range of disputes—you have had with Dineshkannambadi. Wikipedia is a collaborative project. All work done here should be performed with an eye towards building articles and making them better. The issuance or revocation of FA badges should always remain a weak second to these goals. Despite this, you have begun and continued spending incredible amounts of time fighting with Dineshkannambadi in FAC and FARC, with many accompanying side comments and personal remarks wholly unrelated to fundamental content issues. If you had instead invested most that time in writing quality articles, I have little doubt that you could have been the primary author of as many, or more, Featured Articles than Dineshkannambadi. You spend your time and talents far too cheaply.
In closing, you have spread your debate with Dineshkannambadi across multiple pages of Wikipedia. Those would seem sufficient to your task. You are not welcome to further this fight with him, directly or indirectly, at my talk page. Please do not post to my talk page again in this vein. -- Michael Devore (talk) 01:56, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
My goals at Wikipedia are not related to writing Featured Articles which are too close to what I do for a living as an academic and which I am well aware I could write very easily if I wanted to. That article, by the way, which you think has its own copy issues, was written in one morning and has not be revised. I prefer instead to work on small obscure topics and also to keep various forms of nationalism out of the discourse here. Contrary to what you might think, I don't spend an enormous amount of time on Wikipedia. My family doesn't allow it. I don't have anything personal against user:Dineshkannambadi. To me he is work is simply another example of the regional nationalism that you see on Wikipedia and the distorted histories he produces are no different from other distorted histories I have fought against on Wikipedia. You are of course entitled to your opinions about my motivations, but you are off the mark. Meanwhile, I will continue to hold mine that you have been disingenuous. Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:19, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Statistics for usage "Kingdom" vs. "State" for Mysore

[edit]
  1. First, let us consider the time period 1799 to 1947. Among scholarly sources published between 1799 and 1947 which do not mention "haidar ali" or "tipu sultan" (in order to rule out references to earlier events (involving Tipu Sultan or Haidar Ali), i.e. to events of the years 1760 to 1799) there are:
    1. 3 that use "Mysore kingdom" OR "Kingdom of Mysore", whereas there are
    2. 165 that use "Mysore state" OR "State of Mysore"
  2. Among scholarly sources published between 1948 and 2008 which mention "nineteenth century" but not "haidar ali" or "tipu sultan" (again in order to rule out references to events of the years 1760 to 1799), there are:
    1. 8 that use "Mysore kingdom" OR "Kingdom of Mysore"; whereas there are
    2. 167 that use "Mysore state" OR "State of Mysore"
  3. If you allow other identifiers of the years 1800 to 1947 (such as "princely" OR "colonial") and disallow other identifiers of earlier years (such as "eighteenth") the results become even more lopsided. There are:
    1. 9 that use "Mysore kingdom" OR "Kingdom of Mysore", whereas there are
    2. 336 that use "State of Mysore" OR "Mysore state". You can restrict the last search to the last 25 years (to examine recent publications), the numbers in 1 and 2 above become 8 and 235 respectively.
  4. Finally, if you look at the entire time period 1500 to 1947 (using identifiers "sixteenth century" OR "seventeenth century" OR "eighteenth century" or "nineteenth century" or "early twentieth century" or "princely" OR "colonial"), there are
    1. 77 sources that use "Mysore kingdom" OR "Kingdom of Mysore", whereas there are
    2. 677 sources that use "Mysore state" OR "State of Mysore"

The only reason why you need identifiers is to avoid inadvertently including references to "Mysore state in independent India," the state which later became "Karnataka." If you didn't include identifiers, the numbers in 1 and 2 would become 94 and 2,550 respectively (but that would be incorrect). In other words, the evidence is overwhelming that among scholars the term for Mysore during the entire period 1500 to 1947, but especially the period 1800 to 1947, is "State of Mysore" OR "Mysore state" OR "Princely state of Mysore." Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:31, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

FAR/FARC History as of January 22 2009

[edit]
History

Here is a history of how the FAR/FARC saga has unfolded (in my recollection).

  • I took my first good look at the Kingdom of Mysore article sometime in late November 2008, in the course of doing some work on the article Princely state, where I had then just added a beautiful picture of the young Mysore rulers and was looking to add the Mysore wikilink to the caption. I noticed that Mysore—alone among the Indian princely states—was being called a "Kingdom" with a capital "K."
  • Upon reading the article, I realized that the title was only the first of the problems with the article. I then made a post on the talk page of the article asking the primary authors some questions. However, all I received in response were arrogant replies or no replies. (See my first post here and second post here.)
  • Starting on December 2, 2008 I began to make a list of sources on Mysore (which is one of the most worked on areas of early-modern and modern Indian history) and of quotes from them, still hoping for resolution on the talk page; I even warned them that I would be forced to request an FAR (which at that point I didn't know how to proceed with and thought it was done on the talk page) (See page history here).
  • Still, there was no response from my interlocutors; however, user:Dineshkannambadi made his own post, Dinesh's sources, which essentially said that he was having a hard time copying 700 sources. To this user:Sarvagnya added postscript that had an injunction to deny recognition to trolls.
  • I kept collecting my sources for the next two days. Then user:KnowledgeHegemony made a post on my talk page and suggested that instead of having this non-conversation on the article talk page I should pursue an FAR (and provided the link). I read the FAR criteria, satisfied myself that there were enough issues of bias, factual inaccuracy, and poor sourcing, and on December 5, 2008 filed the FAR.
  • After the FAR began, user:Dineshkannambadi spent two weeks denying that there was anything the matter with the article. All this while, user:Docku and I were trying to engage the primary authors on the article talk page.
  • I tried to edit the article myself after adding an in-use tag and after leaving a message on the talk page suggesting that I be allowed to add some content, which could then be discussed. user:Dineshkannambadi immediately reverted all my edits and suggested that if I continued to edit the article, the FAR will be seen as a content dispute. (See the various posts here).
  • At this point I became aware that the history section, which the authors claimed was written in summary style, didn't have any parent articles. See the version of the article in early December 2008. I began to compose a parent article on my subpage and then subsequently did so on the page History of Mysore and Coorg, 1565–1760 and created two more stubs for the remaining periods.
  • Then, user:Sarvagnya and user:Dineshkannambadi—both suddenly deciding that they would use one of my sources for the article—hurriedly began to paraphrase an article of Sanjay Subhrahmanyam. This, however, they did very poorly; moreover, they stopped one-third way through, with the result, what has been included does not reflect the intent of the author.
  • Since early December 2008, when the FAR began, the primary authors have not let any one else make edits to the article (on the pretext that FA edits need to be discussed first on the talk page); however, they themselves (primarily user:Dineshkannambadi, but also user:Sarvagnya) have made approximately 440 edits to the article.
  • In many cases, they have paraphrased a sentence or two from my article on Mysore and Coorg, but have changed the meaning slightly and then found some other sources (Kamath or Chopra or ...) to cite. It becomes very difficult then to keep track of what is going on. All this while there has been no intimation from them on how the article has changed (either in edit summaries or more explicitly in the FAR/FARC), let alone any acknowledgment that they have benefited from the input that I or user:Docku or user:Mattisse have provided.
  • Consider, for example, this edit of user:Dineshkannambadi, in which one of the maps from my article History of Mysore and Coorg, 1565–1760 has been added to the Kingdom of Mysore article; the edit summary, however, says, "moved image to correct location."
  • Meanwhile the article has changed in an ad hoc, inscrutable and haphazard fashion from this version of early December 2008 to this version of January 20, 2009 (involving, as I already mentioned, 440 edits).
  • I have suggested to them (in my summary at the end of FAR 2) that if they agree to delist the article, I will help them access academic databases, email pdfs of articles, and as best I can make an effort to get it featured again, however, they haven't exactly jumped at that idea either. (See user:Sarvagnya's first comment in the FARC.)
  • Looking at the history of this page and of other pages authored by user:Dineshkannambadi, I don't believe that any compromise text can be agreed upon unless the page is delisted; for, the primary authors will keep using the privileged status of an FA to resist making changes in a cooperative fashion, especially when the glare of the FARC has gone.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Fowler%26fowler/Kingdom_of_Mysore_FAR&oldid=1151784166"