Talk:Criticism of Sikhism/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Mass vandalism, efforts to blank and delete large sections of the page, POV article, unsourced claims

This article should be reverted to a more stable version (early 2020) as last talk page discussions were in Dec 2019 and be fully protected for a short period of time Suthasianhistorian8 (talk) 14:53, 27 November 2021 (UTC).

The last consenus efforts for this article was on Dec 2019, in the last 2 years the page has gone through numerous, numerous efforts to blank the page or delete large sections of the page. For example 1, an edit war like this continued with more than 10 reverts taking place in early to mid 2021 regarding this section. 2. This user removed 20,000 bytes of information 3 and then made numerous more edits removing up to 15,000 bytes of info. This is just a few examples out of many dozens upon dozens of examples.

This article should be restored to an early 2020 version https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Criticism_of_Sikhism&oldid=1057359811 (my edit restoring article to an early 2020 version), which is far better sourced, has numerous sources to back up claims, is far more comprehensive and is actually relevant to the topic at hand. MehmoodS keeps making bad faith edits and restoring the article.

The current version of the article has numerous issues, the lead paragraph has no sources whatsoever. Sentence from lead paragraph "Guru Nanak rejected ritualistic worshiping and encouraged belief in one true God, Waheguru.". Many sections are quite clearly POV statements such as the one under "Religious Hybridization"- "Sikhism has a universal appeal and speaks equally to Hindus and Muslims, encouraging all to become better human beings". Statement like this "Tiwari has generally been critical of every religion that does not fit the mould of vedic philosophy, from Christianity & Islam to other Indian faiths like Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism. He was critical of Sanatana dharma as having denigrated from the original vedantic philosophy and even disliked the word Hindu." on the article has no source. " states Myrvold, are no different from idol worship by Hindus and is, therefor, not unique to Sikhism. Such rituals moulds "meanings, values and ideologies" The article has numerous spelling and grammar issues like this. Under the hair cutting section of the article- "With many Caucasian whites, Hispanics, African Americans, and East Asian people embracing the Sikh faith, following the teachings of Guru Granth and keeping long unshorn hair, more people are becoming aware of the principles of Sikhism." has no source once again and is POV edit. Under the "Martiality" section of the current article- it states "The Sikh faith was born out of a rejection of the ritualistic practices of Hinduism, its faith in multiple Gods and demi-gods and a caste-based society that gave no rights to women or lowly born. It traced its root to mystic universalists who tried to transcend Hinduism and Islam alike. But increased persecution by the Mughals, particularly the emperor Jahangir and Aurangzeb, led to the martyrdoms of multiple gurus and leaders. This helped the evolution of Sikhism as not just a spiritual movement, but a clearly defined martial brotherhood that aimed to provide protection to Hindu faith, women and lower castes of the society and gain independence from Mughal oppression in India." yet the source provided only mentions that a martial brotherhood emerged in order to fight the Mughals and gaining independence from Mughal tyranny. This is an example of puffery and pov edits.

Another statement in current article- "However, political alignments since the independence of India have led to political leaders wooing lower caste vote-banks that led to carving out a new sect called Ravidassia religion" which is a bold statement to make and the source provided (a CNN article) makes no mention of this whatsoever.

This paragraph- "A similar conflict in the 1970s between the Sikhs and the Sant Nirankari sect, a 20th-century offshoot of the Nirankari tradition, led to accusations by some Sikhs that the Sant Nirankaris were heretical and sacrilegious.[38] Contrary to mainstream Sikhism, the Sant Nirankari leader had declared himself a guru with his own scripture in the presence of the Guru Granth Sahib, and added heretical variations of several Sikh rituals and symbols, including replacing the Sikh institution of the Panj Pyare council with the sat sitare, and replacing amrit, a mixture of mixed sugar and water administered to Khalsa initiates, with charan amrit, water used to wash his feet.[38] They were also accused of unprovoked criticism of the Gurus and Sikh scripture, as the Sant Nirankari leader had written in his own scripture that he alone, of all religions' prophets, had agreed to go back to Earth to spread God's true message, with the understanding that God agreed that anyone who was blessed by him would go to heaven regardless of their deeds, and that analysis of the Guru Granth Sahib had fruitless, using the metaphor of churning butter yielding no cream, and of being funded by the government and economic elites to undermine the community.[38][39]" Sant Nirankaris a post religious/universal brotherhood/humanist sect that do not consider themselves Sikhs, so not sure why this entire paragraph is even in the article.

One of the most egregious examples of issues in the current article- "Pashaura Singh was afforded due opportunity by the Akal Rakhta and other Sikh scholars on his comparative method (borrowed from Trumpp) and his hypothesis of the draft theory was rejected as forcibly injecting undated texts dated much beyond the timeline of the Adi Granth to which he failed to bring a credible response to his academic peers." Trying to discredit an academic and the source provided in the article makes no mention of forcibly injecting undated texts like the article claims. Article makes no commentary on the quality of the academic's work or his methodolgy whatsoever. Suthasianhistorian8 (talk) 15:37, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

• Reverting the whole article back to old revision of year or two ago, removing all reliable sources and information provided by other contributors of the article just because this user personally has issue with, isn't valid reason. MehmoodS (talk) 15:56, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

Current version of the article sorely lacks sources and many of the sources it does have either contradict or do not even mention what the article is claiming. The 2020 version of the article is much better sourced and far less POV. Admins are free to go through the edit history of the article and see how much vandalism and removing of sourced information has taken place in the past 2-3 yrs. Suthasianhistorian8 (talk) 16:01, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

Also "The concept of Sikh langar (free community kitchen) and liberal donations has helped spread Sikh philosophy into war torn Syria, Iraq and disaster plagued regions where organizations such as Khalsa-Aid have done exemplary voluntary work." no source, POV edit, promotion of org. Yet another issue with the article Suthasianhistorian8 (talk) 17:02, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

• Nothing in the article was salvageable. I am afraid that blanking large sections of the page is the only appropriate action — stub-ed. TrangaBellam (talk) 18:04, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

• Our article on McLeod is written by me and I was stunned to see this section on an article concerning "criticism of Sikhism." TrangaBellam (talk) 18:10, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

  @Kautilya3: - Pinging since I came across your name in the t/p history. TrangaBellam (talk) 19:45, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. Firefangledfeathers 20:54, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

I just did this to close the edit request. We clearly need further discussion to see where consensus is. Firefangledfeathers 20:54, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

• @TrangaBellam: well constructive editing. The article is good enough now. Article went through various vandalism and trolls over the year without anyone noticing and much of the content was irrelevant to criticism and more POV. Kudos for the changes. MehmoodS (talk) 22:11, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

Page currently protected. Determining what version to place at.

In response to a WP:ANEW case, I rolled the page back to before the current edit war. Looking at the edits, it appears that there may be a better version than the 23 November one. @Suthasianhistorian8: Is this version acceptable to you? —C.Fred (talk) 23:07, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

I feel like that version is much too short and the opening paragraph needs to be trimmed to the original 1 or 2 sentences, so both criticisms of the faith and criticisms of those criticism should be included. Current version is good for now Suthasianhistorian8 (talk) 23:17, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

@Suthasianhistorian8: Thank you for your comment that you oppose moving forward to a different version. I will leave it at the last stable version until discussion produces a new consensus. —C.Fred (talk) 00:09, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

@C.Fred: My point of view and of other user TrangaBellam. This version you mentioned is acceptable. . The version you reverted to went through changes that were irrelevant to the article by IPs and others. TrangaBellam who originally created the article noticed the vandalism and removed them. Therefore this version is most reliable and needs to be reverted to this one that you mentioned.. MehmoodS (talk) 23:25, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

That is a very obvious case of WP: IDL. Removing 90% of the article, many relevant to the topic at hand and backed up by numerous sources and attributed to various academics like the ones in my most recent edit is unjustifiable. The lead paragraph in your request version is completely unsourced and contains many dubious claims. Please explain how my most recent edit were not criticisms and irrelevant? Suthasianhistorian8 (talk) 23:31, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

@C.Fred: TrangaBellam did not create the article. Not sure what MehmoodS means by that. Tranga registered in 2020 and the earliest edit on this page was in 2013 Suthasianhistorian8 (talk) 23:36, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

@C.Fred: I misread Tranga's comment earlier. TrangaBellam created an article on McLeod and the content from his page was plagiarized by some editor over to Criticism of Sikhism. @TrangaBellam: you can clarify it better. Also most of the changes are completely irrelevant and dubious on article criticism of Sikhism. That is why all the dubious changes were removed. MehmoodS (talk) 23:42, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

Mehmood, you keep repeating the claim about irrelevancy over and over again, but have not once explained why. Could you please do so? Suthasianhistorian8 (talk) 23:45, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

already did but you were too busy submitting baseless reports on forum. Reverts by Tranga explained it well too. MehmoodS (talk) 23:48, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

With all due respect, you have not explained anything at all. Please feel free to do so on the section below. You could go and ahead and copy and paste your explanation you made earlier to make it easier, but you did not provide any explanation whatsoever quite obviously from looking at the talk page Suthasianhistorian8 (talk) 23:51, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

TrangaBellam you say created the McLeod article, but https://xtools.wmflabs.org/pages/en.wikipedia.org/TrangaBellam but I couldn't find this on your articles created section on your user page Suthasianhistorian8 (talk) 23:56, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

They are not the creator but that are by far the primary author: https://xtools.wmflabs.org/articleinfo/en.wikipedia.org/W._H._McLeod Firefangledfeathers 00:22, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

Finally, "with all due respect". Hopefully you could have taken this route in the first place. I am not sure what explanation you are looking for when its clear from the statements made earlier. I do not have the time and energy to go back and copy and paste the remarks for you. MehmoodS (talk) 00:12, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

MehmoodS This isn't how consenus is formed. You cant just keep saying "Im not going to give you an explanation on why I feel your proposed changes are bad" every single time and expect anyone to take you seriously. All I'm asking for you is to provide an explanation for why you reverted my edits and why you feel my changes are "irrelevant". So far your remarks have been terse and no supporting evidence was provided. Suthasianhistorian8 (talk) 00:20, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

When did I say "Im not going to give you an explanation on why I feel your proposed changes are bad"? How can you be taken seriously when you failed to comply in the first place to indulge in civil discussion? And now you are interested in concensus. Whereas Pashaura Singh is concerned. He is a controversial personality who has also apologized for wrong claims made by him. Such as look at this where not only he pleaded guilty but also apologized through a letter. MehmoodS (talk) 00:54, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

i will get back to rest of the discussion later. Busy and can't multitask right now. Thanks. Other editors are welcome to provide their opinion meanwhile. Most of them have been pinged. MehmoodS (talk) 01:02, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

Ok but you should just reply to my proposed redraft down below. It doesnt even include Pashura Singh. It just includes academics' claims that the GGS is treated as an idol, which is quite frankly true, I've witnessed the rituals concerning the GGS firsthand though that's besides the point Suthasianhistorian8 (talk) 01:10, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

Its not true as there is no worship of GGS that takes place, from what I have witnessed. Its due to lack of understanding and misrepresentation of the ritual. Book is revered as the holy book and given respect as such but yes that is besides the point.MehmoodS (talk) 02:00, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

I will get back with rest of discussion. Hopefully others can provide their opinions as well. Sapedder noticed you also contributed. MehmoodS (talk) 02:03, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

MehmoodS: Excuse the late reply. I agree with the current measures being taken with the page. What some people don't seem to understand is that users themselves can't call something a criticism, the authors themselves have to qualify it as such. On that basis alone, the article needs a look. Unilaterally pushing the page two years back is egregious, so my efforts were limited to the tone of the page and adding accuracy and context. But some like the IP a few months ago (which was why the page already had a level of protection earlier this year), as well as now, simply have other motivations. On top of its poor, stilted English, the Dec 2019 version was filled with personal opinion intertwined with sources, was when this article became a free-for-all, and was the single worst version of the article, clearly unacceptable to all but the most POV-pushing types.

It would be good to have this article as tightly regulated as certain other Criticism articles rightfully are, as they all tend to be troll magnets, good to finally see some rigor being enforced here. btw, I think premodern sectarian opinions like Trumpp's and Tiwari's are questionable in and of themselves for inclusion here without historical context. Sapedder (talk) 11:30, 21 December 2021 (UTC)