Talk:Bangladesh genocide/Archive 3

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Misleading figures in the article

@User:Volunteer Marek and @User:My very best wishes, as User:Puck42 pointed out. The article is filled with Weasel words. Sources are either mispresented or the claims are simply not supported by the given sources. #Lead says a number now universally regarded as excessively inflated and cites a single source and that source is directly linking to Sarmila Bose's book (Her book is not the part of mainstream scholarly consensus)

1. Similarly, lead says estimated 50,000-500,000 Biharis were killed-- a number not supported by the scholars. for ex-- Persecution of Biharis in Bangladesh cite a figure of 1000 to150,000 Biharis were killed.
2. These statistics are presented in a way that is misleading. The article is about the genocide (Ofcourse against the bengalis) so the biharis killed figures should be written in its relevant section and not in the lead.
3. The article (specially lead) needs an major overhaul. It seems like these inaccurate and highly misleading figures were recently added without any discussion whatsoever at talk. As I said, in my previous comment, there is an ongoing effort to to make Wikipedia look like a Pakistani encyclopaedia. They are spreading their propaganda all over Bangladesh related articles.

I therefore suggest to restore the old and stable version of the article. So anyone please do that! I am also pinging administrator @SpacemanSpiff: here. regards.ArghyaIndian (talk) 04:03, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Which older version did you have in mind? (and broadly, I agree with your points)Volunteer Marek (talk) 04:24, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

And just to point out an... umm... "inconsistency", here, you can't have it both ways. You can't quote Rummel to say that between 50k and 500k Biharis were killed, but then quickly throw Rummel out the window when he says that between 300k and 3000k Bengalis were killed and quietly switch to another source which gives you a more ... "favorable" estimate. That's classic cherry picking and POV pushing.Volunteer Marek (talk) 04:39, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

@Volunteer Marek: You must be living in some nationalist fantasy land that the world thinks of the conflict as solely a genocide of Bengalis. It doesn't. The ICJ in 1972 gave serious consideration to the massacres of Biharis. As have many non-Indian/non-Bangladeshi sources. So yes the figures of Biharis killed certainly deserves to be there.

The source used in the lead is a Human Rights Watch report. And yes its you who has to bring proof that Sarmila Bose does not represent scholarly consensus. Whats really going on is that she is one of the few scholars who have conducted an actual study, rather than parrot old figures. So her findings are disturbing and difficult to stomach for some people. Human Rights Watch seems to believe she is a good enough source. Why should you be any different?

And rather than fretting over mythical Pakistani encyclopedias I would be worried at the current anti-Pakistan POV which is pushed across nearly every page to do with Pakistan. Its our job as editors to present neutral articles. I didn't know that Wikipedia has a policy that anti-Pakistan information should be included and all other sourced info should be discarded.

Anyways @Volunteer Marek here is a good article you should go and ponder over in your reading time: http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/questioning-an-iconic-number/article5940833.ece

And yes I am willing to remove the 50,000-500,000 figure on the condition that all of R.J Rummerl's material on the conflict be removed since many scholars find his research and methodologies problematic. Christian Gerlach accuses him and his statistics of sensationalism,

Towns Hill (talk) 06:57, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

"You must be living in some nationalist fantasy land" - riiiiiigggghhhhhtttttt. Please enlighten me, what kind of "nationalist" am I? You know, statements like these sort of betray your own bias and WP:BATTLEGROUND approach.

And again, if you assert that the title "1971 Bangladesh genocide" refers to or includes the violence against Biharis then you need to provide sources. You bring up Human Rights Watch above. That source DOES NOT say that the violence against Biharis constituted a genocide. It only says that it occurred (which no one's denying and which is already in the article).

And you know very well that Bose's work is very controversial and has been extensively critiqued (for example here). And again, no one's saying she should be removed from the encyclopedia, only that her work needs to be given DUE WEIGHT and attributed, which is standard (and it is policy) in controversial cases like these.

I have no idea as to what you're going on about in that third paragraph. From what I can see, some editors present here - you, FreeatLastChitChat, TripWire (formerly User:PakSol, as in "Pakistani Soldier") and SheriffsinTown - have been running a bit wild on all articles having to do with India-Pakistan topic, pushing an over-the-top pro-Pakistani Army POV. Now, on more narrow Indian articles it seems like there's a good number of Indian editors there who will stand up to you, so you guys turned to Bangladesh related ones, probably because there aren't that many Bangladeshi editors on en-Wikipedia.

Lastly, I don't know what the relevance of that TheHindu article is suppose to be.

Volunteer Marek (talk) 07:09, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

@Volunteeer Marek

I said 'nationalist fantasy land' because only Bangladeshi nationalists like to downplay(and sometimes even justify) the genocide of Biharis. Now do you see any Pakistani member downplaying the genocide of Bengalis? (Note: Pointing out to lower death estimates from reliable sources does not equal downplaying nor does pointing out the extreme exaggeration of these statistics).

Bose's work is controversial for Indians/Bangladeshis for obvious reasons. You know very well that her work was praised by several Western academics (eg Dirk A Moses, Stephen Cohen etc). And nowhere is she being given UNDUE emphasis. You basically have most of the article for your POV already. A few sentences on Bose (whose opinion is a major opinion on 1971) will not be WP:Undue. What you seem to be wanting is to not have Bose at all. Also keep in mind most of my sources are non-Bose, but even thats not good enough for you. And wherever Bose has been mentioned, she has been attributed.

The Hindu article is highly relevant. It talks about the various estimates on the number of war dead. And it points out the wild exaggerations and the few authentic studies carried out on the statistics. Towns Hill (talk) 07:18, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

"I said 'nationalist fantasy land' because only Bangladeshi nationalists like to..." - apparently not. Like I said, you're so off on this, that you're just revealing the fact that you're nowhere near neutral enough to be editing this article.

Sort of the same with your claim that "you (that would be me - VM) seem to be wanting is to not have Bose at all". You know, if I was not wanting to have her at all I probably would not have said she's reliable and can be used (as long as it's with due weight and attribution). So it may "seem" like that to you, but that's because there is a problem with how you "see" things.Volunteer Marek (talk) 07:23, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Absolutely yes! these editors are just pushing fringe theories and trying to put their country's notion into a global source of knowledge (Wikipedia); which is not acceptable. Nationalist editors like you, don't last long!ArghyaIndian (talk) 07:34, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

@ArghyaIndian: Forgive me if I am wrong but on the Indian Army page you removed well-sourced info abt the Indian Army committing atrocities on Muslims in Hyderabad. And your justification was that it is 'controversial information'. So rather than jumping to accuse others you should sort out your own acts.Towns Hill (talk) 07:38, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

• Yes, indeed, the opinion of Rummel was quoted incorrectly. I fixed it. My very best wishes (talk) 14:45, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

User:Volunteer Marek and User:My very best wishes, I think I restored a wrong version. Can you please make those changes again? thanksArghyaIndian (talk) 10:47, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Why are people making changes while I am holding off for RfC to complete? Please refrain from making controversial changes! Sheriff | ☎ 911 | 12:08, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

This is because your RfC does not ask well defined question. If, for example, the RfC was about changes in one specific paragraph, then indeed, it would be best not to edit that paragraph. One can not "freeze" whole page by starting an RfC. My very best wishes (talk) 15:34, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

References

Changes in the lede about militias

The Islamist'razakars' from Jamaat e Islami and Nizam e Islami played a significant role in the atrocities. And for some strange reason their Bengali identity has been removed from the lead of the article. This needs to be restored. Lets not pretend that Bengalis didn't ally with the Army and kill/rape other Bengalis. This is a confirmed fact. On a personal note, many Bengalis I have interacted with say that the majority of atrocities were perpetrated by the razakars. There are sources for this too. But for now, I want their Benali identity restored in the lead.Towns Hill (talk) 06:22, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

I saw that you added this to the other article. As long as it's properly sourced, that's fine and yes, it's encyclopedic info.Volunteer Marek (talk) 00:53, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

"universally regarded"

link to revert

RfC or not, the language that it is "universally regarded" that the death numbers are inflated is so over the top that it needs to be removed.

It is false. Obviously there are sources which claim 3,000,000. Hence it cannot be true that it is "universally regarded as inflated"

It is not based on the source. The source says something else.

And it's just bad writing. Because any reader with half a brain that comes across it will see it and say "uh uh... "universally regarded", surrreeeee, this article has obviously been hijacked by someone with an agenda". On second thought, maybe we should leave that be.Volunteer Marek (talk) 21:11, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

You removed 2,049 bytes, I don't think the words "universally regarded" take that much, how about a self revert then remove "universally regarded" and then discuss other 2,029 bytes here and honestly I have been refraining from making any changes since I started the RfC here because multiple conflicts will mess up the article further. There were changes made by editors like My very best wishes and Vinegarymass911 after the RfC as well to which I do not fully agree with but I refrained from reverting or changing them. Sheriff | ☎ 911 | 22:34, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, Volunteer Marek, but outdated fringe "sources" like Rummel are worthless and should be ignored. Rummel simply averages wrong answers, when he isn't engaging in transparent double-counting, and has no particular expertise on any of the historical events he has written about. This is a man who claimed that 30 million (!) people died in the Soviet Gulag; I hope you don't need me to explain how incredibly exaggerated that statistic is. More to the point, the source you deleted—Dilip Hiro's The Longest August—does refer to the 3 million figure "first mentioned by Shaikh Rahman in his interview with British TV personality David Frost in January 1972 after his return to Dacca as a free man" as "now universally regarded as excessively inflated. The statistic given by Indian officials to Richard Sisson and Leo E. Rose, author of War and Seccession: Pakistan, India, and the Creation of Bangladesh, was one hundred thousand." If anything, even the version you reverted is biased against Pakistan by affixing the utterly baseless 3 million at the upper end of the range, and the original Bangladeshi figure of 300,000 at the lower end. If that's how you want to play it, we should really use 26,000 as the low figure—unlike the fabled three million, that number at least has the virtue of not being off by a whole order of magnitude.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 04:21, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

Regardless of how you feel about Rummel, the wording "universally regarded" is obviously incorrect since we have sources which state otherwise. You have one source which says "universally regarded". But this is contradicted by other sources. So you can't put that in the lede. You can put it in the body of the text and attribute it properly.Volunteer Marek (talk) 06:40, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

@Volunteer Marek: Do you really want to follow that rationale? Because if you do then we could also remove the line 'there is an academic consensus that it was a genocide' because we know that some academics denied that a genocide occurred. Towns Hill (talk) 11:42, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

There's an obvious difference between the word "consensus" and the word "universally".Volunteer Marek (talk) 12:31, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

• @VM. This is good catch. Telling "universally regarded" about something that is so universally disputed is probably one of the most blatant and obvious manifestations of POV I have seen around here.
• @TheTimesAreAChanging. "Rummel simply averages wrong answers"? No, he simply summarized numbers provides by a large number of other sources. That is what all secondary sources do. He is a notable academic. And if he gave an average number of 30 million about something, it means there are significantly larger numbers about it in other publications. You can not give his numbers as an example of obvious absurd (as you think), because this is not at all absurd, but legitimate analysis of published data. My very best wishes (talk) 16:01, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

"There are significantly larger numbers about [Gulag] in other publications." Really? Where? Show me any reliable source that has a higher estimate of Gulag deaths than Rummel! While you're at it, what is the source for Rummel's "high estimate" of 60 million Gulag deaths? (Hint: There isn't one!) Many of Rummel's "averages" are not based on any published estimates save his own: In the case of the Gulag, Rummel simply made assumptions about the size of the prison population and the annual death rate based on various sources, which he then used to generate his own numbers, despite the fact that no sources supported his specific conclusions. Moreover, serious scholars know that Rummel's work is riddled with errors, dubious methodology, and double-counting. Rummel will add together deaths from "purges" and deaths from "terror" as two separate categories, or alternatively go with "terror" as the more inclusive category if that number is larger, seemingly at whim. That is not science! In a particularly embarrassing incident, Rummel double-counted Gerard Tongas's figure of 100,000 killed during the North Vietnamese land reform by citing Tongas for the bizarre estimate of an additional 100,000 killed during North Vietnam's earlier "rent reduction" campaign. While I believe Rummel was merely careless rather than malicious, as he had no expertise on any of the historical events in question, it is clear that few other academics take him seriously as a source, and it is difficult to see what he has to add to this article in particular: Rummel's estimate of 1.5 million killed in Bangladesh is simply an "average" of the Bangladeshi official figure, and the Bangladeshi official figure with an extra zero tacked on.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 19:55, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

Also, Hiro's book is from 2015 and presumably can speak about the current academic consensus, as of 2015. To refute him, you cannot scrape the bottom of the barrel by digging out Rummel's estimates from 1987 (the last year for which he collected data).TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 20:01, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

• Why do we have double standards here? There is one source in the article which says "There is academic consensus that the events which took place in 1971 were a genocide" but then there are many scholarly sources which disagree with that, so obviously there is no consensus then, but there are some editors here who are not allowing those dissenting sources but then why not allow the term "universally regarded" here which is also sourced to one source? Isn't it a double standard? Sheriff | ☎ 911 | 20:07, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

It does seem weird to say "universally regarded" in Wikipedia voice. I suggest something like "now regarded as inflated" in the lead. In the body, you can use the full phraseology but attribute it to Dilip Hiro. (I note that Hiro is a journalist, not a scholar. I noticed quite a few loose statements in his book. I myself don't use him as a source if I can help it.) -- Kautilya3 (talk) 21:18, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

No one knows exact numbers. That's why we provide range of numbers as published in multiple RS, i.e. exactly as in current version. Indeed, "there is academic consensus that the events which took place in 1971 were a genocide" according to review sources.

@TheTimesAreAChanging. I can not really judge work by Rummel because I am not an expert. However, a quick look at his book [1] shows that he never made a claim about "60 million Gulag deaths" as you tell. This seems to be a number of estimated deaths which resulted from governmental policies in the Soviet Union since 1917, including Civil War, hungers, possibly excess deaths, etc. This is not an improbable number. Numbers like that appear in other books, e.g. "State within the state" by Albats, and if I am not mistaken, even in the Guinness World Records. But this is all off-topic. My very best wishes (talk) 21:59, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

I was just going off of memory. That said, the figures Rummel gives are even worse than I remembered. According to Rummel, "The mid-total of those killed in the camps during the Stalin years is 32,584,000"; however, Rummel also claims "7,000,000 more were killed in other years." In other words, almost 40 million of the 62 million deaths Rummel attributes to the former Soviet regime occurred in the Gulag. Now, you really don't seem at all familiar with Rummel's methodology, as evidenced by the fact that you deleted his full range of estimates for democide by the Awami League, but Rummel gives low, medium, and high estimates for all of the atrocities he studies. For the Soviet Union, Rummel's figures are as follows: 28,326,000 ("low"); 61,911,000 ("medium"); and 126,891,000 ("high"). The only one of those estimates that isn't batshit crazy is the "low" one. As I recalled, Gulag accounts for over half of Rummel's high estimate of 126 million, although now that you've forced me to waste my time poring through his charts all over again I must concede that Rummel's high estimate for Gulag deaths is admittedly much larger than I recounted, at 82,280,000.

It should go without saying that, contrary to your portrayal of Rummel as someone who merely averaged numbers given in other sources, there are no sources besides Rummel to support an estimate of up to 126 million killed by the former Soviet regime, including 82 million killed in the Gulag alone. The Soviet archives, which doubtless present an undercount but are nevertheless sufficiently reliable to establish order of magnitude, record about one million deaths in the Gulag.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 03:27, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, but this talk page is not about Rummel, Soviet Union or Gulag. My very best wishes (talk) 05:00, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

A cheap evasion to avoid acknowledging errors. But if you concede that Rummel is not a reliable source, we should remove his numbers from this article. Given the estimates of 58,000 to 269,000 deaths in Bangladesh that have appeared in recent peer-reviewed studies, what sources from circa 2015 contradict Hiro and suggest that 3 million is, in fact, plausible?TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 05:54, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

No, I simply think that talk page rules should be respected. My point precisely that you should not waste you time on Gulag on this page (BTW, labor "camps" in the Soviet Union and Gulag are different things). And no, I do not see any reasons to exclude Rummel. If someone proposed to exclude all partisan sources published by the sides of the conflict, that would be more logical. My very best wishes (talk) 06:08, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

P.S. Once again, my approach on pages like that would be the following: (a) find a number of RS that qualify as WP:SCHOLARSHIP based on formal criteria (authors are notable academic researchers), and (b) provide a range of numbers that such sources give. Deciding who was "good" or "bad" researcher is not our business. My very best wishes (talk) 14:10, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

How exactly is it "so over the top" when the source says so? IDONTLIKEIT perhaps? But more so, WP:AGENDA is all I see here.—TripWire ︢ ︢ ︡ ︢ ︡ ︢ ︡ ︢ ︡ ︡ ︢ ︡  ^ʞlɐʇ 00:48, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

What are you talking about? Anyway, this thread has been derailed and is sort of pointless now.Volunteer Marek (talk) 00:54, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

I am talking about precisely the same WP:AGENDA that seem to be floating here despite of you claiming that you "doesn't have a dog in this fight".—TripWire ︢ ︢ ︡ ︢ ︡ ︢ ︡ ︢ ︡ ︡ ︢ ︡  ^ʞlɐʇ 01:10, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

So you think editors who disagree with you have an "Agenda". Great. Now, what are you talking about? Volunteer Marek (talk) 01:32, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

All I am talking about is that only you have the right to accuse editors disagreeing with you of having an agenda, as we probably forgot that you own wikipedia. Sorry.—TripWire ︢ ︢ ︡ ︢ ︡ ︢ ︡ ︢ ︡ ︡ ︢ ︡  ^ʞlɐʇ 21:40, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

Clean Up

Please refrain from adding any reference to disputed and biased works. Lots of empty sentences with unrelated references to them. Article has been cleaned up.Esha Karim (talk) 17:29, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

@Esha795: Please state which sources you are disputing or claiming to be "biased." Please note that WP:BIASED sources can be included provided they are reliable. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 19:00, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

Gerlach misinterpreted

I have moved this sentence from the article to here because it is not an accurate paraphrase of the source:

Academic Christian Gerlach has argued that the majority of the deaths in the 1971 period were due to hunger and disease and not due to direct army killings."

There is no question that many people died from hunger and disease. A quick or out of context reading of the source might lead one to the above conclusion, but what Gerlach actually writes is the opposite.

In the paragraph on page 136 he is discussing a study of one particular sub-district. He argues that most excess deaths (those above expected death rates extrapolated from the 1960s) in that sub-district were probably caused by hunger and disease. He goes on to observe that there were parts of Bangladesh where most excess deaths were not caused by hunger and disease, and concludes by saying "a major proportion" of deaths countrywide were due to deprivation and famine. A major proportion is inexact, but it is not the major proportion. It is not "the majority".

Despite army operations in the area, in Matlab thana, most deaths were probably caused by want and disease: of 868 excess deaths in 1971-72, 571 affected children (60 percent girls), 230 people over 45 years (two-thirds of them men), and there were 44 excess deaths of men between the ages of 15 and 44. Hence relatively few direct army killings must have occurred in Matlab thana, for able-bodied men were their prime targets. While this area was therefore not representative of all of Bangladesh, the data do suggest that deprivation and famine killed a major proportion of those who died during the conflict.

I have no objection if someone wants to reintroduce a summary of this page of Gerlach, but please be careful not to overstate what the source says.

References

--Worldbruce (talk) 01:02, 17 May 2016 (UTC)