Talk:Demchok sector

Big revert

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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MarkH21, I am sorry I hadn't noticed that you were editing this page. And when I did notice it, I had to revert all of it.

It looks like you are overly dependent on Lamb, and filling in stuff that he doesn't cover or doesn't know about. For instance, does he say that the 1684 treaty was with the Dzungar Khanate? Does he say that it was lost?

Lamb's limitations are well-recognized. See the Alastair Lamb page. What we would have liked to see from him is a decent explanation of why the British changed the border between between 1846 and 1868. It is quite inexplicable other than by a presumption of racism. His claims that the British surveyors were next to perfect and the Maharaja was expansionist etc. point to his own racism.

The fact is that whatever border the British on their maps made little difference to the Maharaja. The border was known to him based on customary practices, and those borders were followed.

There are plenty of other scholars who have covered the subject, even though I admit that Demchok often doesn't get the attention it deserves. I would particularly recommend the book by Fisher, Rose and Huttenback, which is the most thorough in examining the historical evidence. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 18:22, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

There are a lot of minor organizational edits (and one removal of unreferenced content) that were also reverted, and most of the statements referenced to Lamb that aren’t already WP:INTEXT attributed to him can be so. Would restoring the edits with attribution be fine? It’s a major paper on this subject by one of the major academics on this subject.

I’ll also take a look at the other references, and add attributed statements.

Yes, Lamb says directly in the paper that the text was lost, with modern interpretations based on a few surviving references to it that only preserve some mention of the stream.
Page 38:

There can be no doubt that the 1684 (or 1683) agreement between Ladakh and the authorities then controlling Tibet did in fact take place. Unfortunately, no original text of it has survived and its terms can only be deduced. In its surviving form there seems to be a reference to a boundary point at "the Lhari stream at Demchok", a stream which would appear to flow into the Indus at Demchok and divide that village into two halves.

Page 37:

No text of this agreement between Tibet and Ladakh survives, but there are references to it in chronicles which are discussed in [...]

Page 40:

The treaty that could have given this information, that of 1684, has not survived in the form of its full text, and we have no means of determining exactly what line of frontier was contemplated in 1684. The chronicles which refer to this treaty are singularly deficient in precise geographical details.

Page 41:

The 1684 Treaty may have made a reference to “the Lhari stream at Demchok”; but as its text no longer survives, we cannot be sure that this is in fact the case.

I’ll find the quote for the Dzungars is a bit, I think it uses an alternate spelling of Zungar or something similar (one can also use a source from Tibet–Ladakh–Mughal War). — MarkH₂₁^talk 18:32, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

That is kind of what I mean by Lamb's limitations. He is described as a "diplomat historian" on his books. In reality, he just started as a librarian of British archives of the India Office, and started writing books about Indian affairs. His knowledge is basically limited to those archives.

Better learned historians tell us that boundaries are a European invention. The traditional border arrangements in Asia didn't use boundaries but rather depended on frontiers. Certain landmarks that mattered were mentioned in agreements. Demchok was one such. Demchok was listed as part of Ladakh way back in the 10th century. In 1684, Tibet grabbed as much territory as it could, but the Ladakhis would have insisted that they couldn't cede Demchok. So the border was placed at the "Lhari stream". This border was still being enforced by the Tibetans in the 19th century, as the 1846 boundary commission discovered.

Actually, I think the real Demchok village is probably the one on the Tibetan side. After the Lhari stream border came about, a new Demchok village probably sprang up on the Ladakhi side in order to service the pilgrims who would visit the Lhari peak on their way to Kailas-Manasarovar. A report by a Dogra official mentions that only two families were living there, in one building.

So the precise text of the 1684 treaty is quite irrelevant to settling this particular question. Lamb is probably looking for information about Aksai Chin or Pangong Lake or something, about which I can freely admit that the 1684 treaty doesn't say anything. But this doesn't have any bearing on the Demchok issue, which is specifically mentioned in the treaty. The fact that Lamb doesn't quite know what he is talking about is clear from his statements like:

The intention of the 1684 agreement was clear enough. Ladakh had attempted to annex Tibetan territory but had been repulsed. The status quo ante was now being restored. But what, exactly, was the status quo?

Ladakh didn't attempt to annex "Tibetan territory". Tibet annexed Ladakhi territory. Prior to 1684, Tibet ended at the Mayum La.

The treaty is widely referred to in dozens of sources. Possibly the Tibetan version of it is printed in McKay. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 22:22, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

References

The Edward Weller map I added today, as well as the French Army map of 1911, show the Demchok village to the south of the Lhari stream. These prove my point that the "real Demchok" village is the southern one. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 00:08, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

This doesn’t prove that one is right and one is wrong, it just demonstrates that there are possibly conflicting sources and your opinion that Lamb is wrong (and the maps that also show Demchok on the stream / a boundary west of Demchok). In any case, the RSes should be presented WP:INTEXT attribution rather than with some omitted, particularly since Lamb’s work is lauded, cited, criticized, and discussed by many scholars and so represents a major viewpoint. Isn’t an attributed statement with opposing/alternative sources exactly what is due, rather than favoring certain ones?

Also, even if European-imposed borders are artificial, they’re relevant to the modern claims and (silly) conflict, and so should absolutely be mentioned in detail. The text can clearly say that this is what the British said the borders were, it’s not WP voice asserting that they are the borders. — MarkH₂₁^talk 00:54, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Where "views" are DUE, we can add his views with attribution, which I already did in one instance. We are certainly not going to include every caustic remark that he throws up out of ignorance or prejudice. Scholars say he is engaged in "special pleading" (which is their term for what we call POV-pushing). Please keep in mind that his authority is limited to British records (in London). His views on Ladakhi history are of no consequence. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 08:36, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

I did not say that the European borders are "artificial". Rather, the point is that one shouldn't look for European-style borders in a 1684 treaty. Real historians know how to interpret the old documents. Lamb doesn't. WP:CONTEXTMATTERS. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 08:51, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

One person called one of his works special pleading, while another calls him "a professional historian of great academic distinction". Either way, his peer-reviewed works are a part of the academic literature and represent a major viewpoint that is WP:DUE. This sounds more like you just don't like his research or qualifications personally, and/or are personally favoring some works over others. If you still disagree, we can open an RfC on whether we can include parts of Lamb's paper (which is largely a review of British maps in the region anyways), or whether they are undue caustic remarks.

But also, you haven't identified which individual remarks you object to, having only removed all of them. For example, do you object to:

Since the 1950s, Indian maps do not agree entirely with either the 1846–1847 survey or the 1868 Kashmir Atlas; the Indian claims lie 3 miles (4.8 km) east of Demchok whereas the British maps showed the border to be 10 miles (16 km) west of Demchok. The Chinese claims coincide with British surveys that placed the border 10 miles (16 km) west of Demchok

Or other specific parts that you object to, even if they were attributed? — MarkH₂₁^talk 19:44, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

You lambast Lamb as knowing nothing, and aren’t okay with including some of his comments here with in-text attribution, but it’s fine to include his other comments unattributed?

You’ve pointed out the objections you had below and haven’t gone further, so I’ll assume that the additions/changes not already mentioned are fine to add back. — MarkH₂₁^talk 22:31, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

First of all, I never said that Lamb knows "nothing". I have been clear from the beginning that his expertise is limited to the British archives in London. Second, I didn't add any comments of Lamb in that edit. I added the instructions that Agnew and Cunningham were given by their boss: the British Resident in Lahore, Sir Henry Lawrence.

As regards the other issues, let us go through them one at a time (or two, if I can manage it). Can't do them all at once. They are tricky issues. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:41, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

The "nothing" comment was hyperbole, but it's in reference to you saying Lamb is presumed racist, doesn't quite know what he is talking about, is not a real historian, and has knowledge limited to the British archives. It's your opinion that his expertise is solely on the British archives. But even so, you've added plenty of unattributed content from Lamb here about the general history, but objected to attributed statements from Lamb about British maps from the 19th century.

My question is: are there any more issues that you contest? For instance, the statement (quoted above) about the Indian claimed border lying 3 miles east of Demchok, and the British surveys and Chinese claims placing the border 10 miles west of Demchok. Normal practice would dictate that uncontested content remains, and edits that you haven't identified are assumed to be uncontested. If you're unsure, then just remove it once you figure out which content you want to discuss. — MarkH₂₁^talk 23:55, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Other issues

Here are my comments on other changes made in your edits:

1. Weakened "frontier ... was fixed at Lhari" to "treaty, whose text no longer survives, is assumed to have placed the frontier at... Lhari". Obviously, I don't agree, and I don't accept the authority of Alastair Lamb to override genuine scholars. Y
2. Dates in section headings. I don't have a huge objection to it, but I generally want to avoid cluttering up section headings with detail. Y
3. Shortened "Kashmir Atlas: new border alignment" to "Kashmir Atlas". I suppose I can live with that. Y
4. The unsourced paragraph is verifiable from the maps, especially the high resolution Frech Army map. I think this description is important because the readers won't know where the claim line is otherwise. Y
5. The "compromise border" offered in 1899 is in Aksai Chin. It has nothing to do with Demchok or Khurnak Fort. Y
6. Most of what you have added in the "Modern claims" section is off-topic. The 1899 proposal didn't say anything about Demchok. For the 1950s Indian claim line, it should have been clear to Lamb that it is mostly replicating the 1840s boundary (of which Lamb is adulatory: "A very good idea of its alignment was derived by Strachey and Cunningham in 1846-1848" but he never bothers to explain why this good idea was discarded in 1860). Y
7. You removed my comment saying that during the world wars, China adopted the British-designated border, which is shown in the maps collected by Government of India. (The older maps don't show this.)
8. A section on "Modern claims" is certainly necessary, and I was in the process of writing it when I got sidetracked to something else. I will add what I have now, but it certainly won't be Lamb-centric. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 09:33, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

I hadn't noticed earlier this footnote in Lamb's book for the Kashmir Atlas discussion:

The Kashmir Atlas location of the boundary near Demchok, which is confirmed in such recent sources as Foreign Office (1920), p. 4, is not easy to explain.

So, our supreme authority on the British records has no idea why the border was changed! -- Kautilya3 (talk) 10:15, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

References

I numbered your previously bulleted points for ease of responding, if you don't mind.

1. Lamb isn't overriding any historical works, he's just pointing out that the original text doesn't survive and that the previous works use what surviving references to the text there are. I don't see any sources that contradict this. For instance, this paper only refers to the treaty via the Chronicle of Ladakh. The specific source cited for in the sentence you quoted says explicitly:

   Francke's edition of La dvags rgyal rabs is a patchwork with respect to the agreements made in the peace treaty

   and that the subsequent text is a very brief survey of Franke's text.
2. I agree that we don't want to clutter the sections much in general, but the years here help one organize & delineate which periods are being discussed in each subsection as is common in other History articles. Since you don't have a big objection to it, I take it you won't mind if I add them back?
3. Okay, so I'll re-implement that.
4. I don't see how you can determine the exact coordinate 32.5565°N 79.2755°E so precisely by looking at the 19th century maps. Such a description also needs to come from a source actually stating it (which plausibly exists), rather than your reading of the map. I don't think the paragraph should stay while it's only based on you reading the 19th century maps.
5. Regarding the 1899 line, Lamb says on page 39 that

   South of the Aksai Chin the two British lines and the present Indian claim more or less agree. India, however, claims possession of Demchok and Khurnak, both of which places were shown on British maps as being in Tibet

   Here, the two British lines (part of lines A + B + C) refers to line A: Advanced border as shown on the majority of British maps published between 1918 and 1947 and line B: Border offered by the British to China in 1899 and marked on a number of British and other maps.
6. This point is tied directly to the 1899 line's relevance to Demchok in point 4 5. If the 1899 border is relevant to Demchok, then this point is relevant. Similarly, if the 1899 isn't relevant to Demchok, then this point isn't relevant in this article and may be better suited in another article. (I also just realized that I miscited the statement to page 39 instead of page 42)
7. Yes, because I figured that statements from an Indian government document shouldn't be stated in WP voice on an issue about Indian border disputes. However, it seems okay to include it with in-text attribution to an Indian government document. If a source from an academic source can be found to support the same claim, then even better.
8. Great, so we agree.

I'm not appraising Lamb as a supreme authority. It's just one that I read through carefully and one that has statements that should be included, attributed. I'd like other sources to be included too. — MarkH₂₁^talk 20:06, 11 May 2020 (UTC); fixed point number 01:09, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Treaty of Tingmosgang

From the above subsection:

Weakened "frontier ... was fixed at Lhari" to "treaty, whose text no longer survives, is assumed to have placed the frontier at... Lhari". Obviously, I don't agree, and I don't accept the authority of Alastair Lamb to override genuine scholars.

— Kautilya3 (talk) 09:33, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Lamb isn't overriding any historical works, he's just pointing out that the original text doesn't survive and that the previous works use what surviving references to the text there are. I don't see any sources that contradict this. For instance, this paper only refers to the treaty via the Chronicle of Ladakh. The specific source cited for in the sentence you quoted says explicitly:

Francke's edition of La dvags rgyal rabs is a patchwork with respect to the agreements made in the peace treaty

and that the subsequent text is a very brief survey of Franke's text.

— MarkH₂₁^talk 22:43, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Breaking this off to enact your reorganization here, without changing the context of the above. Is this (and the points raised in the "Other issues" section below) the only part of the edits above that you contest? — MarkH₂₁^talk 21:55, 11 May 2020 (UTC); added quotes 22:36, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Yes, but I can't deal with 10 issues at each go. You will have to break them up into sections. Anyway, here is my response to the bullet point 1.

Lamb may or may not be overriding other scholarly works, but you are overriding them. Putting his comments in lead makes it appear as if this is the scholarly consensus.

I will have to check why this source says "patchwork". But the phrasing "fixed at Lhari stream" is clearly there. Another source for which I have notes is:

• Bray, John (Winter 1990), "The Lapchak Mission From Ladakh to Lhasa in British Indian Foreign Policy", The Tibet Journal, 15 (4): 75–96, JSTOR 43300375

On page 77, the paper gives the text of the treaty. There is no indication from Bray that this was a patchwork or an abridged version or anything of that sort. The relevant portion for our purposes is:

The boundary between Ladakh and Tibet was to be established at the Lha-ri stream in Demchog (Bde-mchog) except that the King of Ladakh would retain control of an enclave inside Tibetan territory at Minsar (Men-ser), near Lake Manasarowar. The revenue from Minsar was to finance offerings at the sacred lamps at the annual Monlam (Smon-lam) festival in Lhasa.

Counting in Fisher et al. who use a similar phrasing, we have now three sources that specialise in Ladakhi history or history in general, who are clear about, and one source who specialises in British archives who is doubtful. What would WP:NPOV be in this situation? - Kautilya3 (talk) 22:30, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

It's supported by the wording from Emmer though, and Bray does mention the source of the text in his historiography overview (page 77):

Missionary Dr. Karl Marx began studying the Ladakh chronicles (La dvags rgyal rabs), in some detail [...] The first published version of the treaty appeared as an appendix to a book by the then British Joint Commissioner, Captain H. Ramsay. The text and Marx's translation of the La dvags rgyal rabs were published posthumously in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal between 1891 and 1902, and Marx's successor August Hermann Francké published a revised version as well as the first detailed history of Ladakh. Since then the Italian scholar Luciano Petech and his pupil Zahiruddin Ahmad have conducted further research into the Ladakh chronicles, including the Ladakh-Tibet-Mongol war and the 1864 treaty which concluded it

The surviving form of the text can only be traced to the Ladakh chronicles, which makes references to the text of the original treaty, and they were only ever aware of the treaty because of the Ladakh chronicles.

I understand your point that inserting which has been lost in the middle of the sentence appears to weaken the statement. It's worth noting what all of the analyses are based on though, if anything to give background. What about a short mention immediately after the sentence in the article that begins The chronicles of Ladakh mention that, at the conclusion of the Tibet–Ladakh–Mughal War in 1684, Tibet and Ladakh agreed on the Treaty of Tingmosgang? — MarkH₂₁^talk 22:43, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

The Chronicles do not simply "mention" it. They quote it. Whether they quote it in full or have abridged it is an open question. I have always assumed that it was a full quotation based on what I have read. But if Petech or Ahmed say that it is not, we can say it. Not Lamb. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:31, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

This is something attested by both Lamb and Emmer, and there is no evidence to the contrary at all. That means that there is no RS reason against including it, only that your initial assumption was against it. It’s an arbitrary restriction to say that this can be included only if two particular sources say it. — MarkH₂₁^talk 01:02, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Another academic paper:

The main Ladakhi documentary source consists of only a few words in the Ladakh royal chronicles (La dvags rgyal rabs, in Francke 1926:115) [...] Unfortunately, as with the rest of these chronicles, it is impossible to know when, by whom, and for what purpose that passage was written

— MarkH₂₁^talk 01:18, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

And finally, after reading Petech's The Kingdom of Ladakh: C. 950-1842 A.D. (1977), I found this passage about the sources:

The main source for Ladakhi history is, and always will be, the La-dvags rgyal-rabs, compiled probably in the 17th century, but continued later till the end of the kingdom and beyond.
Seven manuscripts of this work are known to exist, or to have existed.
1. - Ms.S. Bodleian Library in Oxford, Ms.Tibet, C.7. Copied in 1856 from an original belonging to the former king of Ladakh. It was published by Emil von Schlagintveit more than a century ago l. The original has disappeared, as it is not found in the library of the former royal family in the sTog palace.
2. - Ms.A. Stops with the reign of Sen-ge-rnam-rgyal. It was partly published and translated by K. Marx 2. No longer available.
3. - Ms.B. Consisting of four leafs only and dealing with the second dynasty down to the Dogra conquest. No longer available.
4. - Ms.C. Compiled at the end of the 19th century by Munshi dPal-rgyas, who added to it three appendixes dealing with the Dogra conquest. No longer available.
5. - Ms.L. British Museum, Oriental Collection 6683. It carries the tale to the reign of bDe-ldan-rnam-rgyal, with the addition of a bare list of the later kings down to the Dogra conquest.
All these manuscripts were utilized by A. H. Francke in preparing his standard edition (LDGR), revised by F. W. Thomas. [...]
6. - Ms. Cunningham. During his stay in Ladakh in 1847, Alexander Cunningham caused a manuscript of the Chronicle to be translated for him into Urdu; a partial English version of it was incorporated in his work [...] Neither the manuscript nor its Urdu version are available now.
7. - Ms.Sonam. In the private possession of dGe-rgan bSod- nams, a 'Bri-guh-pa monk from Lamayuru monastery.
— https://books.google.com/books/about/The_kingdom_of_Ladakh.html?id=4oduAAAAMAAJ The Kingdom of Ladakh: C. 950-1842 A.D. by L. Petech (1977)], page 1

and:

The only other literary source from Ladakh is the biography of sTag-ts'ah-ras-pa (TTRP), compiled in 1663.
— The Kingdom of Ladakh: C. 950-1842 A.D. by L. Petech (1977), page 3

This establishes that, those two being the only Ladakhi literary sources, the original treaty did not survive.

I then looked at the original Francke translation of the Ladakh chronicles and they do not quote it in full. There is a summary of it, which I won't paste here in full, but the most relevant parts are (my bolding):

Upon this the Sde-pa-g‘zun (Lhasa government),' apprehending that the King of La-dvags might once more come and bring succour, and that thus another war might ensue, desired the Hbrug-pa-Mi-pham-dban-po to go and negotiate for peace. [...] The Tibetans have come to consider that, since Tibet is a Buddhist, and Kha-chul (Kashmir) is a. non-Buddhist country, and since Buddhist and non-Buddhist religions have nothing in common and are hostile to each other, if at the frontier the King of La-dvags does not prosper, Bod (Tibet) also cannot enjoy prosperity [...] As to privileges of Kha-chul (Kashmir) [the following agreement was come to] :— The fine wool of goats of Mnah-ris-skor-gsum shall not be sold to any other country [...] Regarding Mnah-ris-skor-gsum Mi-pham-dban-po’s stipulations were to this effect :— It shall be set apart to meet the expenses of sacred lamps and prayers [offered] at Lha-sa; but at Men-ser (0 MS. Smon-tsher) he king shall be his own master, so that the kings of La-dvags may have wherewithal to pay for lamps and other sacrifices at the Gans-mtsho [lake] ; it shall be his private domain. With this exception the boundary shall be fixed at the Lha-ri stream at Bde-mchog.
— Antiquities of Indian Tibet, Part (Volume) II, by A. H. Francke and edited by F. W. Thomas, (1926), pages 115-116.

The key point here is the several comments like Regarding Mnah-ris-skor-gsum Mi-pham-dban-po’s stipulations were to this effect. With all of these sources, the article can say that the only surviving form of the treaty was the summary given in the Ladakh chronicles (tangential: this should probably get its own article). — MarkH₂₁^talk 02:43, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

I think you are going a bit too far with this. A. H. Francke has not been cited in the article (which would be a WP:PRIMARY source anyway), but only recent scholarly works. I don't know if Emmer originated the criticism that it is "something of a patchwork", but Ahmed says:

Although it must be admitted that Francke's edition of the Ladakh-Tibet treaty, which must be dated to the autumn of 1684, is something of a patchwork document, nevertheless, as will be seen from the Roman numerals inserted in the translation above, six main clauses or articles are discernible.

The form contained in Alex McKay, Volume 2, (produced in 1962, probably by Tibetan expatriates in India) is also similar. It lists 8 clauses. The differences are not significant.

This was not a border treaty. The Lhari stream was mentioned by name, but no other border points were, because Ladakh was being made to cede "real Demchok" and Tashigang. Sengge Namgyal had built a monastery in Tashigang, but it had now become the encampment of Tibetan-Mangolian forces. So, without this clause in the treaty, the Ladakhis might have been tempted to reacquire Tashigang. So the Lhari stream border was, from that time, rigidly enforced by Tibet even up to the time the British arrived on the scene.

The article body already states that the treaty was mentioned in the Ladakh Chronicles. I don't think anything needs to be said about it in the lead, because the treaty has not been contested by any one, not even Lamb. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 19:27, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

References

The Francke source is the translation of the Ladakh Chronicles used by the subsequent authors, and shows that the Ladakh Chrinicles only summarizes the treaty (something that you challenged above). Noting that the Ladakhi summary of the treaty is the only surviving text about the treaty is relevant background for describing that the treaty prescribed the stream as the border in the article.

The precise statement that is actually factual here is that the Ladakhi summary of the treaty said the Lhari stream was the border in 1684, historians don’t know for sure if the treaty itself said that. — MarkH₂₁^talk 19:42, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

The long footnote I added here settles the issue from my point of view. If you are not satisfied, we will have to go to WP:DRN. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 00:16, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

It mostly settles it, although it obfuscates that the cited sources state that their analysis is based solely on the Ladakhi chronicles, presenting a false balance that Lamb is alone in noting the limitations of the historiography. It’s a historiography aspect that is unanimously represented by all of these sources.

I presume you mean some form of WP:DR? Or are you specifically referring to WP:DRN? — MarkH₂₁^talk 02:33, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Lamb alone claims that the historiography is limited. The other scholars don't think so. So Lamb counts as WP:FRINGE and we don't give him undue WP:WEIGHT. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 16:02, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Lamb is not alone; Petech dedicates an entire section of his book to talking about how the Ladakhi Chronicles and the 1663 biography are the only sources that are available and the only sources on which all academic studies are based. This is further supported by Emmer and Bray. All of these sources mention in their books that their study is based solely on the Ladakh Chronicles/1663 bio or a work that is based solely on the Ladakh Chronicles/1663 bio. — MarkH₂₁^talk 16:12, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Petech is writing a book on the entire history of Ladakh. The comments he makes in that context are not necessarily applicable to the limited issues of 1684 treaty and its implications for Demchok. If Petech has expressed doubts about the 1684 treaty's implications for Demchok, please feel free to raise them. The same goes for other scholars. The quotes I have included in the footnote state what they say about the specific issue at hand, viz., Demchok. Lamb stands out as the only who is expressing doubts. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 20:51, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

It's not a matter of doubt; it's the uncontroversial factual statement supported by all of the scholars that: the Ladakhi Chronicles summary of the treaty gives the border as being at the Lhari stream. Their statements are all qualified as such when they discuss their own historiography and source basis. If a book says something along the lines of "the following is based on the Ladakhi Chronicles account of the events / treaty" and then later states "the border is at the Lhari stream", then you can't assert that the book is saying that "the treaty says the border is a the Lhari stream". That's a misrepresentation of the source. If you still disagree on this basic historiographical fact, then let's open DR. — MarkH₂₁^talk 20:56, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

1899 line

Regarding points 5 and 6, the map in Lamb-1965 is utterly confusing. See Map 3 in

• Lamb, Alastair (1973), The Sino-Indian Border in Ladakh (PDF), Australian National University Press

-- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:39, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

That map caption only describes it in the western sector, and Demchok is further south/east of the shown area. It doesn’t contradict the 1965 Lamb claim. — MarkH₂₁^talk 01:08, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

I don't see a what claim there is in Lamb 1965. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 01:34, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

The quote in my response to point 5 about the Indian claim being largely similar to the British lines A and B, except for its claim of possession of Demchok and Khurnak. — MarkH₂₁^talk 01:58, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, I got that. But, what is the claim regarding the "1899 line" in Lamb-1965? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 16:30, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

That the 1899 line (Line B) had Demchok and Khurnak as being in Tibet. — MarkH₂₁^talk 19:38, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

The Line B is terminating near Lanak La. It is not going to Demchok or Khurnak. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 21:39, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Line B is included in Line ABC, which runs towards Demchok and Khurnak, and Lamb’s caption literally says

South of the Aksai Chin the two British lines and the present Indian claim more or less agree. India, however, claims possession of Demchok and Khurnak, both of which places were shown on British maps as being in Tibet

— MarkH₂₁^talk 21:56, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

He probably confused himself with that complicated map. The Map 8 (p. 86-87) in the ANU report shows the "terminus of the 1899 line" near Lanak La. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 00:22, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Maybe, maybe not. We can say something along the lines of A 1965 paper by Lamb says that [previous content about 1899 line & maps showing Demchok in Tibet], although sources XYZ state that the 1899 line terminated at ___ This seems reasonable and represents what the sources say. — MarkH₂₁^talk 02:04, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

You are joking! -- Kautilya3 (talk) 02:25, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

It’s clearly stated by Lamb. Whether he was confused or not, we don’t know. Speculation isn’t enough to reject a peer-reviewed academic paper, even if it’s partially contradicted by other sources.

The statement from my original edit:

The majority of British maps published between 1918 and 1947, as well as a compromise border offered in a British note to the Chinese government in 1899, showed both Demchok and Khurnak as being in Tibet.

was about a variety of maps, including the 1899 line, which is what the 1965 Lamb paper directly says. Providing the counter point from other sources is more than enough to demonstrate to the reader the WP:BALANCE of claims. — MarkH₂₁^talk 02:30, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Let us focus on the 1899 line right now. You have been here long enough to know WP:NPOV and WP:VNOTSUFF. So, you need to make the effort to find enough sources that back up the claim that the 1899 line went to Demchok. One confused line in one source (which is contradicted by the same author elsewhere) is dubious, and doesn't cross the bar for inclusion. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 15:55, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

You're basing an exclusion of an in-text attributed (we can even quote it) statement from a peer-reviewed academic paper on you believing that he is confused based on circumstantial evidence, not on RSes directly saying that he is wrong. There isn't a burden of finding multiple RSes to support the statement that a particular source said something (in particular, about something which you claim is his sole domain of knowledge - British archive maps). — MarkH₂₁^talk 21:00, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Remaining issues

@Kautilya3: It seems that the only remaining issues from the revert are:

1. Mentioning that the original text of the Treaty of Tismosgang no longer exists
2. Lamb stating that the British "1899 line" maps also includes Demchok & Khurnak in Tibet
   • The additional point of the relevance of the 1899 line in modern claims is dependent on the resolution of point 2.

Our prolonged discussion on these points does not seem to be coming towards a resolution, so shall we just open an RfC on them? — MarkH₂₁^talk 21:14, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

The first issue is certainly ripe for an RfC or DRN, as you wish. The second one is not. If you do an RfC for it at this stage, without even looking for any sources, I think you will start building up a reputation as a POV pusher. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 21:46, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

What? It's a WP:INTEXT attributed statement that Lamb said that "the 1899 line includes ____" on the basis of Lamb's peer-reviewed paper. It's not an assertion that the 1899 line actually includes ___. Requiring that there are other RSes that say "Lamb said that the 1899 line includes ___" isn't the typical standard. One doesn't need a source that says Lamb interprets this as a "compromise" to support that phrase – you added it the article because Lamb's paper itself says "compromise".

I'm not trying to push any POV, I'm just trying to reflect what published peer-reviewed sources precisely say. That's pretty different from claiming that a historian's writings are inexplicable other than by a presumption of racism.

It seems we also disagree on this being verifiable. It's not directly cited, and based on your reading of the 19th century maps. Remember that WP:CHALLENGE says (bolding mine):

The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and it is satisfied by providing an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contribution.

Plus, can you really tell from the map that there is a spur at the exact coordinates 32.5565°N 79.2755°E / 32.5565; 79.2755 from that map? — MarkH₂₁^talk 22:03, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Well, if you want to do RfC's please go ahead. You don't need my agreement for them.

But can you split this discussion into multiple sections please? It has become huge. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 22:13, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

This discussion is only four or so comments long? Also, do we really need an RfC for requiring that that paragraph is inline cited? That's verbatim policy. — MarkH₂₁^talk 22:18, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

RfC on the nonexistence of the Treaty of Tingmosgang

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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To what extent should the article mention that the 1684 Treaty of Tingmosgang might no longer exist? 22:17, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

• Option 1: State that the original text of the treaty no longer exists and that the current historiography of the treaty can only be traced to the summary given in the Ladakhi Chronicles (La-dvags rgyal-rabs).
• Option 2: State that the original text of the treaty might no longer exist and that the current historiography of the treaty can only be traced to the summary given in the Ladakhi Chronicles (La-dvags rgyal-rabs).
• Option 3: State that the current historiography of the treaty can only be traced to the summary given in the Ladakhi Chronicles (La-dvags rgyal-rabs).
• Option 4: State in a footnote that Alastair Lamb expresses doubt (current status quo)
• Option 5: None at all.

Survey

• Option 1 (otherwise 2, 3, 4, then 5): The only surviving primary documents of the period are the Ladakh Chronicles and a 1663 biography that predates the treaty. This is attested to by Historian Luciano Petech and John Bray (bolding mine):

  The main source for Ladakhi history is, and always will be, the La-dvags rgyal-rabs, compiled probably in the 17th century, but continued later till the end of the kingdom and beyond. [...] The only other literary source from Ladakh is the biography of sTag-ts'ah-ras-pa (TTRP), compiled in 1663.
  — Petech, Luciano (1977). The Kingdom of Ladakh: C. 950-1842 A.D. Istituto italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente. p. 1,3.

  The prime source for this period is the La-dvags-rgyal-rabs a royal chronicle which was first compiled in the 17th century and updated into the 19th century.
  — Bray, John (2005). "Introduction: Locating Ladakhi History". In Bray, John (ed.). Ladakhi Histories: Local and Regional Perspectives. Brill's Tibetan Studies Library. Vol. 9. Brill Publishers. p. 7. ISBN 9789004145511.

This is further seen when historian Gerhard Emmer, in 2007, describes the historiography of the body of academic literature on this subject as being based on the Ladakh Chronicles and its translaitons:

Missionary Dr. Karl Marx began studying the Ladakh chronicles (La dvags rgyal rabs), in some detail [...] The first published version of the treaty appeared as an appendix to a book by the then British Joint Commissioner, Captain H. Ramsay. The text and Marx's translation of the La dvags rgyal rabs were published posthumously in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal between 1891 and 1902, and Marx's successor August Hermann Francké published a revised version as well as the first detailed history of Ladakh. Since then the Italian scholar Luciano Petech and his pupil Zahiruddin Ahmad have conducted further research into the Ladakh chronicles, including the Ladakh-Tibet-Mongol war and the 1864 treaty which concluded it
— Emmer, Gerhard (2007), "Dga' Ldan Tshe Dbang Dpal Bzang Po and the Tibet-Ladakh-Mughal War of 1679-84", Proceedings of the Tenth Seminar of the IATS, 2003. Volume 9: The Mongolia-Tibet Interface: Opening New Research Terrains in Inner Asia, BRILL, pp. 81–108, ISBN 978-90-474-2171-9

There is no reason to suppose that the treaty actually still exists somewhere, if the historians agree that all of their analyses were solely based on Ladakh Chronicles' account of the treaty. Furthermore, the text of the treaty is not preserved in the Ladakh Chronicles; it is only given in a summary (bolding mine):

Regarding Mnah-ris-skor-gsum Mi-pham-dban-po’s stipulations were to this effect :— [...] With this exception the boundary shall be fixed at the Lha-ri stream at Bde-mchog.
— Francke, August Hermann (1926). Thomas, F. W. (ed.). Antiquities of Indian Tibet, Part (Volume) II. pp. 115–116.

Historian Alastair Lamb clearly states that the original treaty does not exist, while the reliability of the Ladakh Chronicles is also questioned by Bray (bolding mine):

There can be no doubt that the 1684 (or 1683) agreement between Ladakh and the authorities then controlling Tibet did in fact take place. Unfortunately, no original text of it has survived and its terms can only be deduced. In its surviving form there seems to be a reference to a boundary point at "the Lhari stream at Demchok", a stream which would appear to flow into the Indus at Demchok and divide that village into two halves.
— Lamb, Alastair (1965), "Treaties, Maps and the Western Sector of the Sino-Indian Boundary Dispute" (PDF), The Australian Year Book of International Law: 37–52, p. 38.

No text of this agreement between Tibet and Ladakh survives, but there are references to it in chronicles which are discussed in [...]
— p. 37

The treaty that could have given this information, that of 1684, has not survived in the form of its full text, and we have no means of determining exactly what line of frontier was contemplated in 1684. The chronicles which refer to this treaty are singularly deficient in precise geographical details.
— p. 41.

However, the rGyal-rabs is full of gaps and inconsistencies, particularly for the period before the 17th century.
— Bray, John (2005). "Introduction: Locating Ladakhi History". In Bray, John (ed.). Ladakhi Histories: Local and Regional Perspectives. Brill's Tibetan Studies Library. Vol. 9. Brill Publishers. p. 7. ISBN 9789004145511.

TLDR: The entire body of academic literature on the Treaty of Tingmosgang is based on the summary given in the Ladakhi Chronicles. Petech wrote that the Ladakhi Chronicles and a 1663 biography are the only surviving texts from the period, and Lamb additionally asserts that the original treaty no longer exists. This historiographical fact is important background since the text of the summary of the treaty is presented in the history of the border dispute and as a basis for the modern Indian claims. Its inclusion is necessary for the "Lhari stream" statement to be factually accurate, and omission of the source of the wording would be WP:UNDUE. — MarkH₂₁^talk 22:48, 13 May 2020 (UTC); update w/ Bray quotes 07:58, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

• Option 4 - Given that the topic of this article is Charding Nullah (called "Lhari stream" in the historical sources), the pertinent information here is what the scholars say about the topic, which is summarised in the footnote 19. Scholars may have other concerns with the surviving form of the 1684 treaty, but they are not the concern of this page. The article is very clear that the information comes from the Ladakh Chronicles. So I don't see why there is any issue here. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 00:24, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 per MarkH₂₁ Idealigic (talk) 23:22, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 Why not describe the history in detail? Nobody claims that this is false so there is no issue with it. AnomalousAtom (talk) 07:10, 6 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 The first option looks to be more suitable for that, as some other users mentioned, too. In the meanwhile, it is a true matter as AnomalousAtom said "Why not describe the history in detail?"... Ali Ahwazi (talk) 07:09, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Discussion

• Comment: This RfC was spun-off from the "Treaty of Tingmosgang" section above. — MarkH₂₁^talk 22:20, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
• Re The article is very clear that the information comes from the Ladakh Chronicles. So I don't see why there is any issue here.: The article currently omits, without substantial reason, the historical context of how the modern body of knowledge on the treaty is based solely on the Ladakh Chronicles. The article also currently omits, without substantial reason, how the Ladakhi Chronicles only summarizes the treaty from a Ladakhi source.
  It also presents a false dichotomy between Lamb and the other sources in a long footnote, when there is no contradiction between them: sources say that the Ladakh Chronicles summarizes the treaty border as being at the Lhari stream, while Lamb and Petech both say that the treaty text no longer exists but that the Ladakh Chronicles summarizes the treaty border as being at the Lhari stream. — MarkH₂₁^talk 07:24, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Kashmir Atlas boundary

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Boundary shown in the French Army Map of 1911

Boundary shown in a US Army map of 1954, based on Survey of India map of 1945

Here is a blow-up of the French Army map around Demchok. It is clearly visible that the border is a water-shed, one one side of which waters flow into the Koyul Lungpa river and the other side of which flow into the Indus river. One can go to any terrain map and find the highest points on the ridges to find the coordinates.

What is not easy to figure out the lower end of the boundary, where it leaves the ridge line to go down to the Indus Valley. The present Chinese claim line, which can also be seen in Google and OSM, mostly agrees with this line, except that it doesn't leave the ridge line before reaching the end. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 22:30, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

This is WP:OR combining your analysis of a 1911 French Army map and other terrain maps to draw a conclusion about the 1847–1864 Kashmir Survey conducted by the British surveyors. Furthermore, it does not have a inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contribution that is explicitly required by WP:V when challenged. It has to be removed, and can be replaced when you find a source that supports your OR. — MarkH₂₁^talk 22:53, 13 May 2020 (UTC)o

Ok, I accept that I need to do some more work to establish the link between the Kashmir Atlas and the French Army map shown here. But otherwise, the text is describing the map, and then map itself serves as the citation for the description. It is a published source. (I can remove the coordinates if you wish. They are not needed any more since we have a blow-up of the map that can be easily seen.) -- Kautilya3 (talk) 00:41, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

The map is a published source, but the analysis of it is still your analysis of the source; the claims aren’t directly supported. The wording from WP:V is very clear on the need for an inline-citable text. I’m going to remove it until you can find a source that directly supports the claims (for just a statement about the lone French Army map) and supports the connection to the Kashmir Atlas (for a statement about the British survey). — MarkH₂₁^talk 01:26, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

It is not analysis, but rather description. As per WP:PRIMARY, A primary source may be used on Wikipedia only to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge. For example, an article about a novel may cite passages to describe the plot, but any interpretation needs a secondary source.. I have copied below the text you removed. Please highlight whatever you are unable to verify, and we can discuss it.

The alignment chosen by the surveyors is the western watershed of the Indus river near Demchok, instead of the eastern watershed as used by the earlier boundary commission. This is the crest of the mountain ridge between the Koyul Lungpa river valley and the Indus river valley and forms a water-parting line. It leaves the Indus–Sutlej dividing spur at coordinates 32.5565°N 79.2755°E / 32.5565; 79.2755, and follows the crest of the watershed ridge with the Umling La peak in the centre. It joins the Indus a little ahead of the junction of Koyul Lungpa with the Indus (an area now called Fukche). It traverses along the Indus river till a place marked as 'Tagarna', and follows the crest of mountain ridge to the east of Indus towards the Spanggur Lake.

-- Kautilya3 (talk) 11:22, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

The US Army map that I have uploaded today should be easier to read. This map cites Survey of India map NI-44 from 1945 as its source. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 18:21, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Primary sources still need to be inline cited. Furthermore, WP:PRIMARY not all of the description here can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge and WP:PRIMARY also says

Do not analyze, evaluate, interpret, or synthesize material found in a primary source yourself; instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so.

Notwithstanding the citation problem, the entire first sentence is unverifiable from this map. It is not possible for educated person with just this French Army map to know that the British survey uses a western watershed relative to a watershed used by the British boundary commission. Even limiting that description to be just a description of the French Army map:

• The map does not say Sutlej
• The coordinates 32.5565°N 79.2755°E / 32.5565; 79.2755 are not evident.
• The map does not mention the Umling La peak.
• The map does not say that Fukche is the modern name of this place (nor would I expect it to; it should be cited to another source)
• Tagarna is marked as the caret symbol ^ south of the Indus and just west of the Koyul Lungpa, and not as where the border stops following the Indus. The border appears to deviate from the Indus at the junction of a small tributary of the Indus coming from the northeast.

Regardless, we should look for a secondary description of the Kashmir Atlas boundary. That’s more useful than trying to use this 1911 French Army map as a primary source to say something about the mid-19th century British maps. — MarkH₂₁^talk 19:45, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Please remember that Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. You are allowed to click on blue links, or to refer to the content stated elsewhere on the page, or to look up maps and images to verify information.

I am afraid there are no other sources for the Kashmir Atlas boundary. It looks we will have to struggle to get you to verify the paragraph. I will ping another editor who is knowledgeable about geographical matters.

You did mention one good point above, viz., Tagarna is actually the spot that is currently called Fukche (you can go to the page and follow the coordinates to see it. Here is a direct link.)

Voidvector, I wonder if you can do us a favour here. We need somebody to verify the quoted paragraph above (in green background) and check that it is an accurate description of the border depicted in the two maps above. This is the border of the Demchok sector in a Kashmir Atlas made under the British Raj in the 1860s. You can see it in context in this version of the article. I wonder if you are able to do it for us. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 00:41, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

You can include blue links, but statements still need inline citations. Here, the description includes several things not directly evident from the map.

Note: while digging around for the map, the survey was called the Survey of Kashmir, Ladakh, and Baltistan or Little Tibet. The widely circulated map is referred to as

Photozincographed Sections of part of the Survey of Kashmir, Ladak and Baltistan or Little Tibet, Great Trigonometrical Survey of India, Dehra Dun, Oct. 1868; 20 sheets at a scale of 16miles to the inch (I.O. Map Room, cat. no. F/IV/16)

This was reproduced, much reduced, in Atlas (Lamb, The China-India border (1964) p.43). This should help with searching. — MarkH₂₁^talk 07:18, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Lead

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Not sure where to put this but replying here. I am seeing a lot of ambiguous, unclear info in the lead regarding maps especially the whole of the second para. This ideally should be removed considering the discussion above that none of the past claims/treaties are clear, and is better served with context in the relevant sections. The focus should be on the geographic and hydrological aspects of the river rather than devoting political bulk to the lead as well as the article. Otherwise this article is just WP:COATRACKING a river article into a disputed area which would require rehauling and renaming the article. Gotitbro (talk) 11:10, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

I'd support splitting off Demchok sector into its own article. There's an RfC here though on material pertaining to the disputed sector, so that would have to finish first. — MarkH₂₁^talk 11:44, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

@Gotitbro and MarkH21:, I support removing the mention of the British maps from the lead. It is too tricky to summarise in the lead, the present description is POV. I have this version on file, probably a mix of the old content and MarkH21's revisions:

The Lhari stream was mentioned by name in a treaty between Ladakh and Tibet in 1684 as forming the boundary between the two regions. After independence, the Republic of India has claimed the river as forming its boundary, up to 3 miles (4.8 km) southeast of Demchok. The boundary was contested by the People's Republic of China. The two countries fought a brief war in 1962, after which the Demchok region has remained divided between the two nations across a Line of Actual Control.

Is this acceptable? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 12:34, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

The lead has to summarize the major points of the article and the current "History" section is more than half of the article, so the historical evolution of the boundary (i.e. treaty + surveys + current claims) should at least be summarized in brief. The existing second paragraph (with minor modification) can suitably summarize the points and be NPOV. — MarkH₂₁^talk 23:28, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

I removed the contentious bits for now. We don't have agreement on what is relevant and what is not relevant. Neither India nor China have stated that they were following any British maps. They are independent countries that make their own decisions. So this does not belong in the lead in my view. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 14:39, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

It’s not contentious to note where the Chinese claims are. The British maps were described as being 10km west of Demchok, and the achinese claims were then described as roughly coinciding with those British lines 10km west of Demchok. That part of the lead didn’t say that the Chinese claims were based on the British maps.

Separately, mentioning the British maps is relevant to the lead because it describes how the Charding Nullah factored into what British India described as the boundary between British India and Tibet. This article isn’t purely about modern India and China. — MarkH₂₁^talk 19:34, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Do you find it contentious to say where the Chinese claim is? Or where the historical British claims were? — MarkH₂₁^talk 22:37, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Spinning off Demchok sector

Regarding the proposal to spin off a separate article on the Demchok sector, it would be a good idea in principle, but it is hard to find reliable sources that even define "Demchok sector". I don't think spinning off solves any real problems and I see no no serious problem with the material remaining here. After all, there is no particular significance to the Charding Nullah except for forming the de facto boundary. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 12:38, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Eitherway, Demchok needs to be disambiguated and the current article be moved to Demchok, Ladakh to avoid confusion between the village and the sector; and the village in Ngari. Gotitbro (talk) 15:15, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Should we just keep this discussion in one place? This is duplicating part of the other discussion. If we want to discuss that here, that's fine.

Many RSes clearly use the term "Demchok sector" or "Demchok district" to mean the disputed region between the modern Indian and Chinese claims; I don't think that definition is a major issue. I agree with Gotitbro on the point that it's reasonable to have a separate article on the geographic river and a separate article on the border dispute.

As for disambiguation / renaming the article on the village, the village that is split by the Charding Nullah / Lhari stream is denoted by "Demchok" / "bDe-mChog". The physical village is different from the physical village of Dêmqog, Ngari Prefecture to the south, which is not on the Charding Nullah / Lhari stream (and has the "Ngari Prefecture" only to disambiguate with the other Dêmqog). Articles on disputed places are focused on the actual physical entities, not the claimed jurisdictions, as is done with most entries in List of territorial disputes#Ongoing disputes between UN member/observer states. — MarkH₂₁^talk 23:28, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Dêmqog

Is Dêmqog different from Demchok? How is it spelt in Tibetan? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 20:29, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

The Tibetan spelling is "ཌེམ་ཆོག"་, which is "Demchog" in Wylie transliteration, (introduced in 1959) "Dêmqog" in Tibetan pinyin (introduced in 1982). The "Demchok" spelling is used by the historical British sources, which predate both romanizations. It seems that China refers to both villages as "Demchok" (in the 1960s correspondences with India) as well as with "Dêmqog" (in official romanizations since Tibetan pinyin became the official Chinese romanization in 1982).

The Chinese administration claims both physical villages to collectively be Dêmqog, Ngari Prefecture. The articles may need to be modified somehow regarding this. — MarkH₂₁^talk 20:50, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

The best way is probably still to have a combined disputed area article. Some possibilities:

1. Charding Nullah (on just the geographic waterway) + Demchok (on the physical village(s)) + Demchok dispute (on the disputed area); redirect Dêmqog, Ngari Prefecture to Demchok, redirect Demchok sector to Demchok dispute
2. Charding Nullah (on just the geographic waterway) + Demchok (on the physical village(s) and the disputed area); redirect Dêmqog, Ngari Prefecture to Demchok, redirect Demchok sector to Demchok

I think that the latter makes more sense, since both the village and surrounding area are part of the dispute, while the information specific to the village(s) itself is very short. Historically, the village is central to discussions about the disputed area around it. It would be consistent with other articles on rivers on WP to just leave Charding Nullah as an article focused on the geographic feature. — MarkH₂₁^talk 21:09, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

So what is your objection to my text:

There are villages on both sides of the mouth of the river, with the name "Demchok", even though the Chinese use the spelling "Dêmqog".

Notes

References

-- Kautilya3 (talk) 22:00, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

I removed the endnote because it doesn't say that the Chinese spelling is "Dêmqog", nor that there are two villages (the response about the vicinity of the Demchok village isn't saying that there's a second village and makes equal sense with one or two villages). I also modified the text itself to link to our current articles on Demchok and Dêmqog, Ngari Prefecture, which should probably be mentioned/linked in the lead somewhere. — MarkH₂₁^talk 22:05, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Do you see that I was trying to say that both the villages are called by the same name, irrespective of how it is spelt? Your edit removed this fact. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 22:19, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Hmm I wasn't sure if that was what you were trying to emphasize and I wanted to link the current articles. What do you think of the subsequent change? With either of the proposals above in this section though, it would be much cleaner.

What are your thoughts on these two proposals? I can draft them in userspace, if it helps. — MarkH₂₁^talk 22:34, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

I don't see why we have to refrain from stating meaningful information for the sake of links to insignificant pages which don't have any content anyway. That would be tail wagging the dog. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 22:44, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

What? The subsequent change says

There are two villages on both sides of the river where it meets the Indus, both named "Demchok" (historical transliteration) or "Dêmqog" (Tibetan pinyin transliteration).

What meaningful information is withheld? — MarkH₂₁^talk 22:48, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Wikilinks + British maps in the lead

Re your follow-up It’s not the key purpose of the lead, but it’s a bit strange for the article lead to mention Demchok so much without linking to the namesake village(s). If course, this is all easier if there’s a consolidated Demchok article. — MarkH₂₁^talk 23:01, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

I don't think the villages are particularly important. The entire area is called the Demchok region. It is named after the Demchok (deity). It has been so since the 10th century. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:24, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

The entire dispute is centered on the villages though. But a more natural way to link the village is in the mention about the historical British India claim that you removed,

British surveys placed the border in 1847 between the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir on the stream, while British maps from 1868 onwards placed the border downstream and west of the village of Demchok.

See the three drafts I've placed for the reorganization proposal: User:MarkH21/Charding Nullah, User:MarkH21/Demchok dispute, User:MarkH21/Demchok. If you don't object, I'll go ahead and enact the proposal (after some tweaking to what's currently in the drafts). — MarkH₂₁^talk 23:33, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

We can't make up terms like "Demchok dispute" on our own and write articles about them. You can do so if you want to write for a magazine or a journal, but not Wikipedia.

There is a much larger border dispute, of which the border at Demchok is one. And this dispute is not particularly onerous either, compared to all other locations like Spanggur Lake, Pangong Lake, Changchenmo valley and the latest bugbear, the Galwan valley.

The green text you have put above is not correct. The 1847 thing was not a "survey". It was a border commission, with responsibility for defining the border. Tibet was invited to join it but it didn't show up. Nevertheless the commissioners stated that the border was well-known to the local people, confirming what the Chinese government itself said. It was even demarcated with piles of stones at many places.

The 1868 surveyors had no business defining borders or altering borders. We have no idea why they did so. Even Alastair Lamb is unable to explain it. But since they did a survey and produced maps, those maps got printed. There is no evidence that anything in real life changed as a result of that.

...the Chinese submitted no documents--official or unofficial--to substantiate this claim [that the border was where they claimed], nor were they able to produce records of any kind detailing revenues collected for the use of the disputed pasture lands, as the Indians did for several of these areas.

So, while the maps might have change, the borders did not change. So, we can't put UNDUE weight on maps. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 01:24, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

Demchok dispute here is a descriptive title as mentioned by WP policy, for which there are countless examples, e.g. Senkaku Islands dispute, 2018 Cyprus gas dispute, Cyprus–Turkey maritime zones dispute, Ceará-Piauí border dispute, etc. The article can also be named Demchok sector, or whatever else, that’s not a major issue.

I used survey as the generic term of surveying is used (and RSes describe the boundary commission as a survey, e.g. here), but replacing it with the term boundary commission is fine too.

The boundary commission and Kashmir Survey say where the Company Raj / British Raj viewed the princely state’s borders to be, and are a major part of the modern dispute as well, so it’s absolutely WP:DUE. Most RS treatments of the subject mention the British boundary commission and Kashmir Survey in detail. It’s also significant part of the current History section, and so should be briefly summarized per MOS:INTRO.

On the slightly unrelated question about the motivation for the 1868 survey, it's partially motivated by borders and partially motivated by pure cartography/geography:

Mr Johnson had been deputed to survey the northern portions of the Maharaja of Kashmir. It was hoped that he might succeed in obtaining a view of some of the towns in Khotan [...] He has brought back a great deal of valuable geographical information of regions which have hitherto been a blank on our maps.
— book passage quoting James Walker (Surveyor General)

The boundary between Ladakh on the one side and Yarkund and Tibet on the other has in fact, never been authoritatively settled.
— same book quoting Thomas George Montgomerie

Lamb also mentions its partial value:

Johnson travelled across the Aksai Chin plateau in 1865. His map, though very rough, provided the British with their first reasonably clear ideas as to the topography of this region. Earlier maps are of no value for Aksai Chin.
— Lamb, 1965

— MarkH₂₁^talk 01:52, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

If you start mixing up the "boundary commission" with "survey", you would be dangerously confusing the issue:

The Kashmir Survey which formally ended in 1864, while it could by no means be described as an official Boundary Commission, yet took careful note of boundary matters.

The above quotes you are providing for the survey are completely irrelevant to the topic we are discussing. (Shahidulla, Yarkand, Aksai Chin etc. etc. are at the other end of Ladakh.) I am stating my position clearly so that you don't go on and on with red herrings:

• There was a map produced by the Kashmir Suvey in 1868, which was widely reproduced in national and international maps. But the border shown on it had no official sanction, nor did it affect anything on the ground

If you have any sources that contradict this position, please provide them. Otherwise, you need to stop this badgering. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 09:11, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

It’s not a red herring. The point was just that the general motivation for the entirety of the 1850s-1860s survey was for geographic knowledge and understanding the boundary, like the rest of the trigonometric survey. I didn’t say that it was official in any sense nor that it changed the situation on the ground.

The motivation is besides the point though (if anything, the question about the motivation was a red herring for whether the British maps should be mentioned in the lead). The British boundary commission and survey are central parts of the modern dispute, as well as relevant context for the historical situation. — MarkH₂₁^talk 09:26, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

References

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Luv Puri passage

I am contesting this passage:

After the 1962 Sino-Indian War, the village of Demchok was divided in two parts, with Demchok, Ladakh administered by India and Dêmqog, Tibet Autonomous Region administered by China. The split did not divide any of the resident families.

References

This is just a newspaper op-ed column, not peer-reviewed or even editorially reviewed. Even though the author has written books on the Kashmir dispute, he did not write anything about Ladakh. He seems to have travelled to Demchok in 2005 and described what he saw. There is no telling what he knows about the history of the place. Does he even know that the southern Demchok village was under the Tibetan control throughout the British colonial period?

So, I recommend removing this page as being dubious and half-baked. We have much better information available elsewhere. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 14:50, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

You removed it on the basis of your claim that the split happened much earlier, when what is written is supported by both Puri's article and Claude Arpi:

• Arpi, Claude (19 May 2017). "The Case of Demchok". Indian Defence Review. Retrieved 19 July 2020. The talks were held in Beijing between Zhang Hanfu, China's Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs, N. Raghavan, the Indian Ambassador to China and T.N. Kaul, his Chargé d'Affaires and Chen Chai-Kang, a Director. They lasted from December 1953 till end of April 1954. [...] Kaul objected, Demchok was in India, he told Chen who answered that India's border was further on the West of the Indus. On Kaul's insistence Chen said "There can be no doubt about actual physical possession which can be verified on spot but to avoid any dispute we may omit mention of Demchok". [...] In October 1962, the Demchok sub-sector was held by the 7 J&K Militia. The PLA launched an attack on October 22. [...] The PLA eventually withdrew, but occupied the southern part of Demchok.

So you’re claiming that some RS says that Demchok was under Chinese control sometime between 1954 and September 1962 but lost it by October? Or that there is a multitude of RSes directly contradicting both Puri and Arpi? You haven’t given any RS suggesting that the split did not occur during the 1962 war (and you still claim that the Puri article is an op-ed despite it not saying that anywhere). — MarkH₂₁^talk 15:42, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

No, I was talking about British colonial period. You know that that period ended in 1947.

From 1684 till 1954, the southern Demchok village (which was the only Demchok village that mattered) was under Tibetan control. During this time, a couple of houses and a camp site cropped up on the northern side of the river. Nobody has demonstrated any connection between these couple of houses and the southern Demchok village.

Most Indian commentators don't know this. They all seem to believe that the real Demchok village was on the northern one and that it gave rise to an offshoot on the southern side. I too was under this impression until I started investigating recently, when I discovered that map after map showed only the southern Demchok village.

What happened in 1954 is not known. While India included the southern Demchok village in its territorial map, there is no evidence that it extended its administration to it. If it did, there would have been complaints from the Tibetans which would have been escalated to diplomatic level. Similar disputes in the Assam Himalaya did get escalated.

So, this idea that there was a "single village" that got split across is pure mythology as far as I am concerned. I am not willing to buy it unless there is a WP:HISTRS that has studied the actual happenings. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 16:47, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

So this is wholly based on your personal research which contradicts those two modern statements and contradicts the statements by Lamb (bolding mine):

In its surviving form there seems to be a reference to a boundary point at 'the Lhari stream at Demchok', a stream which would appear to flow into the Indus at Demchok and divide that village into two halves.

and the British boundary commission of 1846-1847 that (bolding mine):

[Demchok] is a hamlet of half a dozen huts and tents, not permanently inhabited, divided by a rivulet (entering the left bank of the Indus) which constitutes the boundary of this quarter between Gnari ... [in Tibet] ... and Ladakh

, sources that describe this Demchok as being a singular village on both banks of the Charding Nullah in the British colonial era. On top of that, the Treaty of Tingmosgang does not mention whatsoever that Demchok (or any part of Demchok) was under the control of the Tibet. So it’s based on your interpretation of maps. — MarkH₂₁^talk 17:05, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Please see WP:CONTEXTMATTERS. And also look at all the evidence with first hand knowledge that you have brushed under the carpet:

Finally, on the Indus, Moorcroft refers to the village of Demchok, which, he says, belongs to Gartok in Tibet and is thus on the eastern side of the boundary.

Abdul Wahid Radhu, a former representative of the Lopchak caravan,[14] described Demchok in his travel account as “the first location on the Tibetan side of the border”.

And for Strachey himeslf:

Tibetan frontier guards would not allow Strachey to continue up the Indus beyond this stream.

So, Strachey didn't actually go to the southern Demchok village and ask anybody whether they deemed themselves to belong to the same village as the northern one. What was written was just a manner of speaking. You are hanging on to tenterhooks. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 17:37, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

You argument is still based on your personal interpretation of maps and two pre-20th century circumstantial statements that Demchok (stated as a whole) were on the Tibetan side of the Ladakh-Tibet border. These don’t demonstrate the strong claim that the southeastern part was controlled by Tibet and China from 1684 to 1962, and even match the 1847-1868 British survey from the Great Trigonometrical Survey and Chinese government claim that both place the Ladakh-Tibet border a few miles west of the entirety of Demchok. Plus:

• The Lange source literally includes a map depicting Demchok with structures on both sides of the a Charding Nullah
• Guards prevented Strachey from traveling up the Indus doesn’t invalidate his observation that Demchok was on both banks of the Charding Nullah

Not only is your interpretation of these sources in contradiction with two other authors' descriptions of colonial-era Demchok, but none of these sources contradict Puri nor Arpi who explicitly state that Demchok was a village that was split during the 1962 war. — MarkH₂₁^talk 00:11, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

This is also something that GenQuest stated was pretty clear. — MarkH₂₁^talk 00:16, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

GenQuest was merely summarising the views people expressed in the Request for Merge. Neither he nor the people that expressed the views are responsible for developing content for the new page. Only you would be, since you are intent on creating such a page. So the WP:ONUS for this content rests on you.

The question we are discussing is whether there was a single Demchok village that spanned both the Ladakhi and Tibetan side before the modern contestations that started in 1954.

I have given you two solid sources that say that there wasn't such a combined village. There was only a village on the Tibetan side. The "Tibetan side" means southeast of the Charding Nullah/Lhari stream, where the border lay between 1684 and 1954.

So, what is your view on these two sources? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 08:13, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

What we're discussing is whether After the 1962 Sino-Indian War, the village of Demchok was divided in two parts, since that’s the passage you are contesting.

You contest that it wasn't divided in two parts during the 1962 war because:

1. You believe that Luv Puri and Claude Arpi are wrong about 1962
2. You believe that Henry Strachey and Alastair Lamb are wrong for describing Demchok as a single village divided by the Charding Nullah during the British colonial era
3. You believe that Radhu and Moorcroft finding Demchok to be the first village on the Tibetan side of the border means that the village on southeastern bank was controlled by Tibet but the northwestern bank was controlled by Ladakh
4. You believe that Demchok would have remained split across the Ladakh-Tibet border all the way through 1962

The third point alone requires WP:OR to link them finding Demchok to be the first village on the Tibetan side to mean that the village was divided. Plus, Radhu's account is accompanied by a map showing Demchok to span both banks of the river and the 1847-1868 survey and subsequent maps placed the Ladakh-Tibet border to be several miles west of the entirety of Demchok, so the single Demchok village that spanned both sides of the stream would be the first location on the Tibetan side of the boundary to anyone using those maps:

British maps from the time of the Kashmir Survey of the 1860s onwards have shown the border to lie some ten miles or so to the west of Demchok
— Alastair Lamb, Treaties, Maps and the Western Sector of the Sino-Indian Boundary Dispute (1965), p. 48

the Kashmir Atlas (Sheet 17) put [the boundary] about sixteen miles downstream on the Indus from Demchok.
— Alastair Lamb, The China-India border (1964), pp. 72–73

Your rejection that Demchok was not split in 1962 is based on a wild hypothetical that Puri, Arpi, Lamb, and Strachey are all wrong while the account of Demchok being across the Ladakh-Tibet border somehow means that the village was divided across the border. Not a single source says that Demchok was divided across the Ladakh-Tibet border, this is your own hypothesis. — MarkH₂₁^talk 14:58, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

There still isn't any RS that contradicts the statements by Luv Puri and Claude Arpi that the village was divided in the course of the 1962 Sino-Indian War. If you find sources that say that Demchok was divided during the British colonial era or earlier (and of enough WP:WEIGHT to stand alongside the sources describing it as a single village during those time periods), that could be added at an earlier point in the article, but it wouldn't affect whether the village was divided after 1962 and undivided in 1961. The Puri source only concerns the status of Demchok immediately before and after the 1962 war, and the Arpi source only concerns the status of Demchok in 1953 to immediately after the 1962 war. — MarkH₂₁^talk 05:19, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

Strachey said they were divided in 1847 itself. For them to get divided again in 1962, they needed to have gotten unified again sometime in between. Now that you have a whole page for this village, you can describe its full history and show when it got unified. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 06:36, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

Sure, more details can be added about the pre-1962 situation, e.g. something like "By December 1953, India physically controlled the settlements on both banks of the Charding Nullah". That doesn't mean that one has to remove the passage After the 1962 Sino-Indian War, the village of Demchok was divided in two parts, with Demchok, Ladakh administered by India and Dêmqog, Tibet Autonomous Region administered by China cited to Puri and Arpi talking about the village being administratively divided during the 1962 Sino-Indian war. — MarkH₂₁^talk 06:38, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

Right now, I find that statement inconsistent with the known facts. How about if we focus on developing decent content, instead of arguing over what we can or cannot do? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 07:55, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

You removed the statement, so I am arguing that it should not have been removed and that it should be reinstated (with modification). There are no sources contradicting the statement directly supported by the Puri and Arpi articles that:

By December 1953, India physically controlled the settlements in Demchok on both banks of the Charding Nullah. After the 1962 Sino-Indian War, were effectively divided by the Line of Actual Control (LAC): Demchok northwest of the LAC administered by India as part of Ladakh, and Dêmqog on the southeast side administered by China as part of the Tibet Autonomous Region. The split did not divide any of the resident families.

Would you be fine with the (re-)insertion of the quoted three sentences in? This doesn't preclude adding more details later. — MarkH₂₁^talk 08:00, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

• I have opened an RfC since you have removed the modified statement: at Demchok (historical village), at Demchok, Ladakh, at Dêmqog, Ngari Prefecture. — MarkH₂₁^talk 14:37, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

Sources

References

• Lamb, Alastair (1964), The China-India border, Oxford University Press
• Lange, Diana (2017), "Decoding Mid-19th Century Maps of the Border Area between Western Tibet, Ladakh, and Spiti", Revue d'Etudes Tibétaines,The Spiti Valley Recovering the Past and Exploring the Present

Parigas

@Kautilya3: The Chinese sources literally describe "Parigas district" as the 450 sqkm area surrounding / to the west of Demchok village that is "illegally occupied by India". They doesn’t use it to refer to the village at all. — MarkH₂₁^talk 23:26, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps. But the term Demchok sector is not being used for the entire disputed territory, including both the Indian-controlled and Chinese-controlled parts. So you can't equate "Parigas" with it. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 07:54, 20 July 2020 (UTC) Added missing "not". Sorry for the typing omission.

The Chinese certainly don't use "Parigas" to refer to either Demchok village as your edit suggested. For instance,

西线巴里加斯印度控制450平方公里（我军曾对部分地区前出巡逻设防），主要位于狮泉河、典角村以西和班公湖西段。
[West of the line, India controls 450 square kilometers of Parigas (our army used to patrol and defend some areas), mainly located in Shiquan River, west of Dêmqog Village and west of Pangong Lake.]
— "中国对印战略：装甲集团沿三线突击两日可抵新德里" (in Chinese). Sina News. 25 August 2017. Retrieved 19 July 2020.

在中印边界西段，“1959年控制线”倒是有点学问，因为这条线就是中印传统边界线，但不包括巴里加斯地区(约450平方公里)
[In the western section of the Sino-Indian border, the "1959 Line of Control" is a bit clearer, because this line is the traditional Sino-Indian border, but it does not include the Parigas district (about 450 square kilometers)]
— 163 News

1955年，進一步蠶食巴里加斯地區，如今，印度控制巴里加斯西南角即獅泉河（森格藏布）與卓普河（典角曲）以西大約450平方公里
[In 1955, the Indian army further encroached on the Parigas district. Today, India controls about 450 square kilometers west of the Shiquan River (Seng Zangbo) and the Zhuopu River (Dêmqog Village) in the southwest corner of Parigas.
— "典角村，固有領土的見證，如今，600米外駐紮印軍" (in Chinese). Headline Daily. 11 June 2020. Retrieved 19 July 2020.

It's more than just the Indian-controlled disputed territory since the sources say that India controls 450 sqkm of the southwest corner of Parigas. — MarkH₂₁^talk 18:39, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I will double check the English sources. But I have never seen the Chinese call the Indian village "Demchok". It is always Parigas. So, we will have to mention that somewhere in some form.

Is there a name for the area east of the Shequan river? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 20:50, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

The Chinese name for the Indian village is "碟木绰克" (pinyin: Diémùchuòkè). A quick Google search turns up some sources using that, with The New York Times being the best example:

拉达克人说，在碟木绰克和班公...
[Ladakhis say that in "Diémùchuòkè" and Pangong ...]
— NYT article

I’m not sure if there's a specific name for the part of Parigas east of the Shiquan/Indus river. But Parigas seems to encompass a larger area, the southwest corner of which is the Indian-controlled part of the Demchok sector.

For English-language Chinese sources, the Chinese report from the 1960 meeting uses "Demchok" (e.g. Part 1). The China Daily/People's Daily uses "Demchok" in English for the Indian-administered village:

Indian media said yesterday that work on the road to link Demchok village, which is 300 kilometers southeast of Leh, beyond India's last post in the Ladakh region, was stopped in October after objections by China.
The 8-km road was being built in the remote Demchok area of the Buddhist-dominated Ladakh area near the Line of Actual Control (LAC), a military line that divides Indian Kashmir and the part held by China.
— People's Daily article

— MarkH₂₁^talk 21:40, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Ah, there is some contradiction between other sources and the above Chinese usage. In Part 1 of the Indian report on the 1960 meeting, it says that the Chinese delegation responded to a question that West of Demchok, after crossing the Chopu river, one arrived at Parigas. There’s also an Indian news article in The Wire that says that Demchok, which is in Ladakh and claimed by China, was named Parigas.

This is a strange one. It's possible that Chinese sources used "Parigas" for the Indian-administered village in the past, but so far there aren't really any Chinese-published sources that I can find using it that way. Certainly, modern Chinese sources do not use "Parigas" for either village and only use it for the larger area. — MarkH₂₁^talk 22:12, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for checking the Officials' Report. I suggest that we stick to the official sources. The Chinese answer to the Question 36 of the Indian side was pretty specific. This is important because the readers have to be able to relate what we write with the official terminology. You can add a footnote about the other varied meanings of "Parigas" in the news media. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 08:27, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

I think it would be fine to include "Parigas" in Demchok, Ladakh as you said, as well as "Parigas district" in Demchok sector, since modern Chinese sources only ever refer to the disputed area by "Parigas", "Parigas area", or (most commonly) "Parigas district".

By the way, I found another Chinese source explicitly placing the English "Parigas" alongside the Chinese "巴里加斯":

其中除了一块很小的巴里加斯（Parigas）地区在本世纪50年代中期被印度侵占以外，其余地区始终在我控制之下，由西藏的日土县（1960年前为宗）管辖。
[Except for the small 巴里加斯 (Parigas) area which was invaded by India in the mid-1950s, the rest of the area was always under China's control and under the jurisdiction of Tibet's (pre-1960) Rutog County.]
— Article by Fang Jianchang from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

— MarkH₂₁^talk 08:37, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. I will add it back then. On the "Parigas district", it is clear that it is only the Indian-administered portion that gets to be called by that name. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 10:38, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

Not always, as evidenced by the earlier quoted

今，印度控制巴里加斯西南角即獅泉河（森格藏布）與卓普河（典角曲）以西大約450平方公里
[Today, India controls about 450 square kilometers west of the Shiquan River (Seng Zangbo) and the Zhuopu River (Dêmqog Village) in the southwest corner of Parigas.]

If India controls the southwest corner of Parigas, then Parigas cannot be solely the Indian-controlled part... — MarkH₂₁^talk 10:44, 24 July 2020 (UTC) An source that clearly defines Parigas:

巴里加斯(Parigas)，是中国和印度西部边境中的一块争议领土，面积约1900平方公里，包括基古纳鲁河、乌木隆、碟木绰克(Demchok), 果洛等地区。[...] 巴里加斯中国固有领土，位于西藏阿里噶尔县西北
[巴里加斯 (Parigas) is a disputed territory on the western border between China and India. It covers an area of ​​approximately 1,900 square kilometers, including areas such as the Jigunalu River, Umlung, 碟木绰克 (Demchok), Guoluo, and other areas. [...] Parigas, China's inherent territory, is located in the northwest of Gar County in Tibet.
— Article from Hunan Daily (the official newspaper of the Hunan Provincial Party Standing Committee)

I don't know what "基古纳鲁河" (Jigunalu River) and "果洛" (Guoluo) refer to, but at least there are more data points and locations. Whether the boundary includes the Indian-claimed region under Chinese administration is still unclear, so I agree that we cannot yet say that "Parigas district" is an alternative name for "Demchok sector". Given that it is always described as disputed though, I think we could say that the "Parigas district" is at least part of the Demchok sector. — MarkH₂₁^talk 12:45, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

"Jigunalu" is Jamlung and Umlung is well-known. These two rivers are marked on Tianditu. The only other river marked on the western bank of Indus is "Suigaer Long", which I called Sikar, extrapolating from a campsite name called Sikarle (Xikaerlie). "Guoluo" could be "Cuoduobo" on the eastern bank. It is a bit far away.

Incidentally, the river that joins the Indus from the east where the Chinese claim line leaves the Indus, is marked on Tianditu as "Xingong Longba". There is a village called Chibra on it, which is frequently referred to by British explorers. But they didn't give a name to the river. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 01:17, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

On the other hand, I notice that Xingong Longba is made by the joining of two streams, called "Cuolongjian" and "Quzailong" respectively. The first of these could be the "Guoluo". -- Kautilya3 (talk) 01:58, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

How do you know that 基古纳鲁河 (Jigunalu River) is Jamlung? Jamlung is writen as 佐木隆 (Zuomulong) in Chinese, which is very different. Similarly, 果洛 (Guoluo) is quite different from Cuolongjian. — MarkH₂₁^talk 02:17, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

I see that Tianditu has a point called 下果洛 (Lower Guoluo) just southeast of Demchok (roughly 1/4 of the way to Zhaxigang) on the southwest bank of the Indus, with 果洛 (Guoluo) a bit further south of that. — MarkH₂₁^talk 02:32, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the Guoluo reference. I agree on its identification.

As for "Jigunalu", I expect that a news reporter might hear a name mentioned by local people and transcribe it in his/her own way, without knowing what the official name is. (For example, witness the difference between "Dianjiao" and "Diemochouku".) Jamlung (as the British spelt it) is the river that is in the vicinity of Umlung and Demchok. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 11:11, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

Jigunalu/Kigunaru

jī gǔ nà lǔ hé is now translated by Google translate as "Kigunaru river", a familiar name to the Indian readers. Kigunaru (or Kegunaro) is a grazing ground at the Chang La.

Guoluo is roughly where the Indian claim line crosses the Indus river (marked based on map.tianditu.gov.cn). -- Kautilya3 (talk) 09:16, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

To add to the confusion, one of the headwaters of the Kigunaru river is also being labelled as "Gegu Naruo" on Tianditu. Circled on the map here.

Below the Chang La pass, the combined river is being labelled "Xingong Longba". This could be the name of the valley rather than the river (Longba/Lungpa meaning valley in Tibetan). We have no idea what was the Tibetan name corresponding to "Xingong". I have also seen some other map where Chang La itself was labelled as "Xinlong La". So, both of these terms could have been mis-transcriptions of "Chang" meaning "northern". -- Kautilya3 (talk) 10:28, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

RfC on 1953-1962 control and administrative split of Demchok

Should the related articles Demchok sector, Demchok, Ladakh, Dêmqog, Ngari Prefecture, and Demchok (historical village) mention that both banks of Demchok were physically controlled by India from 1953 until its effective split in 1962, as in the following passage? 14:35, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

By the mid-1950s, India physically controlled the settlements in Demchok on both banks of the Charding Nullah. After the 1962 Sino-Indian War, the village of Demchok was divided in two parts, with Demchok, Ladakh administered by India and Dêmqog, Tibet Autonomous Region administered by China. The split did not divide any of the resident families.

References

Survey (pre-war Demchok)

• Yes (nominator): The cited sources from Claude Arpi (link) and The Hindu (link) clearly say that that the Indian and Chinese officials agreed from December 1953 to April 1954 that India had actual physical possession of Demchok, that Demchok was held by the Indian military in October 1962, that the PLA seized the entire area during the 1962 Sino-Indian War and withdrew from all but the southern part of Demchok, and that the village itself was divided into two parts one held by India and the other by China after the 1962 Sino-Indian war. Even Chinese sources (article from Headline Daily) support this:

  到了1956年的時候，印度當局再一次出兵占領了典角村等中國領土 1962年，10月23日，我國邊防軍隊在雪地急行700公里到達了典角村，順利的消滅了入侵印軍，成功收復了失地。但是後來，印度還是趁機侵占了典角村以西500公里土地。
  [In 1956, the Indian authorities once again sent troops to occupy Chinese territories such as Dêmqog. In 1962, on October 23, our border troops rushed 700 kilometers in the snow to reach Dêmqog. They successfully defeated the invading Indian troops and successfully recovered their lost ground. Later, India seized the opportunity to invade and occupy the land from Dêmqog to 500 kilometers west of Dêmqog.]

  . The sources directly support that:
  1. Demchok was physically controlled by India from the mid-1950s to 1962;
  2. The northwestern part of Demchok (Demchok, Ladakh) was controlled by India after the 1962 war;
  3. The southeastern part of Demchok (Dêmqog, Ngari Prefecture) was controlled by China after the 1962 war.

At worst, the statement could be included with WP:INTEXT attribution (e.g. to Claude Arpi and The Hindu) but there aren't even any reliable sources that contradict them.

The passage was removed (at Demchok (historical village), at Demchok, Ladakh, at Dêmqog, Ngari Prefecture) on the basis of Newspapers are not reliable sources for history, citing an essay on history RSes that does not that exclude news articles from being RSes, just as WP:NEWSORG does not exclude news articles.

Update: The following academic source also says that both India and China agreed that Demchok was controlled by India, only differing on control of the remaining area:

Directly connected with the question of administrative jurisdiction over the disputed areas along the Ladakh-Tibet border was the disagreement over developments there since 1950. The Indian position was that these areas had been under effective Indian control — exerted by the periodic dispatch of reconnaissance forces — until 1959, when Chinese forces moved into most of the area now claimed by China with the exception of Demchok, which remained under Indian control. The Chinese took the contrary position that Chinese units had maintained effective control over the entire area with the exception of Demchok — which, they charged, had only recently been invaded and occupied by Indian troops.
— Fisher, Margaret W.; Rose, Leo E.; Huttenback, Robert A. (1963). Himalayan Battleground: Sino-Indian rivalry in Ladakh. Praeger Publishers.

— MarkH₂₁^talk 14:35, 26 July 2020 (UTC); add Chinese source and tweak 16:29, 26 July 2020 (UTC); fix minor mistranslation 01:45, 27 July 2020 (UTC); update 21:04, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

• Discussion moved to subsection below

• no As it is only ma claim made by India, its is not a fact supported by anyone else.Slatersteven (talk) 16:04, 26 July 2020 (UTC)
• Absolutely not. The Chinese government was unequivocal in declaring that there was no such occupation:

As a matter of fact, the Chinese map published in 1956, to which Your Excellency [Nehru] referred, correctly shows the traditional boundary between the two countries in this sector. Except for the Parigas area [Demchok, Ladakh] by the Shangatsangpu River, India has not occupied any Chinese territory east of this section of the traditional boundary.

India seems to have set up border posts beyond the present day LAC in late 1961 and early 1962 (as part of its ill-fated "forward policy"):

Another note from the Chinese Foreign Ministry also dated March 20, 1962, protests against the Indian troops' further advances into Chinese territory, setting up of new posts and extension of their scope of patrol in the Demchok area of Tibet, China. The note says that in July last year the Indian troops occupied a place Jara Pass (approximately 32 degrees 49 minutes north, 79 degees 32 minutes east), in December they occupied Chang Pass (approximately 33 dgrees 01 minutes north, 79 degees 22 minutes east) and they illegally set up posts at these two places; in October last year, Indian troops illegally set up a provisional post at Charding La (approximately 32 degrees 32 minutes north, 79 degrees 24 minutes east).

There was no occupation in the "mid-1950s" as claimed here. Even in 1961–62, setting up border posts does not in itself imply that the administration of the area was disturbed in any way. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 18:09, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

• No due to lack of support by anyone other than India. Idealigic (talk) 12:09, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
• Yes I see the Indian newspaper of record in The Hindu, an India-based French Tibetologist in Claude Arpi, and a Hong Kong newspaper in Headline Daily supporting the claim. I did not find any references that suggest that the claim is inaccurate. < Atom (Anomalies) 05:05, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
• No - It's a pretty significant claim that would require better sources. (If you're even considering WP:INTEXT attribution, it would have to be balanced out with what K3 pointed out about China's denial, to maintain WP:DUE. But that source is much better, so I don't think that will work.) SerChevalerie (talk) 17:34, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

References

Discussion (pre-war Demchok)

• @Slatersteven: This is a claim made by both China and India. They actually agree on this. — MarkH₂₁^talk 16:13, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

There is a discussion at RSN over sourceing.Slatersteven (talk) 16:17, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

• @Kautilya3: The first quote you provide says that the Parigas area (the area around Demchok) is the only place that India occupied, right? That only seems to support the claim made by Puri in The Hindu, Arpi in Indian Defence Review, and the Headline Daily.
  Also how do the Indian posts at Jara La (east of Demchok) and Chang La show that India did not control Demchok? — MarkH₂₁^talk 18:17, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

Eh? If there are posts in two areas, situated either side of a third area, that does not mean the third area was under the same control as the posts. Ever heard of a salient, for example? It is pure WP:OR to make that assumption, if I have understood correctly what you are trying to say. - Sitush (talk) 18:40, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I am asking Kautilya3 how the posts are relevant to the claim made by the articles by Puri, Arpi, and Headline Daily. He's the one bringing up any mention about these posts. — MarkH₂₁^talk 18:54, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

How are Puri, Arpi and Headline Daily relevant to anything? The Chinese Prime Minister has said at the end of 1959 that all the areas marked on the 1956 map were under Chinese administration except for Ladakhi Demchok. So, Demqog was under Chinese administration. You need to dump all those sources. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 19:02, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

The quote from the Chinese Prime Minister that you provided literally says that the Parigas area was occupied by India. The Parigas area does not exclusively refer to what is now Demchok, Ladakh. — MarkH₂₁^talk 19:09, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

Please read my comment: India seems to have set up border posts beyond the present day LAC in late 1961 and early 1962 (as part of its ill-fated "forward policy"). Ladakhi Demchok has always been under Indian control, and it continues to be so. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 18:44, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

Sure, but how is that related to whether India had control of what is now Dêmqog, Ngari Prefecture from the mid-1950s to 1962?

And again, your quote shows the exact opposite of declaring that there was no such occupation. — MarkH₂₁^talk 18:54, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

If India did set up posts in Demqog or its vicinity, it would have been around this time frame: late 1961 and early 1962. Even if it did set up a post there, we can only say that it set up a post there, and not extrapolate to something called "took physical control". That would be WP:SYNTHESIS again. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 19:06, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

I'm not saying anything about the border posts and I never tried to use the posts to support any argument? I just asked why you mentioned the border posts in your !vote. I don't know what straw man you're attacking now, because you're the one who first mentioned them here, in your !vote. — MarkH₂₁^talk 19:11, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

Please can you not rehash the same arguments, this is an RFC, lets others have a say.Slatersteven (talk) 08:34, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

• @SerChevalerie: China didn’t deny it, the given quote only confirms it: Except for the Parigas area by the Shangatsangpu River, India has not occupied any Chinese territory east of this section of the traditional boundary. Parigas area is the area around Demchok. This is also what the academic source that I just added says. — MarkH₂₁^talk 20:53, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

• Moved from under MarkH21's !vote in the subsection above
  • I am hard put to figure out how a "disagreement", as per scholars, becomes an agreement in your book? (Note that the Chinese position is the same as what I quoted below, modulo the change of nomenclature of "Parigas" to "Demchok".) -- Kautilya3 (talk) 10:58, 8 August 2020 (UTC)
    • The point of that source was just that China and India disagreed on the several things except the control of Demchok: the exception of Demchok, which remained under Indian control (Indian position) and Chinese units had maintained effective control over the entire area with the exception of Demchok (Chinese position). They both agree that Demchok was under Indian control until the start of the war. Just as your quote says that the Chinese position in 1959 was that India had occupied the Parigas area. — MarkH₂₁^talk 18:23, 8 August 2020 (UTC)
      • If you actually read the source, it says that India claimed to have sent "periodic reconnaisance parties". That is a far cry from "taking physical control", which is what you want to claim. Since Demchok is a populated place, unlike the other disputed areas, a lot more than periodic reconnaisance would be need to take physical possession. One would have needed to declare those people Indian citizens and collect taxes from them. India didn't claim anything like that. The Chinese rightly said that, whatever India did, didn't mean a thing. Those areas remained Tibetan. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 20:15, 8 August 2020 (UTC)
        • If the academic authors say that the two countries' positions were that Demchok was under Indian control and not under the effective control of China, then your personal idea of what constitutes "physical control" is not of the same weight regarding what the two governments claimed. — MarkH₂₁^talk 20:47, 8 August 2020 (UTC)
          • Which Demchok though? The Chinese did not say that "Demchok" was under Indian control. They said "Parigas" was under Indian control. And they defined precisely what they meant by Parigas. It was to the west (northwest) of the "Chopu river" (Charding Nullah). The Chinese definitely did not agree with your claim. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:15, 8 August 2020 (UTC)
            • Re "The Chinese did not say that "Demchok" was under Indian control", the 1960 Chinese officials' report clearly uses "Demchok" and not "Parigas":

              [India's] intrusion into and occupation of the Demchok area in the western sector and the other places in the middle sector took place even after 1954.
              — Report of the Officials of the Governments of India and the Peoples’ Republic of China on the Boundary Question (Chinese Report), 1960.

              The other Chinese source (Headline Daily) already mentioned even more specifically uses "Dêmqog" (典角村) instead of "Parigas" or even "Demchok":

              到了1956年的時候，印度當局再一次出兵占領了典角村等中國領土
              [In 1956, the Indian authorities once again sent troops to occupy Chinese territories such as Dêmqog]

              . — MarkH₂₁^talk 23:34, 8 August 2020 (UTC)
              • Yes, they said "Parigas" specifically:

                Apart from Parigas—a very small area which has been invaded and occupied by India in recent years—the remaining areas have always been under the control of the Chinese Government and are under the administrative jurisdiction of Rudok Dzong of the Tibetan Autonomous Region of China.

                Newspapers are not reliable sources for history. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 00:19, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
• @Kautilya3: I see that you just added to Demchok, Ladakh:

  During the 1962 Sino-Indian War, the Chinese forces reclaimed the areas southeast of the Lhari stream.

  So you now agree with the claim of the RfC? Also @Slatersteven, Idealigic, and SerChevalerie: that is another source showing that the Chinese government also made this claim. — MarkH₂₁^talk 21:08, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

I obiously don't agree with your WP:SYNTHESIS. The actual state of affairs was already described by me: "India seems to have set up border posts beyond the present day LAC in late 1961 and early 1962 (as part of its ill-fated "forward policy")". -- Kautilya3 (talk) 21:15, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

There's not really much between your words During the 1962 Sino-Indian War, the Chinese forces reclaimed the areas southeast of the Lhari stream to something of the form "China did not control the southeast bank of the Lhari stream immediately before the 1962 war and China controlled the southeast bank of the Lhari stream after the 1962 war". At the very least, it seems that you agree with this latter statement? — MarkH₂₁^talk 21:25, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Nope. You can't say "China did not control..." unless there is a WP:RS that says it. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 21:50, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

You used the word reclaim, which means to gain something that was previously lost... — MarkH₂₁^talk 22:00, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Maybe it does. But that is not positive information. When you need information, you need to go look for it. You can't simply imagine it. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 22:21, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

References

Independent India's border definition

The maps published by Government of India in the early 1950s showed the Ladakh border as "undefined".

In 1952, India's ambassador to China was asked to raise the subject of border definition with Premier Zhou En-lai, but the ambassador found Zhou reluctant to discuss it. He stated that they had been in Tibet for a short duration and had not yet thoroughly studied the problem. Instead, Zhou sought facilities to transport food supplies to Tibet via India.

It was only in mid-1954, after signing the Panchsheel agreement, that India published a defined boundary for the entire Indo-Tibetan border. The negotiations that Claude Arpi mentions happened in the run up to the Panchsheel agreement. They do not have implications for the "physical possession" of any territory. They only imply that the two sides had contending claims. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 12:17, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

• Those details don’t really change that the following quote is clearly about "physical possession" of Demchok...

  There can be no doubt about actual physical possession which can be verified on spot but to avoid any dispute we may omit mention of Demchok.

  — MarkH₂₁^talk 20:53, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

References

Kashmir Survey

MarkH21, in a series of edits at Charding Nullah, you had changed the section title and references to "Kashmir Survey" and "Kashmir Atlas", which are the terms used by Alastair Lamb to refer to these things. Your terminology has now been copied to this page. Can you explain what you have against Lamb's terminology? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 09:50, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

On page 43 of Lamb's 1964 work, he writes:

The results of the Kashmir Survey were published as an Atlas in 1868, and they give a good indication of the Ladakh-Tibet boundary over some of its length.^3
3Photozincographed Sections of part of the Survey of Kashmir, Ladak and Baltistan or Little Tibet, Great Trigonometrical Survey of India, Dehra Dun, Oct. 1868; 20 sheets at a scale of 16 miles to the inch (1.0. Map Room, cat. no. F/IV/r6
— Alastair Lamb, The China-India border, p. 43

Immediately afterwards and for the remainder of the book, Lamb uses the term 1868 Kashmir Atlas/Kashmir Atlas to refer to the Atlas which is directly cited to Photozincographed Sections of part of the Survey of Kashmir, Ladak and Baltistan or Little Tibet.

The full name Photozincographed Sections of part of, the Survey of Kashmir, Ladak, and Baltistan or Little Tibet is also used by other sources, such as Lamb's 1965 work and Karackattu, Joe Thomas (2018). "India–China Border Dispute: Boundary-Making and Shaping of Material Realities from the Mid-Nineteenth to Mid-Twentieth Century". Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. 28 (1): 135–159. doi:10.1017/S1356186317000281. ISSN 1356-1863.. — MarkH₂₁^talk 13:42, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

If you read your own quotation, it prominently says "Kashmir Survey", capitalised. But that is exactly the phrase you have removed and replaced it by the title of a document in the archives. I can't see any reason why you are trying to second guess your own source! -- Kautilya3 (talk) 20:21, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

Yes, and he cites its publication to Photozincographed Sections of part of the Survey of Kashmir, Ladak and Baltistan or Little Tibet. There’s no second-guessing here, that’s what Lamb cites it to himself. You believe that the Photozincographed Sections of part of the Survey of Kashmir, Ladak and Baltistan or Little Tibet isn’t about the "Survey of Kashmir, Ladak and Baltistan or Little Tibet"?— MarkH₂₁^talk 20:49, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

You are being disingenuous again. We are talking about language and presentation, about the WP:COMMONNAMEs by which things are referred to. Please don't tell me that you don't understand this. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 22:58, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

What? COMMONNAME is about article titles, which is not about. Your accusation of bad faith is pretty appalling. I'm just pointing out what the actual name of the survey was.

If you feel so strongly about using "Kashmir survey", then we should still note the name Survey of Kashmir, Ladak and Baltistan or Little Tibet. — MarkH₂₁^talk 23:04, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

Parigas district

Copying below the newly contributed subsection on "Parigas district"

Modern Chinese sources often refer to the disputed area around Demchok as Parigas (Chinese: 巴里加斯; pinyin: Bālǐjiāsī) or the Parigas district (Chinese: 巴里加斯地区; pinyin: Bālǐjiāsī dìqū). The Parigas district has been described by Chinese sources as a 1,900 square kilometres (730 sq mi) disputed territory of which India controls 450 square kilometres (170 sq mi) in its southwest corner.

Notes

References

-- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:33, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

Re the revert, I don't see how a short subsection would be inappropriate. You removed it from the lead earlier, and it's a bit strange to just place it directly in the "Boundaries" section without separating it from the rest of the section. A short subsection seems the cleanest, but an alternative would be a "Terminology" section or similar. — MarkH₂₁^talk 23:40, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

I just noticed that the previous "Boundaries" section only had one sentence actually about boundaries, whereas the remainder is about the geography of the disputed area, so I renamed it "Geography". — MarkH₂₁^talk 00:01, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

It is fairly certain that the Ladakhi Demchok village is called "Parigas". It is labelled as such by tianditu even now. The "Pargias district" with unknown boundaries and an astronomical amount of area, only some part of which is supposedly under Indian control, is too vague to be worthy of inclusion. Neither is it clear how it relates to the Demchok sector. Recall that Demchok sector includes both the Chinese- and Indian-administered areas under dispute. I need to see evidence for the Chinese-administered part of the Demchok sector being included under "Parigas district" for it to be included here. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 00:09, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

Replying to the three different points made:

• Re an astronomical amount of area, only some part of which is supposedly under Indian control: The Demchok sector is also approximately 1900 sqkm (just roughly using Google Maps/OSM distance measurements). They are very roughly a similar size (at least the same order of magnitude), and both are partially Indian-controlled west of the Indus & Dêmqog.
• Re Neither is it clear how it relates to the Demchok sector.: The Demchok sector is a disputed area centered around Demchok. "Parigas district" is the Chinese name for a disputed territory centered around Demchok. The Indian-administered part of Parigas district also coincides with the Indian-administered part of the Demchok sector. This mention also adds the information that Chinese sources put the amount of Indian-administered territory in the Demchok sector at 450sqkm, which is certainly worth including.
• Re I need to see evidence for the Chinese-administered part of the Demchok sector being included under "Parigas district" for it to be included here.: The "Parigas district" was called a disputed territory on the western border between China and India that includes Jigunalu River, Umlung, Demchok, Guoluo, and other areas. The Hunan Daily article, which notes that the entire area is 1900sqkm of which 450sqkm is Indian-administered, also says

  位于狮泉河以西，现除东部的典角村外，大部由印度控制。
  [West of the Indus River, [Parigas district] is currently controlled by India except for Dêmqog Village in the east.]

  It explicitly includes Dêmqog, which is Chinese-administered. Outside of the 450sqkm Indian-administered portion and Dêmqog, the remainder of the Parigas district is east of the Indus and Chinese-administered.

— MarkH₂₁^talk 00:30, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

• Ok, I can verify that the total Demchok sector is around 1900 sq.km., though it is a bit of an overestimate. So, I will remove the dubious tag. I would however prefer it to be called the "Parigas district", because Parigas by itself has well-defined official meaning as the Ladkhi Demchok village. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 00:46, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

• A lot of the modern Chinese sources unfortunately refer to the entire area in Chinese as "巴里加斯" (Parigas) without the "地区" (district) in Chinese and in English parentheticals as just "Parigas". The endnote describes the 1960s official usage, so I don't think it should be a major issue.
  The Parigas district explicitly includes both the Ladakhi Demchok and Dêmqog, so it's not really only around the Ladakhi Demchok as you inserted. — MarkH₂₁^talk 00:51, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

The Chinese Wikipedia entry

The Chinese Wikipedia entry parallel to this one seems to be this. They call it "Barrigas" (understandably). I couldn't figure out most of their description of the area. But what interested me was the history:

In May 1955, the Indian army entered and occupied Barrigas. On October 4 of the same year, members of the Chinese Border Working Group arrived in Barrigas. The Indian army withdrew that year. In 1956, the Indian army was stationed in the south of Barrigas, on the west bank of Dianjiao Qu, and facing the Chinese border defense detachment in Barrigas. The two sides were 650 meters apart.

No sources provided, but I have some sources that I gathered. Does anybody know what happened in May 1955 that qualifies as "occupying Barrigas"?

In 1954, India and China signed a trade agreement, by which Demchok was the only route allowed for trade between Ladakh and Tibet. So China knew officially that India was claiming "Demchok", whatever it was supposed to mean. Later that year, India defined its border, which was, as we know, 5 km southeast of the Charding Nullah ("Dianjiao Qu"). So, the "Chinese Border Working Group" (border defence detachment?) arrived to ensure that the Indians don't cross Charding Nullah. So far, everything seems normal.

But what I don't get is the bit about India "occyping Barrigas". An Indian border security post was set up as early as 1950. India also decided that Tibetans won't be allowed into Ladakh, presumably because it would cause political problems. (But Tibetans were allowed into India through other routes, without needing visas). What exactly happened in 1955?

(By the way, the border security post is likely to have been a J&K state government thing. We have a precise description of the post available from Kylel Gardner.) -- Kautilya3 (talk) 22:47, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

References

Bibliography

• Gardner, Kyle J. (2021), The Frontier Complex: Geopolitics and the Making of the India-China Border, 1846–1962, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-1-108-84059-0

POV Tag

Where can I read the explanation of the tag? TrangaBellam (talk) 14:22, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

What tag?Slatersteven (talk) 14:57, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

Slatersteven, Neutrality disputed. TrangaBellam (talk) 15:34, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

It means someone things this violates WP:NPOV.Slatersteven (talk) 15:41, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

I know that? I am enquiring for the precise concerns that led to this tag. TrangaBellam (talk) 15:44, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

It was placed originally at the Charding Nullah page here, and was copied over here. The Talk:Charding Nullah page is a huge mess. So I can't tell where the issue was described. But the problem is the Alastair Lamb POV that India's border was different from any of the older maps, whereas China's border supposedly agreed with something or the other. In reality, both the borders were expansive.

India's claim should have been to the Lhari stream (as documented by Strachey), but it went further south. China's border should have been to Lagankhel (as in the 1868 Kashmir Atlas). But it went further north. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 16:40, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

Lamb's statement quoted in the Kashmir Atlas section that the boundary was 16 miles downstream from Demchok is correct. But all the statements made in the Modern claims section are wrong. We should probably just delete all the references to Lamb 1965 because it has loads of bogus claims. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 16:55, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

Strachey's sketch of the Demchok sector

I will add a scan of Stratchey's map to the article, is it out of copyright? I am not yet into the modern section and currently trying to dig into the prim. sources of Kashmir Survey.

I remain very curious about the Demchok village and was looking out for any anthropologist who made it to the place, ever. I thought southern Demchok (that is, Indian Demchok) to be a relatively recent settlement but Cunningham's report messes up my theories. It is quite weird that in the premodern era, a single village was being ruled by two royal powers just because the agreed frontier passed through it. TrangaBellam (talk) 07:15, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

It wasn't. I think Strachey was a bit loose in his description. The Demchok Karpo (Lhari Karpo) was on the Indian side and some farmlands near it were given to the Hemis monastery. But Hemis had problems getting it cultivated, probably because it was remote and nobody lived there except Changpa nomads. But apparently there was a village at the Hot Spring, which the French Army map marks as "Chaude" or something (probably derived from "Charding").

Strachey's maps are all on the Commons [1]. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 12:26, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

In fact, I have a cut-out of the Demchok sector. The border is harder to make out as it is faintly marked with a red shading. But the Edward Weller map on the main page shows the same border. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 15:31, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

In terms of anthropologists, this book by Janet Rizvi and Monisha Ahmed should be useful. I don't have access to it. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:26, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

Era of Fragmentation

I am getting around to this problem now. Reading the Alastair Lamb's paper, I find historically illiterate statements like this:

The intention of the 1684 agreement was clear enough. Ladakh had attempted to annex Tibetan territory but had been repulsed. The status quo ante was now being restored.

Ladakh didn't "attempt" to annex "Tibetan territory". It had annexed Ngari territory, of which Ladakh was itself the strongest kingdom. After 900 AD, Tibet was to the east of Mayum Pass, and to the west was Ngari. That was the status quo ante. Tibet was the Tsangpo basin and Ngari was Indus–Sutlej basin. Strachey saw that clearly.

Prior to 900 AD, Lhasa controlled Ngari for only about 200 years, and the nobility families of the former Zhangzhung empire were still around when Kyide Nyimagon arrived, and he married into one of them. And the Zhangzhung language was probably still alive too. It was only after 900 AD that Ngari got "Tibetanised" through the influence of Nyimagon's descendants and their use of the Tibetan language for Buddhism. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:16, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

References