Talk:Madras Presidency

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Good articleMadras Presidency has been listed as one of the History good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
May 3, 2011Good article nomineeListed
May 30, 2013Good article reassessmentKept
Current status: Good article

Sections[edit]

* Origins  Done Completed

  • History  Done Largely completed. Proper alignment of Periyar/Theagaroya Chetty image needs to be done
  • Demographics - Districtwise population statistics for the period 1911-1941 needs to be filled. Description part complete
  • Languages - Language statistics required for 1947/50 period when the Presidency was dissolved.
  • Religion - Needs to be expanded. Legislations on religious affairs for pre-1921 period need to be mentioned. Refs to be added.
  • Administration - Review required.

* Army  Done Completed * Land  Done Completed * Agriculture and Irrigation - More research for the period 1911-1950 is required in order to verify if any points have been left out. Done Completed

  • Trade and Industry - A paragraph on banking in the Presidency needs to be added.
  • Transport and Communication:
    • Land Transport: Number of buses, bus depots, etc in 1947-50 need to be mentioned.
    • Roads: Stats on kilometres of roadways in 1947 need to be filled. Important roads in the Presidency to be mentioned
    • Railways: 1947/50 stats required
    • Tramways:  Done Completed
    • Seaways: Need to be created
    • Air transport: To be created
    • Postal Service: Needs to be expanded.
    • Telegraphs and Telephones: Points on telegraphs are to be added. 1947/50 stats for telephones needed.
  • Education:  Done Completed

-RavichandarMy coffee shop 12:26, 6 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed new sections[edit]

I propose that the following new sections be added at the end of the article:

  • Culture and society:
    • Social life: traditional S. Indian life - issues and social reforms - marumakkathayam - sports and pastimes - recreation clubs and sabhas - carnatic music - bharatanatyam - cinema
    • Newspapers, periodicals and their circulation - radio services

* Cities Section omitted due to size constraints and lack of importance -RavichandarMy coffee shop 12:41, 6 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review[edit]

This review is transcluded from Talk:Madras Presidency/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Sodabottle (talk) 07:36, 22 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)
  1. It is reasonably well written.
    a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
  2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.
    a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
  3. It is broad in its coverage.
    a (major aspects): b (focused):
  4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.
    Fair representation without bias:
  5. It is stable.
    No edit wars, etc.:
  6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
    a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
  7. Overall:
    Pass/Fail:

Review Comments[edit]

  • There are many unreferenced sentences in the article. Either they are unsourced or appear unsourced because of paragraph changes. Please add the sources, if they are missing or make sure the reference is present at the end of each para.
  • There are couple of "clarification needed" tags added by the GOCE copy editor. On balance, they do look strange to a non-familiar reader. Clarify them using footnotes or using bluelinks
  • "kingdom of Mysore in 1831 on account of its maladministration[25] and restored it to the rightful heir". "rightful heir" is wodeyar POV :-) (not a surprise as the source is Kamath). probably this can be rephrased to state "wodeyar dynasty" or something.
Reworded as

The Madras Presidency annexed the kingdom of Mysore in 1831 on allegations of maladministration and restored it to Chamaraja Wodeyar, the grandson and heir of the deposed Mummadi Krishnaraja Wodeyar in 1881.

-The EnforcerOffice of the secret service 12:47, 23 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Victorian era is missing details on the 1890 act.
  • "venomous attacks on Brahmins" by periyar mostly belong to the post 1957 period. In the 20s and 30s they were pretty much tame. Also the current reference for this line the kandasamy/smarandiche book is a little lame to support this assertion. Please look for a better source (or reword "venomous")
  • The dyarchy/justice party focus is slightly over shadowing the independence movement in the 1920s and 30s. Reduce the emphasis on JP and increase on the nationalist movement for this period (non cooperation/salt satyagraha etc in the presidency)
  • "However, along with the abolition of female infanticide, the removal of purdah and advocation of widow remarriage, untouchability was slowly eradicated through legislation and social reform.". No direct link between these and untouchability.
I can understand from some of the books published in the late 19th century, that the "public opinion among educated people" of those times considered all the above as "social evils" that needed to be eradicated.-The EnforcerOffice of the secret service 12:54, 23 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the education section a number of terms can be bluelinked like college of engineering guindy, madras medical college etc.
  • The administration section needs a short para about the role of legislature from 1861 to 1947. Might be a slight redundancy with the history section, but should be mentioned here too as the MLC did take part in administering the province--Sodabottle (talk) 12:52, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Need references for the last two lines in the "Demographics section" (gazatteer of india?). Have added a few more cn tags. I believe the refs are in their main articles, they have to be moved here.--Sodabottle (talk) 05:42, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Similarly the "administration" section is currently unsourced. I believe the details are from Thurston's provincial geographies of india". But i am not sure of the page numbers. Can you please source this? (no need for sourcing each line from a different page. use a large page range and add one citation per para)--Sodabottle (talk) 05:48, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No, the section "Administration" was already there when I had started editing the article. I guess most of the section has been taken from the The 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica article-The EnforcerOffice of the secret service 05:27, 2 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Same case for the last few lines of the "Trade industry and commerce" section about the various banks. I am unfamiliar with this area, so cant add sources. Can you please handle this?

Review over[edit]

I have completed the review and fixed things where i can. The only remaining issue is the inline citations for several sentences. I have marked them all with citation needed tags. All others have been addressed. Once the inline citations are added this article will meet GA standards.--Sodabottle (talk) 07:03, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have added the necessary citations.-The EnforcerOffice of the secret service 12:19, 2 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You have missed the the last lines in the Trade industry and commerce (about banks) . That alone remains to be fixed--Sodabottle (talk) 14:31, 2 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Added-The EnforcerOffice of the secret service 09:27, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
promoted to GA. Congratulations for your hard work on making such an expansive article into a GA--Sodabottle (talk) 09:54, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks a lot for the patience you've shown in reviewing the article and pointing out areas of improvement.-The EnforcerOffice of the secret service 12:52, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding this statement: "In 1858, under the terms of the Queen's Proclamation issued by Queen Victoria, the Madras Presidency, along with the rest of British India, came under the direct rule of the British crown.[28]" I looked up page 221 of that edition of that particular book cited, and page 221 begins the first page of a new chapter about the Crimean War. The only date listed on that page is "October 1853". Perhaps the author of that statement could cite the correct page. Adrienne (talk) 12:06, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

GA Reassessment[edit]

Keeping Review appears to be abbandonned by the nominator and everything appears to have been address or outside the scope of the criteria. AIRcorn (talk) 07:35, 30 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This discussion is transcluded from Talk:Madras Presidency/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the reassessment.

This article does not properly follow Parenthetical referencing i. e. last name of the author with the year of publication. Some of the citations use the name of the book "Provincial Geographies of India". I was quite new to Wikipedia when I nominated this article for GA and I did not know about the different referencing styles at that time. However, the article has been like that since then and no one has thought of cleaning it up. Nor do I have enough time to fix it. Hence I request that this article be de-listed.-RaviMy Tea Kadai 11:58, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Have the major contributors and Wikiprojects been notified? Is your only concern the style of referencing? I am not sure that is a necessary requirement for GA, but if that is the only problem it should be relatively easy to sort out. The article looks to be in decent shape to me. AIRcorn (talk) 12:41, 15 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have started fixing the issues. All dead/dubious links removed, access date added and page numbers corrected.Ssriram mt (talk) 13:21, 17 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Just a note to say that dead links should not be deleted except as a last resort. In most cases the presence of dead links are not a reason to delist an article. The correct procedure for dealing with deadlinks is at Wikipedia:Link rot. AIRcorn (talk) 08:29, 22 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have found alternate book links, which are relatively stable - will fit in those in sometime. Ssriram mt (talk) 01:03, 27 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Corrections

  • Image alt
 Done
  • remove promotional references
 Done
  • remove deadlinks
 Done
  • copy edits
 Done
  • convert template
 Done
  • separate section on slavery
 Done

Suggest additional missing pieces. Ssriram mt (talk) 02:02, 9 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

An unnecessary section on "Slavery" has been added to the article wholly based on a page or two from some stray source. Now I observe a clear violation of WP:UNDUE. I don't think there was any problem with the text of the article as such. I called for reassessment because of the lack of a standard referencing style. Now, the article appears to be in worser shape than it was previously. While I don't wish to close this reassessment on my own if the section remains there as such, I'd rather support delistment of the article.-RaviMy Tea Kadai 17:00, 9 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Is the section alone prevents the GA? Is there other issues that needs a change and can they be listed as well? A secondary opinion can be sought to see if the section stray - 20% population remaining slaves is never undue. As such comments in air like "bad shape" doesn't help things and it actually demeans the effort put in to rescue the article. Ssriram mt (talk) 01:56, 10 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Also there is not much of textual change effected other than minor grammatical corrections - the major corrections were on convert template and ref structuring! Also a mere search on "Madras Presidency Slaves" returns 17200 book results - calling it undue shows zero search done by the reviewer to pass comments. With blind comments like the ones above, i see no meaning continuing the review/rework. Best is the for the community to answer or this can be closed for now. Ssriram mt (talk) 03:19, 10 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It is pretty obvious that "Slavery" was not a topic of much debate in the Madras Presidency. None of the acclaimed sources - The Provincial Geographies of India, ''Imperial Gazetteer of India, reports of MacLean, S. Srinivasa Raghavaiyangar, Sadasivan's Growth of Public Opinion in the Madras Presidency, Thurston's Castes and Tribes of Southern India or the Madras district gazetteers make note it. While I do agree that some sort of serfdom (I doubt if "Slavery" might be the apt non-neutral word used) did exist in the Madras Presidency just as in other parts of India, it was not so conspicuous as in, say, the United States of America before the American Civil War. Moreover, the section indicates that slavery in the Madras Presidency was almost extinct by the 1840s. In my opinion, a line or two could be added in "Culture and society" which discusses the social issues which existed in the province and the whole section be moved to a new article on Slavery in the Madras Presidency.-RaviMy Tea Kadai 02:23, 14 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
 Done A new article created and a gist is added in culture section. I buy the point that slavery was not unique to Madras Presidency. But the condition with American case and India's case are entirely different, though the pattern looks alike. India fought independence against British amidst internal split on castes/religion, which was not the case in the US. List out the other parts with timelines for this to be closed. Ssriram mt (talk) 00:39, 18 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is pretty much okay now. Anyway, I'll have a detailed look when I get time, maybe at the end of this week.-RaviMy Tea Kadai 15:07, 25 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Just a ping in case this has been forgotten. AIRcorn (talk) 05:15, 23 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Initially the article appeared to be fine. But on closer look, I could find some issues. A. D. (Anno Domini) has been added after each date in the Victorian period and Indian independence movement sections. I am not so knowledgeable about WP:MOS but I don't think such usages conform to the manual of style. Moreover, the suffix "A. D." has not been uniformly applied all over the article. The paragraph which speaks about Munro's Ryotwari System and the Mahalwari System has very few citations - I observe that an older version was properly sourced but most of the sources have, since, been removed.-RaviMy Tea Kadai 06:12, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I fixed the AD denotion as per Wikipedia:MOSNUM#Dates. Also the Ryotwari reference (8th standard history text book) has been replaced. Ssriram mt (talk) 01:49, 26 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As in the case of Kumbakonam, the citation style is still not uniform and needs to be fixed.-RaviMy Tea Kadai 03:36, 10 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Some more clarity needed here - When the same book with different pages is used, the short citation is used and linked as in the case of Mumbai. I feel that is how we commonly refer it - as in here?

Raj sources[edit]

This article uses far too many sources from the Raj period. They are generally unreliable (for example, for history) and in many cases they amount to primary sources because of their close ties to the Raj administration even when they were not official documents. Authors such as Edgar Thurston have been rejected time and again across a swathe of India-related articles and in some cases this has been confirmed at WP:RSN. For things such as the relative peace in the area in 1857, there really should be no need to use something published in 1859 and which, inevitably, was poor quality. Surely to goodness there has been something said of this in the last couple of decades or so? (I'll look for that one tomorrow). - Sitush (talk) 02:04, 19 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Although the citation does not say so (quite a few of the citations seem to be poorly formed), the 1859 source for the 1857 rebellion was written by George Dodd. It can be seen here and is supposed to be verification for "The rebellion of Velu Thambi and Paliath Achan and the Poligar Wars were other notable insurrections against the British rule, but the Madras Presidency remained relatively undisturbed by the Sepoy Mutiny." It actually only verifies "the Madras Presidency remained relatively undisturbed by the Sepoy Mutiny", so a bit of work is required. Modern sources such as this would be better, if we can find some that verify the entire thing.

Another poor source is Read, Anthony (1997). The Proudest Day – India's Long Ride to Independence. London: Jonathan Cape. ISBN 0-393-31898-2. Again, the citation is wrong because Read was co-author with David Fisher. Worse, though, is that it is basically a work of popular history: Anthony Read is not an academic historian as such (screenwriter turned popular historian turned novelist) and his speciality has been World War II; Fisher is also primarily a screenwriter and his interests in history have been mainly in the sphere of ghostwriting sports biographies etc. It really does not seem good enough. - Sitush (talk) 15:13, 19 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I will work on correcting these - will do over the weekend.Ssriram mt (talk) 01:03, 20 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I have fixed all the citation parameters and removed some unreliable refs. I will gradually replace Raj sources with latest sources this week.Ssriram mt (talk) 02:15, 25 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it didn't happen, did it? I'm afraid this article will need to be massively stripped down and thus will almost certainly not meet GA criteria. - Sitush (talk) 13:30, 2 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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Was Presidency of Fort St. George a seperate colony from 1652 to 1857?[edit]

This confuses me a lot. Were the 3 presidencies of British India three seperate colonies within the British Empire from 1600s to 1857? Or were they a single colony? PadFoot2008 (talk) 16:52, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Aaron Baker[edit]

The article on Aaron Baker has him as 1st president of Madras, but he's not mentioned here. What's right? 5.83.11.38 (talk) 00:52, 15 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]