Talk:British Raj/Archive 7

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GA nomination?

The article has been nominated as a GA candidate by TheSpecialUser (talk · contribs), a new editor, who made his first edit just two days ago (on May 10, 2012). While, there is no Wikipedia policy prohibiting such a nomination, it is unusual for a major article to be nominated by someone who has no history of contributions to it. In the last day or two, TheSpecialistUser has added some templates and "See Also links," of dubious value, to the page, but I don't know that he has processed the content of the article enough, and is capable of either weighing or implementing the suggestions of a GA reviewer should such a reviewer hazard a review. Clearly, the major contributors have not thought the article ready for a GAC; otherwise, they would have nominated it themselves. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:59, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

I though have nominated it, I m taking no credit if it gets promoted. I nominated it as I thought that it was ready for it. Sorry if I did something wrong but I compared this article with others also and found that it is ready for GA. TheSpecialUserTalkContributions 13:30, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
PS: Not TheSpecialistUser but TheSpecialUser is the correct name. TheSpecialUserTalkContributions 13:43, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
Dear TheSpecialUser. Sorry about getting your name wrong! No, you didn't do anything wrong and it's not the credit I'm worried about. It is just that regardless of whether a reviewer promotes or archives a nomination, he asks questions (to clarify and understand) and offers suggestions for improvement, which need to be acted upon. In other words, the nomination thrusts a great deal of responsibility on the nominator. This is a complex topic. It is not easy for someone to review this article. It is also not easy for someone to interact with a reviewer to both clarify and implement. You might want to cut your teeth on small articles and DYK nominations, and then work your way up to GACs. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:53, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

It's great that you want to take so many articles to GA status but you might want to slow down a little. If two or three end up under review simultaneously, you'll be overwhelmed with work (editing, source hunting, etc.)! You may want to consider picking one or two as a start, seeing how the process goes, and then revving up. (Just a suggestion, there's nothing wrong with nominating many articles simultaneously.) --regentspark (comment) 14:39, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

I completely agree. I know that as I m new, if I do more then 2 or 3 articles then I'll be in trouble also they wont get finished. I have just added their names as they are one of my favorites and to see that I do not forget about them. Right now, I am only concerned with 2 articles. TheSpecialUserTalkContributions 14:47, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
Great. Looking at your list, it would be nice if many of those articles were good articles. Let me know if I can help. BTW, the History of South Asia was an infobox and is kind of hard to fit in so I've removed it. If you can find a template version of the History of India, could you add that in at the bottom? Above the Indian Independence Movement template. --regentspark (comment) 14:50, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
I m sorry for that. I added it as it didn't look like an infobox and I have also seen an article with 2 infoboxes of different topics. And it is really nice of you that you are offering help. I'll only need help with Sachin Tendulkar as neutrality is an issue with lack of refs. I don't think that I'll reach that article in next 3 months, but whenever I come to it. I'll leave you a message. TheSpecialUserTalkContributions 14:54, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure the nomination is a good idea. Moonraker (talk) 07:34, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

A constructive approach to reversions

I am in the process of making some improvements to the article, explaining each of them in an edit summary. The improvements I made yesterday were summarily reverted by Fowler&fowler with the single summary "rv moonrakers highly POV edits; please discuss on talk page and gain consensus there first". I am always happy to discuss any edit here. As I am explaining each point as I go along it should be clear that these are not "POV" edits. Some of the points I am correcting are plainly incorrect. If Fowler&fowler wishes to revert me, I suggest this should be done in a more detailed way, explaining each reversion in an edit summary in a way which we can then discuss here. Moonraker (talk) 19:35, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Please read Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle. I'm afraid your edits thus far in British Indian history related topics show that you don't know plainly correct from plainly incorrect. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:39, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
Of course I disagree with that, but I shall resist the temptation to say the same in return. In any event, it is better to avoid sweeping generalizations and focus on precise points. Moonraker (talk) 06:22, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Citations from books without page numbers

These are impediments. Can those who added them please look at the footnotes numbered (as of this moment)

15 ("Robin J. Moore, Imperial India, 1858–1914")
25 ("William Ford (1887). John Laird Mair Lawrence, a viceroy of India")
30 ("Sir George Forrest (1894). The administration of the Marquis of Lansdowne as Viceroy and Governor-general of India, 1888–1894")
50 ("^ Vinay Bahl, Making of the Indian Working Class: A Case of the Tata Iron & Steel Company, 1880–1946 (1995)")
63 ("B. R. Tomlinson, The economy of modern India, 1860–1970 (1996)")
72 ("Stanley A. Wolpert, Tilak and Gokhale: revolution and reform in the making of modern India (1962)")
73 ("Michael Edwardes, High Noon of Empire: India under Curzon (1965)")
131 ("Ian Talbot and Gurharpal Singh, The Partition of India (2009)")
132 ("Thomas R. Metcalf, The New Cambridge History of India: Ideologies of the Raj (1995).)" and
134 ("Y. K. Malik and V. B. Singh, Hindu Nationalists in India: the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party (Westview Press, 1994)")

and try to specify the pages? Moonraker (talk) 23:07, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

In most cases the citation is to all or most of the book; page numbers are therefore useless to readers. Rjensen (talk) 05:42, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict)These are "impediments?" No, they are niggles. The impediment is your colored POV with which you have apparently decided to saturate this page. Many of these footnotes were added by Rjensen (I think). I am traveling and unable to help. Robin Moore's chapter in the Oxford History of the British Empire is cited at the end. Papers are typically not cited by page number for specific edits, just the page range of the entire paper, unless it is overlong, which Moore's is not. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:48, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
PS I agree with Rjensen's post above. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:49, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps "impediments" was an odd word to choose, but I had in mind Wikipedia:Verifiability, which says "Appropriate citations guarantee that the information is not original research, and allow readers and editors to check the source material for themselves." With only a book title, that is made very much more difficult. Wikipedia:Citations#Books says that "Citations for books typically include... chapter or page number(s) where appropriate". Rjensen has helpfully managed to sharpen up several of these bare titles. Moonraker (talk) 06:38, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

British Somaliland

Is it correct that Somaliland is included in this article as part of the geographical extent of the British Raj? I always thought that term solely applied to the Indian subcontinent. danno 21:42, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

It was governed by the administration in India for a decade or so. It was administratively part of the Raj although geographically separate, so were Singapore and Burma also considered part of the British Raj although not in the sub-continent. Dabbler (talk) 22:42, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
Interesting, thanks. danno 22:47, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
To say "administratively part of the Raj" (and similar things above) underlines the constant problem with the term "British Raj". The British administered their possessions, which in the Indian subcontinent were essentially British India. The Indian Empire, which this article is mostly about, was not a possession and the British did not administer it. Moonraker (talk) 21:05, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
I am also not comfortable with the term British Raj, preferring the British Indian Empire. However, the administration of British possessions in India and the liaison with the princely states and the administration of other territories outside the sub-continent came at various times under the India office in London and the administration in Calcutta or New Delhi as suits the timeframe. Dabbler (talk) 00:25, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
"British Raj" is the standard term used by historians. For example it is used by authors and the editors of leading scholarly journals [recent examples: (1) Journal of Imperial & Commonwealth History. Sep 2011, Vol. 39 Issue 3, p375-392; 2) Bulletin of the History of Medicine. Winter 2011, Vol. 85 Issue 4, p587-619; 3) Indian Economic & Social History Review. July 2011, Vol. 48 Issue 3, p317-338] as well as recent scholarly books [Empire, Politics, and the Creation of the 1935 India Act. Last Act of the Raj by Andrew Muldoon. 2010] Rjensen (talk) 01:30, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
Whatever nickname that modern historians or others may may choose to call it, the official name was Indian Empire from the time of Queen Victoria to the its dissolution in 1947. Dabbler (talk) 10:52, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
Raj is not a nickname according to the OED ["Raj In full British Raj. Direct rule in India by the British (1858–1947); this period of dominion. Often with the."]. As for "the official name was Indian Empire" -- that does not seem to show up in the official documents. Does anyone have a cite? Rjensen (talk) 11:29, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

I would refer you to the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article British Raj which states "After 1876, the resulting political union was officially called the Indian Empire and issued passports under that name." The Royal Titles Act of 1876 proclaimed Queen Victoria as Empress of India. The passport of British India states on its cover Indian Empire.You could also look up Order of the Indian Empire for another example of its official usage. Dabbler (talk) 23:01, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Here is a link to Jinnah's passport with some of the inside pages Jinnah's Indian Empire passport] Dabbler (talk) 23:21, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

I searched the original records, laws of parliament & Hansard debates. There never was an act of Parliament using "Indian Empire" or "Empire of India" It was an informal term used in guidebooks. As for the passport, i read the actual law and it never uses the word "Empire." What happened was that the printer at the passport office made up the design. Bottom line: "Indian Empire" was never used in the text of an official document. Rjensen (talk) 23:51, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

I agree that the terms Indian Empire and Empire of India do not seem to appear in legislation, though Empress/Emperor of India do, this is because the term generally used in law was India or government of India and not Raj or Empire. My personal review of Hansard showed many uses of the term Indian Empire. I am amazed that the Government of India would not specify to a printer what should be on its official passports not just in one place but in several places, please supply a citation for your claim that the printer made up the wording without the approval of the government. I think that The Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire is a pretty official organization and not an informal name. Here are some London Gazette official publications and Victorian royal proclamations which use the term Indian Empire. On the institution of the Order of the Crown of India, the Queen's Speech to Parliament August 1879, Charter granted to the Imperial British East Africa Company mentions "our Indian Empire". Queen's Speech August 1885. For "Empire of India" here is a treaty between the Queen and the Emperor of All the Russias in 1886. Can you also provide any official citation of the term British Raj or Raj in any official document anywhere? Dabbler (talk) 02:25, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

London was very careful not to name the new entity. It was usually called "India." People did indeed often speak informally of the "Indian Empire" -- but never called it that officially. The closest one gets is references by the Queen to "my Indian Empire" or "our Indian Empire." For example in the East Africa example, the term used is used informally: "restrictions which may be applied in Our United Kingdom, or in Our Indian Empire" (note that "United Kingdom" is not an official name, it's a shorthand). In terms of an act of Parliament it is never used as far as I can tell. As for the passports, the law that set them up never used the word "Empire" and the word is never used "inside" the passport, only on the cover. To name a country seems like a reasonable serious matter which the British always carefully avoided re India (even when they created the title of Empress).Rjensen (talk) 03:55, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

See note below about inclusion of Empire of India inside the passport. Dabbler (talk) 11:14, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Well, I guess I come down more on the side of Rjensen in this debate. As is well known, the "Empress of India" was foisted on Victoria by Disraeli, in a move many at the time thought was cynical (in the same way they thought of Disraeli's fulsome praise for Victoria's attempts at writing). It was opposed by Gladstone and would never have been offered during a liberal administration. The term "Empress of India," by the way, was being used (for example, by some in the press) even before 1876. See, for instance, this illustration from a story in the Penny Illustrated from 1874 (please also click on the newspaper image). My 26 volumes of the Imperial Gazetteer of India, which were published with the blessings of the Secretary of State for India in Council in 1908 do mention the Indian Empire: the first four volumes are in fact titled "Indian Empire." This map, which accompanies, all the volumes, is titled "Political Divisions of the Indian Empire." This would support Dabbler's view that the term had some official sanction; however Rjensen is correct as well about the term being used very infrequently. Most official documents simply used "India" and "India" was the world-wide term for the subcontinent at the time. My guess is that the official documents such as passports or maps used "Indian Empire" because they were meant to include citizens and lands (respectively) of the Princely States as well. (No ruler, however high falutin', of a princely state, could travel abroad without a BIE passport.) As for the name of this page, I've been through this debate many times. My own original preference was for "Crown rule in India" (as counterpoise to Company rule in India), but I prefer "British Raj" to "British India" or "Indian Empire." The former ("British India" is confusing, as it contemporaneously referred (and still does in scholarly literature) to regions directly administered by the British; the latter ("Indian Empire") is ambiguous: it begs the retort, "which one, Ashokan, Mughal, or British?" "British Raj" is commonly used in the scholarly literature, and the name now has the heft of precedence (if that's the word I want) on Wikipedia, i.e. its been there for some 8 or 9 years. Best not to tamper. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:37, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
PS I should add that the Imperial Gazetteer uses "Indian Empire" only, not "British Indian Empire." In other words, although "British Indian Empire" would remove the ambiguity referred to at the end of the last post, it has less evidence of official use. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:05, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
I am broadly with Dabbler. The term "Indian Empire" does appear in contemporary sources, and indeed we can see it printed on the cover of the passport illustrated above. Answering Rjensen's point about its not appearing in legislation, there is a rather simple explanation for that, which is that the British had no power to legislate for the princely states, nor for the Indian Empire as a whole. The Empire was real in some ways, but from a constitutional point of view not so real as it appeared to the world at large. The lead here refers to a "political union", but that seems to me to be stretching a point. The objection to "British Raj" is not so much that it is a latecomer to the history books, and was little used, so far as I know, not used officially at all, before 1947. Wikipedia has several other page titles which are recent inventions, and the term "British Raj" is quite elderly. The greater objection to it is surely that it has no precise meaning, so it is used differently in different contexts. Even the OED, which is mentioned above, is not helpful in giving the term a clear meaning. The lead of this article says (correctly, I believe) that the "Raj" was British rule in India, but the nature of that rule varied from place to place, and I should have thought it would be better to have articles based on countries and governments, rather than on the concept of "rule", especially when, as here, the degree of ruling done by the British varied as much across an area as it did in the case of India. Moonraker (talk) 07:21, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
The British knew how to name a place--but they never did so for India. The BNA Act for Canada (1867) states: "3. It shall be lawful for the Queen, by and with the Advice of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, to declare by Proclamation that, on and after the passing of this Act, the Provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick shall form and be One Dominion under the Name of Canada; and on and after that Day those Three Provinces shall form and be One Dominion under that Name accordingly. 4. Unless it is otherwise expressed or implied, the Name Canada shall be taken to mean Canada as constituted under this Act.(5)" 1867 Canada Rjensen (talk) 07:34, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
Indeed, but India was far more complicated than the Canadas, or British North America, or whatever term I should use! And although "India" was commonly used for the whole subcontinent, there was never an ability to legislate for all of it in the way that the British could legislate for the whole of their North American possessions. Moonraker (talk) 07:43, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
The term "British Raj" was in common use in the 19th century: 1) 1829 (a Portuguese official in Goa) "The British raj (dominions) should be taken. During the war, any of the Sahib Loks of the English who may be taken prisoners are to be made over to us."; 2) 1858 (pamphlet title) The British raj contrasted with its predecessors by Dosabhoy Framjee; 3) 1863: "he ' hundred years ' which Hindoo prophecy had assigned as the term of the British Raj had expired"; 4) 1865: "For 100 years the British "raj" had endured. Now crazy, or wily, pundits and moulvies brought to light a prediction that, on the 23rd of June, 1857, British rule would end." 5) 1869: "Had even the capture of Delhi been delayed a little while, the whole country would probably have been in a blaze- Old prophecies foretelling the certain end of the British raj"; 6) 1877: "The Prince of Wales' tour aroused unprecedented enthusiasm for and loyalty to the British Raj, and further encouragement was given to the growth of this spirit when, in a durbar of great magnificence held on January 1st, 1877" [The Indian year book v 15]; Rjensen (talk) 08:12, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
If you look inside Jinnah's Indian Empire passport you will see the words "Empire of India". So I appeal to your honesty for a retraction of your incorrect statement above. The title used by the monarchs was Empress or Emperor of India. There must have been an officially acknowledged Empire for them to be Empress or Emperor of, however, it was not usedin legislation for some of the reasons mentioned. It certainly existed officially enough to have an Order of chivalry named after it. Dabbler (talk) 11:14, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
Let me state this once again: British Raj = Crown rule in India, the counterpart, a century later, of Company rule in India. There is little difference structurally between the two articles. Neither is about a country in the modern sense of the word. The princely states were just as pathetically impotent under company rule as they were under crown rule. The British allowed only those which encompassed land of no economic value (such as in Rajputana, Mysore, Hyderabad, or Kashmir) to exist half-semi-independently, as a way of minimizing their organizational headache, which was consequently reduced to nothing more than a dressing down of the (mentally) infantile maharajah by the British political agent or resident. The natives knew this instinctively. Why do you think in times of famine, such as the Rajputana famine of 1869, they left the princely states in a hurry for the British enclaves, such as Ajmer-Merwara, in order to receive famine relief? Whatever little the British deigned to dole out was a great deal more than what any pageant maharajah could conceive cognitively.
More to the point, I've heard all these arguments many times before. Why doesn't one of you propose a formal name change and drum up that fabled consensus? Otherwise, we'll be doing nothing more than acting out Woodrow Wilson's famous dictum. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:34, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
May I ask, is the formula "British Raj = Crown rule in India" supported by any reliable sources? Even if it is, there are reliable sources which use the term "British Raj" differently, as supported by the OED. I see no objection to having a page with one or other of those titles (British Raj or Crown rule in India), but such an article needs to recognize its limitations. The topic is not the historical India itself, nor a British possession, nor a government. Too many terms redirect here which call for their own articles. Moonraker (talk) 20:06, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Such as? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 06:09, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

GA review

As it stands, the article clearly fails the stability criteria. There are other issues too, but those are all fixable in the short term. I intend to fail the article on the stability criteria. However, as there's an active discussion going on I thought I'd chime in here and see if anyone would object to it and save the trouble of having to go for another reviewer and stuff like that after I started. I don't think the assessment will change on the stability criteria, but I don't want this to end up as a time sink for all involved. cheers. —SpacemanSpiff 06:40, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

I agree with your assessment. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 06:55, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
Hard to fault. Moonraker (talk) 06:37, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Bot archiving

This page needs archiving. I propose to place the following template {{User:ClueBot III/ArchiveThis}} at the top of this page with the following parameters:

  • |archiveprefix=Talk:British_Raj/Archive
  • |format= %%i
  • |header={{Talkarchivenav}}
  • |age=1464
  • |index=no
  • |minkeepthreads=2
  • |maxarchsize=150000
  • |numberstart=6

to automatically archive this page. -- PBS (talk) 21:04, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 09:29, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Article Name problems

I am coming to think that there is an insuperable problem over the naming of this article in a way that would be acceptable to everyone. I, personally, do prefer "Indian Empire" (with some qualification indicating which Indian Empire, see the Indian Army article for similar discussions) which as I have shown was used officially in some places like the Anglo-Russian treaty, Order of the Indian Empire, British India passports, statements and proclamations by the government and Crown and also in general usage, see Hansard debates, etc.. However, I also accept that it is not so named in any legislation. The problem is that the Indian Empire was only a part of the larger British Empire, which name, by the way, that can only be found in two Acts passed between 1850 and 1950 (China Indemnity (Application) Act 1931 and the British North America Act 1867). British Raj is as far as I can see, a completely unofficial name, used in unofficial documents but never officially, and in more common usage in more modern times I believe. There is also the problem that people are not comfortable with what should be included here. Only British Crown ruled territories in the Indian sub-continent? Only territories in the sub-continent but including princely states under British suzerainty? All places that came under the Government of India and the India Office at various times, such as Burma, Singapore and what started all this, British Somaililand? Dabbler (talk) 11:59, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

:) I'd go with: only territories on the subcontinent i.e. regions of British sovereignty (provinces) and suzerainty (princely states), and with a passing mention of the various other territories outside the subcontinent administered by the GoI (for short periods (British Somaliland) or longer ones (Burma, Aden)). As I've said before, my own original preference was for the pages: Company rule in India (for the period 1757 to 1857) and Crown rule in India (for the period 1858 to 1947). Britannica, for example, sticks to this division. Earlier, somewhere in these pages or perhaps the Talk:British India pages, we had talked about an overarching "British Empire in India" page, which would include a summary of East India Company (for the period 1600–1756), of Company rule in India and of the British Raj, but it was decided not to start that page (and risk content forking) until the constituent pages were more fully fleshed out. That has still not happened. As for the name, "British Raj," why does it have to be an official name. All that matters is that a large number of current-day sources use it, which they do. The "Mughal Empire" was after all not an official name either. The Mughals, who would have preferred to die than acknowledge their Mughal (Mongol) connection, preferred some now long-forgotten grandiloquent name. I should add that some people seem unhappy with the name because it includes a Hindi word "Raj." However, in the (now) six years of watching this page, I've also come to appreciate its evocativeness. Once you know its meaning, it conveys, in just three letters, what circumlocutions such as "Indian Empire," "rule in India," etc. are unable to do. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:15, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
I agree with Fowler. The Wiki rule calls for the most common name and in recent decades that has been "British Raj". True the "Indian Empire" was favoured by Conservatives in London (like Disraeli, who wrote the Queen's speeches that used it), but rejected by the Liberals and Labour parties, so it fell out of favour about 1905, when the Liberals came to power, and has never been revived and does not appeal to scholars. Rjensen (talk) 15:31, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
Indian Empire appears to be a pretty common name used during both company and crown rule but it is more used in a descriptive sense when discussing it, the official name appears to be just India although that is not really defined. Indian Empire is to widespread in time and India now has other meanings it is probable best to use British Raj as a common name. MilborneOne (talk) 15:38, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
I concur with most of the opinions above. British Raj is the well understood common term used for the control of India by Britain, and we should use that. Obviously, like with all terms, there will be issues at the margins, but that's normal when discussing history. --regentspark (comment) 16:21, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
I almost agree that "British Raj" is a common term used for "the control of India by Britain", but the difficulty such a notion creates is that "India" then needs to have different meanings in different contexts, because the areas of "control" varied so much. What did the British control in India? In defence matters, they controlled the peace and defence of nearly the whole subcontinent, and that was a local aspect of the Pax Britannica. In government, they controlled the administration of British India, that is, their own possessions, and had influence within the native states, varying very much in degree, but not control, because the princes remained sovereign, even when contracting out services. The British controlled the administration of justice and were able to fashion the legislation, including the penal code, within British India, but so far as I know British justice was not applied within any of the states. In railways and in postal services, the British area of control was a hybrid one. In the control of the coinage, several states had their own mints, and Hyderabad had its own Hyderabadi rupee. The question of "control" (which is clearly standing proxy here for "raj" or "rule") is an aspect of several topics, but not a central topic in itself, and an article founded on the concept of rule/control is not sensible as a central point in Wikipedia's coverage of Indian history between 1858 and 1947. The pivotal articles are those on geography and administration, and in those areas "British Raj" needs to give way to other pages, instead of notable subjects such as the British Indian Empire redirecting here. As I have said before, it strikes me as very unhappy that we lack an article on the Government of India before 1947. Moonraker (talk) 04:29, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
An afterthought. As there is no precise meaning of "British raj", perhaps the awful truth of it is that it is a convenient term which enables the extreme complexity of India during this period to be fudged into an appearance of unity which existed only in very limited (we could even say feudal) terms. When we use concrete and meaningful terms instead, like "Indian Empire", "British India", "Government of India", and so on, we are forced to think more clearly. Moonraker (talk) 05:23, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Hmm. The Geography of India (1858–1947), The Geography of India (1758–1857), The Geography of India (1658–1757), ... How far back can we go? To the defining geological processes of the subcontinent when the Indian plate was separating from Gondwana and moving northeastwards? That was 100 million years ago and allows for 1 million such articles, each covering a hundred years. Please start at the very beginning. Since in Hyderabad the original Indian plate has survived in all its pristine glory, unlike, say, North India, where it is now covered with river-borne silt, you will be able to explore how the Nizam's dominions have weathered century by century. Speaking of weather, why not also have articles on the Climate of the British Raj? Or rather, since the climate was different for the Princely States, why not have articles on Climate of India (1858–1947), Climate of India (1757–1857), ..., going all the way back to the early days of paleo-climatology? What sources might you expect to find? Well, the British sources would only concentrate on British India, but the Nizam's excellent library would have all the princely climate literature. Not to worry that he was actually storing his extravagant collection of vintage cars in his library, but if you look hard enough, for example, under the skeletons of the poor folk who were run over as he was backing out, you will find the sources. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:56, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

That's not my meaning at all. I am talking about pages which deal with specific geographical and administrative areas (as the vast majority of Wikipedia articles on present-day states do), and with their governments. "British raj" is a vague term when it comes to what area it concerns. We know whether the Indian Empire included Ceylon and whether British India included Aden, and between which dates, but it's clearly harder to fathom whether something called "British raj" amounted to any form of "rule" over either of them. Even if someone says it did in either case, the form of "rule" there is quite different from the "rule" which is postulated for (say) Kashmir or Hyderabad. Moonraker (talk) 06:33, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
Much of what you've written above qualifies as original research. The term "British Raj" is commonly applied to all of India during the time of British rule. That's what we should take it to mean. Attempting to delineate some sort of levels of control is best left to peer reviewed journals. --regentspark (comment) 13:41, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
I think "The term "British Raj" is commonly applied to all of India during the time of British rule." requires some evidence rather than just an assertion. And did is apply also to Aden, Burma and other places that were at various times administered by the Government of India and does it appear inj any official documentation of the period> At least the term Indian Empire can satisfy all those criteria. As I originally said naming this article is tending to be an "insuperable problem". Dabbler (talk) 01:55, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
Our problem as editors is to find out how the scholars use the term. For example, The Arabian Frontier of the British Raj: Merchants, Rulers, and the British in the Nineteenth-Century Gulf (Oxford U.P. 2008) calls Aden the frontier of the Raj as does The Empire of the Raj: Eastern Africa and the Middle East, 1858-1947 by Robert J. Blyth - 2003. Rjensen (talk) 04:00, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

In my view, the scope of the "British Raj" page is the same as the scope of the Imperial Gazetteer of India. But before I look for evidence in this in the sources, let's first come to a consensus that the term "British Raj" is most commonly applied to the period 1858 to 1947 of British rule in India. Here are some sources:

Although the "raj" has also been used in scholarly sources for "Company raj," Britannica uses it the first time to describe the period, 1858–1947; the primacy given to the term by its incorporation into the title of the subsection, "Climax of the Raj, 1858–85" shows that it is not obscure usage." I have already, on numerous occasions, I seem to remember, listed sources using "British raj," in their titles and testifying to the manifold ways in which the term is understood, a catch all for everything that was included in the Imperial Gazetteer of India). Here is another list:

The titles suggest that British India is (obviously) included in the Raj, so is princely India. A handful of books extend (what James Only calls "Britain's informal empire") to Arabia, though the lands intervening, such as Iran and Afghanistan were clearly not a part of the Raj. Science policy is included, financial foundations are included, Insane asylums are included, in short, everything you'll find in the Imperial Gazetteer! The problem with the term "Indian Empire" is simply that it is no longer used much in the scholarly literature. For every book title with "Indian Empire" in it, I'd wager that there are ten with "British Raj" in them. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:41, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

I said above "When we use concrete and meaningful terms instead, like "Indian Empire", "British India", "Government of India", and so on, we are forced to think more clearly." Your saying "The titles suggest that British India is (obviously) included in the Raj..." is helpful in underlining the uncertainty of the meaning of the term "British raj" and the need to rely on inferences to make sense of it. Such inferences, surely, are original research? Many of the other terms used in this article have statutory definitions, while most can be defined satisfactorily from reliable sources. I said above "As there is no precise meaning of "British raj", perhaps the awful truth of it is that it is a convenient term which enables the extreme complexity of India during this period to be fudged into an appearance of unity which existed only in very limited (we could even say feudal) terms." That is surely part of the explanation for the widespread use of the expression "British raj" in academic headlines, and also in popular culture. However, can anyone tell us that any of the authors cited have offered a clear explanation of what they use the term to mean? Moonraker (talk) 07:21, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
I don't have anything more to say to you. Like I said before put up or clam up. Put in for a page move, then watch me get pissed and pull out the sources. Until then, you're wasting my time. Bye bye. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 09:31, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
Others will judge for themselves whether you have made a rational response to the points raised. Moonraker (talk) 12:25, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Governor-Generals and Viceroys

Seems like a long list to include within the article and I propose that we move the list into a separate List of Governor-Generals and Viceroys of the British Raj leaving a shorter note here with a description of their roles. Comments? --regentspark (comment) 17:48, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Seems like a reasonable idea, as you say leave behind a description of the role they performed. The list of Events/Accomplishments in it does seem out of place with the general flow of the article coming before the history is discussed. MilborneOne (talk) 17:53, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
We already have the List of Governors-General of India, which is what RegentsPark is after. As the "British Raj" was not a country, the title suggested would not be an improvement. The Governors General and Viceroys were always "of India". Also, editors here seem to have decided that the "British Raj" was post-1858. Moonraker (talk) 21:00, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
Having said that, I completely agree with RegentsPark's suggestion that we do not need such long list in this article. As we have the list of Governors-General already, may I volunteer to merge what is here into its post-1858 section? If I leave a hatnote reading
Main article: List of Governors-General of India § Governors-General and Viceroys of India, 1858–1947
perhaps RegentsPark would add the suggested "shorter note"? Moonraker (talk) 22:37, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
It is not just a list of the Governor Generals or Viceroys, at least not a vanilla list like the other one. It is really a list of events and accomplishments during the tenure of each Governor General. Such a list is not only difficult to compile (it took me forever), but also provides invaluable links to all the major historical events during that period, such as the various famines.
As for Moonraker, who has already produced unmitigated garbage in his list of pretender pages, making the tired old POV edits about British India being partitioned and not India, all I can say is, "please read the history books." They all talk about the "partition of India." (Note India = British Indian Empire). It is true, technically British India was partitioned, but no one uses that terminology especially when talking in general terms. If you are not convinced, do a Google book search on the number of titles "Partition of India" vs. "Partition of British India." I don't have time to politely patronize the sophomoric nonsense he is attempting to push on this page, but perhaps, RegentsPark or Philip Baird Shearer will undo his highly POV edits. If unchecked they will lead to yet another attempt at changing the name of this page. Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:04, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
PS That list, by the way, is already being mirrored in a number of sites purporting to prepare candidates for India's various public service exams. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:04, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
PPS The list is really a timeline; it is wedged between "organization" (which talks about the office of the Governor-General) and the history of the Raj. I think that is the appropriate place for a timeline. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:10, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

With regard to the list in this article, I take Fowler&fowler's point about the useful links in it, and the work which went into making it. I am not sure that a list of Governors-General is necessarily the best format for presenting such a timeline, but it is certainly one way to do it. In reply to Fowler&fowler's personal attacks on me above, they are yet more fantasy:
1. "Moonraker, who has already produced unmitigated garbage in his list of pretender pages..." I have never made any list of pretenders or pretender pages, let alone "produced unmitigated garbage" in such a list. This is a complete invention by Fowler&fowler, one of several such inventions which I am becoming very weary of.
2. On "India = British Indian Empire", I certainly agree that "the history books" talk about the "partition of India" and that in many contexts "India" was used to refer to the whole Indian Empire. However, it is incorrect to suggest that in the term "partition of India" we can say that "India = British Indian Empire", not least for the reason stated above by Fowler&fowler "It is true, technically British India was partitioned". That partition took place at the time of independence, and it was not the Indian Empire which was partitioned. The effect of the Indian Independence Act 1947 was that the Empire was dissolved. Large parts of it (including, of course, Hyderabad and Jammu & Kashmir) simply fell into a political no man's land in which they had been released from their treaty obligations to the British crown and were likely to be grabbed by one of their neighbours if they failed to accede. Alas, Fowler&fowler is simply in denial on the facts of what was partitioned and what wasn't. Moonraker (talk) 23:14, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

I stand corrected, you didn't make the List of Pretender pages, a user named Nightw did, but you did defend your highly colored POV regarding the titles of the rulers of India's former princely states, which in your view have not been abolished. That is your personal POV supplemented with a lot of OR. The following exchange with me in the thread List of current Indian pretenders, exemplifies your disregard for the sources:
The same applies here. You can say all you want about British India being the one that was partitioned, but the history books talk of the partition of the Indian Empire. The first sentence of one of the most recent books on the partition, Khan, Yasmin (2007), The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan, Yale University Press, p. 1, ISBN 978-0-300-12078-3, retrieved 3 June 2012, says, "South Asians learned that the British Indian Empire would be partitioned on 3rd June 1947." The OED itself uses the language of the lead of this page, "In 1947 the British Indian Empire was partitioned into two sovereign dominion states, the Union of India (later the Republic of India) and the Dominion of Pakistan." See here. Finally, the timeline at the end of Chandler, David G.; Beckett, Ian Frederick William (1996), The Oxford History of the British Army, Oxford University Press, p. 443, ISBN 978-0-19-285333-2, retrieved 3 June 2012, under the year "1947" says: "British Indian Empire partitioned and Indian Army divided between the Republics of India and Pakistan." The sources overwhelmingly mention either the partition of India or the partition of the (British) Indian Empire. You have a highly colored personal POV unsupported by a predominance of the sources; if you insist on giving it voice, please write a blog, but please don't create a headache for the rest of us who will now have to clean up after you. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:38, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
You say "the history books talk of the partition of the Indian Empire", but a quotation from one book about the history of India, one dictionary, and one book about another historical subject are not convincing, especially as most of us here know that it was impossible for the British to partition the Indian Empire. I could produce a much larger number of quotations for the nature of the partition of 1947, but the matter is rather helpfully dealt with in the very title of Jeff Hay & James I. Matray's study of 2006, The Partition of British India (Chelsea House Publishers, ISBN 9780791086476). Moonraker (talk) 06:55, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
Really, you could? A Google Books search for books with titles that include the words "Partition of India," but not the word "British," returns 5,500 book titles. A corresponding book search for "Partition of British India" produces just one book. Which one? The one you have quoted from. With that kind of support in the sources, why don't you put in for a page move: Partition of India --> Partition of British India? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:17, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
"Partition of India" is overwhelmingly the standard term which is used in reliable sources. From a practical point of view, "Partition of British India" would indeed be a clearer title for the Wikipedia article, but it appears to me that it would be defeated by naming policy, which follows the reliable sources. See in particular Wikipedia:Article titles. To understand the meaning of the standard term we need to look at the texts, rather than the headlines. Below are just a few quotations which throw some light on the matter. Moonraker (talk) 19:37, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
  1. R. M. Jones (2008) Bounding categories, fencing borders: Exclusionary narratives and practices in the borderlands of India and Bangladesh p. 171 "The critical event that created the enclaves was the partition of British India in 1947. After much debate, the decision was made to divide the British colonial holdings into two countries, Pakistan for areas with Muslim majorities and India for the rest... The princely states were not officially governed by the British and were not directly addressed in the partition award. Most of the princely states that were completely surrounded by one of the new countries were encouraged to join that country."
  2. M. J. Gibney (2005) Immigration and asylum: from 1900 to the present v. 1, p. 301 "The partition of British India in August 1947 occasioned one of the largest forced movements of persons in contemporary history. On this date the British colonial administration relinquished political control to the successor states of India and Pakistan, which had been divided on the basis of religion."
  3. V. M. Pandeya (2003) Historiography of India's partition p. 116 "He opines that the ultimate solution to the problem of freedom with unity involved the partition of British India between two dominions and the accession of Princely States to one or the other of them."
  4. K. J. Schmidt (1995) An Atlas and Survey of South Asian History p. 82 "Sir Cyril was selected to head the boundary commission based on the fact that he knew virtually nothing of India, had never before been to the sub-continent, and that he would, accordingly, be impartial in the final partition of British India... The critical problem... where to draw the boundaries between India and Pakistan in those provinces and districts where there was no clear-cut communal majority."
  5. Philips & Wainwright (1970) The Partition of India: policies and perspectives, 1935-1947 "The question is often posed as to what factors operated to bring about the partition of British India and who was responsible for it."
At this edit Fowler&fowler changed "British India was partitioned" to " the British Indian Empire was partitioned", with the summary "Restoring BIE: obviously "British India" couldn't be partitioned into two sovereign dominion states; take to talk page". But that is not obvious and is what happened. Indded, Fowler&fowler says himself above "It is true, technically British India was partitioned". I have now edited this to read "the British possessions in India were partitioned", and I should think we could all agree with that. Moonraker (talk) 07:48, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

It doesn't matter. You can't post here and then go and reinstate the garbage you are pushing. You need to establish consensus here first. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:34, 9 June 2012 (UTC)


The above is from a speech made by Vallabhbhai Patel in January 1948. See R. P. Bhargava (1992) The Chamber of Princes, p. 313. Moonraker (talk) 12:21, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
So what. We are not engaged in original research. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:34, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

File:India-famine-family-crop-420.jpg

I am uncertain of the purpose of including this photograph in the article. Looking at its description page, the source of it also seems unclear. It is claimed to come from "chinadaily" and also from the "British royal photography services", a unit which I have never come across before and have not been able to trace. The use of the word "genocide" in the description suggests to me that the uploader is not very objective about such things. Does anyone know where the picture actually comes from? Moonraker (talk) 06:24, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

I can't speak to the licensing, but, yeah, I can think of less jarring, and perhaps more moving, illustrations, such as the ones in Great_Famine_of_1876–1878#Famine_and_relief, especially the second illustration, "The last of the herd," from The Graphic. I would also propose that we remove the famine paragraphs. They are nothing but highly colored interpretations added to this page by Zuggernaut (talk · contribs) and others, which are now also interspersed, mysteriously, with random sentences from the various famine articles that I have written. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:20, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
I have tagged the image as possibly unfree (refer Wikipedia:Possibly unfree files/2012 June 10, the source is not clear and it is claimed to be public domain in the United States because it was published before 1923. No evidence when or if it was published and has been said the "British royal photography services" is bogus. Licensing apart no evidence it was from 1877 or was taken in India. MilborneOne (talk) 13:53, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Empire vs India

Consensus reached and consensus wording inserted in article. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:51, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

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.

To Rjensen and Dabbler, Let us not get too worked up over the Empire bit. There is no need to say, "It was never called ..." Doesn't sound encyclopedic. There is also no need to mention passports as evidence for usage. I suggest the following compromise. "The region under British control, commonly called India in contemporary usage, included areas directly administered by the United Kingdom First the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland then, after 1927, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland</ref> (contemporaneously, "British India") as well as the princely states ruled by individual rulers under the paramountcy of the British Crown. After 1876, the resulting political union was sometimes called the Indian Empire, especially on ceremonial occasions. As India, it was a founding member of the League of Nations, and a participating nation of the Summer Olympics in 1900, 1920, 1928, 1932, and 1936. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:25, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

yes a reasonable solution. Let's call it "Great Britain" (the UK full title was not used except in very formal documents in those days). As for "especially on ceremonial occasions" I have not seen any of those occasions. I appreciate this debate because it made me think about when they used -- or did not use --formal terminology. Rjensen (talk) 00:02, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
I do object to the airbrushing of the words Indian Empire from the record. It was used on much more than just ceremonial occasions, it was used in a formal treaty with the Empire of All the Russias, probably to impress. The passport is important evidence of non-ceremonial official usage despite the claim that the layout and name was made up in the printer's office. I would like to see a citation that no one in government approved of the name and its use in the passports which were issued for years. The Order of the Indian Empire was a formal and important decoration and despite Rjensen's dismissal of it as "a ceremonial medal", that sort of thing was and is very important to many British and Indian people. Perhaps Americans don't understand the significance. Incidentally in some legislation, British india was also called the Federation of India. Should this mentioned somewhere too?
Finally my clinching evidence I ran a Google4fight between Indian Empire and British Raj and Indian Empire won 4,180,000 to 3,330,000 Googlefight result!. Incidentally British Indian Empire had 6,820,000 to British Raj's 3,330,000. OK so Googlefight isn't necessarily a reliable source ;-) Dabbler (talk) 01:25, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, I don't know what to make of Google fight. In fact, the problem with plain Google searches is that there is too much repetition and multiple counting (for example, of all the editions of a book). That's why I prefer Google book searches with limited or full view. In those searches, there is very little double counting as usually only one edition of a book is selected for viewing. Granted that not all books are included, but those that are, give a reasonable cross section of the entire collection, as long as you are not searching among recently published books.
As for "Indian empire," vs. "British Raj," I don't doubt that "Indian Empire" is the overall winner. However, you have to search among books published (say) in the last 25 years to get an idea of contemporary usage which is what counts when it comes to naming a Wikipedia page. In that, more recent, time range, "British Raj" is the hands down winner, as I've shown above.
I found something interesting (though blatantly OR). In a Google book search among pre-1947 books with limited or full view, there were approximately 36,000 books that used the expression "Indian Empire." That is not the surprising part. However, of these 36,000, approximately 23,300 used it as part of the expression, "our Indian Empire." That suggests that the usage in books was more informal than formal (by almost two to one). Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:33, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
PS The other interesting thing is that "our Indian Empire" is being used from the 1820s onwards, long before the beginning of Crown rule. That lends more credence to the informal usage interpretation. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:43, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
What about other encyclopedias? (This question is motivated by the assumption that tertiary sources have been vetted for balance.) Well, among books (with limited or full view) published in the last 30 odd years, with the words "Encyclopedia" OR "Encyclopaedia" in their titles, there are 253 that use the expression "Indian Empire (including some which use it for other pre-British Indian empires). However, there are 332 that use the expression "British Raj." That means that tertiary sources too are using "British Raj" in respectable numbers. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:02, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
PPS I take back what I said about balance. It seems that most entries are not vetted for anything (neither balance nor accuracy). Most references, btw, are to other pre-British Indian empires. One reference, Encyclopedia of Human Rights, for example, says, "Having earlier partitioned its Indian empire into India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, Britain bowed to the demands of the Indian National Congress and granted India independence in 1947." Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:14, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
Coming back to the discussion, how about the following double compromise? "The region under British control, commonly called India in contemporary usage, included areas directly administered by Great Britain First the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland then, after 1927, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (contemporaneously, "British India") as well as the princely states ruled by individual rulers under the paramountcy of the British Crown. After 1876, the resulting political union was sometimes called the Indian Empire. As India, it was a founding member of the League of Nations, and a participating nation of the Summer Olympics in 1900, 1920, 1928, 1932, and 1936." Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:47, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
that latest version works for me. Rjensen (talk) 09:00, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
Will you consider a slight wording change which covers other usages? "The region under British control, commonly called India in contemporary usage, included areas directly administered by Great Britain First the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland then, after 1927, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (contemporaneously, "British India") as well as the princely states ruled by individual rulers under the paramountcy of the British Crown. After 1876, the resulting political union was also called the Indian Empire in many unofficial contexts. As India, it was a founding member of the League of Nations, and a participating nation of the Summer Olympics in 1900, 1920, 1928, 1932, and 1936. Other names sometimes used were the Empire of India and the Federation of India." Whether that amount of detail should go in the lead is debatable, perhaps a paragrapgh in the British India and the Native States section. Dabbler (talk) 10:54, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
I will defer to what Rjensen has to say about it. Having said that, perhaps we can just say, "After 1876, the resulting political union was also called the Indian Empire" without adding the unofficial contexts bit. The reason for this is that someone sooner or later is going to ask for a reliable reference of "unofficial contexts;" in other words, a source that more or less says "'Indian Empire' was used in many unofficial contexts." As for the other names, could they be put in a footnote? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:02, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
I can accept the dropping of the "unofficial contexts" as I was struggling with that wording (and a good many of the contexts were not really unofficial). A footnote could also address the other names, I am not sure of the syntax to do that, so please feel free to help out. Incidentally a number of the uses of "our (or Our) Indian Empire" you noted, could be examples of the Royal plural, as in "We are not amused". Dabbler (talk) 13:16, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
With the term "Indian Empire" we know what it means. "British raj" is indeed much used, but not generally to mean "Indian Empire". Most of those using it seem to me to be attracted to its extreme vagueness. Perhaps I could again ask my question about whether any of the users of "British raj" have defined the term in any of their works? With regard to the statement "The region under British control... included... the princely states ruled by individual rulers", there is no doubt that almost all of the states were heavily influenced by various British institutions, including the Viceroy and (in most cases) a provincial government, but they were not "under British control", except in quite limited ways secured by treaty or contract. Could we please see a citation for the whole of India being "under British control"? With regard to the use of the term "the resulting political union", does anyone have a citation for the existence of such a political union? In the lead of this page the expression has been linked to our article Polity, and that page offers the definition "a geographic area with a corresponding government". That is not what India or the Indian Empire were. Moonraker (talk) 15:29, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
I get 2519 hits on JSTOR for academic articles with the words "British Raj" in the title. Seems to me that most academic historians have little trouble understanding the meaning of that term. (Or, perhaps, they're attracted to its "extreme vagueness" as well?) --regentspark (comment) 16:33, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
Yes, indeed, regentspark, there are a great many JSTOR hits, not least because the term has become popular in titles, but I have looked from time to time and have never found an academic writer who says what it is being used to mean. If "most academic historians have little trouble understanding the meaning of that term", then it seems it must have a rather variable meaning, and you would think someone would explain it somewhere and that thus a citation could be offered. If no reliable sources can be found, and we need to infer the meaning (for instance, from the ground covered by books and articles under titles including it) then isn't that "original research?" And, more to the point, how many different meanings shall we infer? Possible ones seem to me to include 'British administration in British India', 'British power in the (larger) Indian Empire', 'British rule and/or influence in the (slightly larger) 'Indian subcontinent', and the 'British Empire in South Asia'. Then there is the question of how many writers use "British raj" in relation to Ceylon, and how many don't, but asking that also seems to be inviting original research. Moonraker (talk) 17:03, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
To be honest Moonraker, the only original research I see here are your attempts to delineate and define the Raj. It is well understood that the Raj relates to British control over India between 1857 and 1947. All of India, that is. Even a quick glance at some of the papers in the jstor list make it clear that few historians are scratching their heads in puzzlement over what the term refers to. Your thoughts on topics like "how many different meanings shall we infer" are interesting but are better suited for a peer reviewed journal. On Wikipedia, the correct answer is "all of the meanings that are accepted by scholars". --regentspark (comment) 20:52, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
"Britain" can be used as short-hand for the UK, but "Great Britain" can't. Great Britain is an island. I'm happy with the revised sentence, but either stick with "United Kingdom" or drop the "Great". Cheers, — JonCॐ 17:21, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Dropping indent to allow for a few moere words/line! I agree with Joncapple. Great Britain is indeed the island and yes it should be United Kingdom or Britain. An empire is a collection of countries and regions under one overarching sovereign, but each country or region has its own local government with greater or lesser powers while acknowledging the one sovereign. In British India, the Governor General directly ruled on behalf of the monarch, parts of India and indirectly influenced or controlled other parts who had their own rulers who acknowleged some sort of British suzerainty. I think it safe to suggest that none of the native rulers could have acted significantly against British interests and expected to survive the experiment, as was demonstrated in 1857. Now whether that partial independence makes them part of the Empire or not is more contentious. I would suggest not officially. As for the term British Raj, it seems to me that it is a concept that does not have a solid definition, more as Humpty Dumpty said to Alice, “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” Dabbler (talk) 18:01, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Not really important but Great Britain was a common name for what is the United Kingdom certainly in the Victorian-era so it would not be wrong to find it in sources dealing with India. Its only in more modern times we consider it to be "wrong" but at the time of the British Raj it was one of the main terms used for the UK. MilborneOne (talk) 19:23, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
If you look at the bibliographies you will note that historians, scholars, editors and academic publishers strongly prefer "Britain" or "Great Britain" instead of the UK variations. "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland" was the official name, and "Great Britain" and "Britain" are used by the RS as standard short versions of that formal name. Rjensen (talk) 21:16, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
as for "Indian Empire" it was very rarely used on paper in any official context (we have examples of it used on a medal and on a leather cover for passports). So if it is used in this article we should say "informal" or very quickly Wikipedia will be cited as the official evidence in student papers. Rjensen (talk) 21:45, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
OK, based on the various inputs, how about:
  • Footnotes:

Note: I have removed "After 1876" which had preceded "the resulting political union ..." because the term "Indian Empire" was being used informally from the 1820s, in other words, definitely before Victoria's assumption of the title Empress of India in 1876. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:15, 14 June 2012 (UTC) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:15, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

I am sorry but there is absolutely no way that I can accept without a very good citation of some government document that the use of the words "Indian Empire" and "Empire of India" on an officially issued passport of the Government of British India can possibly be described as "informal". Does any country issue passports with informal names of the country printed on them? For a start it was not just on the outside leather cover that we find Indian Empire, but also as "Empire of India" in the place where the issuing country is identified on all passports to this present day. The Order of the Indian Empire again is not an informal usage, on the contrary it was a very formal organization set up by the Crown with Letters Patent etc. issued by the Crown describing its constitution, structure and intent. Dabbler (talk) 01:15, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
No worries. How about:
  • Footnotes:

This is really now up to Rjensen and Dabbler to compromise. The "Indian Empire" usage was clearly less common than India; this way the kids are unlikely to throw it around with abandon in their term papers. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:12, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

I can live with that. Dabbler (talk) 03:30, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
This seems to have ground to a stand-still, and the "It never had a name such as the Indian Empire" bit looks ridiculous. Is everyone happy with the above? — JonCॐ 15:57, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
Well, not quite standstill. We've made a lot of progress. I'm waiting to hear from Rjensen. If he's on board, we have consensus. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:14, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
In the absence of further responses, I am declaring consensus on the wording:
  • Footnotes:
I will be inserting the same in the article. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:32, 19 June 2012 (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.

Requests for citations

Regentspark says "It is well understood that the Raj relates to British control over India between 1857 and 1947. All of India, that is." That is consistent with the statement in the lead "The region under British control... included... the princely states ruled by individual rulers". Can we please see citations for the meaning of "the Raj" stated by regentspark, for the whole of India being "under British control", and for the existence of what the lead calls "the resulting political union"? I have also questioned above the link to Polity, which offers the definition "a geographic area with a corresponding government". If anyone says that is what India was before 1947, can we please have a citation for that, too? Moonraker (talk) 05:03, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Not sure why political union, which has its own Wikilink, has been linked to polity. This has now been corrected above. Thank you. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 06:51, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
I take that back. I have to think about the proper link. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 06:56, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
OK, this has now been fixed. The first sentence speaks of the "region." So, we stay with "region." Thank you for pointing out the issue. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 07:24, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
As for whether the princely states were under British control, there are plenty of sources. Here's Nick Dirks:
Here's Michael Fisher:

Here are Waltraud and Pati (from their introduction):

Here are Susanne and Lloyd Rudolph:
Here's more from them:
Here are Barbara Ramusack's carefully chosen words:
Indirect control is also a form of control. Here's R. B. Williams:

I have added these quotes here because I will be using them later to expand the princely states subsection. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:15, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Interesting to note that Waltraud and Pati suggest that "...loyalty was secured through honours, titles, money and territories distributed lavishly...". Of course those honours and titless, considered trivial by some, like a knighthood in the Order of the Indian Empire with all its panoply of display and pomp, were in fact vital tools of British dominance. Dabbler (talk) 10:46, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
Yes, they were that, especially for some princes, tokens of British appreciation for their cooperation and support. In later years, as in the case of a Jagadish Chandra Bose, a Ganga Ram, or a Visvesvaraya, the honours were also tokens of recognition, even pride, proposed by Britons who understood and appreciated their work. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:42, 16 June 2012 (UTC)
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