The subject of this article is controversial and content may be in dispute. When updating the article, be bold, but not reckless. Feel free to try to improve the article, but don't take it personally if your changes are reversed; instead, come here to the talk page to discuss them. Content must be written from a neutral point of view. Include citations when adding content and consider tagging or removing unsourced information.
This article is written in Indian English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour, travelled, centre, analysed, defence) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.
This article is within the scope of WikiProject India, which aims to improve Wikipedia's coverage of India-related topics. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page.IndiaWikipedia:WikiProject IndiaTemplate:WikiProject IndiaIndia articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Pakistan, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Pakistan on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PakistanWikipedia:WikiProject PakistanTemplate:WikiProject PakistanPakistan articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography articles
This article is within the scope of the Military history WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks. To use this banner, please see the full instructions.Military historyWikipedia:WikiProject Military historyTemplate:WikiProject Military historymilitary history articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Alternative views, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of significant alternative views in every field, from the sciences to the humanities. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion.Alternative ViewsWikipedia:WikiProject Alternative ViewsTemplate:WikiProject Alternative ViewsAlternative Views articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Atheism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of atheism on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.AtheismWikipedia:WikiProject AtheismTemplate:WikiProject AtheismAtheism articles
Add Atheism info box to all atheism related talk pages (use {{WikiProject Atheism}} or see info box)
Ensure atheism-related articles are members of Atheism by checking whether [[Category:Atheism]] has been added to atheism-related articles – and, where it hasn't, adding it.
State atheism needs a reassessment of its Importance level, as it has little to do with atheism and is instead an article about anti-theist/anti-religious actions of governments.
False choice into False dilemma: discuss whether you are for or against this merge here
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Socialism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of socialism on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SocialismWikipedia:WikiProject SocialismTemplate:WikiProject Socialismsocialism articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject British Empire, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of British Empire on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.British EmpireWikipedia:WikiProject British EmpireTemplate:WikiProject British EmpireBritish Empire articles
This article was copy edited by Twofingered Typist, a member of the Guild of Copy Editors, on October 5, 2015.Guild of Copy EditorsWikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy EditorsTemplate:WikiProject Guild of Copy EditorsGuild of Copy Editors articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Anarchism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of anarchism on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.AnarchismWikipedia:WikiProject AnarchismTemplate:WikiProject Anarchismanarchism articles
Regarding this edit, the term "charismatic" can have multiple meanings making it a poor fit for the very first sentence of the article. This term requires context, and without context is ambiguous and subjective. While 'charismatic' can be supported by sources, this alone isn't enough for this to be the first trait used to describe this person. The body of the article does not directly explained or even mentioned this charisma, instead merely implying it. Grayfell (talk) 09:19, 25 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Fowler&fowler:, regarding this edit summary, we are both experienced editors, and I can assure you it absolutely can "work like that". My explanation was clear enough, and I have expanded it now here. If you want to dispute this change, do so on its own merits, not merely because it is the status quo. Grayfell (talk) 09:27, 25 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Many words with multiple meanings are used in the lead sentences of articles. Sorry, but I'll respond when I have time and you have to wait for a consensus to emerge. If you edit-war, I'll get administrative help. What do you think they'll do? They'll lock this page in the consensus version. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 09:50, 25 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Please also see
due weight. Craig Jeffrey's quote from his Modern India: A Very Short Introduction, OUP, 2017, was chosen after much thought from the dozens of sources that use "charismatic" or "charisma" (applied to his writing, his self-abnegation, his attire, his boldness). Fowler&fowler«Talk» 09:58, 25 December 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
Please note: Jeffrey's lead-like, "Bhagat Singh, a charismatic Indian revolutionary executed by the British with two other revolutionaries in 1931 for murdering a British police officer" There is no other mention of Singh anywhere else in the book. Should we ask the same of Jeffrey? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:05, 25 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The problem on this page is that I have written the lead (with sources) as a template for the NPOV, scholarly, expansion of the article. There is a reason that the cites have quotes. The lead is not a
Nehru, ...) Some have been expanded and others have not. I have some sympathy for your POV, but the solution is expanding the body, not deleting words from the lead. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:20, 25 December 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
I appreciate that you've edited your own comments to tone-down the aggression. I mean that sincerely. I'm not trying to pick a fight, and I understand that both of us are here to improve the project.
WP:LEADFOLLOWSBODY
is the norm on Wikipedia, which I suspect you know. But whether this lead is a summary or not, there is still a problem. Currently, the body of the article does not mention his charisma, nor does it explain how he was charismatic. When the first sentence of the article mentions a term which is both ambiguous and which is not further explained, that creates confusion in readers.
Even from the quote provided, Jeffrey mentions Singh's 'charisma' after significant amount of context has already been provided. Jeffrey even helpfully tells us "It is particularly important to recognize the existence of a socialist, radical wing within the nationalist movement." This is what Jeffrey deems to be important about Singh, not his Charisma. If other sources explain how he was charismatic or what that means, that explanation hasn't made it into the article at all.
Even if the body did explain this term, it would still be ambiguous and confusing in its current context. This term 'charismatic' cannot help readers understand the topic without at least some additional context, and that context probably won't fit in the lead. Expanding the body to explain this would help, obviously, but it would still be a loaded and subjective term.
So until the body is expanded, this term should be removed. When the body is expanded to mention his charisma, then how this is summarized can be reevaluated. Grayfell (talk) 10:42, 25 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The current version of the lead is no different from Jeffreys in the amount of context, only it comes at the end of the sentence. I can easily change it to: Bhagat Singh was the charismatic leader of a 1920s Indian radical socialist group, and the eloquent author of some of its tracts, who participated in the mistaken murder of a junior British police officer. (Or somesuch)
The question remains: why is "charismatic" relevant in Jeffreys and what meaning does it have (of the several of charisma)? In other words, why does Jeffreys need "charismatic" and what does a novice reader (the kind that reads the Very Short Introductions) learn from the mention of this word in the book? There were dozens of Indian anti-colonial nationalists who were charismatic (Gandhi, Nehru, Subhas Bose, ...)
I disagree entirely with the rest of your argument.
I've added eight more citations (in addition to Craig Jeffrey's) all using "charismatic." These are books published by Harvard, California, Yale, Cambridge university presses; Routledge, Wiley Blackwell, Palgrave Macmillan, and Penguin. I don't have much time, but I did go back to examine when I had added "charismatic." It was two years ago and it was done after much mulling over. When so many historians published by the best publishers use "charismatic" as a descriptor for Singh in varied contexts, it becomes an essential, nearly indispensable quality of his biography. I'm still open to suggestions, but simply removing "charismatic" doesn't cut it for me. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:56, 26 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
MOS:OPENPARABIO is pretty clear that "charismatic" (and similar adjectives) should not appear in the lead sentence. This should be reserved for the bare facts of a person's life. I don't object to a reference to his charismatic personality being made elsewhere in the lede. ITBF (talk) 11:56, 26 December 2023 (UTC)[reply
In other words, rephrased, can I write: "BS was an Indian revolutionary who took part in the mistaken murder of a junior British police office in 1928, and upon going on a hunger-strike in jail before his execution was able to attract, inspire, and fascinate India's youth?"
Webster's Unabridged: charismatic (noun, 2), a person who possesses special traits that attract, inspire, or fascinate people Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:07, 26 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
ITBF has provided a better explanation of this problem, and with much fewer words. Whether or not you agree with my argument, the underlying problem remains.
Changing it to a noun doesn't fix this problem. As a noun or as an adjective, it's still reads as a
WP:PEACOCK
term here. One way to contextualize this, potentially, is to attribute it as an opinion (the Nehru quote in the lead is a good example of this, as it does a very good job of using attribution while also providing context). The very first paragraph is not the best place to introduce these kinds of subjective opinions.
"Attract" is vague and potentially ambiguous, and both "inspire" and "fascinate" both also read as peacock words here. Using synonyms for a peacock word which are also peacock words will not work. (The lead currently also uses the term "electrify" which is arguably even worse.) I do not want to overstate this, because these are not major problems, and of course many, many articles share these problems, but they are still problems. I think the article would be improved by the use of more neutral language.
The reason I removed the term "charismatic" was not because I disputed the sources, it was because it's a peacock term in this specific situation. I think this information is better indicated elsewhere in the lead with less ambiguous and less emotive language, such as the Nehru quote. Adding many, many sources for this ambiguous term doesn't really help readers, and doesn't really address my concerns. Grayfell (talk) 21:46, 26 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I have offered to change charisma or charismatic in the lead sentence to their specific meaning, but there is nothing peacock about it. Please read the rest of the lead. Does it have even one bone of peacock in it?
This is as far as I go. If you want to get involved in a long argument about a subject about which you have given no indication of possessing any knowledge, only of having swung by the lead of its WP article thinking it would be an easy pass, please be my guest. But if you edit-war, I will get administrative help, as I've already indicated. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:23, 27 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
And if you canvass talk page- or MOS mavens in order to create a false consensus, I will again get administrative help. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:24, 27 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Why would you even assume I would canvas? What, exactly, is your personal problem with me based on this single edit? I don't know why you say you "cannot AGF", but
WP:AGF
is a policy. To put it another way, your response has been excessively hostile, and I would welcome any administrative help if this hostility persists.
Nowhere in the article's talk page has this specific word been discussed before. I trust that your intention was not to use this as a peacock word, but I'm not the only reader who sees a problem with this word, as ITBF seems to agree. I have been trying, and apparently failing, to explain why this particular word is a problem.
I'm not out to vandalize your hard work. Please read what I'm saying.
I understand the word has a meaning within sociology. As I said before, the word "charisma" has multiple meanings. Even with sources, the sociological meaning is also at least partly subjective. To say that his leadership was "extraordinary", for example, is still very much a peacock term if it is used without any further explanation or context. The first sentence is a jarring and potentially confusing place for this subjective descriptor.
His birth and death date are not subjective. His status as an Indian revolutionary is not subjective. Being charismatic is subjective, and it's non-falsifiable. His charisma needs to be explained and contextualized as the assessment of reliable sources. Citation in ref-tags alone do not provide context, and neither does placing this term in the very first sentence.
Further, this is a general audience encyclopedia. Without context or attribution, this would still be
MOS:JARGON
.
But most importantly, assume good faith. I am not your enemy. Grayfell (talk) 00:05, 30 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Since there has been no response in the past few weeks (AGF or otherwise) I have made an edit which partially addresses my concerns.
WP:POINTed, since nobody is disputing that multiple sources have used this term. Again, our goal is to provide readers with an understanding of the topic, and this term requires more context to be helpful to this goal. Grayfell (talk) 05:33, 11 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
Charisma was an essential aspect of his revolutionary status in India. There are multiple sources that use the same word. All words in the English language have multiple meanings. I haven't subscribed to the Oxford English Dictionary for 30 years for nothing. You don't have consensus here. Pinging @RegentsPark, Vanamonde93, and Abecedare:Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:45, 16 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Your edit, which I reverted, involved placing "charismatic" in a separate sentence. It says: Bhagat Singh (28 September 1907 – 23 March 1931) was an Indian revolutionary who participated in the mistaken murder of a junior British police officer in what was to be retaliation for the death of an Indian nationalist. ... campaign for India's independence. Modern historian and scholars have described Singh's leadership of the movement as charismatic.
"Charisma" is associated just as much with his name as "revolutionary." On the other hand, not just the ruling British, but also leading Indian anti-colonial nationalists such as Nehru considered him to be a terrorist rather than a revolutionary. (See Nehru's quote in the lead, "Bhagat Singh did not become popular because of his act of terrorism but because he seemed to vindicate, for the moment, the honour of Lala Lajpat Rai, and through him of the nation. ").
So we could change it to: Bhagat Singh was an Indian anti-colonial nationalist who participated in the mistaken murder ... India's independence. Modern scholars and other Indian anti-colonial nationalists have considered him variously to be a "terrorist" and "revolutionary," and his style of leadership "charismatic." But then we have to ask if placing these descriptions at the end of the first lead paragraph gives them too little
anti-colonial nationalist
who participated in the mistaken murder of a junior British police officer in what was to be retaliation for the death of an Indian nationalist. Modern scholars and other Indian anti-colonial nationalists have described him also as a "terrorist," "revolutionary," and his style of leadership "charismatic." Bhagat Singh later ... nonviolent but eventually successful campaign for India's independence.
But someone else will say, "Why not after the second sentence?" and we can spend the rest of February 2024 achieving a consensus. The problem as I see it is that you are attempting to argue something on first principles, disconnected with the historiography of the subject matter. To spend so much time on an issue whose due weight is best captured in the lead sentence itself ends up wasting too much community time. As yet I don't see any consensus for your edit. I would rather let sleeping dogs lie until the rest of the article is rewritten using the sources in the lead. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:53, 16 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It appears that you don't have consensus either. The problems I have identified still remains, and your preferred wording doesn't address that problem, so this appears to be filibustering. I've tried to explain my concern multiple times from multiple perspectives, and you have responded with hostility and by misrepresenting what I have been saying. It appears we agree that the article should be rewritten to encorporate using sources in the lead into the body. My attempts to make even modest changes have been met with thinly-veiled insults and accusations of bad faith from you. You don't have to "spend so much time" on this. You want to move this up to the second sentence, go ahead.
It's also wild to me that you have warned me against canvassing both before and after having pinged multiple admins you (apparently) think would be sympathetic to your case. Even in your revert you mention pinging admins. Is that a threat? At this point, if you're going to take this to a noticeboard, take it to a noticeboard, otherwise your behavior is canvasing.
As I hope you know, Wikipedia is a collaborative project and you are not the only experienced editor in this discussion. I would strongly advise you to rethink your approach here. Grayfell (talk) 07:47, 16 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Third party here. This was listed in
reads as a neutrality issue. There's likely a better way to put it, if it's even necessary, as the bigger issue is: (2) If it's so important to his life, why isn't it discussed in the article? The lede should be summarizing the content of the article, not introducing new info. I recommend removing it from the lede. czar 04:33, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
It's not that simple. You are all editors who have no history of editing this page. You have no history of editing modern Indian history of the late British period. How do talk page mavens, which is what appear to be, then decide that the historiography on a specialist topic is all about? As the lead editor of British Raj and India, why was I not informed on my user talk page about these .../Hot articles?
I'm afraid this seems to an instance of someone who has appeared on a page out of the blue, attempting to play gotcha, but were challenged, and are then spending all their energy on having their way. I'm an old Indian history hand. You are welcome to have an RfC on
WP:INDIA among people familiar with the topic area, but we don't achieve a consensus by dickering with a line here or a line there and then eliciting the opinion of others similarly distanced from the subject topic. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:12, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
DRN is helpful for situations otherwise resolvable by some version of an interaction ban. This is a content issue.
I am traveling until Tuesday morning, US EST. Please give me until Wednesday AM for the RfC. Thank you. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:38, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm now collecting some refs in a section below. I should be ready for the RfC tomorrow, i.e. March 7 morning GMT. Thanks. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:55, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for that, Fowler&fowler. While we're on the topic, do you have any idea why the article does not refer to Singh as the HRSA's leader, and why the lead does not bring up that he was even part of it until the second paragraph, quite unlike the emphasis in your sources below? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 04:08, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
He wasn't really their leader, at least not their indisputable leader. He had joined a few years earlier. But the highly publicized acts, the charisma, his quickness, his driven personality, not to mention the larger than life persona, created in part by editorials in Indian-owned newspapers, snowballed him to a kind of giddy, confused, stardom that hadn't existed before.
In that brief historical space his flaws were forgotten: that he had shot the wrong man, the same age as him; that he had shot him in vain, as he lay dying and defenceless, pumping eight bullets into his body; that he and his compatriots had lied by changing the prepared posters to make the 21-year-old John Saunders the object of assassination; and so forth. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:43, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In other words, by the time he became the HRSA's best-known member, the HRSA has stopped meeting and most likely even disbanded Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:47, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I see. So why do so many of the sources provided below ("Led by a charismatic 22-year-old student, Bhagat Singh" ... "Bhagat Singh's Hindustan Socialist Republic Association" ... "the Hindustan Socialist Revolutionary Army established in 1928, whose charismatic leader Bhagat Singh" ... "Bhagat Singh, the charismatic leader" ... "its charismatic leader, Bhagat Singh" ... "Bhagat Singh (1907–31), a charismatic militant leader") refer to him as a leader? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 04:51, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Some/many authors, especially textbook authors who have gathered a large amount of historical data to tell a story that is pedagogically appropriate, perhaps, might be simplifying for their readership and purpose. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:07, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In other words, he was not a revolutionary leader like Fidel or Che or Mao or Ho or Lenin, who had the heft of years under their leadership, nor was he as original as Trotsky or Bakunin or other theorists. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:17, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As I'm thinking more about your question ... one could say that his promise outshone his record. The charisma (which is also highly dependent on the eyes of the beholder) may have been the catalyst. But, of course, it is difficult to find sources that state this precisely in this fashion. Some new ones do this in a sophisticated fashion by charting BS's misgivings about his actions, about his being haunted by the face of a dying mostly innocent man, and so forth ... Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:28, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, @AirshipJungleman29. I think an RfC would be helpful to find what the consensus actually is. -- asilvering (talk) 18:01, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'll give F&f some days to respond to whether they want to go to DRN, and if they decline or don't reply, I'll start the RfC. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 20:31, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Fowler&fowler, you can watch individual wikiprojects' Hot Articles listings if you so desire. There are lots, as you can see here: User:HotArticlesBot. I have no idea why you would expect to be notified of them.
I'm extremely sympathetic to the idea that people who have more expertise in a topic are in general better placed to assess what wording is more likely to be the correct wording. But you are the only editor arguing for this word to be retained, as far as I can see in this discussion. You argue that this is based on long-standing consensus, but you revert anyone who challenges it. You tell people to go to the Talk page, but once they are there you tell them they're wasting their time. -- asilvering (talk) 17:57, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Czar: Thank you all for your patience. And thank you, AirshipJungleman29, for the queries above. I've just dusted off my copy of Kama Maclean's A Revolutionary History of Interwar India and also tried to reread as best I could Chris Moffat's "Politics and the Work of the Dead in Modern India," Comparative Studies in Society and History 2018;60(1):178–211. doi:10.1017/S0010417517000457. It is clear to me that much needs to be added to the article for it to show contemporary interpretations. For now I am proposing this edit which I hope will forestall a time consuming RfC. Let me know what you think. Best, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:05, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
"Widely interpreted to have been charismatic" is more grammatical, but Chris Moffat makes the case that BS has a rich after life in contemporary India. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:27, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think it belongs in the first paragraph, but am not so sure it belongs in the first sentence. Personally, from the perspective of flow, I would put the charismatic part later in the lead, just before the "he electrified": joining the discussion of his ideology, it combines nicely to explain why Singh was so alluring. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 21:19, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I still don't see why this needs to be mentioned in the lede when it isn't discussed in the article's body. Personal characteristics are normally covered in the Personal life section and only covered insofar as the trait is instrumental, i.e., it has some kind of effect. Like we could add that he wore a moustache too but why does it matter to add? The article should show why. czar 02:05, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
and so forth. Some have been supervised by administrators.
One could change the contested sentence fragment to "widely interpreted by scholars to be politically charismatic ...," but I'd rather leave it in this state until his charisma is elaborated more in the article. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 06:07, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
My point is that this discussion wouldn't be so voluminous if the importance of "political charisma" in Singh's life was already made clear within the article. I recommend starting there before continuing to discuss the lede. The article doesn't need to be "more finished" to warrant removal from the lede as the lede should always represent a summary of the article in whatever the article's present state. czar 12:59, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The same logic applied to all the unilateral leads I have written in South Asian topics over the years, some of which I have listed above. Their forms and often their contents have all—at least at the outset—run counter to WP dogma. I usually don't have the time to rewrite the articles, although I can find the better sources in short order. Given a poorly sourced article, the choice as I see it is between a poorly sourced lead and a rigorously sourced one. Given also that most people don't read beyond the lead, a reliably sourced lead perhaps does do them some service. A scrupulous MOS maven will be within their rights to remove the entire lead I have written, but what or whom will that serve? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:35, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree in principle that a good lead (and only a good lead) is better than a poor lead (and an equally poor article). I am also quite sure it is true that most people only read the lead. But the choice we have here isn't a choice between a good lead and a poor one. It's the choice between a lead that contains the word "charismatic" and one that does not. -- asilvering (talk) 19:00, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Fowler&fowler's
RS
employing "charismatic" in a short description
This
talk page has not been edited in several days, please remove this template. If you are the editor who added this template and you are actively editing, please be sure to replace this template with {{in use
}} during the active editing session. Click on the link for template parameters to use.
This article was last edited by Legobot(talk | contribs) 21 days ago. (Updatetimer)
Scholarly text books
Text books that use "charismatic" in a brief description of Bhagat Singh
. Congress was often split on the question of the extent to which all protests should be non-violent. Gandhi, though highly influential, had opponents. It is particularly important to recognize the existence of a socialist, radical wing within the nationalist movement. Historians often discuss this wing with reference to Bhagat Singh, a charismatic Indian revolutionary executed by the British with two other revolutionaries in 1931 for murdering a British police officer.
. The slavishly pro-Moscow communists left room for another form of Marxism, more fully blended with nationalism. In 1928 the Hindustan Socialist Republican Army (HSRA), an out-growth of the older revolutionary tradition of the Punjab, was founded in Lahore. Led by a charismatic 22-year-old student, Bhagat Singh, it departed from its pre-war terrorist lineage by adopting Marxist militant atheism as its ideology. The HSRA favoured acts of 'exemplary' revolutionary violence.
Young, Robert J. C. (2016) [2001]. Postcolonialism: An Historical introduction (Anniversary ed.). Wiley Blackwell. p. 324.
. Even within Gandhi's own closest political entourage his prohibitions against violence were interpreted with some liberality, the understanding being that violence against people was unacceptable, but violence against property was permissible. In political terms Gandhi's position also served to distinguish him clearly from the violence of the Bengali Hindu, Maharashtran chitpavan Brahmin, and communist terrorists, such as the celebrated group under Surjya Sen that carried out the Chittagong Armoury Raid in 1930, the followers of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, or the charismatic Bhagat Singh's Hindustan Socialist Republic Association. Although this terrorism was carried out by small groups and never seriously endangered British rule, its militancy, its increasing frequency from 1930 onwards, and its popularity greatly worried the British Government of India and led to fierce repression. It also made the government much more receptive to the liberal Congress Party that adopted Gandhi's stance of non-violence. As always in liberation struggles, militant 'extremists' encouraged the administration to negotiate with the moderates.
Nair, Neeti (2011). Changing Homelands: Hindu Politics and the Partition of India. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England: Harvard University Press. p. 258.
. The charisma and sacrifice of Bhagat Singh and thirteen other prisoners could unite the entire spectrum of political opinion in the Punjab and beyond, a significant achievement for a particularly fractured Congress, but for reasons never clear, the non-violent hunger strikers failed to move Gandhi very much. At any rate, the "Punjab wrongs" brought Indians from the rest of India into the politics of the province, courting arrest, writing in the press, and returning their medals of honour in protest against British imperialism."
More coming
Scholarly monographs
Monographs that use "charismatic"
Maclean, Kama (2016). A Revolutionary History of Interwar India: Violence, Image, Voice and Text. Penguin Books. p. 184.
. Chapter 8, Controlling Political Violence, Prisoner as Pedagogy: The bulk of the memoirs, oral histories and visual artefacts that I have drawn on to demonstrate the intersection between revolutionary and Congress activity in 1929–1930 are so heavily focused on the lives and adventures of personalities, especially the charismatic Bhagat Singh and the more enigmatic Chandrashekhar Azad, that evidence of revolutionary energies being chanelled into Congress activity in the aftermath of their deaths becomes elusive. From the perspective of Manmathnath Gupta, after the loss of these two figureheads, the revolutionary movement 'became divorced from its moorings and was more artificial and people came into it because of romantic glamour attached to it, not out of any deep idealism.'
Chenoy, Kamal Mitra (2021). "Russian Revolution and the Global South". In Chenoy, Anuradha M.; Upadhyay, Archana (eds.). Hundred Years of the Russian Revolution: Its Legacies in Perspective. Palgrave Macmillan.
. Indian communists, who became active in the early 1920s and called for independence from Great Britain in 1925, became a significant force in the 1930s and 1940s and influenced several other progressive movements inspired by the Russian Revolution. Most popular and well known among them were the Hindustan Socialist Revolutionary Army established in 1928, whose charismatic leader Bhagat Singh and his comrades were all executed and buried in unmarked graves by the British colonialists.
Grant, Kevin (2019). Last Weapons: Hunger Strikes and Fasts in the British Empire, 1890–1948. University of California Press. p. 143.
. In this year (1929) the power of the hunger strike was demonstrated by members of the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association before and during their trial in the second Lahore conspiracy case. This case was widely publicized because several of the defendents had been involved either in the assassination of a police official and a head constable or in the bombing of the Central Legislative Assembly in Delhi. Bhagat Singh, the charismatic leader of the group, had participated in both actions
. Under its charismatic leader, Bhagat Singh, the HSRA carried out several high-profile terror-attacks, including the assassination of J. P.Saunders, the Lahore assistant superintendent of police, whom they wrongly held responsible for Lala Lajpat Rai's death as the result of police brutality during a demonstration.' The HSRA also carried out two bombings: the first, a daring attack on the Legislative Assembly in session at Delhi, in which bombs were thrown from the public gallery but little damage was caused; and a subsequent attempt to blow up the viceroy's train. Bhagat Singh and a co-revolutionary, Sukhdev, were soon arrested and underwent a highly publicized trial before being executed in 1931. Baghwati Charan Vohra, another leading light of the association, died testing a bomb that would have been used to try to liberate Bhagat Singh from the Lahore Central Jail.
More coming
Scholarly journal articles
Journal articles that use "charismatic"
Horton, A. V. M. (2016). "Book review: A Revolutionary History of Interwar India: Violence Image, Voice and Text. By Kama Maclean . pp. xx, 342. London, 2015". Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. 26 (3): 525–528.
. This monograph, built around four articles already published in academic journals, is a study of the revolutionary movement in North India with special reference to the crucial years between 1929 and 1931. Particular attention is paid to the career of Bhagat Singh (1907–31), a charismatic militant leader hanged in 1931 for a political crim committed nearly two years earlier, and the enduring popular cult which arose around his name.
Moffat
Moffat, Chris (2018). "Politics and the Work of the Dead in Modern India". Comparative Studies in Society and History. 60 (1): 178–211.
. Abstract:This article provides a framework for understanding the continuing political potential of the anticolonial dead in twenty-first-century India. It demonstrates how scholars might move beyond histories of reception to interrogate the force of inheritance in contemporary political life. Rather than the willful conjuring of the dead by the living, for a politics in the present, it considers the more provocative possibility that the dead might themselves conjure politics—calling the living to account, inciting them to action. To explicate the prospects for such an approach, the article traces the contested afterlives of martyred Indian revolutionary Bhagat Singh (1907–1931), comparing three divergent political projects in which this iconic anticolonial hero is greeted as interlocutor in a struggle caught "halfway." It is this temporal experience of "unfinished business"—of a revolution left incomplete, a freedom not yet perfected—that conditions Bhagat Singh's appearance as a contemporary in the political disputes of the present, whether they are on the Hindu nationalist right, the Maoist student left, or amidst the smoldering remains of Khalistani separatism in twenty-first-century Punjab.
Should the descriptor "charismatic" be used in the first lead paragraph, and if so, where? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 19:13, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As long as appropriate detail is added to the body, Option 2 per my comments above; otherwise option 4. I feel that there is enough sourcing (see above section) to justify its inclusion in the lead per
MOS:FIRST) is the appropriate place, and that placing a descriptor like "charisma" next to the information about ideologies and "electrifying" a movement helps the flow of the prose. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 19:19, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
Option 4until this is explained in the body with context, then likely option 2 or 3, depending on that context. The raw number of sources isn't the problem here, the lack of context is the problem. Grayfell (talk) 21:50, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Option 4 per Grayfell and what I said above. Until the article can contextualize why it matters to epithetically call him charismatic, then it has no business being in the lede. The lede should summarize the article and the article should make it clear what instrumental role charisma played in his life. czar 21:57, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Option 4 Definitely not in wiki-voice. If a large number of reliable sources note his charisma, then it could be mentioned in the body of the article as long as it's attributed. Some1 (talk) 04:54, 8 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Option 2 per AirshipJungleman29. I should add that I am the editor who has written the lead. It is based on the best available scholarly sources. I will now be bowing out of this discussion, eventually returning, perhaps, to write the article when traffic has moved away.Fowler&fowler«Talk» 06:48, 8 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Option 1 This option was a long standing version and it clearly made more sense since it correctly summarized this person. CharlesWain (talk) 18:08, 9 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Option 4. An article's lead should be a summary of its body. And even if the body did describe Singh's personal charisma, it's not the kind of epithet that belongs in the lead IMO. ― novov(tc) 07:13, 11 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Option 4, per Grayfell. While we're here, I don't think the rest of the first sentence is appropriate either. It should be something like "was an Indian anti-colonial revolutionary who became a folk hero after he was executed for the murder of two British policemen" - ie, it should clearly state what he is most notable for, without getting into too much specific detail. There's the rest of the lead, and the rest of the article, for that. -- asilvering (talk) 15:49, 11 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Option 4: per Grayfall and asilvering. Also strongly agree with asilvering's suggestion for the first sentence. TryKid[dubious – discuss] 03:08, 21 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Option 4 — And I agree with asilvering's opinion on the first sentence. It needs to be cut down to a general descriptor of Bhagat Singh's notability. Yue🌙 01:12, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Option 1 It characterizes him better than all other options available. Note that the incident for which he is known for was a mistaken murder, not any revolutionary activity. Orientls (talk) 05:53, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Discussion
The current lead paragraph says "...the charismatic Singh[8] electrified a growing..." This is an improvement over mentioning this in the very first sentence, but only draws more attention to the term "electrified" which has some of the same issues as "charismatic". "Electrified" is nice and succinct, but it's also pretty ambiguous, which was also a big part of my original issue with 'charismatic'. I think this and other problems would be much easier to address if the lead were a proper summary of the body of the article. Grayfell (talk) 21:50, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We can also cite dozens of sources saying that
JFK Jr. was charismatic ("Charisma" is a word so frequently associated with John F. Kennedy that it actually began to grate on his successor[1]) but it doesn't mean it's noteworthy enough to emphasize without sufficient context in the article on why it matters. And I certainly wouldn't stick it in the lede of that article with a bunch of citations as if that bypasses the need to give it context in the article first. czar 22:10, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
...the Indian National Congress's nonviolent but eventually successful campaign for India's independence.[9]
India's struggle for independence was a multi-faceted one and thus there were many more factors, including a factor of mutual understanding, that prompted to a 'successful' freedom. Only this concept and statement of 'the Indian National Congress's nonviolent but eventually successful campaign for India's independence' is over-simplification and unlooked-for. 2409:4060:2E12:7CEB:0:0:7548:5914 (talk) 09:38, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
_without_national_boundaries.svg)
.svg){kind=small}
