Talk:Narendra Modi/GA2

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Reviewer: Midnightblueowl (talk · contribs) 20:41, 15 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Given my previous experience with getting political biography articles to GA and FA status, I probably have the required know-how to give this article an appropriate review. Midnightblueowl (talk) 20:41, 15 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Midnightblueowl: y'know, I was on the cusp of asking you to do this... :) Thanks. Vanamonde (talk) 08:32, 16 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This is a very important article and it is good to see it brought here to GAN. However, given the size and complexity of this subject it may take some time to put together a full review so please bear with me! Midnightblueowl (talk) 20:23, 16 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Perfectly understandable: I am not in any hurry. Vanamonde (talk) 10:45, 17 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Use of sourcing

First things first, I'm a little concerned about the use of sourcing. As we (sadly) see all too often on Wikipedia, this article relies fairly heavily on 'free' online sources. Of course, these are the easiest and cheapest to access and they are often

WP:Reliable Sources but they are not often the best sources; academic, peer-reviewed sources and full-length biographical studies are generally better. Quite a few academic sources have been used (which is great) but often the entire journal article is cited, rather than the specific page, which is unfortunate. Similarly, while Marino's biography has been used, it has only been used in a very scanty manner; other fuller biographical studies are relegated to "Further reading". Nothing here is intrinsically damaging at the GAN stage but these are significant concerns that I would like to see taken on board if this article is to move forward past GAN. Midnightblueowl (talk) 20:34, 16 February 2017 (UTC)[reply
]

I'll go over the uses of sources in more detail, but let me offer this explanation up front. I like to rely on scholarly sources when possible, but these sources do not provide a uniform coverage of Modi. Scholarly coverage falls into three rough categories: articles about the economic/social aspects of Modi's chief ministership (the smallest category); articles about the 2014 election and his prime ministership (slightly larger); and articles about the 2002 riots (by far the largest category). Scholars have by and large ignored other aspects of his life. For these, the article relies on news sources, and on the biography. The biographical entries in the further reading section are actually rather dodgy; examining them in detail will show why this is so (they are neither published nor authored by scholars); and we are actually probably better off with news sources. I will work on the issue of page numbers. Vanamonde (talk) 10:45, 17 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
An additional issue here is that, in contrast to Mandela (for instance) Modi's appraisal by reliable scholarly sources is, on the balance, hugely negative; which has led to a lot of editors "correcting" this by adding news sources, which are on the whole less critical, especially when they are Indian in origin. This is not a perspective I have much sympathy for: in my view reliable sources are reliable sources and we have no business "correcting" them in any direction; but I offer this as an explanation of how the article has reached this point. Vanamonde (talk) 11:25, 17 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I quite understand, Vanamonde. Modi has only been in power for a comparatively short period of time and thus the academic literature on him is likely to still be in its infancy. I have found that it is far easier producing an article about a political figure who is either dead or at least retired then it is about one who is still in office. Still, I do hope that the issues that I have raised are ones that you keep somewhere in your mind in the coming few years, particularly if you choose to take this article forward to FAC. Midnightblueowl (talk) 14:52, 17 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Excuse me for butting in (and feel free to move/reformat this as I know different reviewers have different preferences regarding layout of comments/responses). While it has often seemed odd to me that specific pages are required for books but not for academic journals, that is in fact the de facto method at both GA and FA. Presumably because articles are short by comparison. Sitush (talk) 10:49, 17 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
"that is in fact the de facto method at both GA and FA." I'm not quite sure that that is strictly the case, Sitush. At least, not anymore. In all my years of taking articles to GAN and FAC, and reviewing the nominations of others, I have always ensured that the specific page numbers are cited and no one has ever questioned that. Midnightblueowl (talk) 14:30, 17 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I must confess I am stumped as to how to collect references in a manner that is both elegant and does not screw up the formatting. Any ideas? Vanamonde (talk) 11:25, 18 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Pardon my intrusion: just at the top of my head and assuming this is about addressing cite overkill,
WP:CITEBUNDLE? Ugog Nizdast (talk) 11:33, 18 February 2017 (UTC)[reply
]
@Ugog Nizdast: Your intrusion is most welcome. I've taken a shot at this, but I suspect these is a more elegant solution: can any of you think of one? Also Midnightblueowl, I believe that is the last of the points you have raised so far. Vanamonde (talk) 14:56, 18 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • The manner of citation is a little higgledy-piggledy. There are citations that make two separate appearances ("Narendra Modi wins reader's poll for Time Person of the Year 2016". Time Magazine.") There are web sources without dates, without retrieval dates, and without website names. Midnightblueowl (talk) 20:36, 16 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree that the citations need cleaning up. I did do that once but they've drifted again. I am happy to re-do it but am concerned that it would cause confusion during a review. - Sitush (talk) 10:49, 17 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Speaking for myself, Sitush, I'd be very glad of any assistance in cleaning up sources, as there's rather a lot of them, and I'm sure you will see stuff that I do not: it should be fairly easy to avoid edit-conflicts by going a subsection at a time. Vanamonde (talk) 16:34, 17 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Prose

Lede

  • Specific issue fixed.
  • fixed
  • done
  • This is trickier. "Leader" here is used in the looser Indian English sense of "prominent member," which is hard to put a number to. It is possibly a weasel word, now that you mention it, and perhaps I'll remove it altogether: I'm going to try reworking the lede shortly.
  • "Modi remains a controversial figure domestically and internationally" does not really give the reader enough information. Why is he controversial? You make mention of some of these reasons in the third paragraph, but really this should come after the above quoted sentence. Again, I would point to the Lenin and Mandela articles as useful templates. Midnightblueowl (talk) 20:55, 16 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • fixed
  • There are far too may citations clustered at specific points in the lede; it looks messy. Really we do not need any citations in the lede at all, as it should simply summarise the contents of the article in a clean and straightforward manner. Midnightblueowl (talk) 20:55, 16 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • The point I made at the Guatemalan coup article is even more important here; this article has seen long-running edit-wars over content in the lede, and the presence of citations in the lede has been a large factor in these. Things have calmed down a bit of late (partly thanks to indef semi), but I'd really rather keep at least some of them there...Vanamonde (talk) 10:45, 17 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Citations are definitely needed in the lead, per
    WP:LEAD. The guy is hugely contentious and the reason that they exist there is because of past extremely lengthy discussions where people challenged the statements. It's all there in the talk page archives. - Sitush (talk) 10:51, 17 February 2017 (UTC)[reply
    ]

Early life and education

  • Source says she was 94 in 2014, so I've added a "c. 1920"
  • Yes and no. They are biographies, but not scholarly biographies; and both sources, especially the Mukhopadhyay book, are filled with tangential, not terribly neutral, asides about the broader political situation at various points. Vanamonde (talk) 11:36, 20 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • ""Modi's life is said to have Vivekananda's deep influence. People close to Modi have often been quoted, saying that Modi has molded many aspects of his life as Vivekananda's." - I would avoid having random quotes in the prose without attributing them to someone. Perhaps this information should merely be paraphrased. Midnightblueowl (talk) 20:42, 19 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • reworded, and pruned a little, because when I look back at the source it seems a little like puffery; sort of like saying "I've molded my life after jesus".
  • "Reaching the Belur Math in the early summer of 1968 and being turned away" - this sentence could definitely be improved. How about "In the early summer of 1968, Modi reached the Belur Math but was turned away."? Midnightblueowl (talk) 20:42, 19 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • done
  • done
  • fixed

Early political career, 1975–2001

  • My main concern here is that this section is shockingly short. Two fairly brief paragraphs to cover a quarter of a century is, to be honest, insufficient. While it may still meet the GA criteria because "it addresses the main aspects of the topic" I really think that this section could do with a lot of work. Midnightblueowl (talk) 20:49, 19 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Point taken, I'll dig into the biography. Part of the problem, I suspect, is that the RSS is a cadre based organisation, which tends to value the organisation over any individual (indeed, this has been a point of contention with Modi in later years); thus the activity of any low-to-middle ranking individual is difficult to get at. But I will investigate, so more on this later.
  • Okay, I've added some material here; it's now a sizeable section. If I try to expand further, we are going to start getting into material that is speculative/much more in the nature of commentary, rather than fact.
  • well it's referred to, as the "state of emergency" in the previous sentence, which links to "The Emergency (India)"...I'm not sure how to introduce the precise term "The Emergency" without clunky wording, but sources do tend to use the proper noun "The Emergency". Ideas?
  • How about this: "During this period, known as the Emergency, many of her political opponents were jailed and opposition groups were banned.[50][51] Modi was appointed general secretary of the "Gujarat Lok Sangharsh Samiti", an RSS committee coordinating opposition to the Emergency in Gujarat."? Midnightblueowl (talk) 19:50, 5 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • done
  • done
  • fixed
  • Well, it's not an English term: the term is from Hindi, which is why it is italicized. It was a travelling political rally, a phenomenon evidently common in Indian politics but not so elsewhere. How might I clarify this?

Chief Minister of Gujarat

  • It's a constituency in the state legislature; "Rajkot II" is it's name, for some reason. I've tweaked the sentence: is it clearer now?
  • Fixed
  • Ah, here you put your finger on one of the many flashpoints in this article. That the train burned is universally accepted. Why it burned is highly contested; theories (in reliable sources, mind you!) range from planned arson, to spontaneous arson, to accident. Which is why the term "burned" was chosen; although it should probably omit the "was"...I've tweaked this, take a look.
  • done
  • Yeah it's easy to slip into the argot of the local newspapers, which I have to read to write the piece
  • done
  • "After an election campaign in which the BJP benefited from religious polarisation among the voters, during Modi's second term the rhetoric of the government shifted from Hindutva to Gujarat's economic development.[6" - This information seems to largely duplicate what was previously stated in the paragraph above it. These should probably be merged. Midnightblueowl (talk) 13:55, 23 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • merged, and trimmed a couple of sentences that seem like excessive detail when I look at them now.
  • yeah, better. done.
  • done
  • done
  • Removed link, because I agree that it's odd here; but actually, the link has not been used. I'll look for a better place to put it.
  • done
  • done: sector.
  • done
  • done
  • "conditions for rural adivasi and dalits, in particular, have declined" - this has already been mentioned in the paragraph above. Avoid duplications of information, bring all this sort of stuff together, keep it all streamlined. Midnightblueowl (talk) 14:05, 23 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • reorganized
  • done
  • done

2014 general election

  • typo: fixed
  • done
  • There seems to be some patches of further duplication here. For instance "However, the BJP's campaign was assisted by its wide influence in the media" repeats pretty much exactly the same sentiment as was found in the sentences above it. Midnightblueowl (talk) 14:17, 23 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • reorganized
  • done
  • tweaked.
  • done
  • done
  • done
  • My general concern with this section is its sheer length. Six paragraphs is quite a lot of information to have on the events one election. My advice would be to trim this down to about three paragraphs, only keeping the most important information, and trimming down a lot of the trivia. Midnightblueowl (talk) 14:23, 23 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Prime Minister

  • Expanded
  • The source sentence used says "Despite their international backing, such neo-liberal reforms have met fierce opposition from scholars and activists." It then goes on to provide examples of such, mentioning Amartya Sen and Jean Dreze by name. What would you suggest?
  • "The Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, a constituent of the Sangh Parivar, stated that the reforms would hurt labourers by making it easier for corporations to exploit them. In his first budget, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley promised to gradually reduce the budgetary deficit from 4.1 percent to 3 percent over two years, and to divest from shares in public banks.[" - These two sentences do not seem to be obviously connected yet rely on a single citation. If they do indeed both rely on the same citation then I would suggest duplicating it. Midnightblueowl (talk) 19:20, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • duplicated
  • done
  • done
  • done
  • done
  • done
  • I've linked it, but honestly I don't think that sentence belongs at all, because of due weight issues: no scholarly sources mention it at all. Thoughts?
  • "The Modi government launched a "New Health Policy" in January 2015, although this did not increase the government's spending on healthcare but rather placed emphasis on the role of private healthcare organisations. This represented a shift away from the policy of the previous Congress government, which had supported programmes to assist public health goals, including reducing child and maternal mortality rates. The National Health Mission, which included public health programmes targeted at these indices received nearly 25% less funds in 2015 than in the previous year. 15 national health programmes, including those aimed at controlling tobacco use and supporting healthcare for the elderly, were merged with the National Health Mission, and received less funds than in previous years. Modi initially appointed Harsh Vardhan, a doctor and an advocate of tobacco control, as minister of health. However, Vardhan was removed in November 2015. The government introduced stricter packaging laws for tobacco which requires 85% of the packet size to be covered by pictorial warnings" - This is a lot of text to rely purely on one citation. Midnightblueowl (talk) 19:41, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Is your issue with the single source, or the single footnote? The source is The Lancet, which is as good as it comes; the duplicated footnotes were removed by Sitush.
  • done
  • " eliminating open defecation, eliminating manual scavenging, and improving waste management practices" - this is a little repetitive, perhaps "improving waste management practices and eliminating both open defecation and manual scavenging"? Midnightblueowl (talk) 19:41, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • tweaked, and I've also removed that last clause: it's really vague.
  • No, those are separate items...there's a campaign against "Love Jihad", which is supposedly a phenomenon wherein Muslim men marry Hindu women to convert them (but there's a degree of skepticism about whether this actually happens): and a separate religious conversion program, in which many non-Hindus publicly convert to Hinduism. How can I make this clearer?
  • tweaked.
  • "The attempts at religious conversion have been described by the VHP and other organisations involved with them as attempts at "reconversion" from Islam or Christianity." - we mention Islamic conversion in the previous sentence but here seem to be talking about Hindu conversion; can this be made a little bit more explicit here. Midnightblueowl (talk) 19:41, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • See previous comment.
  • Acronym added at the link.
  • done
  • removed
  • "Islamic republics in the Middle East, such as Bahrain, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates" - most of these countries aren't republics! Also we probably don't need to give Iran its full title here. Midnightblueowl (talk) 20:48, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Whoops, good point! "states", and done.
  • done
  • It's "Pakistan occupied Kashmir", but the title of the Wikipedia page is at "Azad Kashmir" (because we use the name of the country which rules it, as with the Indian chunk of the state) so I've changed it to "Azad Kashmir".
  • I've struck the sentence, not because it couldn't be sourced (it's covered by the next citation) but because it seems redundant
  • It's been linked in the chief minister section; do you want a second link? I've changed the capitalization
  • done
  • added acronym where the link is
  • done
  • done

Personal life and Image

  • Merged
  • Okay, I'm really reluctant to get into this issue, because when people analyze Modi's policies, they have hard facts to go on, but when they discuss his personality, what little information there is is highly opinionated; descriptors range from "arrogant" to "inspiring". This is probably also a good place to mention that I'm not entirely happy with this section as a whole at the moment; give me a couple of days. Sitush: do you have any suggestions here? I know you're not a fan of "image" sections, but I think we have to do our best to knock this one into shape... Vanamonde (talk) 10:49, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • There's nothing wrong with saying things like "Biographer X described Modi as p, q, and y, while biographer J disagreed, believing him h, g, y" etc. Again, I'd point to the Vladimir Lenin article as an article of how that approach has been successfully applied. Midnightblueowl (talk) 19:45, 5 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • removed the link, but "puritan" is the term used by the source, and I'm struggling to think of a good synonym
  • fixed
Books
  • I would recommend scrapping this section and reintegrating the text into the chronologically appropriate sections of the article. For instance, Vladimir Lenin wrote widely over the course of his life, but we do not have a separate sections on his writings in our FA-rated article about him. Midnightblueowl (talk) 20:58, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • done

Awards and recognition

  • I would recommend refashioning this section into a "Reception and legacy" section (again, I would point to the Mandela and Lenin articles as useful stencils). That could also entail bringing the third and fourth paragraphs from the "Image" section into this one. It would also entail merging a number of stand-alone sentences into larger paragraphs. Midnightblueowl (talk) 21:01, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is a point I'm afraid I disagree with you on. The chief reason for this is that there has been very little analysis of Modi's legacy. Yes, I know that sounds strange at first; but if you dig into the literature, it's quite true. There is a lot of analysis of specific policies, specific incidents, specific elections, specific administrations. I could mention this analysis, but it is likely to become repetitive. Honestly I'm not certain of the value of an "awards and recognition" section, but there is a problem with "reception". Vanamonde (talk) 10:49, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Section titles

  • Early life and education; Early political career, 1975–2001; Chief Minister of Gujarat - Either have dates appended to them all (Recommended) or none at all. Make sure it is standardised. Midnightblueowl (talk) 19:42, 5 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've removed the date, purely out of a personal distaste for wordier titles, and the fact that the subsections often do not lend themselves to such temporal labels.

Images

  • I've removed one of those clustered images, as it was not very relevant: Modi building hospitals is not something any substantive source mentions. I'll look for images for the sections lacking them, but honestly there's a lot of them already...
  • Don't be scared of aligning some images to the left hand side at certain junctures of the article. I appreciate that you don't favour it, Vanamonde, but it is a perfectly acceptable stylistic option at Wikipedia. Midnightblueowl (talk) 19:39, 5 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Right, I am now happy that the article meets the necessary Good Article criteria. I definitely think that there is room for improvement, particularly in the use of sourcing and coverage (more on what biographers describe of his personality would be great) but that is not an impediment to GA status. Well done on all your hard work, Vanamonde. Midnightblueowl (talk) 10:24, 15 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Midnightblueowl: Many thanks, MBO. I was in the middle of doing a last revamp of the image section to address that concern, but you can check that at your leisure, I imagine. Vanamonde (talk) 10:35, 15 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
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