Talk:Kargil

It is so shame full situation that any coverage of Ladakh peoples protest against Shortage of drinking water, Lack of teachers in Indian Govt schools, erotic power supply, High air fares, Students rights, Killing of people in neighbouring Kashmir, Quota issue against Indian state Government and High court is forcefully being denied.

Is it your neutrality WP ?

I am disappointed with this cherry picking article which is just a no value article on current Ladakh population centres situation.

Every thing was sourced with 12 sources — Preceding unsigned comment added by LehPeople (talk • contribs) 12:43, 14 August 2016 (UTC) Sock of a banned user. - Kautilya3 (talk) 11:27, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

@LehPeople: As you have been told on your user talk page, this is not a place to be used as a soapbox about a certain point of view, even if you have sources about it. Specifically, this page is about a town and wouldn't seem to be the forum to list or promote grievances the townspeople or you have with the Indian government. If that is all you want to do, you should find a more appropriate forum to do so, or spend time contacting your politicians or citizens to demand change. I assume you mean 'erratic' power supply and not 'erotic'. 331dot (talk) 12:58, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

@331dot: Three important points arise, 1. I have seen that almost all articles about any region cover governance /political developments so why not Ladakh region? 2. Region has just three main human settlements Leh Kargil Dras so these developments by default reflect these towns. A case of Out sider lacking local facts? 3. Ladakh was part of Greater region including Gilgit Baltistan (which is now part of Pakistan). If Gilgit-Baltistan article is being heavily filled with anti Pak stuff in the name of governance /political developments. (Read inside Pakistan sub heading to get idea). Then why not here ? cant we add governance /political developments here ? Double standards ? or should we also delete it there?

I hope You reply me.— Preceding unsigned comment added by LehPeople (talk • contribs) sock of a banned user. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 11:27, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Please sign your posts. You aren't posting political developments, you are posting various grievances against the government. There may be pages that's appropriate for, if done with a neutral point of view, but it isn't really appropriate on this page. Pages on towns may have sections about the government itself, such as names of officials and the numbers of citizens registered with political parties or those that vote for them, but they don't usually have lists of grievances or occurrences of protests. 331dot (talk) 16:05, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

Pinging @DanielRigal: and @Beetstra: for additional comment, as having also reverted the post in question. 331dot (talk) 16:11, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

I have not paid a huge amount of attention to what the POV is here. I just noticed that the same message, stating a grievance of some sort, had been added to multiple articles. To me that seemed akin to mass flyposting, which is something I disprove of even when the message being flyposted might be legitimately raised under other circumstances. So, I hold absolutely no opinion on the rights or wrongs of the grievance, all I am sure of is that Wikipedia is not the right place for editors to air their grievances. If the dispsute is notable then it is possible that a little neutrally worded coverage could be justified in a single appropriate article but it would need to stick to the facts as given in RS sources and give both sides of the dispute. I'm still assuming that this is not the case, not the right article and not justified but that would be the correct way to approach it if it is. --DanielRigal (talk) 20:07, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

{{od} this was much a form of using Wikipedia as a soapbox, which we do not do. As has been pointed out by many editors, the post was pushed to numerous pages, and the wording is not neutral. Here, on Kargil, it was posted in the lede:

Meanwhile, public rage in Ladakh is "growing alarmingly" protesting the against Indian state Govenment for absence of civic rights and various inefficiencies including erratic power supply, water supply and shortage of teachers in Govt schools ^{[1][2][3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]}. As per local newspaper Leh Times "India had been dishonest with people of Jammu & Kashmir state. ^[10]

That lacks view/response/etc. of the 'other side', it appears as a 'news' item, not as an encyclopedic point, and certainly is not something that belongs in a lede. Moreover, this seems to be something that happens in an 'area', and should hence not be cross-posted on every page that has some relation to the the 'area'. If anywhere (which in itself may be disputed, is there independent coverage?), it belongs only on the top level page (the 'area', or 'the people (ethnic group or whatever)', or something similar) and there neutrally presented, expressing the views of all sides. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:22, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 3 external links on Kargil. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.dawn.com/weekly/dmag/archive/050904/dmag6.htm
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090327120658/http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/research/kargil/war_in_kargil.pdf to http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/research/kargil/war_in_kargil.pdf
• Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.basjak.org/JKS1998.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 12:18, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Kargil. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20050827002952/http://www.kashmirsentinel.com/aug2002/8.html to http://www.kashmirsentinel.com/aug2002/8.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 10:05, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

How did you get that temperature "often falls to -48C ?????? This is complete bulls.... ,since the lowest temperature EVER recorded at Khargil is -32C in January 1919. Get your facts right ! -- — Preceding unsigned comment added by maxcrc (talk • contribs)

The information is sourced to the Government of Kargil web site . Please provide reliable sources for your claims. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 11:59, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Ok YashSuccess (talk) 21:30, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

It should be noted, that the population of Kargil, the town, is different than that of Kargil, the district as has been noted by another editor above, Rif Winfield, more than six years ago. I am going to change it to reflect the town's population. However, the geographic size of the town, does not seem to be available in the census data to contrast it with that of Kargil, the district, so the two demographic entities will be indistinguishable in size, until that too can be changed to reflect the actual demographic component... Stevenmitchell (talk) 20:37, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

 Done. I corrected the figures. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 09:45, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

Elinruby, I don't see the point of filling up the page with "Unreliable source?" tags. If you would like to dispute them, do dispute them. This is reliable information as far as I can see. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 13:55, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

I didn't realize you were OWNing this article as well. I flagged all those map references for my own work on the article, or I would have taken the trouble to see if there is an OR tag. I don't need to "dispute" them, for crying out loud. They are definitely not secondary sources. Elinruby (talk) 19:49, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

I am afraid you indeed need to dispute them, because it is easily verifiable information. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 19:52, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

please don't tell me what I "need" to do. I came back here to note that all the map references are in a different article; my mistake, and that, yes, I do need to do. You on the other hand appear to need to review WP:BURDEN, and also WP:REVTALK. Reverting a cn tag is not a "correction". Elinruby (talk) 20:34, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

Yup. I "need" to review WP:BURDEN and you "need" to tell me that. Ahem! -- Kautilya3 (talk) 22:53, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

Apparently so? I am still preoccupied offline but re your request that I "check my tag", your change of ""narrative" to "Dogra natrative" is enough to be getting on with for now, and i will take off my what tag. I am assuming that this is what you are talking about; if not LMK. I will check Wikipedia when back and address any issues promptly though probably not immediately. Today though. Elinruby (talk) 23:57, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

Whenever you get around to it. I am not in any hurry. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 03:02, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

Elinruby, what is meant by "Further north along the Suru River valley, it reaches the Indus River valley". What reaches the Indus River valley? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 13:55, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

What article? It doesn't seem to be this one. I remember making a change in that sentence, but don't remember what. I would like to look it over before I say definitely. Out of context, it looks like ADD may have kicked in and "along" and "it" need to be deleted, but I would like to take a look before going with that, since I don't remember what I was trying to improve. HtH Elinruby (talk) 21:45, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

It looks good for the fact that Kargil is in a gorge and on the Suru. I was actually trying to flag the part about the most accessible route to Leh, however, which I found mildly surprising. Probably should have said so on the talk page, I guess.

(Maybe the point about the route seems stunningly obvious to you, but remember, lots of other people who aren't me and also aren't intimately familiar with the area will be reading the article).

Anyway, Rivzi "is* a source for something that the sentence says, so I am calling it good as far as my tag goes. Consider the above a suggestion for future improvement.

By the way, it is courteous of you to notify me, but as far as I am concerned you don't have to unless you want to. I just took issue with you removing one without adding a reference. If you do add one, feel free to just take off the tag. Elinruby (talk) 22:04, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

Yes, the reason for pinging you is because I have no idea what you are objecting to. You can use the reason field of the tags to indicate. Or put something in the edit summary. As per WP:LEADCITE, we don't normally add citations to the lead except when there are contentious issues.

The trade route is not that surprising here, because it certainly looks shorter than going via Batalik. But even the route from Skardu went through here, which is indeed extraordinary. The full discussion is at Marol, Baltistan. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 14:27, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

I am not objecting to you pinging; just saying that you don't have to. I will take a look at this later as it isn't exactly a "minor rewrite" really, but I do see sources, which is good. Thank you for the courteous answer and link. I will check it out. Point taken on the reason field. And yeah, I don't claim to be a topic expert, but neither will most of the article's readers, or they wouldn't be looking it up, right? I mostly function as a copy editor. And translator, of course, but those languages mostly don't apply here Elinruby (talk) 20:10, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

I think the lattitude if Kargil should be the centre of the city not the downtown area. YashSuccess (talk) 21:51, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

How exactly do you determie the "centre" of the city? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 13:21, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

I took the lattitude between downtown and goma village and 34 33 46 was in the centre. YashSuccess (talk) 20:31, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

Why is that? What is the significance of the Goma village? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 16:02, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

"Kargil's lattitude is similar to Kochi or Kashgar. While its lattitude would be similar too the southern most point of Cyprus or Osaka."

I can't parse this; maybe someone else can. No objection to this in principle if grammatical, correctly spelled and cited. Elinruby (talk) 07:34, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

We don't do comparisons like this any more, unless they are reliably sourced. (A number of old pages used to have it though.) -- Kautilya3 (talk) 13:04, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

Here, the first mention of lattitude should have been longitude. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 13:06, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

User:Magentic Manifestations, Your editing continues to be highly problematic. Please do not delete or modify existing content, unless you want to explicitly challenge it. And, if you want to challenge it, you should either tag it, or raise an issue here. The new content you are adding is poorly sourced, and also contains misunderstandings and source misrepresentations. I don't think you have read the earlier cited sources at all. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:23, 27 July 2025 (UTC)

The stuff you are writing is either nonsense or too vague to be useful.

a. What is supposed to be "Kargil region"?

a1. There is no evidence of Kargil even existing before the Dogra invasion in the 19th century. So how can it have an "early history"?

b. What populations were here before the supposed introduction of Islam?

c. What is meant by Sod Valley was "connected" to Gilgit?

c1. Where does Devers say that it was ruled from Gilgit?

d. And where did you even mention Sod Valley. You appear to have deleted all the old discussion of the region.

The stuff you are writing is truly, ridiculously bad. WP:CIR. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:59, 27 July 2025 (UTC)

Sorry, I had to revert the whole thing when I saw "Sod Valley to the north of Kargil". I sugeest you first read the existing content and understand it thoroughly before attempting any edits. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 00:06, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

@Kautilya3, The current version has swathes of unsourced sections, and sources which do not corroborate the statements (e.g. Etymology section quotes vague links; Large sections of location and history are unsourced, or uses deprecated government sources.) I have read through the existing sources, and tried to address the issues. Hence, I was able to add/corroborate the statements with additional sources, and remove uncited content wherever necessary. Despite me making changes in smaller parts, you have continued to revert changes to all other sections (including sections such as transport, administration and demographics), which are properly sourced and does not seem to have any issues. Labeling somebody's edits as nonsense and undermining all the edits does not seem to be well intended. Your restoration of the same poorer version with uncited text, poor government sources, bare links etc., rather than addressing the problems.

To answer some of the questions, the statements seem to be clearer,

a. There is no evidence of Kargil even existing before the Dogra invasion in the 19th century. Answer: The line states that "...the major part of the present day Kargil region was known as Purik or Purig..", it never states that Kargil region existed before.

b. What populations were here before the supposed introduction of Islam? Answer: The line states that "The largely Buddhist population were introduced to Islam in the 15th and 16th century CE", which makes it clear that the population earlier was Buddhist.

c. What is meant by Sod Valley was "connected" to Gilgit? And where did you even mention Sod Valley. Answer: The actual line states that "The Sod valley north of Kargil was connected to Gilgit,", it clearly states the location of Sod valley. The subsequent line also states that "The Suru river valley including the Kargil, separated from the Sod valley by a mountain pass, was connected to the Kashmir region.", which clearly states that the Suru valley and Sod valley are separated by a pass.

I do not see any poor semantics here. If you have contentions on sourcing, would rather be happy to address it.

As you are having repeated concerns on the text, let me propose something,

a. I will restore sections like transport, administration, demographics + the corrected infobox here you do not have any issues. (Will exclude government sources apart from standard references such as gazetted notifications)

b. For etymology, I take your concern and refrain from using government sources, and add only relevant sources for the existing content (where the current sources are dubious!)

c. For the geography, and location sections, the current text contains no sources whatsoever for most of the text in the location section, and the geography section is sourced from deprecated government sources. I have tried editing it to a saner version with additional citations. If there are specific concerns here, will address it, before moving forward.

d. As the history section seems to be the most contentious, I will spell out what I have tried to do. One, have done away with non-cited lines in the citation such as "By the 18th or 19h century, it also had a sub-branch at Pashkum (Wylie: pas kyum) southeast of Kargil town in the Wakha Rong valley". Two, have tried expanding the sections. What I would do is, I will make the changes for this section in sandbox, and possibly, post the comments, I will incorporate it here.

Do let me know if you are fine with the proposed way forward. Any concerns, do let me know. Cheers! Magentic Manifestations (talk) 04:32, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

I have labelled my questions with a,b,c,d matching yours so that you can see that you haven't answered even the first question.

Please show me the source for the claim that the Sod Valley is to the "north of Kargil". And provide geo-coordinates for wherever you imagine that it lies. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 09:32, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

@Kautilya3, Answering your points,

a. What is supposed to be "Kargil region"? Answer: As per Devers, the Kargil region (known as Purig earlier) extends from Photu La to Zoji La pass.

a1. There is no evidence of Kargil even existing before the Dogra invasion in the 19th century. So how can it have an "early history"? Answer: The name Kargil did not exist does not mean the settlement did not exist. The sources state (Government source specifies this and even Devers mentions it.) states "Gasho Tha Tha Khan...established a dynasty in the area. Tha Tha Khan...captured Kargil in early 8th century. His dynasty ruled the Sod area of Kargil..."

b. What populations were here before the supposed introduction of Islam? Answer: This was addressed in my previous answer. The population here was Buddhist before most converted to Islam, and Buddhism was squeezed to certain pockets. The source states this "Islam came to Kargil in 15th century. Mir Shams-ud-Din Iraqi... vistited Kargil with his missionaries to preach Islam. The chief of Baltistan embraced Islam first and it was later followed by the Chiefs of Kargil...Buddhism remained sequeezed in Kargil"

c. What is meant by Sod Valley was "connected" to Gilgit? Answer: Another one which I answered already, and I do not find any ambiguity here. Connected means simply connected by way of land. From the subsequent line it is also abundantly clear that Suru valley is separated from the Sod valley by a mountain pass, and the Suru valley is connected to the Kashmir region.

c1. Where does Devers say that it was ruled from Gilgit? This was an oversight from my part, which I accept. Devers talks about Batalik valley on the other side of the pass, which I misconstrued as the Sod valley, which was talked in the earlier sentence.

d. And where did you even mention Sod Valley. You appear to have deleted all the old discussion of the region. Answer: Can you be clearer on what text you are referring to. Answering for now as per my understanding. The information about the presence of a fort (Pasar Khar) is retained. There was a mention of a second fort in your restored text (Pashkyum), which is no where stated by the source Devers, and have been promptly done away with.

While I have answered your questions (later), you had failed to address any of my legitimate concerns/queries.

1. Why the entire text was reverted including sections where you had no contentions/issues? As the edits were done in smaller chunks and stages with relevant comments, there was no valid reason to blindly label everything as contentious because you had contention with a few lines.

2. You keep on reverting to an old version which has several issues including swathes of uncited text, improper citations, and same deprecated government sources you have had issue with. If your concern is really on the quality of the text and sourcing, this does not seem to be the fair way.

You have been raising issues with my edits from the beginning. I have been focused on reverting to them patiently, address them, and accept where changes are required. As you have been reversing it wholesale without having to go into the merits, you need to probably work with good faith here and understand that no sane editor would take time to contribute to an unrelated subject, to in fact make it worse. I am still open to comments and had proposed a solution as a way of consensus here. As both of had spent considerable time on this debating, the proposal should work. If your issues have been addressed, do let me know if we can proceed with it.

If you still want me to drop the edits, I will move on as the debate might not lead to something fruitful. Thanks for the understanding! Magentic Manifestations (talk) 11:06, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

a. "Photu La to Zoji La" describes the Kargil district. This page is on the Kargil Town. It is misleading and deceptive to pass of the history of the district as the history of the town. It is reasonable to talk about the region surrounding the town but the description of that region was given in the Location section, which you have deleted, without explanation.

a1. You are quoting Devers selectively. The full sentence says: It includes a vast plateau that overlooks the Kargil basin, which was the main seat of the Kacho dynasty, [which] supposedly was established in Purig around the 8th century by the somewhat mythical figure Tata Khan coming from Gilgit. The author added enough gotchas to make it clear that it is dubious folklore that cannot be taken at face value. But you have stated it as an established fact.

b. No point discussing because your ideas of "population" are dominated by obsession with religion.

c. Your geography of Sod Valley is erroneous and your explanations are equally so.

I think it is best for you to move on. Your understanding is too superficial to deal with this subject. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 12:12, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

@Kautilya3, Thanks for engaging with a response. I would probably leave it here and move on as the discussion is not heading anywhere, and as you pointed out that I might not be best equipped with the knowledge of the history or geography of the subject. I am restoring the non-contentious sections (demographics, administration, transport etc.), improving certain sourcing done for the unsourced or poorly sourced sections (e.g. Tibetan meaning in etymology, geography/location, and points in history), and adding tags wherever necessary. Do let me know in case of any concerns with the same. Thanks! Magentic Manifestations (talk) 13:06, 29 July 2025 (UTC)