I have removed this passage from the body:
Professor Lawrence Ziring, considered an authority on Pakistan's political development,[1] writes that the Gurdaspur district of the Punjab, a Muslim-dominant area, had been demarcated for India and not Pakistan in order to provide New Delhi with direct land access to Kashmir. Jinnah's effort to prevent this geopolitical strategizing proved futile, and indeed the granting of Gurdaspur to India by Britain signaled India's intention to occupy the mountain kingdom with British acquiescence.[2]
I have been able to verify that Lawrence Ziring is a political scientist, and he is considered an authority on Pakistani politics. However, he is not a historian, and nothing indicates that his expertise extended to the developments in New Delhi before the creation of Pakistan. What is more problematice is that the statement attributed to him is entirely speculative. There is absolutely no evidence given either in the cited article or in his full length book, where again a similarly unsupported statement appears:
In Punjab, it was the Muslim majority districts of Gurdaspur and Batala that were given to eastern Punjab and thus awarded to India. The latter determination, however, had little to do with Sikh demands but had much more to do with providing India a road link to Jammu and Kashmir.[1]
On the other hand, our article provides considerable evidence of Sikh concerns regarding the Gurdaspur district, the fact that it was only marginally Muslim-majority, even that fact being contested, and that its allocation to India had been proposed even by viceroy Wavell before the final partition plan came into being.
Basically, these statements appear to me to be basically commentaries on Pakistani politics, and have no historical validity. If anybody can provide some better evidenced statements from Ziring, we might consider those. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 22:53, 23 October 2017 (UTC)
- So to clarify, this has been removed because (a) it contains factual analysis which is unverifiable and (b) Pakistani politics are not relevant to the article? Dysklyver 14:32, 24 October 2017 (UTC)
- (a) mostly. I have no problem with Pakistani politics, provided it is evidenced and properly attributed. The two sections were added by user Samm19 and suffer from intense POV problems. I was debating them with the user when he got topic-banned. I am just getting around to cleaning it up. This is the first of the installments. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 17:05, 24 October 2017 (UTC)
There is a lot of speculation in this section from British works about their consensus / range of opinion on this. How about appending a single line conveying what Pakistani scholars generally believe? For example writing this: Scholars of Pakistan, such as Lawrence Ziring claim the award to India "had little to do with Sikh demands but had much more to do with providing India a road link to Jammu and Kashmir.[1] DaoDeDunce (talk) 14:20, 26 July 2019 (UTC)
- Oh, no. We don't want to go through this all over again. There is a whole section on the Pakistani views. Please feel free to add it there, given that Ziring really gives us a summary of Pakistani views no matter what their validity.
- If you are trying to insinuate that the "British works" are covering for the British official(s), then you are welcome to read Lucy Chester's thorough study of the Radcliffe partition. A quick summary:
Lucy Chester's study[38: On the Edge, 2008] demonstrates that the Pakistan claims over Gurdaspur are unfounded. She supports the view however, despite the absence of direct evidence, that Mountbatten may have influenced the Ferozepore award to India.
- And, Ishtiaq Ahmed gives us a proper political science viewpoint:
The final border was almost a ditto copy of Viceroy Lord Wavell's top secret Demarcation Plan of February 1946, which was an auxiliary to the Demarcation Plan of February 1946...
- So, trying to argue that Radcliffe did something or Mountbatten or whoever is quite pointless.
- -- Kautilya3 (talk) 20:23, 26 July 2019 (UTC)
- First of all, I came to the article to add a new short video to to the list of references. I have no personal view on this dispute. I do believe the entire award process & timeline was reckless. So no, I don't trust denials which consist of "there is no proof for that". Radcliffe destroyed his documents for some reason. That leaves plenty of room for speculation on all sides. In reviewing the Talk page & History, I saw that a source for the Pakistani view had been removed. The Pakistani academic view on the dispute seems relevant.
- I don't know that Zehring himself need be mentioned. It's just the citation that is relevant as evidence of the Pakistani academic view. Something like this would also be fine: Some scholars claim the award to India "had little to do with Sikh demands but had much more to do with providing India a road link to Jammu and Kashmir."
- As far as format, yes I suppose it belongs in the section on Pakistani views. Shouldn't that section and the next section be subsections of the section on the Gurdaspur District? Also in Assessments section, do you know why there are quote marks around 'Controversial Award of Gurdaspur to India and the Kashmir Dispute'? Perhaps (as a subsection), a better title would be Relevance of the Gurdaspur Award to the Kashmir Dispute? DaoDeDunce (talk) 04:54, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
- You say that you have "no personal view", but also state that the process was reckless. That is in fact a view. And, scholarly research does not support it. (There is plenty of study of the process: the public hearings of the boundary commission, and the four separate awards made by the native judges on the commission, none of which agreed with each other. I have it on stack to write a section about it when I get time.)
- The relevant policies for including Ziring's view are WP:WEIGHT, WP:CONTEXTMATTERS and WP:FRINGE. Lucy Chester has done a PhD on the Radcliffe Line, and her work is published as a book. Ian Talbot, himself a highly respected historian of partition as well as Pakistani history, has endorsed her analysis and said that she demonstrated that the Gurdaspur award was not manipulated. Ziring's view is in the nature of a political opinion, and he is entitled to it. But he does not support it by any analysis, citations or evidence. So it is WP:UNDUE to be included here. Much more thorough analyses of the subject contradict it.
- It is ok to include it in the Pakistani views section, sort of as a scholarly endorsement of their views. Personally, I think Ziring's view may have merit, but since he doesn't provide any analysis for it, I can't say one way or another. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 12:44, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
- Please desist from making this personal. I have no stake or nationality in this. I could say more about my interest in this subject, but you have already been unduly hostile. Even Chester herself said that the British departure was "hasty, ill-planned and extremely bloody."
- It is inappropriate for you to make this about my views or your views. I am merely advocating for an accurate presentation of the spectrum of relevant views with due weight & emphasis. Nothing more. All I asked for was a single sentence acknowledging scholarly divergence of views. That is the point of having different sections for diverging views. Chester's views are not above disagreement and are just as susceptible to bias as anyone else's. They do have more weight since she produced a book based on research that has gained some citation, but that in itself doesn't make any views impartial. You quoted Talbot saying "Pakistan claims over Gurdaspur are unfounded." That is not the same as demonstrating zero manipulation. What is the citation for that?
- Do you agree that the sections on views should be subsections (subheadings) of the Gurdaspur section? DaoDeDunce (talk) 05:33, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
- If you think I have been hostile, you are welcome to raise it at WP:ANI. This is not the place to discuss it.
- Ian Talbot's statement, in the context where it is stated, does indeed mean that there was no manipulation of the Gurdaspur award. You are welcome to read the book.
- In the face of all this, Ziring's unsubstantiated view doesn't measure up and counts as FRINGE.
- On the second issue you have raised, no, I do not agree that the Pakistani views section should be integrated into the Gurdaspur section. It is an WP:OR summary of the arguments of lawyers, politicians and diplomats. It should be rewritten using scholarly sources. Only then can we consider it for inclusion in the Gurdaspur section. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 16:40, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
- I don't see evidence of enough consensus on this topic to call Ziring's statement FRINGE. All of the scholarly opinions are based on speculation as there are no reliable records. As we agree it belongs in the section on Pakistani views as a scholarly endorsement of their views, I will put it there. DaoDeDunce (talk) 14:12, 12 August 2019 (UTC)