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Former good articleBhagat Singh was one of the History good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
On this day... Article milestones
DateProcessResult
January 26, 2007Good article nomineeListed
August 4, 2007WikiProject A-class reviewApproved
December 11, 2007Good article reassessmentKept
January 14, 2008Good article reassessmentDelisted
September 29, 2010Good article nomineeNot listed
October 30, 2011Peer reviewReviewed
December 6, 2011Good article nomineeNot listed
May 5, 2012Good article nomineeNot listed
July 18, 2020Featured article candidateNot promoted
On this day... Facts from this article were featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "On this day..." column on April 8, 2007, April 8, 2008, March 23, 2011, March 23, 2016, March 23, 2019, March 23, 2021, March 23, 2024, and March 23, 2025.
Current status: Delisted good article

RfC on the use of "charismatic" in the lead

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Should the descriptor "charismatic" be used in the first lead paragraph, and if so, where? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 19:13, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging editors in the discussion above: @Fowler&fowler, Asilvering, Czar, and Grayfell:.

Survey

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  • 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 WP:LEAD and WP:BALASP, but I do not think the first sentence (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 4 until 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 (t c) 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[dubiousdiscuss] 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

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  • 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]

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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]

Birth date 2024

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Date of Birth is 28 Sep, Please correct — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.170.249.106 (talk) 02:34, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Bhagat Singh born

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Bhagat Singh Wikipedia 27 September 1907 But authentic 28 September 1907 please check and correct detail add 2409:40C1:203C:D2D2:7B5A:CB8:F907:EFEE (talk) 06:04, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The 28th is not supported by the reliable sources such as Britannica or the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Celebrating Bhagat Singh's birthday on the 28th is a largely post-Google phenomenon, becoming popular after Google's founding on 27 September 1998 and the Indian press's diminished coverage of Singh on that day. See Talk:Bhagat_Singh/Archive_3#Semi-protected_edit_request_on_27_September_2023 Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:18, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 28 September 2024

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2405:201:6011:E103:9162:720F:8097:DCF3 (talk) 07:41, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Bhagat Singh date of birth is written wrong , his birth date is 28th September not 27th.

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Charliehdb (talk) 10:53, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 28 November 2024

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Dear sir/ma'am, I just wanted to inform you that Bhagat Singh was born on 28th of September. Please correct this, if you can.Thank you 59.178.223.191 (talk) 06:29, 28 November 2024 (UTC) Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page without content in them (see the help page).[reply]

Done ✅. Thanks. CharlesWain (talk) 07:19, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This appears to have been previously discussed and contested, with reliable sources. See Talk:Bhagat Singh/Archive 3#Semi-protected edit request on 27 September 2023. If nothing else, there are four sources for 27, so changing it to the 28 without also changing these sources would misrepresent what those sources are saying. Since this seems like a recurring issue, it might be a good idea to include a footnote explaining the issue, as the article already is already set up for template:efn/template:notelist. Grayfell (talk) 07:36, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Grayfell, the source I cited is a reliable source too. Rest aside the media coverages and official celebrations, a quick search on Google will give at least half a dozen books mentioning his birthday as 28 September. Shouldn't we mention both in article body (and of course with efn footnote)? CharlesWain (talk) 10:00, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The Supreme Court of India established a museum to display landmarks in the history of India's judicial system, displaying records of some historic trials. The first exhibition that was organised was the Trial of Bhagat Singh, which opened on 28 September 2007, on the centenary celebrations of Singh's birth. Apparently 28 September isn't just another opinion or some sort of confusion.CharlesWain (talk) 10:10, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, @CharlesWain:, but on WP, the salience of WP:TERTIARY sources in matters of due weight is policy. The sources are cited in the lead sentence. Please note:
  • The Britannica article on Bhagat Singh begins with, "Bhagat Singh (born September 27, 1907, Lyallpur, western Punjab, India [now in Pakistan]—died March 23, 1931, Lahore [now in Pakistan]) ..."
  • So also does the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (subscription required).
Per WP:BRD and WP:ONUS please first garner a consensus here on the talk page. This takes time. It required a critical mass of discussion, taking days and sometimes weeks. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:22, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Since a large part of Wikipedia's goal is to counter these kinds of common misconceptions, I would suggest either the note that I suggested, or for the article to briefly explaining this in the body as a discrepancy of sources (or both). As an aside, I would also like to see this elsewhere, such as maybe Information technology in India or Mass media in India. It is a fascinating detail.
Consensus can be built from discussion, but it usually starts with edits, which is the point of BRD. I reverted CharlesWain's change, but that doesn't mean that I think it was a policy violation or anything of that sort. Grayfell (talk) 02:38, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the explanation, @Grayfell:. I've added an efn and also more references. Let me know what you think. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:06, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The footnote looks great. Thank you. Grayfell (talk) 02:55, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Bolshevism

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@Fowler&fowler, "bolshevism" is not mentioned anywhere in the body of the article. Accordingly, @EarthDude is quite right to remove it from the lead. But, both of you, what do you think of Bhagat Singh#Ideals and opinions? Accurate or not? That's where we should start. -- asilvering (talk) 19:14, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Asilvering: The lead is not a summary of the article. It was written as an NPOV template using the best scholarly sources and interpretations, with citations (with quotes) deliberately and firmly in place in the lead to enable editors to rewrite the rest of the article, which had become irredeemably error-ridden over the years. This is a common practice in South Asian topics. I have written such leads for Sanskrit, Mughal Empire, Mauryan Empire, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhas Chandra Bose, Himalayas, Ganges, Indus River. Some have seem more improvements in the main body; others are still waiting. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:28, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Which two British policemen, Asilvering? If you don't know the topic area or are not doubly sure, then isn't it a little unorthodox to introduce factual errors in the article by your edit? Isn't it also less than transparent to write in your edit summary: "changing lead sentence, per discussion in the RFC from last year," when you mean, "per my statement in an inconclusive RFC from last year?" Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:40, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's a bit much to call an RFC "inconclusive" when it ends with 8/11 editors in favour of Option 4. If you'd like to fix the lead sentence I wrote simply by removing "British", or to fix any other errors you see in it, you're more than welcome to do that. -- asilvering (talk) 20:44, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
7 out of 11, please. The RFC was about including "charismatic" in the lead sentence, not about introducing errors, by changing the murder of John Saunders by Bhagat Singh and Shivaram Rajguru and the murder by covering fire of Indian chief constable Channan Singh by Chandrashekar Azad into "Bhagat Singh was an Indian anti-colonial revolutionary who became a folk hero after he was executed for the murder of two British policemen." Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:54, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
And the lead sentence does not have "charismatic" in it anymore. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:56, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that was what the RFC was about. Additionally, I pointed out that the lead sentence should, to comply with MOS:FIRST, simply state the basics about the subject. Please do go ahead and change the lead sentence to anything you prefer, so long as it fulfils that basic guideline. -- asilvering (talk) 21:09, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Fowler&fowler, the lead is, in principle, supposed to be a summary of the article. This came up many times in the RFC from a year ago in which you participated. I understand that it's a lot of work to rewrite an entire article and so rewriting the lead can be preferable, so I don't in any way fault you for doing that here and in these other articles. However, when someone then changes that lead on the grounds that it is inaccurate, and you dispute that, this is obviously a good time to talk about what really is accurate, rather than getting into an edit war. So let's clean up this section while we're thinking about it, and then make sure the lead follows that section correctly.
As for my change to the first sentence, it was supported explicitly by two other editors in last year's RFC, and opposed by none. The first sentence really should be a simple description of what makes the subject notable, leaving the particulars to the rest of the lead (or the rest of the article). You're welcome to rewrite it as you like - I rather hoped you might, after that RFC, since obviously you've done a lot of research on the topic and you have strong opinions about the lead. But you didn't, so I did. I'd appreciate it if you wrote a new lead sentence that follows our basic guidelines. -- asilvering (talk) 20:40, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
PS Pinging user:RegentsPark, user:Vanamonde93, user:Abecedare, user:Johnuniq
South Asia is an extraordinarily POV-ridden area on Wikipedia. If you don't write an NPOV lead with citations, many articles see wild swings in content. This has happened since the time of user:Nichalp, admin and arb, who introduced me to South Asian topics more than 18 years ago. There is a reason for the ARBIPA sanctions. There are many other articles as well. I have lost count. Muhammad Iqbal, Great Bengal famine of 1770, Shalwar kameez and Romila Thapar, Exodus of Kashmiri Hindus, ... Over the years, people have asked my help when things became too hot. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:11, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

(responding to ping) Two suggestions:

  • Should we separate the discussion about the Boslshevist/communist issue from that about the lede sentence(s)? Perhaps we can start with the former in this section. Pinging EarthDude to chime in.
  • Lets lower the temperature a bit and focus on sources/content :)

Abecedare (talk) 21:20, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sure. Anecdotally, though, there was little literature about the various legacies of Marx and Engels available in India in the mid-1920s other than what had come from the Soviet Union and was sold at bargain basement prices. The Indian Communist Party of M. N. Roy and Abani Mukherji had Soviet antecedents. They and others had met in Tashkent in the wake of the Great October Socialist Revolution. Will write more later. I will be busy now for the remainder of the day. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:36, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
PS As for user:EarthDude's point about the inconsistency between Bolshevism and Anarchism, one can only say that Bhagat Singh's fledgling philosophy was nothing if not inconsistent. Bright though he undoubtedly was, he was in his early 20s, had dropped out of college, and was not fluent in English, at least not fluent enough to read English translations of, say, Mikhail Bakunin, of half a century earlier. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:51, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The Bolshevik word should be replaced with Communist in the lead. First of all, the lead should be a summary of the rest of the article. The word Bolshevik is not even mentioned once in the entire article. Secondly, all sources except for one describe Singh as having been inspired by socialism or communism. The sole source which describes Singh as having been inspired by Bolshevism later clarifies itself that Singh was inspired by Marxism, which is separate from Bolshevism, in his later, more important years in his life. Thirdly, it doesnt even make any sense to have Bolshevism be tied with Anarchism. The two are fundamentally contradictory ideologies. Bolshevism is the basis for Marxism-Leninism, which seeks to establish a dictatorship of the proletariat led by a vanguard communist party in a one party state. Anarchism is a direct-democratic self governing society. Singh's ideology would be more akin the lines of anarcho-syndicalism, which is again completely different from Bolshevism, and guess what? There is literally a source in the article, a scholarly one, which define his ideology as anarcho-syndicalist. Although, I dont know what the talk about british policemen in this discussion is about EarthDude (talk) 21:53, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Like I say above, his "communism" was filtered through the Bolshevik lens. Communism became a world force only upon becoming realized politically in the Soviet Union. In the 1920s and 30s, the two terms were synonymous. I remember a British children's writer, Richmal Crompton referring to the Bolsheviks in her early William books. What you need to fix is the Bolshevism page, which I suspect is too simplistic. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:59, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It really wasn't. There was a significant divide between libertarian communists and Bolshevik communists following the Russian Revolution. In the Russian Civil War itself, there were major anti-Bolshevik left factions. The divide continued on into the 20s and 30s, though by the time the second world war ended, the USSR's Marxism-Leninism became the dominant form of socialism practiced. Again, there is literally a scholarly source in the article which connects Singh's relation with anarcho-communism. Also, he was way more mature and ideologically realized than many give him credit EarthDude (talk) 22:04, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Again, before the Russian revolution, the word "communism" was not particularly associated with the legacy of Karl Marx. The 1911 Britannica article on Communism does not mention Marx, though it does my favorite chair makers, the Shakers Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:27, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Which scholarly source on Bhagat Singh's ideology have you read carefully? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:29, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Fowler&fowler, could you please provide sources for the "bolshevik" claim? That's all we need here. If you're busy, that's fine. You don't need to reply to everything immediately. -- asilvering (talk) 22:59, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Asilvering: I've added four at the top of the stack in citation [7], the uppermost to Christophe Jaffrelot ca 2017 Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:16, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment @Asilvering and Abecedare: I agree with asilvering about a scholarly lead alone, but not a scholarly main body, being a half-baked solution, especially if I don't take the responsibility to fix the latter. I noticed in the article's history that points very similar to those raised by EarthDude were raised by another editor in 2023, probably just before EarthDude appeared. So, the potential of going around in circles is entirely accurate. May I propose something? Please give me a month. I will rewrite the rest of the article, at least enough that there are no glaring inconsistencies between the main body and the lead. Otherwise, I fear we will get caught up in long, enervating, talk page discussions, which, this time in my life, is not what I have time for. My word of honor, cross my heart and hope to die. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:54, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    By all means! Here I was hoping to get that kind of attention for the ideology section, which appears to be based on a lot of non-scholarly sources, but naturally I shan't complain if the whole thing gets a do-over. -- asilvering (talk) 15:18, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you asilvering for your spirit of cooperation. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:58, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you Abecedare for your perspicacious intervention. I have always valued your calm wisdom. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:55, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]