Talk:Martial race

message: Alright, citation #52, where the article quotes a bio of a Pakistani General as supporting martial race theory ("hails from a martial stock") is not in any way evidence. Literally the next line mentions that his father was a Major in the armed forces, and the phrase "hailing from martial stock" clearly refers to his family history - a common phrase in English - not his ethnicity or race, much less "clearly does" as the author wrote. I'm deleting it.--216.99.214.7 (talk) 08:30, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pakistani General 

message: Why is "(excluded after rebellion)" added to Bhumihar when there is no citation? This is propaganda material. Please remove it.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.76.80.138 (talk) 17:46, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Martial race "Bhumihar"

message: You know, if anyone actually thought about it, this theory is actually kind of accurate. — Hizrael 7:14, 10 December 2006
Ofcourse it is.THe sikhs,marathas and gurkhas were battle hardened.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zoravar (talk • contribs) 16:02, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: The British Didn't Do So Bad

message: The section on Sikh is totally POV. There is clear bias Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. To make such wide ranging and serious statements with a few POV references who's neutrality is disputed is ridiculous. This should be removed immediately.
:Yo! Johnson, I am glad that you have finally decided to enter into a civil discourse.
:First thing to discuss here is the content of the Modern Usage section. This section is not yet finished and even though it looks like that only Paki Army and Sikhs have been singled out but this is just a start. Not one single person can edit/contribute to a complete article or section in one session. If you have time you should contribute to it too and add references and elaborate on the other races as listed.
:Second concern that you have is regarding the supposed generalizations "-wide ranging and serious statements". If you are questioning the credentials of the personalities and publications referenced, then i must disagree with you as would most people well versed in the south east Asian politics. These people are well known and respected not only in south east Asia but also internationally. I took pains to reference people who are known to be impartial and un-biased. And these are not few, for such a small paragraph i think even the three references are an overkill. You might dispute their neutrality, but that is your own personal POV and you are entitled to it, but has no place in an encyclopedia. 
:In the end, I would like to thank you again for taking the time to discuss this with civility as I don't respond well to threats, intimidation and ultimatums. Fuzzone 00:51, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Why are Sikhs singled out- immediate removal

message: I have tried to shed some more light on how the British thought at the time (presumably not anymore :)) and to clarify the reasoning behind the concept and it's various intricacies. IdleGuy could you please look it over? Thanx! Fuzzone 21:47, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Adding some more insight into the British thinking of the day

message: The Arains were NEVER classified as a martial race and thus their nonsensical inclusion on the main page has been removed
Response
Unfortunately, some partially-literate guys are really ignorant. Truly the elders caution: Little knowledge is the most dangerous thing in this world. 
The Arains INDEED were included into the Martial Races category by the Britishers (See some references below) . 
*Handbook of the Panjáb, Western Rajpútáná, Kashmír, and Upper Sindh, 1883, p 61, John Murray (Firm).
*The Punjab Alienation of Land Act XIII of 1900, Appendix A, Notified Tribes, pp 146-149,  Nihal Chand Anand.
*Annual Class Return 1925, pp 96-97.  
*Cf also: Wealth and Welfare, p 214, Calvert. 
*The Indian Army and the Making of Punjab, Chapter Recruited Peasants  and the Restraint of Immperial Power, Edition 2003, p 105, R. K. Mazumder.
It is also important to note that, in the first cited reference above (Handbook of the Panjáb, Western Rajpútáná, Kashmír, and Upper Sindh, 1883, by John Murray), the Arains  in fact are also described as the real-blood cousins of the Jatts (ibid p 61)). This will alutomattically affirm that the Arains were counted among the martial class.
It is always advisable to learn or familiarize with facts before making any wild comments or claims. 
Satbir
 Arain tag is removed because they are mention as agriculture race but not as martial race and there is not mention of arain as martial race in GENERAL SIR GEORGE MAcMUNN report who is the proginetor of martial race theory  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 39.48.183.183 (talk) 10:48, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Arains 

message: The article implies that the theory of martial races was an official British Government policy, but evidence of that is needed - in what official document were these races designated as 'martial'? So far as I can see there isn't even a citation of a clear statement of the theory by someone who believes in it: the sources merely attribute it rather vaguely to the British. I've seen pieces which attribute it, or at least its popularisation, to Lord Roberts of Kandahar, but I cannot find any direct evidence that he advocated it.
In the absence of better evidence, the article seems to give the theory a more definite and authoritative status than is really justified.
There is a lot of evidence that the British Government considered the 'Martial race' theory when recruiting for army and it helped in the compilation of historical records of tribes to prove this theory right. One very interesting book in this regards is; The People of India: A Series of Photographic Illustrations, with Descriptive Letterpress, of the Races and Tribes of Hindustan, Originally Prepared Under the Authority of the Government of India, and Reproduced by Order of the Secretary of State for India in Council By John Forbes Watson, John William Kaye, Meadows Taylor, Great Britain. India Office Published by India museum, 1872, which has around 5 or 7 volumes and contains information regarding almost all tribes of Pakistan, India and neighboring regions. This book clearly mentions which tribes or people are considered martial based on their histories and characteristics.Wikitanoli (talk) 10:59, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Status of the doctrine of 'martial races' 

message: To the idiot who persists in peddling myths about the Arains contribution to the armed forces, you are twisting source material and presenting a ludicrous and disingenuous take on the Arains reputation vis-à-vis the military. Please consult the following: 
“…Zia came from a community not heavily represented in the armed forces (the Arains from Punjab)…” (See http://www.workmall.com/wfb2001/pakistan/pakistan_history_zulfiqar_ali_bhutto_and_a_new_constitutional_system.html)
“Ethnically, General Zia was from a line of Arains, who do not have much presence in the army, unlike Ayub Khan and Yahya Khan who were Pathans. Pathans are well represented in Pakistan’s armed forces.” (See http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:TBifkQ5dKv8J:yespakistan.com/people/past-presidents.asp+%22Ethnically,+General+Zia+was+from+a+line+of+Arains,+who+do+not+have+much+presence+in+the+army,&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=uk)
"The army was an unusual career for an Arain youngster; the British had not regarded the community as one of India's martial races..." (Pakistan under Zia, 1977-1988, Shahid Javed Burki”)
If after reading the above, you still claim that Arains can be classified as a martial race – which is entirely your own, biased and unfounded viewpoint – then you are not only delusional, but devoid of all shame. The Arains have never been classified as belonging to those groups recognised as “martial races”, pre or post-partition.
Further to my comments above, the most recent change to the Wikipedia entry on the “Martial Races has been made by a user named Street Scholar, who has had to undo your edit to the article, recognising your contribution (based on fallacies you’ve cooked up in your head) as vandalism. Thus, I am not the only one to take exception to your idiocy. As I said, have some shame and desist from peddling what others acknowledge to be myths. As for you linking Arains with Jats and thus concluding that the former deserve to be recognised as a martial race, you have truly demonstrated how very stupid you really are.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.129.165.145 (talk) 23:44, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Arains are not, and were never, classified as a martial race 

message: It still facinates me that the Ghurkas and Scotts have not been mentioned, and till today they are recruited into the British Army, and the Ghurka ferocity still proceeds them i.e. look at their service history in the Falklands war.
Also I have read that about the Martial prowess of the Pakistanis they believed that they were able to outclass the Hindus, but were always cautioned when fighting the Sikh Regiment, Sikh Light Infantry, the Ghurka Regiments and the Punjab Regiment. I would like to see a source which strictly quotes because in my oponion it seems to cohered with other anti-Sikh statements in this article.
124.190.91.227 (talk) 12:14, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ghurkas, Scotts 

message: why ahirs(yadavs ) are not mentioned?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.173.216.228 (talk) 06:53, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  why ahirs(yadavs ) are not mentioned? 

message: As per the reference provided the table covers Officer intake from one insitute between the period 1978-87. The table gives the impression that it represents the entire Indian Army and that it is current (while its actually 23 years old). The table should be removed or the title altered to better represent the data. If the table contains valid data, references would be much appreciated. Iminer (talk) 00:52, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: (The newest comments on a talk page should be posted to the bottom of the page or the relevant section, so I have moved the above as a courtesy. μηδείς (talk) 01:13, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Data in the table is highly misleading 

message: :(NOTE: removed repost of the entire article which was placed here. MatthewVanitas (talk) 20:52, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit request from 59.95.201.51, 11 September 2010 

message: ""Race" in 19th-century terminology corresponds to the contemporary term "ethnic group", and is here not used in the sense of the "great races" of scientific racism corresponding to modern notions of race."
Is this statement accurate?  Wasn't "scientific racism" a 19th (and early 20th) century doctrine?  And it is pretty much discredited now (and has been for decades), so how does it correspond to "modern notions of race"? Wardog (talk) 00:51, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Race" in 19th-century terminology... 

message: The paragraph on the Marathas seems exceptionally non-neutral and at times anachronistic. For instance, their classification as non-martial after the Sepoy Mutiny was not "blatantly" ignoring their achievements against the Turks during the Great War as that contribution had not yet even occured! Threadnecromancer (talk) 00:39, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Marathas

message: This article gets a real lot of edits from IP accounts, or otherwise suspect accounts (blocked users, users with short edit histories), changing the data in the lists and tables without any explanation, or at best no sufficient or intelligible explanation. I've undone the most recent edits of the sort, but any attempt to revert all such edits would be hopelessly overwhelming. This article needs heavy monitoring, preferrably by people with a clue in Indian history and ethnography, to ensure that the data presented comply with what the sources actually say. Obviously, the subject is somewhat sensitive and I suspect various nationalistic or ethnic, regional-patriotic or other biases on the part of many of those who make such edits, even if part of them may be in good faith. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:01, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Constant manipulation of data 

message: Gujjars were declared as criminal castes not as martial race when the Gujjar men. They actually disobeyed the white man's orders, the Gujjars are a race of men with honor for their women and self respect, a white man mocked a Gujjar woman plowing the ground, then a Gujjar man grabbed the white male off his cavlary and forced the male to plow the land, the Gujjars were involved in the 1857 rebellion also, the Gujjar lost all their land to the Jats and Sikhs because the white male officers granted their land to men who were serving them, the Gujjars were left landless till this very day. The Gujjar male is generally more well built than white males and their martial races serving them, most Gujjars enjoy stonelifting and Kabaddi as their traditional sport. The Gujjar race has a history of fighting for the oppressed even when the odds are against them against an invader, their history has been wiped out due to their resistant past to outside invaders. Check your sources.115.119.104.226 (talk) 13:04, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I've reverted you. The cited source is this. At p. 105 it says, "A district-by-district classification was published. The 'agricultural tribes' included ... Gujar ... The significance of 'agricultural tribes' is that the ones so notified were synonymous with the 'martial races' which the army almost exclusively recruited from." Perhaps we need to explain the synonymity but, certainly, mentioning them here is appropriate. I've never seen a claim that they were a criminal tribe but, sure, it is possible: one does not exclude the other because various communities were reclassified in various ways at various times (eg: the Nairs were degraded from martial status). - Sitush (talk) 17:44, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gujjars not martial race but criminal caste as per britishers 

message: The idea of Martial Races was also utilized by the British in their African colonies, and the French and the Dutch also had similar sentiments. I might work some of this into the article.
171.66.209.4 (talk) 00:36, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Martial Races beyond the subcontinent? 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: A couple of supposed sources have been added recently re: communities who were supposedly martial races. The citations were useless because it was impossible to see which page of the sources were being referred to. I suspect also from my reading of those sources that there may be some confusion regarding what this article concerns. It is about the designation of "martial race" during the British era, not the Moghul era etc. - Sitush (talk) 21:05, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, similar pre-British concepts are what is missing from this article. Contrary to what the article now very misleadingly says, the British certainly did not invent the concept. Johnbod (talk) 16:46, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sourcing 

message: I made some bold edits and they were reverted, so I would like to reach a consensus first. I will list down the edits which I made and would like to have your opinion regarding them.
1. I added the views of Divid Omissi and Ali Mazuri on the subject (views of Muzammil Quraishi, Gavin Schaffer and Stephen P. Cohen are also added).
2. I added a section for 'By the Indian military'
3. Removed some stuff from the section 'By the Pakistani military' which was not properly sourced.
The source is a dead website 'Library of Congress-memories' which has apparently moved to 'Library of Congress-collection'. I checked 'Library of Congress-collection' for any relevant material but I couldn't find it. Plus it was a query link, which again is questionable, so I tried to run the same query on 'Library of Congress-collection' but no results were found.
4. The belief in martial race theory of Pakistan Army remained firm till 1965 changed to 1971.
Wikieditor6699 (talk) 00:39, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: *Your research is utterly misleading. The web archives related to Congress link is correctly working. Your removal of content here claiming that the source is not working is again misleading because  the source is working fine. Books on East African books that contain one liners on India are not enough. Dhawangupta (talk) 14:25, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

text: * Omissi has been directly sourced and more sources are also added to #1 as advised. Wikieditor6699 (talk) 05:29, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: You are barking up the wrong tree, . Your so-called research continues to be dodgy and misleading. What is much worse is the selective cherry picking of convenient bits from the sources that you have done, not to mention the accompanying glaring misrepresentation of the Omissi and Qureshi sources. None, save for these two, are germane to the issue at hand to begin with. If you read even the introductory portion of this article, you would know that this article is not about the question whether or not there existed classes with martial traditions that dated back to pre-colonial times in India. This is a subject that transcends this parochial point of view.This is about the British artificial construct of classification of Indian castes into martial and non martial classes and the consequent confinement of their military recruitment to the former and concomitant discrimination resulting from the same.What does the British recognition of the supposedly 'warrior traditions' of the East African Sudanic and Nilotic people have to do with this article? Coming to the aforementioned sources, the Omissi one at the very outset, on the cited page, makes it clear that, ', and goes on to state: The Quraishi source similarly belies your POV pushing. It is worth mentioning here that of the whole chapter devoted to the subject at issue in the book, you selectively and conveniently cherry-picked one line, and that too by omitting the first word () itself. Quraishi, if anything, makes it patently clear that the whole notion of martial status or lack thereof was a British construct. It is one of the sources that elucidates the topic in detail, outlining how the whole distinction between the Indian castes based on supposed martiality (or lack thereof) was not at all marked before, and how the notion of martiality was inculcated in Sikhs by the British.Given this dodgy misrepresentation of sources on your part, this selective cherry-picking, this attempt to mislead other editors, I cannot help but point out the flagrant violation of the fundamental policies of Wikipedia and the glaring WP:CIR issues on your part. Given that, in place of posting a new comment, you chose to edit your old comment which had been already replied to, I wonder if the latter is indeed the case. Dhawangupta (talk) 13:22, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Consensus Required 

message: Please add below to the below header
Tribes and groups designated as martial races
Kodava
 Sponnappa (talk) 06:54, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 12:07, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semi-protected edit request on 7 August 2021 

message: This page is rampant with unchecked and unfounded racism, using modern jingoistic revisions of the past. The earliest martial races were historically Brahmin, which continue to make a sizable contribution to the Indian Armed Forces. It is pathetic that this is being rewritten as dull and subservient when they continue to serve the succeeding armed forces. There seems to be a lot of bias insecurities from others, blaming those that historically fought in the armed forces. Rancid Boar (talk) 07:39, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bias and charged rhetoric