Talk:Shivkar Bapuji Talpade

message: Created this article, there are claims that this person is the first to have flown an unmanned plane at the year 1895 in Chowpati beach, Mumbai(Bombay), India in front of a huge crowd.BalanceΩrestored Talk 06:21, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It is 1895! Not some 500 years ago. It was in Mumbai. If it was well publicised and drew a huge crowd, there must be wide news coverage.  ChandlerMinh (talk) 00:45, 31 December 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: Shivkar Bapuji Talpade

message: looking into this, it seems this is a bona fide aviation pioneer who attempted to build a plane. Claims that the plane did take off are not verifiable today, but a model of the plane seems to survive. The Ufologist bullshit surrounding this should be sectioned off as a separate topic. --dab (𒁳) 09:04, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, do you have something that has crossed checked your claim that the plane did not take off?? Something that's WP:V???, You need to edit those own wordings of yours. BalanceΩrestored Talk 10:21, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

text: This is a new science to study now. If somehow this plane was lighter than air using Mercury it is indeed something that non still have.. Cheers :) 09:57, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: where is our first reference for the "mercury" claim? the earliest is this "Ancient Astronaut Society" article of 1997 quoted by Knapp. We have no idea what this plane looked like, all we have is ufologist madness. It may be that this is a bona fide aviation pioneer, but we'll need better references. Velakara's book you found at woldcatlibraries seems to be a reasonable source, but probably not easy to lay hands on. Judging from the Times of India article, Velkara's book quotes a student of Talpade's claiming the thing took off. That's hardly independent confirmation. If you tie a chunk of mercury to a hot air balloon, that's still "lighter-than-air", even if you imagine your balloon is "mercury vortex powered". dab (𒁳) 10:51, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: ok

message: "It is unclear whether Talpade's craft has managed to take off, and if so, whether it qualified as heavier-than-air."
:This is a new science to study now. If somehow this plane was lighter than air using Mercury it is indeed something that non still have.. Cheers :) 09:57, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: where is our first reference for the "mercury" claim? the earliest is this "Ancient Astronaut Society" article of 1997 quoted by Knapp. We have no idea what this plane looked like, all we have is ufologist madness. It may be that this is a bona fide aviation pioneer, but we'll need better references. Velakara's book you found at woldcatlibraries seems to be a reasonable source, but probably not easy to lay hands on. Judging from the Times of India article, Velkara's book quotes a student of Talpade's claiming the thing took off. That's hardly independent confirmation. If you tie a chunk of mercury to a hot air balloon, that's still "lighter-than-air", even if you imagine your balloon is "mercury vortex powered". dab (𒁳) 10:51, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Lighter-Than-Air

message: apparently the source for the demonstration witnessed by the Maharaja is a Kesari article. The Deccan Herald article references it, but doesn't identify the edition. It also states that the Kesari article doesn't identify the date. Needless to say, Kesari is no credible source, and paints the whole thing with a crackpot national mysticist tinge from the very beginning. If we want to evaluate if such a demonstration has ever taken place, we'll need to
#identify the original Kesari article
#look for other contemporary accounts: if this demonstration had really been successful and attended by the Maharaja, there would have been non-crackpot newspaper accounts
As long as we don't have such evidence, we'll have to consider the flight demonstration an urban legend. The ToI article seems to confirm that there is actually a surviving model of the aircraft, but as long as we don't have a description of the model, we cannot judge what kind of flight it would have been capable of, if any. The ToI innocently and cluelessly parrots the "solar energy combined with mercury" crackpottery, so we can be sure the journalist had not seen the craft or talked to anybody who knew anything about aviation. Our best bet will be the "recent exhibition on flying at Vile Parle where a model of 'Marutsakha' was exhibited". If that exhibition can be verified, it may be possible to get into contact with somebody involved and ask them for pointers to this model. 
Why is Kesari not a credible source? So anyone talking against the british rule now has a mystical crackpot nationalist tinge???   — Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.184.13.251 (talk) 05:29, 24 September 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I have been in contact with a researcher in India who claims to have seen the original Kesari (newspaper) article in Sanskrit, in the holdings of the HAL Aerospace Museum as part of a traveling exhibit.  He identifies a "Times of India(TOI)-Bombay state edition:english" article but states that he's not yet seen the document nor gotten an exact citation.  I don't know how much of the 19th century archives of The Times of India have been digitized, but I imagine that searching within a few days of the alleged flight date should yield some results.  But he provides a third source that should be much easier to track down: The Times (I hope, when he said "London Times" that he meant The Times of London,) vol. 28 no. 7, issue of 16-Feb-1974, a photograph of which appears at  in the context of a Quora discussion.  How accurate that newspaper report might have been, almost eighty years after the fact, I couldn't say, but it's certainly worth reading. --Eliyahu S Talk 00:03, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Source for the 1895 demonstration

message: Hi guys
I know this discussion is old for you but whoever wrote this article first, can you tell us about the first reference you've made to
"Asia:Asian Quarterly of Culture And Synthesis, American Asiatic Association, Published 1942, Page 40"
Where did you find this and can you lead us to a copy. It would be invaluable.
A friend and I have been working on this. We're in Bombay. For the record:-
We've read Pratap velkar's book
We've met D.H. bedekar
The craft, if it flew, was lighter than air since it employed hydrogen to fill the bag
An exact diagram or model of the craft is unavailable
And the important scientific question is related to mercury as a fuel rather than the phenomenon of flight
Most newspaper articles on the subject endlessly repeat teh same mistakes as each other and have used each other as sources. None of those journalists have done any legwork on this.
If you lead us to that article i've mentioned upstairs it might help us go forward
thanks
cheers
Karan A Makhija (talk) 17:23, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  More 

message: Hundred years after Orville Wright’s first flight, K R N SWAMY remembers Shivkur Bapuji Talpade, the Indian who flew an unmanned aircraft, eight years before Wright
http://archive.deccanherald.com/Deccanherald/dec16/snt2.asp
It mentions "scholarly audience headed by the famous Indian judge/ nationalist/ Mahadeva Govin-da Ranade and H H Sayaji Rao Gaekwad Talpade had the good fortune to see his un manned aircraft named as ‘Marutsakthi’ take off, fly to a height of 1500 feet and then fall down to earth." Ganesh J. Acharya (talk) 17:49, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Unmanned aircrafts existed decades before Talpade was even born. 137.97.80.132 (talk) 07:24, 25 September 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: Deccan Herald Source

message: I've protected the article and reverted to what seems to be the pre-edit war version. Please discuss your differences on the talk page, get consensus, and then add material to the article. --regentspark (comment) 15:00, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Protected 

message: Take this article  and you would suppose there is a strong tendency in India to deny science and adopt religious "inventors" or "engineers" who have often left only very sparse traces, if any at all.
Is there at least a proof that the person existed? --Ghettobuoy (talk) 08:19, 7 January 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: You have read this source yourself  and you can see the source itself treats this subject as a mere Hindutva revisionist claim. Can you show evidence from any source during his own lifetime to prove this subject as something more than a revisionist claim? Abhishek0831996 (talk) 04:42, 21 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Sure, I've read the source; what does that have to do with anything? I reverted you because you don't have consensus for a reframing, and you did the reframing very poorly. If we're reframing this, it needs to be written as an article about the pseudohistorical narrative, not as a biography with "in the revisionist claims" prefixed. And you need consensus first. Vanamonde (Talk) 06:32, 21 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: In that case you could have done rewording. What do you suggest? Abhishek0831996 (talk) 15:03, 21 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: No, because the change doesn't have consensus, because I don't support it precisely because of the difficulty of framing it meaningfully, and because it's not my responsibility to fix someone else's edits. Let me ask this. If we were to reframe it, is there current content you want to remove, and is there new content you want to add? If so, let's discuss that content first. If not, why do you care about reframing anyway? The present text is very clear in saying that the story has no historical basis. No source explicitly supports the version you wrote. Vanamonde (Talk) 16:54, 21 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Oldest source for the existence of this person is fringe Vaimānika Shāstra which was itself published in 1952. By using photo, biographical categories and giving this article a biographical look, we are not being honest to the fact that this whole subject is a Hindutva fake history. Editorkamran (talk) 07:37, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: You brought that argument to AfD and DRV, and it did not find consensus. Can you please answer the questions relevant to framing this? Okay, you don't want biographical categories, but that's a triviality; and unless you can show the image isn't genuine, it would belong in a reframed article too. Vanamonde (Talk) 14:21, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: The undated image comes from "aryamantavya.in", an outright Hindutva garbage blog. It has no authenticity. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 02:41, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I've had my doubts about the image too. It should probably be removed, regardless of what else needs revising. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:48, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Alright, no objections to removing the image. The article probably requires a hidden note asking editors not to replace it.  do you have any opinions about the reframing question? Vanamonde (Talk) 03:37, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: It is hard to comment on an abstract proposal, and while I can certainly see the argument that this article is more about the unverified claims concerning Talpade's 'flight' than the man himself, it isn't really clear how the article structure should be changed to reflect this. The version here  was rightly reverted in my opinion, as it isn't really supported by the sources cited. Questionable claims about pre-Wright-brothers flights have been made in all sorts of contexts, in many different countries, and not all of them have been directly motivated by specific political ideologies. Hindutva exploits the Talpade claims, certainly, but I don't think we should be suggesting that the claims are directly a product of it. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:40, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

text: Source was correctly represented. The cited  source talks about this "claim" is part of "yet another reversion to the Raj mentality". This whole claim is just a politically motivated claim by Hindutva activists so why it shouldn't be treated as such? Abhishek0831996 (talk) 06:04, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Because you can't find a reliable source stating that I presume. Doug Weller talk 12:43, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text:  This source attributes it to Hindu nationalists. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 15:52, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Please read that source more carefully; it does not say what you think it does. It attributes several fringe beliefs around that narrative to Hindu nationalists, but not Talpade's existence, nor the origin of the narrative. Vanamonde (Talk) 16:29, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: @Vanamonde93 Looks like a source we could use elsewhere, but  not here. Doug Weller talk 16:49, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text:  indeed: I've long wanted to write an article about Hindutva historiography, and this could be useful; and indeed a sentence or two about the claims made in the present day wouldn't be out of place, but I don't think we can use this source to frame the article, it's too sparse on the details. Vanamonde (Talk) 16:51, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes. Good for something else, not this article. Doug Weller talk 19:25, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

text: There isn't a source attributing the narrative directly and solely to Hindutva activists. Vanamonde (Talk) 23:47, 25 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Replace "Hindutva activists claim" to "It is claimed"? Abhishek0831996 (talk) 02:34, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: No, because we shouldn't be using the passive voice in that way; it's vague to the point of meaninglessness (who made the claim?). I've made an attempt to add more critical material to the lead. Vanamonde (Talk) 16:01, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: First lets discuss your new edits.  is giving weight to a false claim despite it was already debunked on the lead. "adherents of the nationalist right-wing" should be "adherents of the Hindu nationalist right-wing". Abhishek0831996 (talk) 12:16, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Source for that specific change? Doug Weller talk 13:48, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: This one. It is already cited on the lead. "Among the believers of the Hindu right, this absence of evidence is attributed to British control over the media, which seemingly edited Talpade’s invention out of history. But reports of the flight that do exist began proliferating just over a century later, in the 2000s". Abhishek0831996 (talk) 15:29, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm okay changing this to "Hindu nationalist right-wing". Your claims that a sentence that describes how a narrative is false is somehow giving weight to that narrative are completely baffling though. The text is doing the opposite. Vanamonde (Talk) 15:39, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: When we already have "Contemporary accounts of a successful flight do not exist, and no reliable historical records document its existence" then why do we need "These included the pseudo-scientific claim that Talpade had "invented the modern aircraft"? Abhishek0831996 (talk) 16:54, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Are there ANY hints that this story is not completely made up? 

message: Given the discussion above, I propose this:
*Removal of image (already agreed).
*Removal of all biographical categories (already agreed).
*Removal of Shivkar Bapuji Talpade#Biography section since it depends on an unreliable book Pathare Prabhuncha Itihaas published in 1997.
*New lead.
The new lead should be:-
Shivkar Bāpuji Talpade is said to be an Indian instructor with an interest in Sanskrit and aviation. Hindutva activists claim he had constructed and flown an unmanned, heavier-than-air aircraft in 1895. Contemporary accounts of such successful flight do not exist, and no reliable historical records document its existence.
Views? Editorkamran (talk) 16:06, 25 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: There isn't a source attributing the narrative directly and solely to Hindutva activists. Vanamonde (Talk) 23:47, 25 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Replace "Hindutva activists claim" to "It is claimed"? Abhishek0831996 (talk) 02:34, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: No, because we shouldn't be using the passive voice in that way; it's vague to the point of meaninglessness (who made the claim?). I've made an attempt to add more critical material to the lead. Vanamonde (Talk) 16:01, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: First lets discuss your new edits.  is giving weight to a false claim despite it was already debunked on the lead. "adherents of the nationalist right-wing" should be "adherents of the Hindu nationalist right-wing". Abhishek0831996 (talk) 12:16, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Source for that specific change? Doug Weller talk 13:48, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: This one. It is already cited on the lead. "Among the believers of the Hindu right, this absence of evidence is attributed to British control over the media, which seemingly edited Talpade’s invention out of history. But reports of the flight that do exist began proliferating just over a century later, in the 2000s". Abhishek0831996 (talk) 15:29, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm okay changing this to "Hindu nationalist right-wing". Your claims that a sentence that describes how a narrative is false is somehow giving weight to that narrative are completely baffling though. The text is doing the opposite. Vanamonde (Talk) 15:39, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: When we already have "Contemporary accounts of a successful flight do not exist, and no reliable historical records document its existence" then why do we need "These included the pseudo-scientific claim that Talpade had "invented the modern aircraft"? Abhishek0831996 (talk) 16:54, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposal

message: I plan to make this edit: "P.V. Vartak writes in his book Vaastav Ramayana that Talpade managed to successfully build an aircraft that flew based on actual design from Raja Bhoja's Samarangana Sutradhara. He states that the Wright brothers purchased the aircraft design from Talpade and that Talpade was the first person to lay claim to a successful flight several years before the Wright brothers." Here are links to publishing houses that have published Vartak's books and also scientific journals where he is referenced such as Journal of Oriental Institute and Indian Journal of History of Science. Reason for giving these links is to show Vartak is RS.
https://www.google.com/search?tbs=bks:1&q=%22Padmakar+Vishnu+Vartak%22+-wikipedia
http://www.bookwellpublications.com
http://www.bkpbooks.com
https://www.bookganga.com/eBooks/Books/Index?PID=5063737727570943757
Kindly discuss here if anyone has any objection to this edit, otherwise I will go ahead and make the change. ga11 (talk) 21:43, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Still not a reliable source. A brief mention doesn't  make him reliable, especially when you can't see the context. Eg, a possible context is "Among those fringe writers are....". You are showing us self-published books by other authors, a book called "Tellings and Texts: Music, Literature and Performance in North India" which mentions reading a paper about embryology by him, etc. And there is of course no evidence that the Wrights bought some sort of lighter than air design from anyone. You might also read WP:UNDUE. Doug Weller talk 10:04, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

text: The onus is on you to establish consensus for the changes you want, and to demonstrate that the sources you are using are reliable and intellectually independent of their subject. Vanamonde (Talk) 17:39, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit re: Talpade's flight and Wright brothers 

message: Contemporary records for first flight of his aircraft were published in Bombay Gazette and A later article published in Times. 
Reference: http://nebula.wsimg.com/26927e907225de45e7a64703748b16ff?AccessKeyId=FF4BA3566F5CC083D176&disposition=0&alloworigin=1 Vedicgyan (talk) 02:44, 24 November 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: It is not clear what change you wish to see in the article. Please clearly indicate the change (e.g., change "X" to "Y"). --RegentsPark (comment) 03:35, 24 November 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semi-protected edit request on 24 November 2021 

message: Odd how nobody writing about this seems to mention the obvious discrepancy that Mr. Talpade's research was supposed to have been inspired by a book that was supposed to have been written nine years after the attempted flight.  It seems like, either the mentions of Vimanika Shastra are a mistake (either made up out of whole cloth, or maybe they meant Samarangana Sutradhara which apparently has a mention of mercury-filled chambers that sounds much more like the descriptions of Talpade's aircraft), or the Vimanika Shastra is older than it's generally thought to be, if only by a few years.  Wombat140 (talk) 23:18, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Apparently, some of the references say that he got information from the author of Vimanika Shastra (presumably before he published the book), not from Vimanika Shastra itself, so, since they contradict each other, I've taken the liberty of using the version that makes mathematical sense - also replaced the reference to Doniger misquoting Mukunda et al. (saying that Vimanika Shastra said Talpade's aircraft didn't fly) with one directly to Mukunda et al. (saying that Shastry's autobiography said it).  By the way, this article seems to be in a bit of a mess at present - the amputation of the biographical notes (why was that?  It leaves the article sort of lopsided) has left it with some mentions of 'Velkar' without saying who Velkar is.  Wombat140 (talk) 01:15, 19 December 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I had noticed the discrepancy, but to my knowledge nobody discusses it explicitly, and as such we cannot either. I am okay with relying on Mukunda here, however. The biographical material was trimmed as the result of a very rough consensus here, following extended discussion at AfD/DRV. The references to Velkar could probably be handled via copyediting. The article should probably be renamed and reframed. If and when I find the time, I intend to do so. Vanamonde (Talk) 08:29, 20 December 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks.  Good job looking after this article.  (Your username seems appropriate for looking after a mad science article!  :-D )  It seems like, it's annoying because the real story (or what there seems to be a reasonable amount of evidence is the real story) is actually more or less ascertainable and quite interesting and quite a few people do seem to be interested in it and looking for information about it, but it can't be discussed because there aren't any sources for it of the kind Wikipedia uses - I've had much the same problem with Royal Rife. Wombat140 (talk) 01:55, 24 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vimanika Shastra supposedly wasn't around then 

message: People have often been putting claims into this article without any references, which other people have quickly removed because they haven't got any references.
This is a misunderstanding of how Wikipedia works.  Wikipedia is second-hand information compiled from other published sources.  You can't just add your own opinion.  If you want to put something in the article, you have to give a reference to a 'reliable' published source (e.g. book, scientific journal article, reputable newspaper or news website) that says so.  The 'Wikipedia:Reliable sources' page has more information about what Wikipedia counts as a 'reliable source'.  
You can use the 'Cite' button at the right-hand side at the top of the edit box to add references and have it automatically format them and add them to the references list.
This rule is awkward sometimes.  It seems like, this page is an example of that, because there isn't much information about Talpade and his aircraft in any sources of the kind that Wikipedia uses.  It seems like, the rule is necessary, though, because, since anyone can edit Wikipedia, if sources didn't have to be given for information then anyone could just put in any old thing and Wikipedia would be full of things that people had just made up for a joke. Wombat140 (talk) 03:56, 3 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unreferenced statements