Talk:Bangladesh Liberation War/Archive 1

message: The article seems to consistently omit "the" and descriptive terms. "Pakistan army did this and that" seems to not sound right. Shouldn't it be "the Pakistani Army did this and that?" I've caught a few examples of this and corrected it, but it's a bit late and I'm sure some have escaped me. --Impaciente 09:42, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: "The __"

message: There are various quotes of casualties of the war. However, all quotes made after the war, including those from Newsweek and National Geographic, quote figures above 2 million. So, that number has been put in the page. Please avoid quoting other numbers. Throughout this article an effort should be made to be in line with facts and figures provided by Bangladesh Government since that seems to be the only way to avoid controversy. 
*Newsweek  	3/27/72  	1.5
*National Geographic 	Sept. 1972 	3.0
Urnonav
:The figure of 26,000 may be true for the number of deaths for the night of March 25, 1971 in Dhaka alone, but for the rest of the war, the figure is more than 1 million. The anon user seems to be adding several links from Sharmila Bose's controvertial paper, which has been refuted by the Govt of Bangladesh (despite the anon's claims of acceptance published in pakistani news papers). Accounts from Anthony Mascarenhaas ("The Rape of Bangladesh") clearly show the high number of casualties. So, the attempt to claim the amazingly low figure of 26,000 is regrettable, and not backed by any other sources. Thanks. --Ragib 23:34, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Casualty number 

message: Someone edited the part on declaration of independence. The information entered had no reference; the date was changed. SM Rahman could not have made a declaration on 26 March since he was arrested on 25 March. The new material has POV I think. No useful information was added but instead some dates were changed. The initial dates were from quoted sources; so one cannot freely change these dates without quoting new sources. Hence a revert seemed necessary.
-- Urnonav 07:47, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The claim is *NOT* supported by Bangladesh Government, from what I see in Bangladeshi news papers. So far as I can see, all the official versions relate to the 3 million number. See "Muktijuddher Dolilpotro" (Collection of documents of the Liberation War) published by the Government of Bangladesh. Besides, several other independent sources support greater than 1 million deaths. Thanks. --Ragib 05:59, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Date of declaration of independence 

message: Important: A number of books for further reading that I wrote were immediately deleted by someone, probably a Bangladeshi. This includes some of the best books on the subject, those by Sisson & Rose and Hasan Zaheer. The only reason for this is that someone does not want people to read more balanced accounts of this crisis.
Moreover, a number of external links that I wrote were also immediately deleted. These include excerpts by the current Bangladeshi ambassador to the United States, Shamsher M. Chowdhury, who admitted on record at the U.S. State Department South Asia conference on June 28-29, 2005 that the 3 million figure was "grossly exaggerated." He said the discrepancy was due to a mistake in translation from Bengali to English and the original figue put forth by Bangladeshis was 300,000. 
It is important that Bangladeshi readers (and others) read this. This is NOT a small issue. It is a decrease of 900% from the Bangladeshi figures, and it seriously brings into question the validity of the Bangladeshi allegations. I would suggest people look at the transcript of the June 28-29, 2005 South Asia conference as well.
Do NOT delete the external links and the further reading portion that challenges the validity of the Bangladeshi alegations. The whole point of this is for people to look at both points of views, and make their own judgement.
If these are deleted again, I will raise this issue with Wikipedia; make no mistake about that. Do not underestimate my resolve. 
Regards,
Taimur Khan 
August 9, 2005
The book reference should obviously stay, but not the POV statement "This is perhaps..." etc. I am removing that.
--ppm 00:37, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The only diff I see from the page history is this, and I don't see any removal of the book references. Taimur, what exactly are you talking about? I don't see any "removal of links/books" here. The only thing removed was "(Note: This is perhaps the most comprehensive book on the East Pakistan crisis)", and the removal is certainly justified, as per User:Shmitra above. Thanks. --Ragib 05:26, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Important Notice

message: Whoever added his statement about the casualty, can u give a reliable reference on this? thanks --ppm 16:50, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I second that. Also, the re-written number-of-people-dead section looks balanced enough to me. Thanks for the rewrite. --Ragib 21:11, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

text: Now we need a section for atrocities against women and minorities. Will get to it in a while, but if someone can start it that woudl be great. --ppm 20:42, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Shamsher M. Chowdhury 

message: Anon  had put the following notice on top of the External Links section
:(WARNING, DO NOT DELETE THE PAKISTANI LINKS, INCLUDING FROM DAWN AND DAILY TIMES. ACTION WILL BE TAKEN AGAINST THE USERS DELETING THE PAKISTANI LINKS)
First of all, in no way, you can put such a "warning" in a wikipedia article. Wikipedia works on consensus, not threats. You can't also put such notices to highlight your point. If you have any grievances, the talk page is yours to comment in. Secondly, I initially thought that you used actual article titles for naming those links, but upon following the links, I found you have used your personal comments for naming the links. I have renamed the links using the actual article titles along with the author's name and sources. Thirdly, you have added several links to the Hamoodur Rahman Commission report, all of which come from the Google cache. Well, there IS already a link to the chapterized version of the report, and I don't think google cache stays forever. So I have removed the redundant links to individual chapters in the google cache. Thanks a lot. --Ragib 01:26, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Threats of action from anon user 

message: Does anyone have a reference of the number of Hindus in East Pakistan when Pakistan was created? I kinda remember it was more like 30% but cannot remeber/find any references so want to crosscheck before making any changes. This number is sort of important because a interesting discourse in Pakistan used to be that the numeric majority claimed by Bengalis is not true because it includes Hindus, and also the number should be higher since a very high number of Hindu refugees in 1971 never came back and the number is currently close to 15%.
--ppm 02:38, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Persentage of Hindu's 

message: In the external links section, there are two links to the exact same Daily Times report. The addition of that report is very important, but clearly two links is unnecessary? I'll remove that in a day or two if no good reason to keep both is put forward.
--ppm 20:07, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it was just a mistake. I removed the less descriptive link. Thanks for pointing this out. --Ragib 20:13, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Double links 

message: I have this nagging doubt whether the Place of conflict in the infobox on war should be limited just to east pakistan or include the indian subcontinent. The reasoning behind the latter's inclusion is this: the war took place in east and west pakistan, in kashmir and on the seas. so the theatre of conflict is large and not limited to bangladesh alone. I'm assuming that Bangladesh Liberation War is like the larger scope that covers even the india pakistan war. in this case then indian subcontinent would be the right use IMHO. Idleguy 05:44, August 16, 2005 (UTC)
: Actually it does not. The war on Western Front of India is under Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 which has its own article. This article is strictly about the war on Bangladeshi territory between 26 March 1971 and 16 December 1971 inclusive. However, you are right in that it includes all the different forces and terrains: air, water, land, paramilitary, etc.
Urnonav 17:16, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Theatre of conflict 

message: The more I read, this article is revealing mentions of things that don't look true. In the "violence of 25th march" section, someone has written that Sarmila Bose has opposed the number (600-700) of the students being killed. I haven't found any such reference in her paper. Please point out where, in which section she had made such a claim. The claim that is there, is that the students were armed, contrary to the popular Bangladeshi discourse.--ppm 22:31, 18 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  25 th march 

message: is this the official name of the conflict, or just the one used by the Bengalis? of course considering they won this might be the accepted term, but i dunno. enlightenmeplz J. Parker Stone 04:45, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe most of the books I found (some cited at the end of the article) do use that name. Of course, in Pakistan, the term "civil war" is used (and there is a redirect from "Pakistan Civil War" to here). Another term, "Indo-Pakistan War of 1971" is used to mark a subset of the whole conflict (the part of the war where India and Pakistan officially fought; with its own wikipedia article). And finally, you are right, the victors of the wars usually get to name it, the British would probably name the conflict in American colonies as "Colonial revolt" or something, but it became known as "American war of independence". Similar precedent exist almost in every independence war. Thanks. --Ragib 05:11, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: yeah the only other term i knew of was the Third Indo-Pakistani War but that implies direct fighting between India and Pakistan which wasn't the whole scope of the conflict. anyway thanks. J. Parker Stone 05:37, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Official name

message: It seems awkward that the 3 million number is labelled "Bangladeshi estimate". It seems to allude that it's an otherwise wrong figure only pushed forward by Bangladeshis. If you check on the different sources and figures quoted, most sources that did their survey soon after the war reached numbers between 1.5-3 million. 3 million is NOT a Bangladeshi estimate. Bangladesh government at that time used the estimate made by the National Geographic! Estimates of below 1 million mostly "surprisingly" seem to come from sources based in Pakistan that never even went to Bangladesh for surveys or if they did, they did so so long after 1971 that any evidence must have been difficult to get.
I propose editing the casualties section in the infobox to only 1.5-3.0 million and adding a section mentioning which sources quote what and when and how each source gathered its information, thus clearing our conscience of possible POV!
Urnonav 17:28, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Casualty figure 

message: The % is misleading. If 1129 was spent on West and 524 on the East, the percentage spent on East = 524/(524+1129) = 31.7. To be correct, 'percentage spent on east' should be rephrased into 'percentage of west that was spent on the east' or something to that effect; or the third column should be changed Tintin 18:28, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Economic Exploitation

message: I think a better and less POV title for this article is Bangladesh War this is also the most common name on Google:
* about 32,800 English pages for "Bangladesh War" -wikipedia
* about 11,500 English pages for "Bangladesh Liberation War" -wikipedia
* about 14,200 English pages for "Bangladesh War" 1971 -wikipedia
* about 982 English pages for "Bangladesh Liberation War" 1971 -wikipedia
To break those figures down a little, "Bangladesh War of" returns:
* about 9,090 English pages for "Bangladesh War of independence" -wikipedia
* about 370 English pages for "Bangladesh War of Liberation" -wikipedia
* about 211 English pages for "Bangladesh War of 1971" -wikipedia
If a disambiguation problem with "Bangladesh War" the the name "Bangladesh War of Independence" carries less POV --Philip Baird Shearer 12:02, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: See my comments on Talk:American Revolutionary War#American_Revolutionary War vs. American War of Independence --Philip Baird Shearer 11:04, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: What is it adding to this topic? You seem to be suggesting to call it "American war of independence", which seems equally POV. Also, I googled "bangladesh war" and it returned numerous links that actually use the words "independenc" or "liberation" in them. Google is a very good engine.--ppm 01:20, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Your raised ARW as an example. Why do you think that "American War of Independence" an equally POV title and what is it equal to? --Philip Baird Shearer 09:59, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Officially the govts. of Bangladesh and India call it "Bangladesh Liberation War" or "Liberation War of Bangladesh". So I don't see any issue. Idleguy 05:02, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

text: The US Library of Congress talks in detail about this war under "liberation war" which was one of the sources used. The Russians obviously call it something like that as an ally of India then. Though officially Pak calls it as civil war - a nomenclature justification included in the article - it is NOT the way how the majority remember this war. The word "liberation war" is used in many media and historical accounts from Pakistan as well as since then. The UN refers to this as liberation war so I don't see any POV issue for an official name. Idleguy 05:05, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Bangladesh War