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This is a collection of discussions on the deletion of articles related to Sikhism. It is one of many deletion lists coordinated by WikiProject Deletion sorting. Anyone can help maintain the list on this page.

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Battle of Haidru (1828)

Battle of Haidru (1828) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View AfD | edits since nomination)

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Delete or redirect to Military campaigns of Hari Singh Nalwa. Out of the 5 sources on this page, only 2 are reliable; Hari Ram Gupta and Rishi Singh. The two other sources: "Journal of the United Service Institution of India" as well as "Selections from the records of the government of Punjab" are WP:RAJ era sources written in the 1800s, so under no circumstances can we use them. The last source is a Google books snapshot with no preview available either on Google books or anywhere else on the Internet. Such snapshots have been deprecated in the reliable sources noticeboard.

The coverage in both Hari Ram Gupta's and Rishi Singh's work, the extent of which are only small, singular paragraphs does not justify an entire Wikipedia article and fails Wikipedia's standards for notability-[1] Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 10:51, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Events, History, Military, Islam, Sikhism, and Pakistan. Skynxnex (talk) 16:47, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of India-related deletion discussions. Skynxnex (talk) 16:47, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Not eligible for Soft Deletion.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 07:20, 27 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 05:22, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep: if an event has 2 reliable independent sources with significant coverage that is enough to presume notability per GNG. I don't see what the issue is here. I'd also note that WP:RAJ is just an essay and that it refers to the use of certain Raj-era sources to source content on the caste system. It does not mean that all such sources are can never be used for anything.

Jtrrs0 (talk) 16:07, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hey @Jtrrs0:, I think there's a misunderstanding, the two reliable sources (Hari Rm Gupta and Rishi Singh) do not have significant coverage, hence my nomination for deletion. Both sources only have one small, vague paragraph that provides no in-depth details about the battle.

Here is what Hari Ram Gupta says of the battle: "Having failed at Peshawar, Sayyid Ahmad planned to seize Attock fort from the Sikhs. Its possession by him would automatically clear Hazara and Peshawar from the Sikhs, and it would open the gateway for the invasion of the Panjab. Khadi Khan of Hund secretly alerted the Sikh commander of the fort, and the plan fell through. Sayyid Ahmad, in anger attacked the village Haidru, and put to the sword all the inhabitants, both Hindus and Muslims. On hearing this news Hari Singh Nalwa suddenly appeared on the scene and massacred nearly three-fourths of Khalifa's Ghazis. Sayyid Ahmad managed to escape to the west of the Indus."

Rishi Singh says: "It appears that even when he seemed successful, Syed Ahmad began losing his control over the tribal leadership. Many tribal chiefs began betraying him. For instance, at the time of taking over the fort of Attock, Khadi Khan of Hund alerted the Sikh commander, Hari Singh Nalwa, who with his 20,000 men attacked Syed Ahmad’s forces and killed three-fourths of the Khalifa’s Ghazis".

As you can see the coverage in both sources fall well short of Wikipedia's SIGCOV requirements.

The rest of the sources were published in the 1800s and are simply far too old to use. WP:RAJ is an essay, but it's essentially a de facto policy and widely accepted norm in South Asian topic areas, even outside of caste topics. You can see through the reliable sources noticeboard that WP:RAJ sources are thoroughly deprecated and disallowed on Wikipedia-[2]. @RegentsPark:, an admin involved in SA topics, could also clarify, or you could take it up with him to confirm. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 21:51, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi thanks for the ping and the reply. I see. Re SIGCOV, I would agree. This doesn't necessarily seem like SIGCOV. Re WP:RAJ, I've had a quick glance at the discussion on the Noticeboard. To me it seems overkill to say that 1800s sources can never be used or must be used as primary sources. I accept that that should be the case re anthropological subjects but for everything? Seems excessive to me. Now, if the consensus is that they are never to be used for anything (would be grateful if RegentsPark could confirm) then I'll happily reconsider my position, but to my eyes that's excessive. Jtrrs0 (talk) 08:19, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Battle of Michni

Battle of Michni (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View AfD | edits since nomination)

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None of the sources comply with WP:HISTRS. Rattan Singh Jaggi is a litterateur active in the Language department of his institution, with no educational background in history, and primarily specializes in the literary analysis of Sikh holy books and writing hagiographies based off them, as well as translating texts into Hindi and Punjabi. https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/chandigarh/gurmat-scholar-dr-jaggi-chosen-for-padma-shri-8405050/ He is also used as the inline citation for the infobox which makes an astounding claim that 100 Sikhs defeated 5000 Afghans. Bobby Singh Bansal is a self proclaimed historian, with no educational training/credentials in history nor any peer reviewed books or journals or scholarly reviews of his work; his work was also self published (Hay House). The Punjabi Kosh is a vernacular source which also seems to be a hagiography. Autar Singh Sandhu is a WP:RAJ era source as it was written in 1935 and Sohan Singh Seetal is a poet and lyricist; both sources were also deprecated by an admin involved in South Asian topics. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 06:34, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Update: Autar Singh Sandhu's book was explicitly deprecated by an admin here in the reliable sources noticeboard-[3]. "As Acroterion and Springee indicated, assessment of a source's reliability should take into account a multitude of factors. For example, the Nalwa book is likely an unacceptable source because of its age (1935), publisher, and lack of academic reviews and peer-reviewed articles written by its author (at least I didn't find any on a quick search). The author holding "only" an MA would be the least of the concerns because during the 1930s the PhD degree was not as well-established as it is now and many recognized experts and academics lacked it." Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 23:40, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Events, History, Military, Sikhism, Afghanistan, and India. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 10:15, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. After relinquishing sources that are either poor or fail WP:V and in non-english language, two sources by historians Autar Singh Sandhu and Bobby Singh Bansal look OK to me where both pass WP:HISTRS. I cannot tell if Bansal is self proclaimed historian from what little quick research I found on him. Raj era is if it's written by Britons or Briton diplomats and administrators or under the guidance and review of Briton administrators. Some of these are like Lepel Griffin, Michael MacAuliffe, Sir John Withers McQueen. I found a source by Autar Singh Sandhu published in 1987 that too has coverage on this event on page 79 of book [4], General Hari Singh Nalwa: Builder of the Sikh Empire. Many other historians like Tahir Kamran, Ian Talbot, have depended on Autar Singh Sandhu's secondary works where they used his book General Hari Singh Nalwa: Builder of the Sikh Empire (New Delhi: Uppal Publishing House, 1987). Bobby Singh Bansal has too been depended upon by same historians and more like Himadri Banerjee and William Dalrymple, including academic professors of social sciences and Humanities, Anjali Roy and journalists like Anita Anand. RangersRus (talk) 14:14, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Expected as much from you. Bobby Singh Bansal by no means passes WP:HISTRS, he has zero educational background or training in history, nor does he have any peer reviewed books or journals to his name. His books were all self published. In fact, his current profession is a city councillor. This article makes it abundantly clear that the term "historian" was a self conferred title based on interests as opposed to any educational background.

  Autar Singh Sandhu did not publish any book in 1987, the Google Books link your provided is not Autar Singh Sandhu's original work, but rather a reprint by a different publisher. Google Book links are also known to be notoriously unreliable with publication dates. And it seems exceedingly unlikely that someone who wrote a book in 1935-[5], would then write another book on the same subject, 54 years later. There is hardly any information available about Autar Singh Sandhu, apart from the fact that he wrote one book in 1935 about Hari Singh Nalwa; thoroughly unreliable. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 21:21, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Historians like Tahir Kamran, Ian Talbot, have depended on Autar Singh Sandhu's secondary works where they used his book General Hari Singh Nalwa: Builder of the Sikh Empire (New Delhi: Uppal Publishing House, 1987). Bobby Singh Bansal has too been depended upon by same historians and more like Himadri Banerjee and William Dalrymple, including academic professors of social sciences and Humanities, Anjali Roy and journalists like Anita Anand. RangersRus (talk) 12:34, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Anjali Roy commented on Bansal's documentary, which was not related to historical claims, but rather on the Sikhs in Afghanistan who recently immigrated to the UK. Himadri Banarjee cited a newspaper column written by Bansal, not his books-[6]. You must also be aware that even if a source is used as reference in a reliable secondary source, it does not automatically make that source reliable by association, it must be judged on its own merits; Khafi Khan is cited hundreds of times in various books, but he cannot be used as a source on Wikipedia for example. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 12:54, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  don't know who Khafi Khan is but if not a secondary source or from 20th century and beyond then inarguably Khafi Khan would be unreliable but not the ones in discussion here. RangersRus (talk) 13:16, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  You need to read WP:HISTRS carefully. "Historical scholarship is generally not: Popular works that were not reviewed, especially works by journalists, or memoirs" as well the section "What is "recent" scholarship in history?". In the case of Autar Singh Sandhu, an admin has already determined that 1935 is far too old coupled with the lack of academic reviews and scholarly works by the author. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 13:38, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Jadunath Sarkar sources are used that are as old and its because historians today depend on his secondary work and it is same case with Sandhu. RangersRus (talk) 13:56, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  A few cites in later books is nowhere near a mitigating factor since scholarly books cite a large corpus of all sorts of work nor does it prove that historians relied on him in any substantive manner. If that was the case, entering Autar Singh Sandhu's name on the Internet would return far more in depth details and reviews of his work as is the case for Jadunath Sarkar who has an entire Britannica article dedicated to him, as opposed to one Internet archive link to a book. If you insist he is reliable; please provide at the very least one actual scholarly review of his work or at least one other book he authored outside of Hari Singh Nalwa.Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 14:30, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Sandhu is in bibliography and notes of other historians. Maybe not wide known like Jadunath Sarkar but in wikipedia you can use scholarly works where possible and if scholarly works are unavailable, the highest quality commercial or popular works can be used. I have my vote and let's give others space to weigh in with votes too. RangersRus (talk) 14:46, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Mentions in bibliographies is not included as a factor in WP:HISTRS, things like the educational background of the author, whether the work was published by an academic/scholarly institution, and scholarly reviews of the book (regardless of whether the source is an academic or popular work) are. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 04:01, 21 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 07:41, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, The Herald (Benison) (talk) 21:58, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]