Talk:N. S. Rajaram

Untitled

This article appears biased and unverified simply on its own language: unsupported statements and assertions. In fact there is a storm of controversy, over N.S. Rajaram and his unorthodox views on South Asia's history. Not even indicating that controversy immediately places the article in the Wikipedia-dangerous arenas of "NPOV" and "citation needed" and "disputed" and so on.

So I suggest a rewrite: add in ample quotation and citation of Witzel & Farmer, and of Romila Thapar, and of the many others who have commented -- favorably and unfavorably -- on Rajaram's theories, and supply links to the many online sites which discuss all of this, now.

Otherwise, this article is simply misleading. There is no reason why Wikipedia should suggest a position on a controversy -- in fact it should not -- but when a controversy is as "hot" as this one is, and as many experts in the field appear to disagree about it, simply omitting the controversy or glossing over its existence damages the credibility of any article which does so, and leads dangerously toward the forbidden area of "POV".

So, please do a re-write. "Balance" the pro-Rajaram with some anti-. Give readers a chance to make up their own minds, or at least to ask themselves better-informed questions about the issues Rajaram and the others raise.

--Kessler 16:45, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I am going to do my own "edit" to try to get rid of what I consider to be the "worst offenders" in terms of emotive language. Rajaram's views deserve to be heard, I think -- controversial or even disreputable though they may be -- but presenting them in emotive language simply alienates readers. If you want people to read this, you have to respect their intelligence. So, happy to discuss any particular change or note, here... The general topic which appears to interest Rajaram also interests me, although I am not sure that I agree with him about it. Agreement not being the point here, though, here goes... others please help too...

--Kessler 17:17, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

there isn't even much of a controversy. Rajaram is an amateur author with an ideology. Does he have any sort of notability in his own field, or is he just interesting for his indigenous Aryans hogwash? dab (𒁳) 11:09, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

to the anon reverter

please log in, and present your criticism on talk. You are free to request citations or representation of other views, but you cannot revert this to the fan page it used to be. Feel free to especially make a case of Rajaram being at all notable in his own field; his amateur contributions being of questionable notability. dab (𒁳) 14:09, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Well my problem with your edits is that you converted the article into an attack page on Rajaram. I make no comments on his scholarship. Whether it is legitimate or fringe is not the issue. The issue is that your edits were not backed by a single source,bordered on defamation of character, and had a clear agenda behind them. The fact that you seem to be an established editor rather than a newbie only goes to established that these particular edits were part of an intellectually dishonest campaign and were meant to bolster your views on this and related issues rather than present verifiable and neutral content. Bottom line is that, irrespective of whether Rajaram is a propagandist or not, you certainly seem to be. 70.113.122.198 14:19, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

As for your appeal to a "compromise". Well I'm all for it. Th only notable criticism of Rajaram seems to come from this Witzel chap and his rotary club. Witzel himself a controversial figure who stands accused of fomenting racism against Indians , encouraging acts of terrorism against them, and conducting historical revisionism[1]. The allegations may be true, they may be propaganda in on themselves. I don't know and don't judge.OF course, it is fair to write that he and his cronies are prominent critics of Rajaram's views, with the sourced and appropriately paraphrased response from Rajaram included as a rebuttal that presently is linked in the "External Links" section. 70.113.122.198 14:28, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

much to the contrary; my edits corrected the misrepresentation of Rajaram's works as scholarly, as was pointed out by Kessler above. I have no intention to "assassinate" anyone's character, and Rajaram may have the nicest of characters for all I know. We get frequent attempts on Wikipedia to represent Hindutva propaganda as scholarship, and a certain amount of vigilantism is required in this area. As for the assessment of Rajaram's works, well, their gist is hardly to be disputed. He is a textbook example of the ideological tendencies outlined in Sokal's article, and Sokal even quotes Rajaram directly. [Not really, see below.]

Rajaram responds: A correction here; Rajaram has denied Sokal's charge that he ever claimed Vivekananda had anticipated the findings of quantum physics. That quote by Sokal was from an article by Rajaram-hater Meera Nanda which attributed to him in a newspaper article. It was promptly rebutted by Rajaram himself and his rebuttal carried by the same newspaper (The Hindu). The same holds for Witzel's charges-- he quotes his charge itself as evidence without mentioning the published rebuttal. And charge of 'Hindutva' is used to avoid debate and discussion. The fact that science has discredited Witzel's Aryan migration theory as well as his no horse hypothesis is never mentioned. So what we have here by both Sokal and Witzel are charges that are later held up as evidence.

If you are going to ask for actual reviews of Rajaram's books, so will I: as amateur publications, they are entirely unnotable until some sort of academic review can be presented. If you can produce a positive academic review of one of Rajaram's works, I will fully support it is referenced in full. If you cannot, I suggest we merge this article into a treatment of Hindutva ideology in general, since per WP:BLP it is questionable to have an article on a living person that does not clearly qualify as a public figure. dab (𒁳) 15:24, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

This collection of articles (source) pretty much sums up the most controversial incident ("Horseplay in Harappa"). Not that it's ever going to find mention here, the troll brigade would never stand for it, except perhaps just the garden variety listing of the book as yet another "decipherment", yawn.. rudra 10:26, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

why not? the "Horseplay in Harappa" article is linked as well, so why not this one? dab (𒁳) 12:48, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Okay, fair enough. (Interesting, though, that a traceroute of 70.113.122.198 leads to gigi-0-0-austtxg-10k1.austin.rr.com[24.27.12.157] before timing out...) rudra 15:01, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

indeed. A lot of our trolls are Texas based. Some are sadly even physicists, and cannot be excused by never having been exposed to post-enlightenment rationality. dab (𒁳) 15:12, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

It's quite evident: subject is not notable.

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 18:50, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Recent deletions by IP

Deletions in this diff. Kautilya3 (talk) 18:04, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

User:Kautilya3 IP is correct, see [2], it has not included Rajaram of Indus script, article is already tagged with a cite check tag too, as some of the citations don't support the text. Bladesmulti (talk) 15:35, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

"Navaratna Srinivasa Rajaram" is being cited. How do you know he is not being discussed? Kautilya3 (talk) 18:05, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

[3] has not actually discussed Rajaram or the Indus script. It was included differently until IP changed it. Bladesmulti (talk) 18:16, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

The paper used a quote from Rajaram to lead the section discussing pseudoscience. So, off hand, the article seems to have been right. As for the other quote from Rajaram that got deleted, web search shows it too, though I don't know where it appeared. Kautilya3 (talk) 18:29, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

External links modified (February 2018)

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Is this about Rajaram or reactions to him?

A cursory look shows that the "Criticism" section is much larger than the brief description of his contributions. Is the Wikipedia turning into Witzel's defense force? Most of this article is an undisguised and harsh trashing of unconventional claims by people who have set themselves up as exclusive arbiters of the truth. Instead of playing this game it would be better to remove the article. Sooku (talk) 07:53, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

he was not a notable individual prior to his seal-photoshop shenanigans. That is why this page is written like this. ChandlerMinh (talk) 08:02, 23 August 2023 (UTC)