Talk:Bangladesh Liberation War

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Bangladesh Liberation War has had a peer review by Wikipedia editors which is now archived. It may contain ideas you can use to improve this article.

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Archives

Archive 1 (Jan. 2005 — Jan. 2006) Archive 2 (Jan. 2006 — Mar. 2007)

Contents 1 The Four Phases 2 Error? 3 Requested move 3.1 Survey 3.2 Discussion 4 Collaboration 15 July 07 - 15 September 07 4.1 War Sectors Added 4.2 Elaboration of the Battles 4.3 Suggestion 5 so-called liberation 6 Review by --Toddy1 19:11, 17 September 2007 (UTC) 7 References 8 Violence of 25 March 9 New Map 10 Full restructure 11 POV in Civil War: 27 March to 2nd December 1971? 12 One Unit Scheme still not explained

[edit] The Four Phases

I haven't read the whole article, but I have to say, I feel there may be just a tad bit of bias here...

"The Pakistani Army was in a dreadful condition and gradually lost the will to fight because most of their major fortresses had fallen to the allied Bengali-Indian forces. It was a matter of shame for the Pakistani High Command that a well-trained army was losing the war to the common Bengali civilians, who were barely trained and had outdated weapons. To conceal this shameful matter they launched an air attack near the Indian border on December 3 so that the real facts would remain unknown to the common people and people would say that Pakistani Army did not lose to the Mukti Bahini but to more powerful Indian armies. This led India to announce war against Pakistan officially and they started attacking near the Pakistan-India border from the 6th of December. All-out war between Bangladesh-India and Pakistan began. The agility and strategy of the Mukti Bahini, aided by Indian forces, overwhelmed the Pakistani forces and within 10 days of India's joiníng the war, the Pakistani Army was compelled to an unconditional surrender on December 16, 1971."

The phrasing is pretty slanted. The "shameful act?" "So that the real facts would remain unknown to the common people." This needs to be cleaned up. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tyrannischgott (talk • contribs) 01:25, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. How about this?

The Pakistani Army was in a dreadful condition and gradually lost the will to fight because most of their major fortresses had fallen to the allied Bengali-Indian forces.^{[citation needed]} It launched an air attack near the Indian border on December 3. This led India to announce war against Pakistan officially and they started attacking near the Pakistan-India border from the 6th of December. All-out war between Bangladesh-India and Pakistan began. The Pakistani Army was soon defeated at many fronts and was compelled to an unconditional surrender to Mitra Bahini on December 16, 1971.

--Ragib 01:52, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Error?

The article says that all of West Pakistan was one provence, but earlier makes references to four provences of West Pakistan. "West Pakistan (consisting of four provinces: Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and North-West Frontier Province)" verses "the West Pakistani establishment came up with the "One Unit" scheme, where all of West Pakistan was considered one province." Which is correct? 18.51.0.194 14:17, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

This has to do with electoral units ... the West Pakistani areas were combined to form a separate lower house of the parliament (at least that's my impression from the 1970 election results). --Ragib 18:49, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move

[edit] Collaboration 15 July 07 - 15 September 07

[edit] War Sectors Added

I have started constructing the Liberation War Sectors table based on Banglapedia in a sandbox. I request your comments on the following:

• Is this going to be a copy-vio if I clearly mention that the source is Banglapedia?
• Should this go into the main article or should it be a separate list with a summary on this article?-Arman Aziz 05:32, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

I have added the section applying my best judgement. If anyone still has any comments, please post it here - I'll be glad to make any change that would seem necessary.-Arman Aziz 10:20, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

No, we can't use exactly the same copy from any source, unless we have a permission (GFDL or Sharealike) to do so. But, we can always tinker and tweak... and get steer the copy away from the copy-vio trap. Cheers. Aditya^{(talk • contribs)} 18:04, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Wonderful work. The copy in the sandbox represents no copy-vio at all (I have just checked it). But, instead of incorporating it here, turn that into a separate article (yes, it's that excellent and a bit too long to become a part of any article). May be you can ask User:AA to make the font a bit smaller, and categorize the new article, among others, as a Bangladesh related list. Aditya^{(talk • contribs)} 18:12, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Two anon editors took a highly commendable attempt at improving the sectors section, which I have reverted back. Some of the information put there were better fits for List of Sectors in Bangladesh Liberation War. Besides, it was making this already way-too-long article needlessly longer. On this occasion really appeal to all participants to take care of the article size. With the existence of so many overlapping articles I don't see any reason for it to go longer. Aditya^{(talk • contribs)} 09:33, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Elaboration of the Battles

I think we should have small summaries for each of the battles, instead of simply listing them. If no one has any objection, I'm going to start work on the following:

• Reorder the battles chronologically;
• Add small summaries and import good images from battle articles where appropriate;
• Add description of more battles - especially from the earlier stage of the war.

-Arman Aziz 02:34, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Instead of a list the battles should be incorporated into the respective phases of the war. And, at that these don't require summaries as such (they have their separate articles already, right?). No use making the article any longer. In fact, if anyone here wants to make this a featured article or something, the first obstacle would be its size. Aditya^{(talk • contribs)} 09:36, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestion

It is being suggested a few points or minor sections may be merged with Bangladesh War of Independence 1971 (discuss) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Muraad kahn (talk • contribs) 17:55, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] so-called liberation

Civil war. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.201.57.120 (talk) 13:54, August 24, 2007 (UTC)

This naming issue has been discussed in detail already. Aditya^{(talk • contribs)} 03:40, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Review by --Toddy1 19:11, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Peer review/Bangladesh Liberation War/archive1.

[edit] References

After much searching I found two internet articles which contain much of the info that is currently unreferenced on the pages. They are [1] and [2]. Unfortunately neither is an encyclopaedia or some other sort of scholarly research, but these links in turn may provide other references. Hopefully someone will be able to work to removing the ugly tags. :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.229.160.181 (talk) 01:14, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Some more references for the casualties sections:

[3] - check out her publications :) [4] - excerpts from a PhD publication that show both sides of the issue esp in post-war era [5] - Brownmiller's work with numerous implicit citations and references to other sources

[http://books.google.com/books?id=QaGzA2WA_B0C&pg=PA239&dq=bangladesh+genocide&sig=ATlRBMjKdi58265FU6VNurMHjIs|Case Studies on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms: A World Survey - Page 239 by Willem Adriaan Veenhoven, Winifred Crum Ewing]

Google books has plenty of references. I am ex-wikipedian who is slightly sad to see the status of this article. I don't have the time to reference things, but I'd like to help you by at least finding reading materials that could potentially be useful. :)

65.93.54.74 —Preceding signed but undated comment was added at 05:31, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

That would be wonderful already. Aditya^{(talk • contribs)} 05:58, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

This article is useful. This article has become overly apologetic. We go into details of rebuttals of genocide claims without treating the proponents of the genocide claim at the same level of detail.

'Rahman demolishes Sarmila Bose's revisionist history of 1971' describes how Ms. Bose got results that are completely at odds with the commonly accepted story. A detailed version of this article will be published on Monday. :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.194.250.99 (talk) 21:06, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

May be you'd like to take a look at the 1971 Bangladesh atrocities article. Aditya^{(talk • contribs)} 12:01, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Violence of 25 March

This section either needs a rename to something like "Operation Searchlight" or it needs to be pruned to just those events that happened on 25 March. --Philip Baird Shearer 11:38, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New Map

I have added a new map, showing what I think are the troop deployments and movements (I don't believe the movements in the map I have replaced! - the Indians seem to cross too many rivers!). Please let me know if you think there are any mistakes in my map. (e.g my map says the Pak division was the 36th, but others have renumbered it the 39th). If you want me to change the picture, I can do my changes using the original Paintshop Pro file if you contact me on my user page. This is taken from some work I did about 10 years ago, and I've lost the original sources! Mike Young 21:24, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Firstly, this sounds like original research. Secondly, either the map caption or the article body should explain the different symbols and numbers used, otherwise this map hardly conveys anything. Arman ^(Talk) 02:02, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your concerns. The work I did was not technically "orginal research" as I copied information from other sources (like everyone does writing a Wiki Article),gathering data from secondary source books (I think I have their titles, but no longer have access to the books). These books specified different numbers for the Pak units (although they seem to agree well on the Indian). Agree about the map. The symbols are internationally recognised military unit symbols, but only people with a military background will know what they mean. I will add a caption to the map (probably overlaying the actual map key in the corner).Mike Young 08:13, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Found the source for the data on the map: it is "Indian army after Independence" by Maj K.C. Praval 1993 Lancer Paperbacks [ISBN 1 997829 45 0]. The maps in the book have lots of info but are a very poor artistic quality. Have noticed some small errors have crept in (I was working on a copy of a copy), I will correct them. Mike Young 09:50, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

New (more accurate) version of map uploaded (with key) Mike Young 23:47, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! Now laymen like me can understand the map. If you don't mind, I have a few more optional requests. Could you please reduce the size of the key-box a bit, so that it hides minimum portion of the map? I think this can be achieved by simply reducing size of font within the box. Secondly, could you please change the color of Muktibahini? The current pinkish color has very low contrast with the background. A brighter yellow or darker red may be a better option. Arman ^(Talk) 03:11, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Does Bangladesh have a "National colour" I can colour the Mukti Bahini units with in my map? I chose Saffron for India and Green for Pakistan, as they seem to be "National Colours" The colour must contrast with the Green and Saffron and must be distingishable if the map is printed out in Black and White. Mike Young 16:24, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Full restructure

I have done a full restructure of the article. Hope this helps. It certainly cuts down some of the repetition. Hope you like it. Mike Young 20:50, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] POV in Civil War: 27 March to 2nd December 1971?

The article goes in detail over the nomenclature debate. Calling the war "civil war" shows pro-Pakistani POV. It should be changed to something more suitable. There is also a break of logic because the immediately preceding paragraph says Bangladeshi independence day is on 26th of March. If that is true, then how is there a civil war beyond this point? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.229.161.202 (talk) 19:44, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] One Unit Scheme still not explained

It's still not clear how creation of the "One Unit Scheme," ie all of WP being considered a single province, actually benefited WP or the Punjabi ruling classes. There's a discussion of it here, in this talk page's archives. I have added a {{what}} tag to the article to request clarification. Bry9000 (talk) 19:42, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Please refer to "A New Phase in Pakistan Politics", Stanley Maron, Far Eastern Survey, Vol. 24, No. 11. (Nov., 1955), pp. 161-165. (see page 161 and 162) to see why the One-unit scheme prevented EP to get control of the legislature. --Ragib (talk) 21:17, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Okay, great. But what are those actual reasons? Would you please summarize them here, or perhaps simply explain it in the article in the appropriate places? Thank you. Bry9000 (talk) 02:51, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

The gist of the argument for One-unit is something like this (per the above ref): If proportional representation in the legislature was implemented, East Pakistan, with more population than other provinces, would have gotten control over the legislature. By combining the other provinces into a single unit, the mainly Punjabi politicians and bureaucracy would be able to maintain the status quo. You can refer to the 2 pages I cited. I'll give you quotes from it when I have time (unfortunately, JSTOR provides the papers as image files, so I'll have to type the text, rather than just cut-paste the quote). --Ragib (talk) 03:33, 22 February 2008 (UTC)