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British Raj was a History good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
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Material from British Raj was split to History of the British Raj on 13:25, 4 May 2008. The former page's history now serves to provide attribution for that content in the latter page, and it must not be deleted so long as the latter page exists. Please leave this template in place to link the article histories and preserve this attribution.
Revisions succeeding this version of this article is substantially duplicated by a piece in an external publication. Since the external publication copied Misplaced Pages rather than the reverse, please do not flag this article as a copyright violation of the following source:
The lead of Misplaced Pages's article had in 2006 and early 2007 referenced the short two line entry on the "British raj" in the OED second edition 1989. In June 2008, when the OED entry was revised for the third edition, it had borrowed some of Misplaced Pages's words, in a paragraph is smaller print. This was noted in my post of 19 August 2008 on the Talk:British raj. It was noted then, and is being noted again now, not as a case of plagiarism (as the we had borrowed the OED's lead sentence as well, i.e. that the dependence is two-way), but as a source of pride, viz that Misplaced Pages had come of such age and reputation that even the OED had used our language almost verbatim in this instance. Fowler&fowler«Talk»10:48, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
Size is 4,994,215 km^2 not 5,076,579 km^2
the size of the british raj including India,Pakistan,Burma,Bangladesh is 4,994,215 km^2 but in the article it says 5,076,579 km^2, which is wrong.
British Raj wasn't just those four countries. It also consisted of Aden Colony (part of present-day Yemen), Somaliland (part of present-day Somalia) and other protectorates. Pur 0 0 (talk) 16:23, 2 November 2024 (UTC)
This has brought my curiosity too. I had always known this to be the British Indian flag, since in all wars, successor states and all other places when the flag icon of a country is shown, this is shown to be the flag of the British Raj.
Are you both discussing this to be the flag, or was it a different one? And please don't tell me to look at the edit history too. I don't want to get involved in the argument lore. Pur 0 0 (talk) 16:28, 2 November 2024 (UTC)
waa the flag removed because princely states had their own flag ,and the previous flag was of British india and not of entire Indian empire? JingJongPascal (talk) 07:06, 1 November 2024 (UTC)
But the Red Ensign has been used by the USA to show or represent India as part of the allies and also as part of the United Nations , but I guess they weren't official examples.
So in case of wars where we have to include British Raj, we will have to mention all the princely states and then British india seperatly right? Because most articles still use that flag for entire Indian empire JingJongPascal (talk) 07:36, 1 November 2024 (UTC)
The answer to someone's question has already been written and I said repeatedly that they should go read it, and I said where it was. If they can't do that, that doesn't inspire confidence that they'll engage with the argument if I give it to them to read in some other form. It's really not meaningfully different from pointing someone to discussions that occurred in the talk page archives. If you take that to be WP:POINTy then don't worry, since I've already given up here and wasn't planning on engaging further. Remsense ‥ 论23:40, 5 November 2024 (UTC)
Yeah buddy nobody wants to scroll through edits and try to decipher edit summaries. Just answer the question if you're going to answer at all. you're wasting everyone's time responding several times and not giving the actual answer. Scuba02:26, 6 November 2024 (UTC)
I did it, and I wouldn't've suggested it if I thought it was that hard to do. Maybe the reason I've insisted on that is because the person that made the change articulated the reasons very clearly and I don't think I'd do a better job explaining it myself. Who knows. Remsense ‥ 论02:36, 6 November 2024 (UTC)
That the Red Ensign was only used for British Ruled districts, and not for the entire "Indian Empire", as princely states had their own flag. JingJongPascal (talk) 05:17, 13 November 2024 (UTC)
I think pages on the princely state should be excluded, but the flag can be included to reprsent british rule. It's the flag of the British Raj and the flag is just about that.--Sylvester Millner (talk) 00:22, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
One of the reasons that the Raj might not have had a flag (i.e. similar to the British settler dominions such as Canada and Australia) was that from the get go (i.e. Victoria's File:Image victoria proclamation1858c.JPG), the
i.e. "Was the ideology that sustained the Raj meant to link India as an equal with Britain's other colonial territories, including those of British settlement, or to reaffirm its 'difference'?" see hereFowler&fowler«Talk»02:09, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
Not legally set up by the recognized legal authority. Also Azad Hind in fact only has limited powers allowed it, it was not a whole self-governing body. Slatersteven (talk) 12:10, 24 November 2024 (UTC)
As a result of the Government of India Act, 1935, Burma after 1937 was no longer overseen by the Secretary of State for India, and the India Office. It had a separate Secretary of State and a Burma Office which lasted a little over a decade. Please see the first day cover I uploaded long ago.
Separation of Burma from the British Raj; note the stamps: India postage overprinted with "Burma."
WP editor Fowler&fowler excised my restriction in re the phrase “direct rule in India,” viz., “It is also called, … in contexts referencing the British government’s authority, direct rule in India.” F&f warned that I must “make the case for POV on the talk page and garner a consensus for it.”
But why should anyone have to garner a consensus here for something self-evident? “Direct rule in India” is meaningless without a reference to whose rule, as the three works cited in an endnote to this WP article make clear in their use of the phrase, for each tells specifically of the British assertion of it: “the British government assumed direct rule over India,” “direct rule of the Indian subcontinent by the British,” “the British Crown assumed direct colonial rule of India.” “Direct rule” is simply a stock phrase for the control of a body (government, corporation, or anything else) directly by some power. In the case of a nation, that power may be domestic or alien, colonial or endemic, broad or factional, autocratic or democratic, hereditary or acquired—it really doesn’t matter.
N.B.: Strictly, the last of those three quotations I just mentioned uses the phrase “direct colonial rule of India,” which the WP article here takes as equivalent to “direct rule in India.” That is, the WP text’s wording isn’t quite the same, but it’s an understandable gloss, appropriate in context. Context matters! Similarly, “direct rule” of India or any other nation makes sense only in context, and those three historians used the phrase specifically of that by the British government. And that, as I made clear in explaining my edit, is why I posted it: for clarity’s sake. The POV I invoke is not mine but that of the quoted historians, who advance it explicitly in their wording.
I also altered “Direct rule in India” to “direct rule in India,” removing the capital D. Bewilderingly to me, F&f likewise reverted that edit. But why? None of the three historians cited in this article for their use of the phrase capitalizes it, since there is no reason to do so. It might be capitalized if used as part of the title of an article or book—say (just to make one up), “You’re a Better Man Than I Am: A Critical Examination of Early British Direct Rule of India”—but should not be otherwise. (“Crown rule” is a different matter, as it references the British Crown, i.e., the monarchy, or state, and its reach.)
F&f ought to be the one making the case for his or her own POV. Mucketymuck (talk) 08:26, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
We do not say direct rule by Indians, or by India. Read the second sentence of the lead, it says just this. And elsewhere in the body, the context is already there. Slatersteven (talk) 11:07, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
Flags and emblems
@Indefatigable2: has attempted to re-add in this edit a section on Flags and emblems. When it comes to artefacts such as flags, what goes into a broad scale article, i.e. merits mention in it, are not simply ones might have been used by an official of the Raj, but also those whose existence has drawn notice in sources, i.e. peer-reviewed WP:SECONDARY and WP:TERTIARY sources, preferable scholarly ones. In other words, existence is not notability.
In addition, notability by itself does not guarantee inclusion on WP. The topic in question must have due weight.
For reasons I can sympathize with both sides, yes it might be vaguely useful in some scenarios (such as a filmmaker doing lazy research). On the other, there is no real utility, and it just adds download time. I am however dubious as to the claim they failed wp:rs, Seems to me the sources are OK (well one maybe a bit iffy). Slatersteven (talk) 17:19, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
kind of in two minds, it might be seen as due in some circumstances, but really does not tell us anything about the RAJ (in truth). So it is really, very slightly, interesting trivia. Slatersteven (talk) 17:24, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
It (for once) might be an interesting subject to have a fork of, flags of the Raj. If (and it seems a big if) there is enough there for an article Slatersteven (talk) 17:26, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
I'm in favour. It's a great idea for student projects--say from grades 5 to 10, It's also useful for smaller museums that lack a research staff but want to add colour to their exhibits. Rjensen (talk) 17:29, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
I don't have a strong opinion as to whether this article needs a section on flags, but F&F is correct that Indefatigable2 needs to be discussing this on the talk page, and also that a description of individual exhibits doesn't demonstrate due weight even if the source is reliable for what it says. Based on the quantity of material a fork is obviously viable and is probably a good idea regardless of how much material is eventually kept here. Vanamonde93 (talk) 17:32, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
I'll just point out that the official flags and emblems of the Raj are as much "due weight," if not more, as all of the coins displayed on this page. I mean, it's tantamount to an entire coin collection here. I'm not even opposed to that necessarily, I'm just making a comparison. I think we're missing the forest for the trees here. If we consistently followed this logic, we'd have to say that flags and official emblems aren't "due weight" for any page about any government or state. Unless I'm missing something fundamental here. The Raj isn't some special case. Yes, I understand that the topic of flags in the Raj is not as straightforward as for other countries, or even other British colonies, but that is beside the central point. Saying that flags and official emblems don't have "due weight" isn't really a coherent point. I've never seen this point made elsewhere. Flags and emblems are a rather major way in which governments and officials identify themselves, which is why they're consistently used on articles. Indefatigable218:01, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
Of course they are not and the coins in any case are not a separate section. The coins were the currency of the Raj. It had a succession of British monarchs from Victoria to George VI on the obverse and the rupee, half rupee, four anna, one anna, ... on the reverse. The currency denomination was in English and Urdu until 1947 when Hindi was added. The same with stamps. But flags the Raj never did have because liberal imperialism of the late 19th-century could never decide how equal they wanted India to be and the flag grants a measure of equality that coins and stamps do not. If the Raj had had a flag, its ultimate document, the Imperial Gazetteer of India published by the Secretary of State for India, would have had it. The pictures of the 36 volumes you see in that link are my collection whose pages I have stared at for some 30 odd years, but never found the flag.
The Raj never did have a flag. My own view (a paraphrase of Thomas R. Metcalf see here) is that the Raj had a hard time choosing an official flag for itself because from the very outset, the British establishment was conflicted about where to place India politically. Fowler&fowler«Talk»17:38, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
Perhaps the fork could be called Flags used during the British Raj; it could then have flags flown by the viceroy and governors, and the maharajas and nawabs. Sourcing is the only thing I worry about. Nothing in Indefatigable2's list of sources matches for demonstrating due weight the mostly introductory college textbooks used in this article. Fowler&fowler«Talk»17:52, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
Comment: I'm with Fowler on this. There are multiple flags and emblems associated with the Raj and it is unclear whether any particular one was used consistently, let alone if anything was official. OTOH, since there are sourced flags, I agree that we should perhaps include them somewhere. The fork suggested by slatersteven sounds like the perfect solution.RegentsPark (comment) 18:01, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
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