Talk:2002 Gujarat riots

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"Caused by" parameter

Template:Ping The talk page section you linked to does not in any way establish consensus for this parameter; nor do the sources provided there actually support it. We have sourced text in the lead and the body saying that the causes of the riots were complex (to say the least). Please demonstrate that this text is WP:DUE (not just verifiable). Pinging Template:Ping as the other participants in that discussion (not pinging Sdmarathe, as he is banned from interacting with me and therefore cannot participate directly in this discussion). Vanamonde (Talk) 11:40, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

I added additional causes mentioned in the lead. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 14:40, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

That's now more complete, and also more confusing. The Godhra burning is generally acknowledged as a trigger, but not a root cause. State terrorism and ethnic cleansing are terms used for the riots themselves; sources say "the riots were an example of ethnic cleansing", not "the riots were caused by ethnic cleansing". It's just too complex to convey in three words in the infobox; hence my contention that it should just be removed. Vanamonde (Talk) 16:08, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

Template:Ping It does seem "complex" and one reason is indeed not enough for a infobox. Even in 2017, we had 1 more option that we should get rid of the infobox but 5 years have passed and there has been no other controversy with the infobox. I agree that this new addition is even more confusing because "state terrorism" (very minority view) and "ethnic cleansing" (one of the common view) is the classification of the riot than the "cause". I agree that this parameter can be blanked again. D4iNa4 (talk) 07:49, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

Kautilya, I trust that's okay with you? Vanamonde (Talk) 07:51, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

I don't think the other two reasons - State terrorism & Ethnic cleansing - should be listed, as they have not been proven. We should stick to findings instead of some individual's opinion. Changes like this would make Wikipedia look like an opinion piece. Aniruddh 20:46, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia is written based on reliable sources, and those sources do not agree that Godhra was the sole reason for the scale of violence that ensued.

In response to Vanamonde93's earlier query, I think omiting the field is not a good idea, because somebody will come and add it again. It is easy enough to find good sources that say that Godhra caused it. But the matter doesn't end there. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 21:00, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, I still don't like it. The parameter has no meaning here. It is sociological nonsense; things don't have singular causes. The riots were described as ethnic cleansing; how are they caused by ethnic cleansing? Entire book chapters and journal articles have been written about the genesis of this violence. We can't summarize it in three words. Vanamonde (Talk) 21:22, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

Agreed Chinmay nayak23 (talk) 11:02, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

Again, including some people's opinions as "caused by" sounds weird. That's not a fact; that's just an individual's opinion. Despite they were taken from a reliable source, they remain opinions of some individuals. Using them as a fact inside the infobox doesn't sound good. Aniruddh 13:55, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

How are is the link to the Godhra incident any less one person's opinion? Vanamonde (Talk) 16:41, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

• Template:Ping You should describe your edits here instead of using edit summaries. The "caused by" parameter was written after the above discussion. Why do you believe that it was not an act of state terrorism? Capitals00 (talk) 12:08, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

  I don't see enough scholarly sources which conclusively accuse the state of orchestrating the Riots. Hence why, I edited the aforementioned to "Possible State Terrorism" since state collusion with local forces is possible and as mentioned in the one of the articles cited could be likely. Normstahlie (talk) 05:35, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

Rajdeep Sardasai on modi

Former NDTV employee, Journalist Rajdeep Sardesai said that he personally believed that Modi was not responsible for the 2002 riots that followed after Godhra massacre.

“It is unfair of us to say that Mr Modi or anyone was responsible for the riots. He did not ask or incite violence,” said Rajdeep Sardesai,Responding to a question by journalist Manu Joseph, on whether Narendra Modi the then Chief Minister of Gujarat in 2002 was in any way responsible for the incident, Aravind Sivaprasad (talk) 14:38, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 25 April 2025

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2002 Gujarat riots → 2002 Gujarat violence2002 Gujarat violence – A vast majority of scholarly sources describe this incident as an attack on the Muslim minority with the support of the state. It makes more sense to replace the word "riots" in the title with "violence". Koshuri ^(グ) 16:23, 25 April 2025 (UTC) — Relisting. Toadspike [Talk] 13:17, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

• Support. More sensible. Capitals00 (talk) 01:50, 26 April 2025 (UTC)

Oppose – how I read it, changing the title would only downplay the violence. Will Thorpe (talk) 10:37, 27 April 2025 (UTC)

Oppose- Riots can interchageably be used with mob violence, which implies that they are one and the same thing. These attacks were in response to Godhra train burning and hence out of a grievance further attesting the title. Normstahlie (talk) 01:43, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

Riots are generally something done by rebellious crowds that authorities are trying to suppress. Would "pogrom" be a better fit? I notice that the article and several cited sources use that term. How about "sectarian violence"? —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 01:55, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

The word riot summarizes both pogrom and sectarian violence within it's umbrella. The nature of the riot is something better defined in the article.

"Historically, riots have occurred due to poverty, unemployment, poor living conditions, governmental oppression, taxation or conscription, conflicts between ethnic groups (race riot) or religions (e.g., sectarian violence, pogrom), .... "[1] Normstahlie (talk) 02:28, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

• Support - "Riots" is inaccurate since it is recognized as a pre-planned violence. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 10:58, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

  In Good Faith, what do you mean by pre-planned since it's attested by numerous scholarly sources that this was in response to the Godhra incident, unless you are suggesting that this was a false flag operation? At best we can claim state collusion/complicity since initial stages of the riots were overlooked and involvement of local politician leading these mobs. Normstahlie (talk) 16:10, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose - There's no data provided by OP and I would concur with Normstahlie and Will Thorpe, please avoid WP:OR assertions. Rightmostdoor6 (talk) 21:15, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

• Describe how the word "riots" is more sensible than "violence". Raymond3023 (talk) 13:22, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

  You're providing no sources to back your claims. Why should the closer count your vote? The common name clearly leans toward the current title. WP:BURDEN remains on the proponents of 'violence'. You need to show that '2002 Gujarat violence' is a widely used name. Maniacal ! Paradoxical (talk) 14:02, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

  It is not the question of sensibility or insensibility. It is pure common sense. Violence is part of a riot albeit Violence could be any small squabble without any casualties. Riots are on a much larger scale involving casualties. Replacing riots with violence not only downplays the impact or seriousness of the situation but is also utter plain stupidity in my humble opinion and should not even be a topic of contention. Rightmostdoor6 (talk) 08:29, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

• Support - Agree with BarrelProof that the riot is when two or more violent groups are fighting and the law enforcement officials are trying to stop them. During the Gujarat violence, police was instead complicit in the violence. This should be called "Gujarat pogrom" but "Gujarat violence" is a highly common name, and should be used. Raymond3023 (talk) 13:22, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

  There was widespread rioting between Hindus and Muslims specifically,

  "Riots often occur in reaction to a grievance or out of dissent. Historically, riots have occurred due to poverty, unemployment, poor living conditions, governmental oppression, taxation or conscription, conflicts between ethnic groups (race riot) or religions (e.g., sectarian violence, pogrom), the outcome of a sporting event (e.g., sports riot, football hooliganism) or frustration with legal channels through which to air grievances."

  This riot could be classified as a religious riot; Hindus attacking Muslims and vice versa. Also the word - "riot", can be used as a broader term to classify pogroms & sectarian violence (especially if the group being prosecuted is disorganized without centralized leadership, or weak). Addtionally, the government did intervene only not in the initial stages of the setup when VHP declared a state-wise bandh. Normstahlie (talk) 15:48, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

Support per nom Ahammed Saad (talk) 17:11, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose as per WP:COMMONNAME doing an ngrams search, "Gujarat riots" shows way more results than "Gujarat violence." Moreover, this article has had this title for over a decade, so changing it is not necessary unless a good reason is provided.

SKAG123 (talk) 22:04, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

• Strong oppose: The above self proclaimed presumption is irrelevant and not helping to the cause. Simple quick search clearly verdicts the common use of the current title:
  • 2002 Gujarat riots - 21,000
  • 2002 Gujarat violence - 793
  • 2002 Gujarat pogrom - 915

This effortless RM without any concrete before should be closed immediately without a relist. Maniacal ! Paradoxical (talk) 13:55, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

• Many of those results for Gujarat riots are inspired by our Wikipedia page. The word "riots" is misleading because the majority of scholarly sources describe this incident as an attack on the Muslim minority. Koshuri ^(グ) 14:44, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

  Then you might want to check this out; it might help clarify things for you. Also, the series of organised pogroms and violent acts against Sikhs in India following the assassination of Indira Gandhi is commonly referred to as the 1984 anti-Sikh riots and not 1984 anti-Sikh Violence. AɭʋaKʰedək (talk) 17:58, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose as WP:COMMONNAME.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 15:19, 30 April 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose per Maniacal, raised a good point of burden; which those arguing for the titles "Gujarat Violence" and "Gujarat Pogrom" lack. The numbers they have provided are helpful to determine that a shifting the existing article title to one of the the either one of the 2 proposed title would violate WP:COMMONNAME. AɭʋaKʰedək (talk) 16:06, 30 April 2025 (UTC)
• I am undecided on this, and currently lack the time to read a large number of sources. There are two questions that participants should be addressing that they haven't, that I am putting forward in the hope that someone will. 1) It is accurate to say that most scholarly sources do not characterize this episode as entirely spontaneous. However, does "violence" convey that fact better than "riots"? I'm not sure that it does. 2) Counting search results on both a normal google search and a google scholar search shows "riots" to be the most common descriptor: on google scholar, by a factor of 3. However, these results are a) not filtering for high quality sources (yes, those are ostensibly scholarly results, but at least one of those I know from personal experience that they include "scholarly" sources that have plagiarized entire Wikipedia articles), and b) skewed heavily by Wikipedia's use of "riots" as the title of this page since 2014 (note that it was "violence" prior to that, and was moved following a poorly attended and poorly closed RM). We need actual numbers on what the most authoritative sources are using, not just search numbers. Vanamonde93 (talk) 17:39, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

  This work by Parvis Ghassem-Fachandi (Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Rutgers University) deals with this and calls it a pogrom and violence throughout the book.

  From abstract:

  Template:Talkquote

  Yasmeen Arif (Associate Professor of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi) discusses this act of violence in depth in her work.

  From abstract:

  Template:Talkquote

  Christophe Jaffrelot (Avantha Chair and Professor of Indian Politics and Sociology at the King's India Institute) discusses the complicity of police in violence on muslim minority in depth.

  This work by Dhattiwala (Sociologist and a member of South Asia Institute, University of Heidelberg) refers to this as a Anti-Muslim program, covers it extensively in her work.

  Ornit Shani ,Professor at the Department of Asian Studies at the University of Haifa calls this act as violence.

  Howard Spodek was professor of history and geography and urban studies at Temple University who discusses this conflict as a pogrom in the Hindutva take over of Gujarat.

  Besides these, there are plenty of sources that refer to this as violence or a pogrom against muslims.

  Koshuri ^(グ) 05:37, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

  A quick search shows that usage in Oxford University Press sources still favours the current title:

  • "2002 Gujarat riots" - OUP: 56
  • "2002 Gujarat violence" - OUP: 12
  • "2002 Gujarat pogrom" - OUP: 20

  There is no need to quote all 32 hits from the sources for "violence" and "pogrom" individually. AɭʋaKʰedək (talk) 19:29, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

  As I noted above, the search results are a bad metric. I am still undecided on this: but if you provide, as evidence of use in scholarly sources, results that include the titles of Indian news media pieces, it makes your argument less credible. Vanamonde93 (talk) 22:47, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

  Template:Ping I am sorry, but I do not see anything conflicting here. Even if we exclude media sources associated with Hindutva, the current title still appears appropriate. I would also disagree with the notion that this article could have influenced Oxford academics or that the data I presented is less credible because of that. The search metric has now been filtered, which addresses your earlier concern, so I believe everything is in order. AɭʋaKʰedək (talk) 18:05, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

  I asked for scholarly sources. You provided sources that don't actually use "riots", but are citing media pieces whose titles include "riots". If you don't see a problem with that, I can't help you. Vanamonde93 (talk) 22:45, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

• Support - Per Koshuri Sultan. Vanamonde93's comments are also spot on. Academic sources do support the notion of this being a pogrom against the Muslim minority. Riots imply that this violence was spontaneous when it wasn't, as per pretty much all scholarly sources covering this topic. Ratnahastin (talk) 04:53, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

• Support. There are a significant number of search results for "Gujarat riots" about the Patidar reservation agitation, not this incident. The above discussion about sourcing proves that "violence" is more accurate. International news sources have heavily used this term.[2][3] desmay (talk) 15:01, 4 May 2025 (UTC)
• Support - Undoubtedly more accurate as per the discussion here. Claims of downplaying the incident make no sense. Agletarang (talk) 18:07, 7 May 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose because of the above presentation of filter search. @desmay seems to be overlooking that in the searches, it has been specifically termed as a 2002 event. Patidar reservation agitation is far from the 2002 Gujrat riots. I found no reason to look for any other naming. 𐤌𐤋𐤊 Waleed (🗽) 00:51, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

  Actually, it has been shown above that "violence" and/or "pogrom" are the more felicitious terms for describing this conflict. The so-called "search metrics" becomes pointless thus. MBlaze Lightning (talk) 08:47, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

• Support - I haven't seen any academic sources for concluding that this violence was not pre-planned. There is a big difference between what title appears more common (largely due to the unreliable Godi media) and what appears to be both common and factual. The latter is clearly "Gujarat violence". MBlaze Lightning (talk) 08:55, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

  Could you show us some academic/reliable sources which may deem this incident "Pre-planned"? It's commonly accepted knowledge that this incident was in response to the Godhra Train Burning Incident, also this riot happened subsequently after the RSS declared a state wide bandh, it's disputed as to whether there was a hive mind involved. 2002 Gujrat Riots seems to be a more suitable name since the word "riot" classifies these chains of events way better considering either religious groups involved were attacked. Normstahlie (talk) 16:18, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

  I completely second Normstahlie's viewpoint. It could not have been put forth any better than this and I now hope that common sense prevails Rightmostdoor6 (talk) 20:52, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

  You seem to have overlooked my message above. I have provided many sources that conclude this was a pre-planned violence.[4] To say that such a fact is "disputed" is POV pushing. Koshuri ^(グ) 08:47, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

  I'll tell you a fact. You can choose to disagree out of your bias, no problem. But the locals of the country have always called it a riot and would naturally continue to do so. So even if you succeed in changing it to 'Violence' the locals of the country are still going to continue calling it a riot. Even with all your 'scholarly' 'unbiased' foreign sources..try changing the minds of the locals and good luck with that Rightmostdoor6 (talk) 08:54, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

• Comment: Whether anything or pre-planned or not is for RSes to decide and I won't comment on that. What I do recognise is that in Indian English, "riots" possibly signify all kinds of violent activities between two or more communities, and that it has been the case since at least British rule. To name a few, see 1857 Bharuch riot, Kalugumalai riots of 1895, 1946 Noakhali riots, 1984 anti-Sikh riots, [this article], 2020 Delhi riots, and many more. It might be the case that MOS:TIES applies. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 17:58, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

  Not really. Many similar articles such as 2012 Assam violence, 2008 Kandhamal violence, 2007 Christmas violence in Kandhamal, 2024 Bahraich violence, Murshidabad violence, 2025 Nagpur violence and more have "violence" in their title. Koshuri ^(グ) 13:03, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

  Thanks for these. I would, however, note that in these, a few sources (mostly Indian ones) do use riot and violence interchangeably. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 13:27, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 27 May 2025

68.179.129.121 (talk) 23:56, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

File:Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Cannolis (talk) 00:32, 28 May 2025 (UTC)