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Q: Why does this article describe the Bajrang Dal as a militant organisation?
A: The consensus of high-quality academic sources is that the Bajrang Dal is a militant organisation. Please see Special:Permalink/1007358857 § cite note-militant-1 for the list. Neutrality on Misplaced Pages entails representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic, and the cited academic sources overwhelmingly agree that militant is an accurate descriptor for the Bajrang Dal.
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The controversies involving BD are covered in the article. No need to try to make a statement in the lead. Is there any guideline related to which statement can be added in the lead and which can not? See this: . I think Misplaced Pages as a source of neutral POV should have the same standards? thoughts? @RegentsPark: — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gauravsaral (talk • contribs)
During earlier months, someone replaced "militant" with "extremist" and this edit was overlooked, then someone added "militant" again by putting sources. Even after that, "extremist" is unsourced and a forbidden term. Removed extremist per WP:EXTREMIST. While numerous editors have already noted the problems with "militant" term, I agree because more reliable sources describe Bajrang Dal as "paramilitary" organisation of VHP. D4iNa4 (talk) 18:46, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
Nope.Nobody except some famed POV pushers have expressed any problem.Please read through all of the sources.I've thus partially reverted.Will be looking more, once I get to a PC.Winged Blades19:10, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
I'm not totally sure I know what bajrang dal is, but if reliable sources generally say they are militant, then so should we. And if numerous reliable sources say so, we should do so in the lead. Also, D4iNa4, you've been around long enough to know better than to make WP:OTHERSTUFF arguments! --regentspark (comment) 19:45, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
What RegentsPark said, pretty much. I have read a good few of the sources about the BD, and they virtually all describe it as militant. Vanamonde (talk) 19:52, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
I have found dozens of scholarly sources from far more reliable publishers like Cambridge University, Routledge, Pearson, and all of them describe Bajrang Dal as "paramilitary". It means that they are more commonly and reliably described as paramilitary. The sources added by Tyler Durden(soon blocked) were also websites. Militant is much broader term, Bajrang Dal doesn't advocate violence, so it is not a militant organization. RegentsPark There was similar discussion on Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh before which is also described as militant by their critics but it doesn't make them one. D4iNa4 (talk) 20:06, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
@RegentsPark: The discussion I was referring above. I don't see a reason to omit "paramilitary" since it fits the description of Bajrang Dal much better than militant. Also the sources I pointed above that support paramilitary are:, though I am seeing that they are described mostly commonly as "youth wing"D4iNa4 (talk) 20:35, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
D4, Being a "youth wing" does not preclude it from being militant or extremist. You are not reading the sources you cite. For example, your very first source says "perpetrators of some of the most spectacular campaigns of violence". And you think this proves they are not militant? You are out of your mind! -- Kautilya3 (talk) 01:11, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
Per the sources, there are many other ways to describe them. That was the point. Violence is not limited to militants. D4iNa4 (talk)
I'll let you all sort this out. Though, imo, a paramilitary arm of an organization is, by definition, militant (paramilitaries are militant). --regentspark (comment) 00:57, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
The word paramilitary has more to do with militia than militant. When it comes to BD, the use of the word "militant" is mostly limited with referring the branch, "militant wing", than calling BD a militant. Now back to militia, Christophe Jaffrelot mentions Bajrang Dal as "militia", belonging to a "militant wing" of Vishva Hindu Parishad. BD is termed as militia by other sources as well. To make the lead more meaningful, "X is a Catholic organization of the religious wing of X foundation"(just an example) would work better. Lorstaking (talk) 10:00, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
There's no shortage of reliable sources that describe BD as a paramilitary organization either (here are a few that I dug up, apart from the sources above). I concur entirely with D4 and Lorstaking. —MBL05:23, 14 December 2017 (UTC)
I think describing it as militant is more appropriate as compared to describing it as extremist. Militant usually implies that an organisation is willing to use direct action or violence to achieve its goals (whether the goals are extremist or not). Extremist is generally used for thoughts which are at the extreme of the political spectrum.--DreamLinker (talk) 03:44, 14 December 2017 (UTC)
My apologies, as I read the initial part of the discussion. In context of militant vs paramilitary, Bajrang Dal is militant but not a paramilitary force. An example of a paramilitary force in recent times has been Salwa Judum. Bajrang Dal does not have the same discipline and organisation structure required for a paramilitary force.--DreamLinker (talk) 07:42, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
Re-instating a list of sources by a blocked sock, in support of the qualifier:- militant, in my own capacity, since they ought to improve the discussion over here.Winged Blades14:20, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
Apart from these sources that are cited in the article, here are a bunch of sources that describe BD as "militant".
Steven Wilkinson (2005). Religious Politics and Communal Violence. Oxford University Press. p. 310. ISBN978-0-19-567237-4. In the summer of 1984, Vinay Katiya, an RSS pracharak, formed the Bajrang Dal in Uttar Pradesh as a militant youth wing of the VHP...
Rafiq Dossani; Henry S. Rowen (2005). "7. Hindu Nationalism and the BJP: Transforming Religion and Politics in India --- Robert L. Hardgrave, Jr.". Prospects for Peace in South Asia. Stanford University Press. pp. 202–. ISBN978-0-8047-5085-1.
I think, a RFC shall be the way forward, with the details of all the sources provided for both the words, presented in a suitable form.Extremist seems to be currently out of contest, though!Winged Blades14:19, 15 December 2017 (UTC)