Talk:East Bengali refugees

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: no consensus to move the page at this time, per the discussion below. Dekimasuよ! 05:08, 20 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

East Bengali refugees → Bengali Hindu refugees

East Bengal, as an entity existed as a province in the Dominion of Pakistan only between 1947 and 1956. In 1956, when Pakistan became an Islamic Republic, the East Bengal was renamed to East Pakistan. But the flow of refugees continued from the territory of erstwhile East Bengal, even after 1956, notably in 1964 and 1971 and it continues till date. But we can't call refugees between 1956 and 1971 as East Pakistani refugees or post-1971 as Bangladeshi refugees. Refugees not only arrive from East Bengal/East Pakistan/Bangladesh. Refugees also came to West Bengal from Burma in 1950s and 1960s, from Assam in 1960s and from Meghalaya in 1970s and 1980s. Considering that, the article should be moved to Bengali Hindu refugees BengaliHindu (talk) 23:07, 10 March 2018 (UTC) --Relisted. Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  16:13, 18 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Relist comment. Members of WikiProjects Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Cold War have been notified that this debate has been relisted.  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  19:54, 18 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The current article doesn't discuss refugees arriving in West Bengal from Burma, Assam, or Meghalaya, so "Bengali Hindu refugees" would fail the precision naming criteria. Do reliable scholarly sources commonly cover all those refugees, as well as those from East Bengal/East Pakistan/Bangladesh, as one named group? If not, Wik.ipedia.Pro probably should not lump them together.

None of the cited sources use the nomenclature "Bengali Hindu refugees". Earlier versions of the article said "a significant number" of the refugees were Bengali Muslims. Was that untrue, or has the article lost some objectivity and acquired a biased point of view over the years? What range of names do reliable scholarly sources use for the groups? --Worldbruce (talk) 18:00, 12 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

There are reliable scholarly sources that use the nomenclature "Bengali Hindu refugees". I have listed some of them below for your reference.

• The hungry tide Bengali Hindu refugees in the Subcontinent published by International Institute for Asian Studies
• "They must have to go therefore, elsewhere": Mapping the Many Displacements of Bengali Hindu Refugees from East Pakistan, 1947 to 1960s published by Tata Institute of Social Sciences
• Migrants, Refugees and the Stateless in South Asia published by SAGE.
• Refugees and the Transformation of Societies: Agency, Policies, Ethics, and Politics published by Berghahn Books
• Population Redistribution and Development in South Asia published by Springer Science+Business Media

If you search in Google, you can get many more. But it is unfortunate that perhaps none of sources cited in the article use that nomenclature. BengaliHindu (talk) 15:30, 16 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

On your question Earlier versions of the article said "a significant number" of the refugees were Bengali Muslims. Was that untrue, or has the article lost some objectivity and acquired a biased point of view over the years? - It is common knowledge that British India was divided on the basis of religion in the year 1947. West Pakistan (now only Pakistan) & East Pakistan (same as East Bengal, now known as Bangladesh) was for Muslim and the rest of British India (now only India) for non-Muslims. As a result of this division, Muslim people moved from Indian territory to Pakistani territory and Hindu people moved from Pakistani territory to Indian territory as refugees. The Bengali Hindus arrived from East Bengal / East Pakistan / Bangladesh as refugees to the eastern Indian states and Bengali Muslims (and some other Muslims) arrived from eastern Indian states to East Bengal / East Pakistan / Bangladesh as refugees. So, the statement that "a signification number" of the refugees were Bengali Muslims is not correct. Some Bengali Muslims might have chosen to continue to stay or shift to Kolkata which fell on the Indian side, because of their profession, but they should not be counted as refugees. BengaliHindu (talk) 15:45, 16 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The proposed title "Bengali Hindu Refugees" is confusing. The refugees in this article came from East Bengal, subsequently renamed East Pakistan and Bangladesh. Dropping East Bengal from the title could also lead to a confusion: Did some of them also come from Assam? The BJP government in Assam is bent upon throwing out all Bangladeshis (be they Hindus or Muslims), who came after 1971, from Assam and West Bengal is inclined to welcome them. Will such people be part of this article? Even now, everybody commonly understands the difference between Bangals (people from East Bengal) and Ghotis (people from West Bengal). This differentiation is not going to go in the near future, if ever at all. Putting Bangals in the title would be a bit crude, and many outside Bengal may not understand properly what it means. Therefore, East Bengal should stay. Secondly, I have no objection to adding Hindus in the title and making it "East Bengali Hindu Refugees". This will differentiate this group from Bangladeshi Muslim infiltrators. - Chandan Guha (talk) 16:20, 18 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, some Bengali Hindu refugees did move to West Bengal and Barak Valley from the Brahmaputra Valley of Assam in 1960. See Bongal Kheda. Some might move in the near future depending on policy of Assam government. There were refugees from Meghalaya in 1979. See this. Also, there were refugees from Myanmar. See this source. Even recently, Bengali Hindu refugees from Rakhine State of Myanmar to Bangladesh after the Kha Maung Seik massacre. We can't really say that all these Bengali Hindus were exclusively Bangals and none were Ghotis. In view of this it is better to have a generic title, rather than a title being too specific about the origin. Most importantly many reliable resources are using the term "Bengali Hindu refugees". So per Wik.ipedia.Pro policy, we should use it too. BengaliHindu (talk) 18:33, 18 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose the principle influx of refugees were from the partition and were typically called, from what I can see, East Bengali refugees or words to that effect, without differentiating them by religion. There seems to be a POV desire both here and in some sources to differentiate good ie Hindu vs bad ie Muslim infiltrator in this group. (ex Bangladeshi Migrants in India: Foreigners, Refugees, or Infiltrators?) The term East Bengali refugee clearly and definitively identifies the group displaced by the partition and those who followed from the same region at a later date, regardless of that region's name at the time.
  As it stands the articles name is neutral, concise and precise in identifying the topic as the refugees who resulted from the partition. Bengali Hindu Refugees is a different topic. Using the term here would serve the POV goal of de-legitimizing the significant number of that exodus who were not Hindu. Jbh ^Talk 23:52, 18 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose - as per the comments above, the term East Bengali refugee clearly and definitively identifies the group displaced by the partition and those who followed from the same region at a later date, regardless of that region's name at the time. Bengali Hindu Refugees is a different topic and strays away from the main focus of the article. - Chandan Guha (talk) 00:36, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment Even if we accept the logic put forward by JBH & Chandan Guha, then I would suggest renaming the article to "Refugees from East Bengal". This is because there were also other groups like Chakma, Hajong, Garo etc. who left the land as refugees. These groups are not Bengali by any means, so it would not be the right thing to club them under "East Bengali". BengaliHindu (talk) 19:26, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  That, however, is not the question being presented by this RM. If it were proposed, from the little I have read the terms are used in a near synonymous manner with the earlier sources seeming to prefer East Bengali refugees. Without clear, convincing evidence that Refugees from East Bengal (vice the simple adjective phase refugees from East Bengal used as a simple alternative term in running text) is a more commonly used, specific designation for those who became refugees due to the partition I have to support the article staying under its current, stable name. Jbh ^Talk 20:02, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.