I'm baffled to see someone with a long contribution to the FOSS and
Wikimedia movement *not* assuming good faith and attacking publicly in the
first place. Lest we forget, the UCOC highlights:
"2.1 MUTUAL RESPECT — Respect all Wikimedians to show respect for others.
In communicating with people, whether in online or offline Wikimedia
environments, we will treat each other with mutual respect." (the
sub-clauses further detail about empathy and other required behavioural
attributes)
Also, long movement association does not and should not give impunity to
exhibit bad behaviour. It's in fact the opposite, meaning, those with
longer association are expected to go an extra mile to ensure the Wikimedia
movement becomes healthier and not hostile. I'm sure Mahatma Gandhi, who
Abhijit has quoted, would have wanted that.
Also, "post-colonial India" is equivalent to "Independent India" but
only
more specific. (more on that evident from how Goa and erstwhile independent
states, such as the Gadajata states in Orissa, were annexed after 1947)
"Post-colonial" is a more historically objective term here. So,
"post-colonial" is not a bad framing to highlight with specificity for
everything after the colonial British rule. It's laughable to think that
"post-colonial" glorifies the colonial rule when it does the exact opposite
in certain contexts.
I find it offensive to even think that it's okay to erase the labour of
hundreds and thousands of our peoples (emphasis of "peoples" as we are an
extremely diverse country with multiple ethnicities, religions, genders,
castes, and cultures) that resulted in the so-called colonial-era heritage.
For sure the colonial-era heritage was built with labour of people of this
country even the architectural style might reflect Victorian one. How could
we even wipe off the hard work of our own ancestors? I think, a
21st-century reimagination of cultural heritage would always place human
labour above architectural style, and that doesn't just apply to only
colonial-era heritage but all the heritage.
I have personally never met Medhavi and others at he Heritage Lab, but have
been reading about their work for the last few years. To say the very
least, the language on their site, above all, is very well written. For
someone who went to an Indian language-medium school (as a perk, English
classes are taught in Indian languages!), I don’t find the language to be
against the Wikimedia movmenent. I think it's a welcome step for a
non-Wikimedia affiliate to run a campaign that would eventually encourage
Wikimedians to contribute to Wikimedia movement. For the sake of argument,
one might say that it's better to run a similar campaign with their
preferred choice of vocabulary to compare the outcomes with another
campaign with vocabulary they don't agree with. It's certainly an area to
study if use of the term "post-independence" yields better result than a
campaign that uses the term "post-colonial even though I'd caution against
burnout of volunteers.
I think it's an absolute waste of collective time at a rather distressing
time when thousands of lives are lost in the name of claiming thousands of
years of glorious past in an ongoing and "post-oppression" attack on
civilians.
But all that is outside of this campaign. I'll refrain from responding to
any post in this thread that derail the actual conversation.
Subhashish
On Wed, 8 Nov, 2023, 2:44 am Dr. Abhijeet Safai, <abhijeet.safai(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
(Reposting with minor corrections*)
Dear All,
It is very disturbing to see this kind of language for a past president of
Wikimedia Foundation's India Chapter! I do not want to go into merits of
stands each one are having (for the sake of argument, let's even believe
that Sudhanwa sir is wrong here), but this kind of language is not our
heritage is for sure!
This could have been said in a better way too without accusations (please
note once we start accusing, we cannot cry foul when another person accuses
us in return). I strongly condemn all these baseless accusations. I know
Sudhanwa sir in person and it will take many lives for us to understand his
greatness and his contribution to Wikipedia and Open Source movement! (BTW
he is pioneer of FOSS activities in Pune). He is so great that I also do
not know his greatness in totality. I have understood it in bits and pieces
these things indirectly, because he does not tell them by his own mouth.
This kind of thinking (pacifying) is definitely not mine and I have
learned it from Mahatma Gandhi from his book titled 'My Non Violence' which
can be found on this
<https://www.mkgandhi.org/mynonviolence/my_nonviolence.htm>link. It is
freely available in public domain. I strongly suggest people to read.
Thanking you,
Yours sincerely,
--
*Dr. Abhijeet Safai*
(Election Committee Member of Wikimedia Foundation's India Chapter
Elections in 2017)
--
*Dr. Abhijeet Safai*
*Certified Base SAS Programmer*
*SAS Certified Clinical Trials Programmer*
On Wed, Nov 8, 2023 at 3:51 AM medhavi gandhi <medhavigandhi(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
> Dear Sudhanwa,
>
> As the founder of The Heritage Lab, your email came across as very
> amusing to me.
>
> Allow me to elaborate -- in the "heritage labs" (gosh, I wish you would
> get the name right at least) - we don't "build heritage". Actually
heritage
> refers to something we "inherit". What we do is create ways for people to
> access and engage with that inheritance, specifically cultural inheritance.
>
> I would normally pass off your response as a very typical
> 'troll-behaviour' one, and ignore it -- but you're a member of the Wiki
> community and I find it important therefore to urge you to understand terms
> such as *post-colonial and post-independence*. The post-colonial period
> typically begins with independence but the challenges and issues faced by
> India in these phases can be distinct -- post colonialism often involves
> addressing the specific legacies of colonialism (ones that we continue to
> suffer today).
>
> I'm usually up for a debate - but why I find your response to be typical
> of "Troll behaviour" is that *your comment lacks any research on our
> work *-- you simply tried to discredit us and "rant". When you use words
> like "seems like" -- you make it very clear that you could not be bothered
> enough to check the link and understand if we have at all covered ancient
> India / or other "thousands of years of history, culture and heritage" in
> other ways. If you had indeed bothered, you would probably come across some
> interesting stories - like one about a 2000 year old artefact clicked by a
> Wiki-community member during our campaign last year.
>
> *What I find shameful *about this entire exchange is that you, a
> Wikipedian -- who is meant to check for reliable citations before editing a
> Wiki page and is meant to gather information in an appropriate manner in
> order to spread knowledge, couldn't even cross check before writing an
> email to the entire list.
>
> I wish you better mental health and positivity this festive season. There
> is enough hatred in this world and we don't need more of this behaviour.
>
> Thanks, anyway.
> Medhavi
>
>
>
> ᐧ
> ᐧ
>
> On Tue, 7 Nov 2023 at 13:04, <
> wikimediaindia-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
>> Send WikimediaIndia-l mailing list submissions to
>> wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>>
>> To subscribe or unsubscribe, please visit
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>>
>> Today's Topics:
>>
>> 1. Invitation for Wiki contests and fellowship by The Heritage Lab
>> (Satdeep Gill)
>> 2. Re: Invitation for Wiki contests and fellowship by The Heritage Lab
>> (Sudhanwa Jogalekar)
>>
>>
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 1
>> Date: Tue, 7 Nov 2023 08:21:57 +0530
>> From: Satdeep Gill <satdeepgill(a)gmail.com>
>> Subject: [WikimediaIndia-l] Invitation for Wiki contests and
>> fellowship by The Heritage Lab
>> To: wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>> Message-ID: <DA4A5DF8-8666-4608-9807-1DCAE99D87F0(a)gmail.com>
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>> ------------------------------
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>> Message: 2
>> Date: Tue, 7 Nov 2023 10:48:18 +0530
>> From: Sudhanwa Jogalekar <sudhanwa.com(a)gmail.com>
>> Subject: [WikimediaIndia-l] Re: Invitation for Wiki contests and
>> fellowship by The Heritage Lab
>> To: Wikimedia India Community list
>> <wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
>> Message-ID:
>> <
>> CA+Ho68wfS3Gv4oChR6hwOMvC1ftL4sk0WT1ZaR2P5iwwgw9uQQ(a)mail.gmail.com>
>> Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
>> boundary="000000000000d3596e0609891987"
>>
>> I am wondering what kind of heritage these people are building in
>> heritage
>> labs!!
>>
>> Even the theme says post colonial India!!
>>
>> Looks like they have nothing to do with our history, culture, heritage of
>> thousands of years.
>>
>> Probably, they still want to remain in the colonial India heritage. That
>> can't even say post independence activities.
>>
>>
>> Shameful.
>> And Wikipedia is supporting it in the name of spreading knowledge!!
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Nov 7, 2023, 8:22 AM Satdeep Gill <satdeepgill(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > *Forwarding the following message on behalf of Arunesh Varade, The
>> > Heritage Lab*
>> >
>> > Hello everyone,
>> >
>> > The Heritage Lab <https://www.theheritagelab.in/culture-events/> is
>> > organizing two Wiki contests
>> > <
>>
https://www.theheritagelab.in/world-heritage-week-contest-monuments-museums…
>> in
>> > the month of November on the occasion of World Heritage Week and Wiki
>> Asian
>> > Month.
>> >
>> > First contest is an edit-a-thon where open access content from GLAMs
>> would
>> > be uploaded on Wikimedia Commons with relevant data to improve the
>> > accessibility of these images.
>> >
>> > The second contest is where people can share the stories of visiting
>> > museums. It can be a photo essay, illustration, etc. The submissions in
>> > this contest will be uploaded on Commons and the best entries from them
>> > will be rewarded.
>> >
>> > We have exciting prizes for the winners so we look forward to your
>> active
>> > participation in both these events.
>> >
>> > Further, we have also opened applications for the second edition of
>> Open
>> > Knowledge Fellowship
>> > <https://www.theheritagelab.in/open-knowledge-museums-india/> where
we
>> > host a cohort of fellows to research and create new knowledge about
>> Indian
>> > art and cultural heritage and contribute the same to Wikimedia
>> projects.
>> >
>> > Please pass on the word to the people who would be interested in being
>> a
>> > part of this.
>> >
>> > Thanks and Regards,
>> > Arunesh Varade
>> > on behalf of The Heritage Lab
>> > _______________________________________________
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