Jump to content

Talk:Feroze Gandhi

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Semi-protected edit request on 2 June 2022

[edit]
2402:8100:300E:595B:1:2:A99B:931A (talk) 07:42, 2 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Ferose Khan

 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. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 10:58, 2 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 12 February 2023

[edit]

Change: Feroze Gandhi (born Feroze Jehangir Gandhy Editor23451233 (talk) 11:43, 12 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Change: Feroze Gandhi (born Feroze Jehangir Ghandy)

To: Feroze Gandhi (born Feroze Jehangir Gandhy) Editor23451233 (talk) 11:44, 12 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Cannolis (talk) 12:19, 12 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 13 February 2023

[edit]

The original name is Feroze Jehangir Ghandy even as per the same page, yet it is mispelt as Feroze Gandhi giving a wrong impression about the lineage. All references to the name must be his full name Feroze Jehangir Ghandy or Feroze Ghandy instead of Feroze Gandhi OurTemples (talk) 12:48, 13 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

 Not done: Not mispelled. Read the article - "Being inspired by Mahatma Gandhi, Feroze changed the spelling of his surname from "Ghandy" to "Gandhi" after joining the Independence movement." and read WP:COMMONNAME Cannolis (talk) 13:11, 13 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Name

[edit]

@Abecedare: The surname dispute should be discussed here first. What Ramchandran Guha has claimed in a 2011 book is rather WP:EXCEPTIONAL because there is no earlier source to support this claim. And it is just a footnote thus insufficient.

On this edit you appear to have confused two different publications with the same name. This self-publishing company is clearly not the same as the one which published this book by Aruna Asaf Ali that has been cited by a number of scholars.[1][2]

Unlike the claim from Guha, the information from Aruna Asaf Ali has backing from other sources such as this one by Alex von Tunzelmann which noted "During the late 1930s, Feroze had begun to spell his surname 'Gandhi' - a small change which would be of inestimable value to his wife's future career."

Clearly, the information from Aruna Asaf Ali is more credible.

Now whether it was "Ghandhy" or "Gandhy" needs to be decided too. Most of the sources call him "Gandhy". Here is a tertiary source from 1979 which has provided significant coverage to Feroze and always called him "Gandhy"[3] (for better preview). A biographical book was written about him in 2016 by a Swedish author (which you added here also calls him "Gandhy" often,[4] but not "Ghandy".[5] Marie Seton, a biographer of Nehru, also wrote in 1967 "Feroze Gandhy '(the 'y' should have been an 'i')".[6]

Thus if we really want to decide between "Ghandy" or "Gandhy" for alternative name on the lead, then we must opt for "Gandhy". We can at least mention that "Gandhy" was the Parsi spelling of his surname on sections.[7][8] Abhishek0831996 (talk) 10:31, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Abhishek0831996: Thanks for starting the discussion. If I'm understanding the dispute correctly, there is agreement that Feroze started spelling his last name as "Gandhi" sometime in the 1930s but differences about whether the original spelling was "Ghandy", "Ghandi", "Ghandhy" or "Gandhy". Right? If so, lets collect the best available sources and summarize what they say in a footnote in the article. I say footnote because the orthography of Indian names in English was and remains in flux, and the existence of variants is a non-surprising and relatively minor issue.
To start with: I suspect that you are correct about the publisher of Aruna Asaf Ali's 1989 book Private Face of a Public Person not being the self-publisher that I though it was. So the book is worth considering as a source. Unfortunately, I don't have immediate access to it; sould you provide the exact relevant quote from the book and/or email me a scan of the relevant page? Abecedare (talk) 13:51, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but while "Feroze Gandhi" is clearly the most common name, the spelling "Gandhy" is the most common alternative spelling of his surname with regards to this person.
At page 35, Aruna Asaf Ali wrote: "Gandhy or Ghandy is how the Parsi surname is usually spelt. 'Gandhi' is the spelling of the similar sounding name of Gujarati Hindus of the Modh Bania caste, into which the Mahatma was born. Feroze spelt his surname as 'Gandhy' till the late thirties. His elder sister Tehmina Kershasp Gandhy continued to use the Parsi spelling of her surname, as in the article contributed to The Spirit of India, Vol. I, Asia Publishing House, 1975." Abhishek0831996 (talk) 10:08, 20 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Abecedare, RegentsPark, and Abhishek0831996:
Don't know about Asaf Ali's reliability. There seem to have been Parsi Gandhis before there was Feroze. Consider, for example, "Gandhibhai Khursedji Gandhi, a veritable double-engine Gandhi (in today's Hindutva parlance), a Parsi broker in Bombay, who used the spelling "Bhai" instead of "Bhoy." For no Hindu, or Jain would have the middle name "Khursedji."
Presumably, an Ismaili could have had that name, a cognate of Persian Khurshid (the sun), but Muslim names usually have in addition something Prophet related (e.g. the Indian actress Dimple Kapadia's Muslim first name "Amina," given by Aga Khan III, on account of her mother being Khoja).
I do understand that this line of argument is not exactly WP-kosher, but then neither are pretty much all the people's who have delved into Feroze's past. In my view, this obsession has always been a fringe Hindu nationalist one (the present company's intellectual delving excepted, of course) that WP should abjure. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:42, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There was also Jehangir Gandhibhoy Mody, with a determinedly non-Hindu, non-Jain, and non-Ismaili name, who held some position of responsibility in the Sir Herbert Lawrence Lodge in 1920. So, in conclusion, "no" to these alternative spellings, unless you have a birth certificate. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:51, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • (pinged) I don't really have an opinion on this but my preference would be to relegate the name discussion to a footnote since there appears to be no direct evidence of the change in spelling. RegentsPark (comment) 13:33, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 30 July 2024

[edit]

Feroze Jehangir Ghandy changed his surname to Ghandhi but his parents did not. So he was born to Jehangir Faredoon Ghandy and Ratimai Ghandy (née Commissariat). Please correct it. 117.250.72.8 (talk) 09:30, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Charliehdb (talk) 10:06, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]