Historian Vikram Sampath’s Wikipedia page vandalised by Audrey Truschke supporters
Wikipedia page of Vikram Sampath is seeing edits for past few weeks & every random allegation made against the historian was added to the article
Total Views |
New Delhi, March 5: Recently, historian Vikram Sampath has been under attack of leftists and Islamists, making false allegations of plagiarism against him. It was led by three professors from universities in US, Ananya Chakravarti, Rohit Chopra and Audrey Truschke. While allegations were proved fake, Hinduphobic professor Audrey Truschke has now launched a massive attack against Sampath, including vandalising his Wikipedia page.
As Truschke continued to make charges against Vikram Sampath, all of them were updated on the Wikipedia page. And interestingly, the professor herself proudly announced that her allegations against Sampath had made their way to Wikipedia.
The page had added details about an ‘open letter’ against Vikram Sampath purportedly signed by several people - a majority of which were found to be fake. Truschke had tweeted about the letter, claiming ‘75+ concerned scholars’ have signed it.
However, after several ‘signatories’ of the letter including Ramchandra Guha, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Sanjay Raut, clarified that they had not signed it, the reference to the letter was later removed. It is notable that actually the name of Ramchandra Guha was not even in the letter, a name Ram Guha was there. But the Wikipedia editor assumed it to be Ramchandra Guha and added that he had signed the letter before removing the entire para.
It was pointed out by Vikram Sampath himself on February 27, when he tweeted that his Wikipedia page was vandalised by an editor with a history of vandalising pages linked to India.
Even as the forged signatures unravel Trangabellam continues to vandalize my @Wikipedia pg, which she joyfully acknowledges👇. Note Trangabellam created Dr Truschke's page; vandalized @sanjeevsanyal 's page & also Balakot strikes!! Are they the same person - AT & TB: alter-egos? pic.twitter.com/0ByGymX8VU
— Dr. Vikram Sampath, FRHistS (@vikramsampath) February 27, 2022
The Wikipedia page of Vikram Sampath is seeing heavy edits for past few weeks, and every random allegation made against the historian was added to the article. Although Wikipedia rules say that only verified information backed by credible sources should be added to its articles, baseless allegations & plain opinions were added to the page, mostly by an editor with ID TrangaBellam - like a Scroll article titled “How historian Vikram Sampath uses decolonisation rhetoric to make Hindu domination sound reasonable”.
As Truschke continued to make charges against Vikram Sampath, all of them were updated on the Wikipedia page. And interestingly, the professor herself proudly announced that her allegations against Sampath had made their way to Wikipedia.
Also Read | Historian Audrey Truschke blames ‘Hindu Right IT cells’ after her hate letter was found with forged signatures
It is notable that the changes to Wikipedia were made on nearly real-time basis, which means they were added to the page immediately after the allegations were made against the historian, completely violating the Wikipedia policy of publishing only verified information.
The page had added details about an ‘open letter’ against Vikram Sampath purportedly signed by several people - a majority of which were found to be fake. Truschke had tweeted about the letter, claiming ‘75+ concerned scholars’ have signed it.
However, after several ‘signatories’ of the letter including Ramchandra Guha, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Sanjay Raut, clarified that they had not signed it, the reference to the letter was later removed. It is notable that actually the name of Ramchandra Guha was not even in the letter, a name Ram Guha was there. But the Wikipedia editor assumed it to be Ramchandra Guha and added that he had signed the letter before removing the entire para.