By Sujit De
The surname of one of my classmates in school was Mal. The meaning of ‘mal’ in Bengali is goods but it is used as an offensive slang denoting anything from a gun to wine, from a queer man to a pretty woman. The boy had to stomach insulting comments for having such a surname. Students poked fun at his surname even in his presence. Ultimately, he left our school. The age-old caste system has made such a dent in our society that a Dalit’s surname can become his or her pain in the neck. In fact, such surnames such as Chamar is used to call somebody names. Goutam Ghosh in his film Paar had shown this bitter truth. Nasiruddin Shah who portrayed the main Dalit character of the film groaned inwardly when he had to utter his surname. Most of the Dalit surnames act as a dirty stickers in their foreheads. Age-old caste system devalues and demeans blue collared jobs to such an extent that instead of giving respect to these important occupations, Indian society still regard them as dirty. Pratichi Trust report on primary education reveals how some higher caste teachers use sticks to touch their lower caste students, who are also made to sit separately. Given the prevalent scenario, one can easily comprehend how painful it is to carry an insulting signboard in the form of surname.
Another dangerous aspect of surname is that it fans nepotism. Same surname of the interviewer and the interviewee usually builds bridges over the table. If you hear that a person is telling another, “Are you Mr. Pal? I’m also Pal.”, then you can rest assured that they will become pals. Thus, surname can play a very dubious role in a job interview or in a police station as it fuels caste prejudice and creates we-they division.
It is, therefore, necessary to impose a general ban on keeping this tail of a name in our country. It is argued that a single name can cause confusion as it is difficult to distinguish a person among his or her namesakes. This problem can easily be sorted out by replacing occupational and caste marker surnames with simple second names. A person should be given the liberty of choosing anything be it a name of a flower or his or her father’s or mother’s name as second name if it is not a baggage of caste or occupational heritage of horror. This has been done by Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi. He replaced his surname with an unpolluted word ‘satyarthi’.
When Shashank became India’s Foreign Secretary in 2003, he was asked why he did not have a surname. He said that his father Madan Mohan was a journalist and a teacher and he did not believe in a surname. He was influenced by the reform movements of the 1910-20 that worked towards achieving social equality. There were many like him at that time who had dropped their surnames. Shashank’s children do not use their surname either. But they use a second name. While his son uses his father’s as his second name, his daughter adopts her husband’s name ( not surname). Kailash Satyarthi and the children of Shashank are ideal examples of how to select a second name discarding discriminatory tails that water down the right to equality which is enshrined in the Article 14 of our constitution.
Surnames cause pain not only to Dalits and backward castes but also to women who are forced to change their surnames to satisfy the patriarchal demands of their husband’s family. Recently, the supreme court of Japan has ruled that a nineteenth century law forcing married couples to use the same surname- almost always that of the husband’s does not violate the constitution. One of the plaintiffs, Kaori Oguni said before the ruling, “By losing your surname….you’re being made light of, you’re not respected. It’s as if part of your self vanishes”. She said, “If changing surnames is so easy, why don’t more men do it?” The UN committee on elimination of discrimination against women has called on Japan to revise the laws. Being a pillar of patriarchy, surname acts against aspirations of a modern lady to get on a equal footing with her husband’s. Therefore, prohibition on the use caste-stinking surnames can go a long way in establishing caste as well as gender equality.
In the midst of such movements against surnames, it is interesting that Ministry of Corporate Affairs has issued a Circular on March 28, 2014 that an applicant is required to disclose his or her surname for starting a company. Delhi High Court upholds the legality of the circular in their June 29, 2015 decision. Nishant who holds a post graduate diploma in Computer Application has challenged the verdict in the Supreme Court of India contending that he does not use surname but holds a valid PAN issued by the Income Tax Department and DIN issued by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. Moreover the passport issued to him does not mention his surname either. Now the Supreme Court of India will examine whether such a pre-condition of disclosing one’s surname violates Article 19 (1) (g) to practice any profession, or to carry on any occupation, trade or business.
Now, we should all realise and feel the pain of living and walking with an abusive surname. This edifice of discrimination should be destroyed so that Dalits and women of our country can breathe easy. We need a legislation to rid of our baggage of prejudice that has a label ‘Pride’ ( for upper castes ) or ‘Patriarchy’ ( for women ) or ‘Pariah’ ( for dalits).