The Supreme Court of India must be congratulated for its recent ruling about the need to stop the practice of insulting people by using their caste name. In view of this landmark ruling, surnames that act as caste-signboards should be banned lock, stock and barrel.
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.
It is matter of shame that surnames such as Chamar is used to call somebody names. Age-old caste system devalues and demeans blue collar jobs to such an extent that instead of giving respect to these important occupations, Indian society still regard them as dirty.
Another dangerous aspect of a 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 be 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.
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. Thus, surnames also act against gender equality.
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).
