Surnames & subcontinental subversions | Economic Times

In November 1917, the Times of India (ToI) reported on a meeting of the Anthropological Society of India where a Mr AL Emanuel ICS, spoke on surnames. After describing their origins from clans, occupations, founders of families and other sources “he concluded by saying that India is an interesting field of study in this connection since surnames are not yet completely in vogue and the habit of adopting them can be watched in the growth.” Evidence of how evolution of surnames in India continues came up recently when the Delhi High Court decreed that children can’t be compelled to take their fathers’ surnames. A father had asked that his minor daughter be forced to adopt his surname rather than that of his estranged wife. His counsel argued that not doing so would make it hard for his daughter to access insurance policies. The court dismissed this: “if the minor daughter is happy with her surname what is your problem?” An old dispute was also rekindled in Tamil Nadu when historical names in a textbook had been changed to drop caste identity. So the scholar U.Ve.Swaminatha Iyer was now to be U.Ve.Swaminathar. There was a longstanding movement in Tamil society to drop names indicating caste identity, which had started functioning as surnames. The South India system of patronymics, where family names are used first, offered an alternative, even with inevitable confusion between personal and surnames. But now the change was being applied retrospectively to those who had never adopted it, which lead to charges of historical distortion. In Hello, My Name Is… Neil Burdess’ history of naming, he traces the first attempt to impose a name separate from one’s personal name, which was then fixed and inheritable, to the bureaucracy of the Qin dynasty in China 6000 years ago. It was from the start a means of control “allowing authorities to be more in control of collecting taxes, conscripting soldiers, running the criminal justice system, tracking property ownership, and keeping a close eye on potentially troublesome individuals.” Today China uses naming to control Uighur Muslims. In Europe the Norman French began a similar process of systematisation, documentation and control after their 11th century conquest of England, followed by Ireland a century later. Keeping their restive subjects in control required naming them, and distinguishing them from others with similar personal names. In the mid-15th century the English parliament decreed “each Irishman to adopt an English surname – or have his goods seized.” Similar impositions of surnames have happened when authoritarian governments try to consolidate their rule, for example with Turkey’s Surname Law of 1934, when the leader conveniently adopted his surname of Ataturk or Father of the Turks. In 1934 ToI published a piece on ‘Muslims and Surnames’ which pointed to how a recent surname decree in Persia “has sent the better educated Persians back to old Iranian history and legend, with the result that Persia now abounds with euphonious and even romantic surnames, redolent of the ‘Shah Namah’.” In contrast, the unnamed writer noted disapprovingly that most “Indian Muslims have no surnames except those manufactured at school or college, which are in most cases, not real surnames.” By this the writer seems to mean highly distinctive names, with hints of family history, or even national legacy like those Persian names. Instead Muslims settled for clan names like Sheikh or Pathan, or profession names like Qazi (priest) or Khatib (writer), or even "a pseudo surname, eg Ahsan-ul-Haq (which is really one personal name) is written A.Haq.” Articles like this abound in the ToI archives, along with others approvingly explaining the history of Western surnames. The British clearly wanted to impose surnames on India as part of their systems of control, but as part of their attempt to appear non-authoritarian, they stopped short of Turkish or Persian style diktats. Instead they opted for a process of persuasion, through articles, or lectures like the Anthropological Society one, or inducement, to access services backed by state laws, which appear to require a surname – as with the father’s recent argument that his daughter could only benefit from his insurance policies if she had his name. Indians acquiesced, to a certain extent. As the Delhi case indicates, patriarchal thinking supports surnames. It also helped that places like Maharashtra, already had similar practices, probably due to Peshwa bureaucracy. In 1991 ToI interviewed Dr Ramgopal Soni who had documented 10,000 Marathi surnames (out of a possible 2 lakh), revealing insights like how film director V Shantaram came up with his oddly South-Indian sounding name by simply taking his surname, Vankundre, as an initial, or how “during the Bhosale Raj, any comment from the throne or peculiarity of a person would stick to him for lifetime” A man who complained about stomach-ache was named Potdukhe, a name still found today. Names like that, or the often-noted eccentricities of Parsi names (Engineer, Contractor, Sodawalla), might in fact indicate a rebellious counter to the seriousness with which the British treated surnames. In 1958 ToI reported a proposal in Calcutta to standardise community names so Mukhopadhyay, Mookerjea, Mukherjee and others could be reduced to one; this was evidently scornfully dismissed. The Sikh use of Singh and Kaur might represent the most sustained opposition to differentiated surnames anywhere in the world. The Tamil campaign against caste names had a counterpart in North India which lead to many taking just single names, and some still proudly hold to this convention. As Shashank, the erstwhile ambassador and foreign secretary (2003-4) can attest, it has not prevented them from achieving successful careers. Single names have also been proudly retained in parts of Northeast India. Today, when biometrics identification has made naming even more irrelevant – although increasing the potential for state control – we are even less obliged to comply with the Western obsession with surnames.