Use mother’s name to fight gender and caste discrimination

The problem of caste will never go away as it is ingrained in our psyche. But many have fought it and are fighting it, everyday.

Dr. Ambedkar changed into a Buddhist in a famous and now symbolic protest against the Hindu religion which sanctions “caste divisions or chaturvarnya.”

Now the Dalit youth of Gujarat have thought of a novel method of changing their surnames (which immediately give away their caste) and instead adopting their mother’s maiden names.

This initiative was started by a medical student in Ahmedabad, Gujarat by Dr. Nayan Nandaben Jayantibhai who dropped his surname “Solanki” and proposed the same for his Dalit friends on a social network website. Soon he had a large following and more than 500 youth have followed in his footsteps.

They all admit to being disturbed after the Una outrage in which four Dalit boys were beaten inhumanly by “Gau rakshaks” in Gujarat for skinning a dead cow. Mehsana-based dalit rights activist, Kaushik Parmar, who now refers to himself as Kaushik Jamnaben Babubhai, says it most tellingly: “The government has done little for dalits and women; both remain suppressed.”

Interestingly the initiative to wear their mother’s names was also done by our cricket heroes in the One day International in Vishakapatnam, to promote gender equality.

Dr. Meera Kumar, former Speaker and grand daughter of Dalit leader, Jagjivan Ram and Narendra Jadhav, Rajya Sabha, M.P and Dalit scholar, both have suggested after the Una incident shook the conscience of the country that we must all drop our surnames, if we are serious about a casteless society. Our social reformers had suggested similar ways, Jayaprakash Narayan had called for total revolution, but it is only in Buddhism that caste is a non entity and everyone becomes truly equal.

This may be a small step only as people will not stop in India until they find out your parentage and grand parentage and their occupations. However this initiative, aimed to empower women and neutralize caste has to be lauded and popularized in all social circles.

However if all of us are willing to drop our surnames, it will be something else.

-UDAAN