Everyone has their place: India’s entrenched caste system.
Across centuries, the system has evolved into a complex matrix, with tens of thousands of sub-divisions. However, the defining element of the system – the legitimisation of differential treatment to people based on birth – is still intact. Iconic Indian jurist, politician and social reformer Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar noted that the caste hierarchy is marked by ascending order of reverence and descending order of contempt. Today, the caste system plays a crucial role in determining a person’s access to opportunities, skills and resources.
Leaving aside its logistical challenges, how far can the strategy of anonymous recruitment go to address centuries of exclusion? The draft report argues that:
In the absence of such direct information, social background of candidates is guessed to a great extent from the names like the Nayer, lyer, Iyengar, Naidu, Menon, Bandhopadhyaya, Chathurvedi, Gupta, Patel, Panda, etc.
Interestingly, these common Indian surnames indicate not only the caste position of their bearers, but also their regional identity. For instance a person with the surname “Rajput” in northern India, where the said caste is numerically and socially dominant, would signify more social power compared to a person with the same surname in the south.
The surname “Bandhopadhyaya” – often spelled in its anglicised version as “Banerjee” or variations thereof – is an “upper-caste” Bengali Brahmin surname. This fact is common knowledge – and few Indians would fail to identify it as such. But not all Bengali surnames are as easily deciphered. For instance the last name “Sarkar” or its variations are often referred to as a title rather than a surname, because it has been bestowed on individuals under the Mughal regime. Today this last name is used by individuals across caste and religious categories.
Rejecting caste-based naming practices and adopting generic or symbolic last names has been a longstanding strategy within the anti-caste movement across the country.
What’s in a name?
Across India, last names describing caste-based occupations have commonly been used as slurs to humiliate Dalit or Bahujan individuals, thereby reinforcing caste-based hierarchy and ostracisation. Since the mass political mobilisation of these groups in the 1940s in the south by the Dravidian Movement and the 1980s and 1990s in the north by the Lohiaites, many have discarded their caste surnames and now use a second first name instead.
Chandrashekhar Azad Ravan, leader of the Bhim Army and Azad Samaj Party, has been featured in the Time list of 100 emerging leaders.