Where People have no (sur)Names

Apologies to U2 fans for the title. It refers to my home, Bihar. It is an irony that in a place like Bihar where caste-identities are so strong, markers of caste–the surnames or the family names–are seldom used. I never realized how unusual it was until i ventured out of the state for higher studies, first to Allahabad(UP) and later to the United States. I do not use Shahi, my family name, in official documents or in informal introductions. None of my classmates (except when they were Bengalis, Marwaris or Muslims) in Bihar used it either.

In high school in Allahabad, it was different. Only my name did not have family name prefixed to ti and many of my classmates thought that may be i was from so-called lower caste and was trying to hide it. In the US, my friends presume that Kishore is my family name and when I tell them that it is not and I do not use my family name at all, they are surprised too. They find it amusing when i tell them that a whole generation in my home state has givern up family names and it is common for the members of the same family  to have different last names.

Here in the US, Malcolm X ( who was Malcolm Little), Stokely Carmichael (who became Kwama Ture) and many other leaders and followers of Black Power changed their family names to disown the “slave names” or as in the later case to reemphasize his African roots. Watch here as Malcolm X explains why it was improper to use the old “slave-names”. This did not become the mainstream practice though.

What prompted Biharis to stop using their inherited family names? This may be an interesting questions for anthropologists or historians. I have not read anything on this. Unlike in the US, in Bihar the upper caste families who were privileged under the caste-system started the practice of not using family names. Why would they do so? My grandfather, who was one of the first in my extended family not to give family names to his kids, told me that  the trend started in 1940s among Congress leaders /workers as a symbolic first step towards creating a casteless society in Bihar. India’s freedom movement was rich with such symbolism. In those days, Congress leaders where often the most educated and respected members of the society. They were the trendsetters and what they did was soon followed by most people. So, the new naming convention became popular. 

Over the next two decades, casteism only became stronger. Earlier, caste was more about identity and ritual superiority.  After independence, as the political power came in the hands of the Indians the caste struggles were about political power and control over the state apparatus. Higher stakes meant uglier caste rivalries. Three decades long bitter political rivalry between the Bhumihaar leader Sri Krishna Singh and the Rajput leader Anugraha Narayana Singh is stuff of the legends in Bihar. The rivalry continued after them, only in more blatant and naked forms.  In 1950s and 1960s people avoided using family names for the fear of bias and discrimination by fellows of other castes. There are horror stories of what misfortunes your family name could bring to you from total strangers in an interview or in the marking of your exam books. These stories may be apocryphal but people believed in them and did not want to take an unnecessary risk. 

Now, it is neither the inspiration to create a casteless society nor the fear of caste discrimination that motivates people not to give their family names to their kids. It is just the convention in Bihar and to do otherwise is to be old-fashioned, traditional or even reactionary. In and of itself, I think using or not using family names does not make any real difference to people’s lives. It is not even a real issue but it tells us something about Bihar’s post-independce politics where something starting as a lofty gesture towards undoing the problem of casteism eventually became (an ineffective) coping mechanism as the problem worsened and society remained unprepared and unwilling to take any meaningful action.