Posted by: Nepe May 28, 2007
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Nycketa-jee,
Republic does liberate us at least mentally to be free to think outside the box of "traditional fabric" of the society and innovate ways to meet our newer needs.
As for remedies of casteism, Dr. Ambedkar's way is, as you rightly said, might be ONE among several different as well as complementary ways including EDUCATION, as copycat-jee just reminded.
Sometime ago I was sharing and discussing what I thought could be a new complementary approach: "decasteification of surname" (थरको निर्जातीकरण)।
Here is the discussion:
*********************
- http://www.sajha.com/sajha/html/openthreadall.cfm?StartRow=41&PageNum=3&forum=2&threadid=31697#260396
"De-casteification of surnames is one of many minor but significant social reforms I think about Nepal.
Letting people freedom to choose names, surnames, religion and everything a Nepali is entitled to is going to be among many socio-political reforms I am going to pursue (no, not limited to cyber-activism !).
So, I will be promoting one broad basic right of Nepali citizen (freedom of a child from being imposed religion and surname of parents !) in the new constitution. Seriously."
*********************
- http://www.sajha.com/sajha/html/openthreadall.cfm?StartRow=41&PageNum=3&forum=2&threadid=31697#260953
My proposal does let freedom to those who would like to choose to inherit their parent's surname as their identity.
...I am myself aware of some arbitrary cases of surname changing. My proposal to make it legal from arbitrary.
Of course education and other factors have made the "basnsuri" have more and more feeble sound. However, my proposal was "Na rahe baans, Na baje baabsuri".
*********************
- http://www.sajha.com/sajha/html/openthreadall.cfm?StartRow=61&PageNum=4&forum=2&threadid=31697#261393
I thought "decastification of surnames" would be self-guiding if not self-explaining. Anyway, "decastification" was the purpose and "freedom to choose surnames" was the method, in my proposal. The idea was to let anybody to choose/change any surname any day of their life so that, as more people do that, a particular surname remains no longer limited to a particular caste. The idea is to confuse the caste. Of course a person who is proud of his/her caste and does not want any outsider to use that caste will not be happy with it. But who cares the caste chauvinism ?
It should be obvious, this method is primarily intended to free people from the stigmatized identity. The reason I chose "freedom" (as a matter of fact, I would like to make it "encouragement") "to choose any surnames/caste" was to avoid Mahatma Gandhi's error. Gandhi thought he liberated Dalits by just giving a respected class name of "Harijan". It did not liberate Harijans from their stigmatized identity.
*********************
- http://www.sajha.com/sajha/html/openthreadall.cfm?StartRow=61&PageNum=4&forum=2&threadid=31697#261976
1. The practice of changing surname is very rare and arbitrary. As far as I know, there is no law that deals particularly with this issue. However, arbitrary change of name/surname could be interpreted as fraudulence (किर्ते) by some existing laws, I suppose.
In any case, I think, a lot of people (from stigmatized castes) will go for changing their surnames (caste) if they know that is welcome. It is important to note that I am not talking about "mass conversion" to newly invented surnames. I am talking about individual and discreet conversions.
2. If you are asking for detail of my proposal, it is yet to be worked out.
However, the major ideas, some of which I already discussed, are something like this:
● Incorporate the freedom of surname (do not call it "caste" because that will be constitutionalizing the casteism ) in the article regarding basic rights in the constitution.
● Bring a law that allows a citizen to change his/her surname any time.
● Educate people (GOs, NGOs, POs can help with some kind of campaign).
*********************
Follow-up comments
- http://www.sajha.com/sajha/html/openthreadall.cfm?StartRow=61&PageNum=4&forum=2&threadid=31697#262383
- http://www.sajha.com/sajha/html/openthreadall.cfm?StartRow=61&PageNum=4&forum=2&threadid=31697#262550
- http://www.sajha.com/sajha/html/openthreadall.cfm?StartRow=61&PageNum=4&forum=2&threadid=31697#262673
- http://www.sajha.com/sajha/html/openthreadall.cfm?StartRow=61&PageNum=4&forum=2&threadid=31697#262936
*********************
Nepe
Republic does liberate us at least mentally to be free to think outside the box of "traditional fabric" of the society and innovate ways to meet our newer needs.
As for remedies of casteism, Dr. Ambedkar's way is, as you rightly said, might be ONE among several different as well as complementary ways including EDUCATION, as copycat-jee just reminded.
Sometime ago I was sharing and discussing what I thought could be a new complementary approach: "decasteification of surname" (थरको निर्जातीकरण)।
Here is the discussion:
*********************
- http://www.sajha.com/sajha/html/openthreadall.cfm?StartRow=41&PageNum=3&forum=2&threadid=31697#260396
"De-casteification of surnames is one of many minor but significant social reforms I think about Nepal.
Letting people freedom to choose names, surnames, religion and everything a Nepali is entitled to is going to be among many socio-political reforms I am going to pursue (no, not limited to cyber-activism !).
So, I will be promoting one broad basic right of Nepali citizen (freedom of a child from being imposed religion and surname of parents !) in the new constitution. Seriously."
*********************
- http://www.sajha.com/sajha/html/openthreadall.cfm?StartRow=41&PageNum=3&forum=2&threadid=31697#260953
My proposal does let freedom to those who would like to choose to inherit their parent's surname as their identity.
...I am myself aware of some arbitrary cases of surname changing. My proposal to make it legal from arbitrary.
Of course education and other factors have made the "basnsuri" have more and more feeble sound. However, my proposal was "Na rahe baans, Na baje baabsuri".
*********************
- http://www.sajha.com/sajha/html/openthreadall.cfm?StartRow=61&PageNum=4&forum=2&threadid=31697#261393
I thought "decastification of surnames" would be self-guiding if not self-explaining. Anyway, "decastification" was the purpose and "freedom to choose surnames" was the method, in my proposal. The idea was to let anybody to choose/change any surname any day of their life so that, as more people do that, a particular surname remains no longer limited to a particular caste. The idea is to confuse the caste. Of course a person who is proud of his/her caste and does not want any outsider to use that caste will not be happy with it. But who cares the caste chauvinism ?
It should be obvious, this method is primarily intended to free people from the stigmatized identity. The reason I chose "freedom" (as a matter of fact, I would like to make it "encouragement") "to choose any surnames/caste" was to avoid Mahatma Gandhi's error. Gandhi thought he liberated Dalits by just giving a respected class name of "Harijan". It did not liberate Harijans from their stigmatized identity.
*********************
- http://www.sajha.com/sajha/html/openthreadall.cfm?StartRow=61&PageNum=4&forum=2&threadid=31697#261976
1. The practice of changing surname is very rare and arbitrary. As far as I know, there is no law that deals particularly with this issue. However, arbitrary change of name/surname could be interpreted as fraudulence (किर्ते) by some existing laws, I suppose.
In any case, I think, a lot of people (from stigmatized castes) will go for changing their surnames (caste) if they know that is welcome. It is important to note that I am not talking about "mass conversion" to newly invented surnames. I am talking about individual and discreet conversions.
2. If you are asking for detail of my proposal, it is yet to be worked out.
However, the major ideas, some of which I already discussed, are something like this:
● Incorporate the freedom of surname (do not call it "caste" because that will be constitutionalizing the casteism ) in the article regarding basic rights in the constitution.
● Bring a law that allows a citizen to change his/her surname any time.
● Educate people (GOs, NGOs, POs can help with some kind of campaign).
*********************
Follow-up comments
- http://www.sajha.com/sajha/html/openthreadall.cfm?StartRow=61&PageNum=4&forum=2&threadid=31697#262383
- http://www.sajha.com/sajha/html/openthreadall.cfm?StartRow=61&PageNum=4&forum=2&threadid=31697#262550
- http://www.sajha.com/sajha/html/openthreadall.cfm?StartRow=61&PageNum=4&forum=2&threadid=31697#262673
- http://www.sajha.com/sajha/html/openthreadall.cfm?StartRow=61&PageNum=4&forum=2&threadid=31697#262936
*********************
Nepe