[Reader-list] The weighty burden of names

[Shilpa Phadke]

Hullo,

My friend and colleague, Sameera Khan and I were somewhat baffled by Sanjay
Dutt's recent misogynist comments on last names and wondered what had
brought on the rather incoherent tirade. In a short piece we tried to think
through what he said and what he might have meant. Comments welcome.

Shilpa Phadke





The weighty burden of honourable names

*Shilpa Phadke & Sameera Khan*

* *

Clearly Sanjay Dutt hasn't read his Shakespeare for he doesn't seem to
recollect the Bard's pronouncement, "What's in a Name?" But then perhaps for
one with his nose in all kinds of things rotten, nothing smells sweet to him
at all.

We allude to Sanjay Dutt's recent assertion of his and his wife's right to
the Dutt name, simultaneously questioning his married sister Priya Dutt's
right to the same name, thereby annoying not just his sister but all women
who choose to keep their birth names. The annoyance of course is mild for in
any case, most of us don't rate a convicted criminal's approval very high on
our list of priorities. Nonetheless since the issue has come up, its worth
not just reiterating rehearsed arguments on women's rights to their birth
names but also asking *Sanjay Dutt ke banyan ke peeche kya hai*?

At a time when women are transgressing all sorts of previously hitherto
sacred boundaries, keeping one's birth name after signing up for the
institution of marriage seems like a little thing indeed. And for many
progressive men and women, it has become an almost taken-for-granted
assumption that both will keep their own names and separate identities if
they choose to marry and/ or procreate. Legally in this country women have
the right not just to keep their birth names, but also to give these names
to their children should they wish to.

Sanjay Dutt seems to believe that by changing their last names, women show
their husband's honour and respect. We don't really agree with the terms of
this debate  but even if one were to judge him on his own terms assuming
that people bring shame or honour to their 'names' and hence their families,
then whom would one consider as honouring the name and who would be seen to
be shaming it? If we were Mr Sunil Dutt watching our daughter and son making
their way through the world, there is little doubt about whom we would
choose to bequeath our name to.



The question Sanjay Dutt really raises is more than just the right to keep
birth names.  It is also about birthright; about inheritances and family
legacies, especially in a not-so-closet feudal country like ours. Where
women's legal rights to property are still often not honoured and where
sisters give up inheritance claims in the name of sibling love, in a
roundabout but not very subtle way by questioning his sister's right to her
birth family name, Sanjay Dutt is really asking whether Priya Dutt has the
right to the family political mantle? As the prodigal convicted son begins
to have political ambitions (a clever, if not very original, way to stay out
of prison) he perhaps seeks to challenge his sister's right to the family
political legacy. If for the moment one sets aside one's objections to such
feudal political legacies in a democracy, then the question one must ask is:
does the law abiding daughter, have any less claim to the Mumbai North-West
Lok Sabha seat – which was held by father Sunil Dutt for several years –
than the prodigal convicted son?

Hopefully, if Sanjay Dutt does stand for election, the electorate which has
demonstrated over and again that they are no dupes will tell him in no
uncertain terms that respect and honour cannot be claimed on the basis of a
name or as a birthright. They have to be earned.



*Shilpa Phadke and Sameera Khan collaborated on the Gender and Space project
(www.genderandspace.org) and are currently writing a book based on that
research along with Shilpa Ranade. *