Hyderabad: What is life like for a teenager who has had the misfortune of having a derogatory word for his surname in his official records? Remember the Mera Baap Chor Hain brandished on Vijay’s (Amitabh Bachchan) hand in Deewar and the effect it has on his psyche?
On Thursday, IPS officer and Telangana Social Welfare Residential Educational Institutions Society secretary Dr R.S. Praveen Kumar expressed his anguish over the insensitivity of officials who had similarly branded a teenager who had applied for admission to residential junior college, this time not on his hand, but in his official documents.
In a Facebook post, Dr. Kumar said, “This is about how derogatory identities (are) imposed upon the oppressed. I apologise, as this post might hurt, but the truth must be told. And I am seeking solutions here. Today, one middle-aged woman with her young son approached me for admission into junior college. While I was going through the petition, what really struck me was the surname of the boy. His name is written as La***palli Shyam. The surname, in native Telugu language, means that this person/family hails from a ‘village of sex workers’.”
“How insensitive was the official, be it headmaster/mistress or birth registration guy, who first registered this surname in the official registers! It’s not very difficult to imagine the silent humiliation this child and mother suffered in these long years from fellow citizens. There are many more such identities recklessly imposed on the weak and voiceless everywhere. This must change,” Dr. Kumar wrote.
“No more imposition of derogatory identities on anyone,” he appealed, adding that his organisation Swaeros International’s students had come up with 793 names that have inspirational, rather than derogatory, meanings and could be used to give identity to vulnerable people.
