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Name of the Individual
[…] The selection of individual’s name bears relevant social significance in the Oram community. Generally the main purpose of name selection for an individual is to point out the particular person who is being granted specific social position in the contemporary society.
Oram vs Gotra (clan): crises in the use of surname
The old and authentic documents as Patta (the documents on the possession of individual land-holding) reveals that the ethnic group has been using ‘Oram’ as surname since the period of British rule. This earlier system of using Oram as surname has been reduced to the use of individual’s clan name as Tirkey, Lakra and so on. The main purpose of using the individual clan names is for facilitating the identity of particular persons. […]
Most of the time more than one persons of the community are known by the same name along with same surname. This happens so due to two reasons: the same surname as Oram is used by everybody as a part of the tradition and the name of the individual is often selected depending on the name of any weekday specially on which he/she has taken birth. So more than one person will be usually named on same weekday because of their birthday is fallen on the same day. Therefore, it becomes very difficult for an official messenger to give any official notice to the actual person in a village. The teacher in the school and higher boss in the office are also severely confused-to-point out the particular person. Keeping these problems in mind, the ethnic surname Oram is being replaced today by the individual’s clan names.
A debate has been continued on the issue of transformation in the use of traditional surname to the new one. Basically three types of opinions are noticed : moderate, orthodox and mixed. The persons having the moderate outlook state that the use of clan as surname will help in refraining the youths from falling in love with mates of the same clan which is socially prohibited. They further explain that the very free mixing between boys and girls in the educational institutions and market places during industrialization may tempt them to fall in love with each other prior to considering the clan restrictions, So if the clan will be openly manifested in the form of surname, both the boy and girl will be alert about the clan restrictions when they start making love each other. Besides, at the use of clan as surname a person of one clan will pertinently recognize other members of the same clan. This will bring all the persons of the same clan into close of each other. As a result, one may get help/cooperation from his clan-mates at any danger.
The above view points of the moderates are severely opposed by the people with orthodox mentality. The use of the clan as surname, according to them, will adversely affect their original tradition. They argue that instead of bringing a check in the love marriage, it will rather help to aggravate this temperament among them. After the open manifestation of clan as surname, the school or college going boys and girls will never find any hindrance to fall in love with each other when one will easily come to know another’s clan position. As a result, instead of devoting their time and energy in study they will spend hours in the sphere of love. The greatest disadvantage of the use of clan as surname is the appearance of social fragmentation or social disunity. They suggest that the use of Oram as surname will bring all the entire individuals of the community into a common framework. In the community’s Annual Conference held at Sitapur of Daya Nagar, Sarguja district of Madhya Pradesh in 1973, the orthodox Orams, therefore, brought a resolution for compulsory use of Oram as surname.
A section of the Oram realized that it was necessary to bring a compromise between the above mentioned paradoxical interpretations. According to them no one of the interpretations strikes a strong base of clan in the traditional socio-cultural system and social-solidarity. If the people are forced to write Oram as surname for say, it is possible that they may’forget” the name of the respective individual’s clan position in later days. Consequently the strong base of clan in the community will be jeopardized and the boys and girls will bother very little about the clan restrictions during the marriage. On the other hand, if merely the clan name is insisted and, at the same time, the community’s name Oram is ignored, it will result in the frequent inter-Jati marriage. Because, similar clan names are often used among some communities other than the Qram. The clan like ‘Kerketta’, for instance, prevails among the Oram, Kharia and Kishan. In order to avoid such controversy, they would like to rely on the use of Oram” and respective individual’s clan name together. One should write clan name as surname in open space lying after the writing of individual’s first name (name given during the Namdhari occasion), and the community’s name Oram should be mentioned hereafter within bracket : as ‘Sagar Tirkey (Oram). Here ‘Sagar’ is the individual’s first or Namdhari name, ‘Tirkey’ is his clan name and the word Oram within the bracket is the name of the community. […]
Read or download the full PhD thesis here: https://hdl.handle.net/10603/159043
Source: CHAPTER – IV, THE CONCEPT OF ADIVASI : IN THE GENERAL CONTEXT OF ETHNIC IDENTITY (1990). p. 124-127
URL: https://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/159043/9/09_chapter%204.pdf
Date visited: 4 April 2019
Title: A tribe in an industrial milieu the Orams in Rourkela and adjoining villages
Researcher: Rath, Govinda Chandra
Guide(s): Sinha, Surajit C
University: University of Calcutta
Completed Date: 1990
Abstract: Abstract not available
Pagination: viii, 310p.
URI: https://hdl.handle.net/10603/159043
Appears in Departments: Department of Sociology
[Bold typeface added above for emphasis]
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[*] Some clarifications on caste-related issues by reputed scholars
Understanding “caste” in the context of Indian democracy: The “Poona Pact of 1932”
“Mahatma Gandhi and BR Ambedkar differed over how to address caste inequities through the electoral system. Their exchanges led to the Poona Pact of 1932, which shaped the reservation system in India’s electoral politics. […]
Two prominent figures who have significantly contributed to this discourse are Mahatma Gandhi, Father of the Nation, and Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, Father of the Constitution. The two stalwarts of Indian politics, while revered equally by the public, had contrasting views on the caste system. Their subsequent debates have shaped the course of Indian society and politics. While Gandhi denounced untouchability, he did not condemn the varna system, a social hierarchy based on occupation, for most of his life. He believed in reforming the caste system through the abolition of untouchability and by giving equal status to each occupation. On the other hand, BR Ambedkar, a Dalit himself, argued that the caste system disorganised and ‘demoralised Hindu society, reducing it to a collection of castes’. […]
And yet, despite their differences, they developed an understanding to work for the betterment of the marginalised.” – Rishabh Sharma in “How Ambedkar and Gandhi’s contrasting views paved way for caste reservation” (India Today, 6 October 2023)
URL: https://www.indiatoday.in/history-of-it/story/ambedkar-gandhi-caste-system-poona-pact-1932-reservation-2445208-2023-10-06
~ ~ ~
“That upper caste groups should declare themselves to be OBCs [Other Backward Castes] and want to avail of the reservation policy is a pandering to caste politics of course, as also are caste vote-banks. It is partially a reflection of the insecurity that the neo-liberal market economy has created among the middle-class. Opportunities are limited, jobs are scarce and so far ‘development’ remains a slogan. There’s a lot that is being done to keep caste going in spite of saying that we are trying to erode caste. We are, of course, dodging the real issue. It’s true that there has been a great deal of exploitation of Dalit groups and OBC’s in past history; making amends or even just claiming that we are a democracy based on social justice demands far more than just reservations. The solution lies in changing the quality of life of half the Indian population by giving them their right to food, water, education, health care, employment, and social justice. This, no government so far has been willing to do, because it means a radical change in governance and its priorities.” – Romila Thapar (Emeritus Professor of History, Jawaharlal Nehru University) interviewed by Nikhil Pandhi (Caravan Magazine, 7 October 2015)
URL: https://caravanmagazine.in/vantage/discipline-notion-particular-government-interview-romila-thapar
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“Casteism is the investment in keeping the hierarchy as it is in order to maintain your own ranking, advantage, privilege, or to elevate yourself above others or keep others beneath you …. For this reason, many people—including those we might see as good and kind people—could be casteist, meaning invested in keeping the hierarchy as it is or content to do nothing to change it, but not racist in the classical sense, not active and openly hateful of this or that group.” – Book review by Dilip Mandal for Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents (The Print, 23 August 2020)
URL: https://theprint.in/opinion/oprah-winfrey-wilkerson-caste-100-us-ceos-indians-wont-talk-about-it/487143/
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“The theoretical debate on caste among social scientists has receded into the background in recent years. [However] caste is in no sense disappearing: indeed, the present wave of neo-liberal policies in India, with privatisation of enterprises and education, has strengthened the importance of caste ties, as selection to posts and educational institutions is less based on merit through examinations, and increasingly on social contact as also on corruption. There is a tendency to assume that caste is as old as Indian civilization itself, but this assumption does not fit our historical knowledge. To be precise, however, we must distinguish between social stratification in general and caste as a specific form. […]
From the early modern period till today, then, caste has been an intrinsic feature of Indian society. It has been common to refer to this as the ‘caste system’. But it is debatable whether the term ‘system’ is appropriate here, unless we simply take for granted that any society is a ‘social system’. First, and this is quite clear when we look at the history of distinct castes, the ‘system’ and the place various groups occupy within it have been constantly changing. Second, no hierarchical order of castes has ever been universally accepted […] but what is certain is that there is no consensus on a single hierarchical order.” – Harald Tambs-Lyche (Professor Emeritus, Université de Picardie, Amiens) in “Caste: History and the Present” (Academia Letters, Article 1311, 2021), pp. 1-2
URL: https://www.academia.edu/49963457
~ ~ ~
“There is a need for intercultural education. We all need to work together to bridge these divides not only between religions and castes but also regions. It is not correct to think that one part is better than the other. Some of the limitations of India as a whole are due to our common heritage, say the one that has restricted women from having a flourishing life for themselves.” – Prof. V. Santhakumar (Azim Premji University) in “On the so called North-South Divide in India” (personal blog post in Economics in Action, 13 April 2024)
URL: https://vsanthakumar.wordpress.com/2024/04/13/on-the-so-called-north-south-divide-in-india/
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