100 Most Popular Indian Last Names Or Surnames
Why Don’t Tamil People Have Last Names?
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A name is a powerful thing. Having the right name can open all the right doors. Having the wrong one can be hazardous to your health.
► Nowhere is the power of a name greater than in India - a nation home to hundreds of ethnicities and adherents of all the world’s major religions. A place where caste divisions still permeate society.
Know an Indian’s name and you instantly know their religion, ethnicity, and caste (a proxy for socio-economic status).
► A Kaur is usually a female of the Sikh religion and Punjabi ethnicity; a Todiyattu would be a Muslim hailing from the southern state of Kerala, and a Chatterjee would be a Hindu of the priestly Brahmin caste from the northeastern state of Bengal.
► Having the wrong name can deny you job opportunities or marriage partners, see you be violently attacked, denied services (like entry into temples, adequate help from police), and face an endless litany of discrimination in everyday interactions. Much of this is not legal of course - but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen - even in the 21st century.
► Amongst the Tamil community, however (now about 75 million strong) - there was a mass social reformist movement to try and break this cycle.
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► The communist revolution in the Soviet Union, as well as the rising tide of socialist movements across the globe, showed that it was possible to de-stratify societies.
► Many Tamil leaders like Periyar decided the moral thing to do was re-make society such that people from backward castes have economic and social equality to those in forward ones.
► This was to be realized through The Self-Respect Movement.
► As a result of this movement - intercaste marriages were no longer deemed taboo, but in fact, encouraged. The Brahmin caste’s monopoly on performing marriage ceremonies (which saw them also be paid for these services) was also broken with non-Brahmin celebrants recognized.
► Perhaps most revolutionary of all - it saw people drop their caste names as surnames. Instead, people took their father’s first name as their surname.
► This movement gained traction not just with Tamilians in India but also those across Sri Lanka, Singapore, Malaysia and beyond.
Source:
forebears.io
Wikipedia
Quora Discussion Forums
Medium.com
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