The Rajasthan state government is all set to roll out the ‘Sarthak Naam Abhiyan’ scheme, which is aimed at schools and the education department suggesting meaningful names to children and their parents, as even in current times, it is culturally common in rural Rajasthan to name children using words that can have derogatory connotations and embarrass an individual once they grow up and get educated enough to fathom the importance of names and their implications.
According to Rajasthan Education Minister, Madan Singh Dilawar, many a times, parents name their children using words that can lead to embarrassment for the latter. He added that not only is a name an identity, but it is directly associated to an individual’s respect and dignity.
While the Bhajan Lal Sharma led ruling BJP government says that this step will lead to a positive change in Rajasthani society, the opposition, as always, bound by its namesake duty, has opposed the current regime’s decision. Senior Congress leader and former minister, Pratap Singh Khachariyawas, stated that naming a child is their parents’ right and the government should not interfere with the same. He alleged that the state has already been going through a lot of foundational educational issues, but the government, rather than paying heed to them, is getting entangled in issues like this.
While the political debate over the issue is going on, in an unexpected turn, the BJP government of Rajasthan has done something that may topple the very essence of the scheme proposed. While the scheme aims at ‘Sarthak’ or meaningful names, the list of around 3000 name suggestions that is to be shared by the government has names even more bizarre than what the government had set out to replace.
Among the names suggested, there is ‘Makkhi’, ‘Bhayankar, ‘Thana’, and ‘Bhiksha’! If such name suggestions are accepted by parents, the Rajasthan government will surely lay the cornerstone for the ‘Nirarthak Naam Abhiyan’, wherein weird names will be replaced by even weirder ones.
Attempting to clear the air after parent groups and academics objected to the suggestions, department officials have said that a revised list will be issued by the Education Directorate as a lot of mistakes have been noticed in the current one, which is also not the final one.
