New Delhi, June 16: `Kunwar’, `Raja’, `Rani’, `Begum’, `Srimant’ will soon stand deleted from the AICC’s listings and records some 40 years after Indira Gandhi did away with privy purses in what was then meant to signal the arrival of a post-colonial egalitarian age.
While the titles of maharajas and ranis were abolished, habits did not die out and rather showed a capacity to not only survive but flourish in the Congress’s own lexicon. Not only did the royal references linger in conversations but the royal and feudal honorifics remained prefixed to names of leaders in party records.
Now the order seems to have finally changed as the party has also advised members not use royal and feudal flourishes in personal lives. The advice would strike at the root of what often sounds as boastful and pompous appellations among bluebloods, while rudely jolting an older crop now famous by their titles.
If names of feudals and bluebloods are shorn of prefixes which mark them from ordinary men and women in official records, it may be a big step towards the deglamorization of royals while also striking at their world view of a social hierarchy that sets them apart from the hoi-polloi.
When contacted, AICC general secretary Janardan Dwivedi confirmed the decision to get rid of royal epithets. If it is somewhat surprising that Congress has only now woken up to the elitism, it remains a fact that royals have political utility in some parts of the country largely by dint of their lineage.
This might explain how nomenclatures survived even though royalty and privy purses were disbanded as part of the `garibi hatao’ campaign decades ago. A senior leader argued the decision was not new but its reiteration was aimed to ensure implementation which has been lax.
Sources said the Congress decision, taken at the highest level, may be to cast itself differently from BJP. The view gains ground after the Rajasthan regime recently issued an advisory that people should not use such titles, after `maharani’ being used for former CM Vasundhara Raje.
But in the hullabaloo over the decision, the `royals’ were left wondering what the fuss was all about. Begum Noor Bano, former MP from Rampur, was nonchalant. “The honorifics were struck off long ago with privy purses. So, there is no question of a title existing,” she argued. About her name, she said `Begum’ implies a married woman and not royalty. “I am called Noor,” she said.
The name of Jitin Prasada has Kunwar prefixed to it. But the reason for it is that electoral rolls in Shahjahanpur so list his name, possibly an insertion by an employee managing the family work. An aide said Prasada was not one to be fascinated by titles.
Royalty and Congress have gone hand in hand, notwithstanding sore points like privy purses. If there was Kunwar Natwar Singh of Bharatpur, there was Raja Dinesh Singh of Pratapgarh, Karan Singh of the Kashmir kingdom, Scindias of Gwalior. All under Congress umbrella.
Some felt it could complement Congress’s embrace of `aam aadmi’ mascot. After all, the abolition of privy purses was accompanied by nationalisation of banks and followed by `garibi hatao’ slogan.
—Agencies–