There?s a lovely joke that Desmond Tutu, the famous South African activist, likes to relate. ?People keep accusing me of name-dropping. Why, only last week I was at Buckingham Palace and the Queen said to me, Arch, you?re name-dropping again.? He was making an elegant point that name-dropping is a subliminal human failing, where some succeed at it while others fail. In India, name-dropping has become a rather black art, where everybody at every level of economic or social status has friends or relatives in high places. ?Don?t you know who I am?? actually translates into ?Don?t you know who I know??. At times, it seems to suggest that everyone in India is at one degree of separation, so freely do we Indians drop names of people we claim to know or are related to.
This is very much an urban phenomenon, and the hole-in-the-wall shopkeeper will use it with as much confidence as the tycoon, who needs his file moved faster or higher. Indeed, nowhere is name-dropping as prevalent and blatant than in the capital, where the political, bureaucratic and corporate elite are the most visible and, therefore, accessible. Whether at a five-star cocktail party where the competition to see who drops the biggest names can get awfully fierce, to a roadside accident, a hospital or a government office where ordinary citizens will threaten anyone in sight with names of powerful people they claim they know, name-dropping has become an epidemic. It?s also a very Indian thing, emerging, perhaps, from our vast joint family systems where some relative or the other was in a position of authority, as well as the political and bureaucratic you-scratch-my-back-I?ll-scratch-yours culture. There?s also the reality that every Indian, no matter how rich, powerful or prominent, will need benediction from official sources at some point in their lives.
At one level, name-dropping is one-upmanship in its crudest form, at another, it?s an admission of insecurity and the uncontrollable urge to be of some importance. Dropping the name of a cabinet minister, a senior bureaucrat or celebrity suggests you belong in that circle. Here, it?s taken on a sinister form of intimidation, but there is an element of irony; outwardly, we Indians are excessively polite and tend to use honorifics excessively, everybody is a ji or a bhabhi, even a sir-ji. Yet, when it comes to name-dropping, that goes out the nearest window.
In America, no one will refer to Barack Obama as Barack, it?s either Obama or The President. In France, it will be Monsieur Holland, in the UK, no one in public will call David Cameron David, it will always be Cameron. That is the case with most democracies but not in India. Here, any conversation you hear will be peppered with the liberal use of Sonia, Manmohan, Rahul, or even PC, suggesting a familiarity that is usually non-existent and reflects a crude exaggeration of self-importance.
Our politicians, on the other hand, have adopted a different kind of name-dropping: changing the names of states and cities at the drop of a Gandhi topi. Orissa is now Odisha, Uttaranchal became Uttarkhand, and now, with Mamata in charge (or on a charge), West Bengal will become Paschim Bangla. Our major cities have succumbed to the name-dropping disease. Madras to Chennai, Bangalore to Bengaluru, Calcutta to Kolkata, Bombay to Mumbai and many others trapped in the web of chauvinism or opportunistic populism. The better-known form of name-dropping is also intrinsically opportunistic and many use it without realising that it can turn people off. I was at a function where the crowd was a mix of businessmen, people from the arts and prominent socialites. It was the businessmen; successful, rich, who dropped names the most that evening. ?Last time I met PC? was the oft-heard remark, and for businessmen, the finance minister is a prime target for name-dropping, while one of them had the temerity to announce, ?Yesterday, when I met Manmohan, he didn?t seem worried at all?. The takeaway from the evening was pretty obvious. The higher you are, the greater the urge to name-drop. Actually, it?s not all that new. Even Jesus Christ once told his disciples: ?If you ask the Father for anything in My name, He will give it to you?, demonstrating the irresistible power of name-dropping.
In the Indian context, there?s the added danger of musical chairs, where power can prove ephemeral. Not many these days will be dropping names like Robert Vadra, Suresh Kalmadi or even Vijay Mallya as freely as they did a year ago. The best practitioners of the art say the key is context where you steer the discussion to a subject so you can name-drop without sounding crass. The truth is that names can be the ultimate status symbol, to be collected and displayed, but dropped names are a lot like toupees: badly done, they show poor taste.
The writer is Group Editor, Special Projects & Features,
?The Indian Express?