What’s in a name?
Any name change on documents is, therefore, fraught with ramifications
The writer is a former ambassador and former assistant secretary general of the OIC
Has anyone noticed that there have recently been an inordinate number of notices in the national media notifying what is purported to be the ‘correction of name’? Now, this trend is not only a bit out of ordinary but also a tad disturbing. After all, why do these (mostly) young people feel the need to have a public notice published in the press announcing a ‘correction’ in their or their father’s name?
Before the matter becomes more fuddled and even intractable, how about trying to unravel the mystery? In a society like ours — that lacks family names — and in which there is scant record of births (and deaths) the link up of a person’s name with the father’s name becomes the sole defining criterion to differentiate one individual from another. Take at random any common name. For all one knows, there may be hundreds of thousand persons with that name. How else would you differentiate one from another except by appending the father’s name? All official and legal documents, consequently, need to qualify each name by appending the father’s name to it.
There is another complication allied to this; in that what would happen if both the name and the father’s name were to coincide in more than one individual. In the interest of preserving one’s sanity, however, this issue will not be touched upon in this narrative. It may be preferable, therefore, to confine one’s attention to why the need is felt to ‘correct’ the father’s name on a certain document, say a matriculation certificate. It can be envisaged that a typing error or a bureaucratic botch-up results in virtually changing the identity of the person concerned, with the resulting complications. In this case, the individual is quite justified to set in motion the procedure for a correction of the father’s name to correct the record.
But things start getting murkier and murkier. An ‘unprincipled’ individual may well use this ploy to take advantage of an innocent person by assuming his or her identity to lay claim to a university degree or legal deed. Case in point: the recent issue of public representatives having submitted ‘fake’ degrees.
An explanation may be in order. One is personally aware of a case of blatant fraud several years ago. It so happened that a person was employed in a public-sector organisation in Lahore at a hefty salary on the basis of an engineering degree from a reputed American university. Years later, it came to light that the individual in question was no better than a very successful con man. He happened to be a college drop-out from Hyderabad and did not possess even an ordinary degree.
Subsequent inquiry revealed that the person in question had fraudulently come into possession of the foreign engineering degree of someone else, and then had proceeded to legally change his own name to match the one on the document. For all one knows, there may be several others of the same ilk roaming at large!
Any name change on documents is, therefore, fraught with ramifications. The changes should be made only after a thorough probe and scrutiny. The pity is that the system in this country is so lax and the rules so full of holes that an unscrupulous person can virtually get away with murder. The pity is that petty bureaucrats take advantage of loopholes to lead the common folk into a labyrinth from which they find it difficult to extricate themselves. This needs to be prevented at all costs.
We have witnessed of late the setting up of several commissions and committees mandated to look into various issues of national importance. Could the powers that be not look into this issue and make recommendations to regulate the keeping of accurate records of nationals?
Published in The Express Tribune, September 16th, 2017.
Before the matter becomes more fuddled and even intractable, how about trying to unravel the mystery? In a society like ours — that lacks family names — and in which there is scant record of births (and deaths) the link up of a person’s name with the father’s name becomes the sole defining criterion to differentiate one individual from another. Take at random any common name. For all one knows, there may be hundreds of thousand persons with that name. How else would you differentiate one from another except by appending the father’s name? All official and legal documents, consequently, need to qualify each name by appending the father’s name to it.
There is another complication allied to this; in that what would happen if both the name and the father’s name were to coincide in more than one individual. In the interest of preserving one’s sanity, however, this issue will not be touched upon in this narrative. It may be preferable, therefore, to confine one’s attention to why the need is felt to ‘correct’ the father’s name on a certain document, say a matriculation certificate. It can be envisaged that a typing error or a bureaucratic botch-up results in virtually changing the identity of the person concerned, with the resulting complications. In this case, the individual is quite justified to set in motion the procedure for a correction of the father’s name to correct the record.
But things start getting murkier and murkier. An ‘unprincipled’ individual may well use this ploy to take advantage of an innocent person by assuming his or her identity to lay claim to a university degree or legal deed. Case in point: the recent issue of public representatives having submitted ‘fake’ degrees.
An explanation may be in order. One is personally aware of a case of blatant fraud several years ago. It so happened that a person was employed in a public-sector organisation in Lahore at a hefty salary on the basis of an engineering degree from a reputed American university. Years later, it came to light that the individual in question was no better than a very successful con man. He happened to be a college drop-out from Hyderabad and did not possess even an ordinary degree.
Subsequent inquiry revealed that the person in question had fraudulently come into possession of the foreign engineering degree of someone else, and then had proceeded to legally change his own name to match the one on the document. For all one knows, there may be several others of the same ilk roaming at large!
Any name change on documents is, therefore, fraught with ramifications. The changes should be made only after a thorough probe and scrutiny. The pity is that the system in this country is so lax and the rules so full of holes that an unscrupulous person can virtually get away with murder. The pity is that petty bureaucrats take advantage of loopholes to lead the common folk into a labyrinth from which they find it difficult to extricate themselves. This needs to be prevented at all costs.
We have witnessed of late the setting up of several commissions and committees mandated to look into various issues of national importance. Could the powers that be not look into this issue and make recommendations to regulate the keeping of accurate records of nationals?
Published in The Express Tribune, September 16th, 2017.