What’s In A Surname? Ask Beed Police Chief

For the first time perhaps in India, police personnel in a district have started wearing just their names and not their surnames on their uniform nameplates. This has happened in the strife-stricken Beed district of Marathwada region in Maharashtra. Superintendent of Police Navneet Kanwat implemented this measure after allegations became rampant that even the police force in the district had been operating on a caste basis. At the core of the charge is the caste-based rift between the powerful Maratha and Vanjari communities ever since influential minister Dhananjay Munde was embroiled in a serious episode which was triggered off due to the heinous murder of a sarpanch, Santosh Deshmukh, allegedly by henchmen of Munde. After tremendous pressure was exerted, he had to resign since the Mahayuti government was in the dock owing to the collapsed law and order situation in the district. As the caste related allegations became a crescendo, Kanwat decided to minimize the gravity of the situation by ordering the police personnel to just display their names and not the surnames. He himself wears the nameplate that merely says Navneet. The district became a hotbed of tension since Maratha reservation proponent Manoj Jarange, who belongs to the district, launched an agitation to press the demand, enraging the OBC community since he demanded a reservation share from the OBC quota. The repercussions of the class between the two communities reflected in the Lok Sabha elections last year as the Mahayuti lost heavily. Social engineering measures by the Mahayuti strategists turned the tables in the legislative assembly election that was swept by the saffron alliance. Navneet has been praised by non-partisan groups for this unprecedented experiment.