Honorifics : Let us refuse
This article attempts to discuss the evolution, relevance and impact of the honorific titles on institutions & individuals.
“ This is the best reason to learn history: not in order to predict the future, but to free yourself of the past and imagine alternative destinies.”
~ Yuval Noah Harari
Let’s start with some trivia
The nursery rhyme, “Baa Baa Black Sheep” is controversially marred with the symbolism of slave trade & social injustice, its use has been often strongly discouraged.[1] This rhyme has an uncanny familiarity with another story of sheep, lords and prejudice. Shall we explore?
Let’s look at the history & present of the two words that can easily be considered the most commonly spoken words by an Indian student or a Professional – ‘Sir’ and ‘Madam’.
We have come a long way from using the honorary titles of sir & madam for addressing feudal lords to awarding knighthoods to a word without which our bureaucracy often refuses to run. (Talking about past, there exists a weird history of female titles when ‘mistress’ meant Mrs. and ‘Miss’ meant ‘Prostitute’)[7].
In our so called progressive society of 21st century, the use of these titles is tragic at its worst and at its best – comical.
It’s fascinating to realise how the British colonies post independence couldn’t psychologically free themselves from this feudalism. While those who brought this then, now see it with scorn. Though ironically, while understanding how deep rooted this issue is, I just found a company in UK selling rights to legally buy elite English titles ranging from to 195£ to 1945£.[3] If this isn’t crazy, then what is ?
During any usual conversation in India, one might recall the content of any conversation is just a trail of ‘sirr’ings – hello sir, yes sir, sir, sir listening, sure sir, thank you sir.
Time to mull
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit.
~ ‘Where the mind is without fear’ by Rabindranath Tagore
The question is when our institutions are supposed to liberate the young minds, is it by any means acceptable that practices that reinforce hierarchy, domination and subservience continue?
Why can’t one learner address another learner by their names ?
Why can’t we pay more respect to ideas, reason out conclusions by scientific thinking and give more importance to the common purpose regardless of the seniority, position or power one holds?
Disclaimer :
1. While discussing the relevance of such titles in our social systems – with my peers, resident tutors & professors, I realised debating about this norm will be indeed assiduous.
2. I am sure some people might not identify with the problem at all. You are lucky if your institution does not identify itself with this omnipresent norm.
The spectrum of ideas :
Let me explain the idea with the help of graph beneath.
The mainstream idea
- in BLUE : “Sir” or “Madam” is actually courteous and a sign of respect. It helps in stabilising communities.
The controversial idea
- in RED : “Sir” or “Madam” is useless at its best but I just conform. Calling everyone sir madam is easier than taking the pains of remembering their names.
The fringe idea
- in ORANGE : “Sir” or “Madam” creates a sense of subservience and inferiority in the growth of individuals, science & deeper friendships. Must be abandoned.
Relevance of Irreverence
The Undergraduate community at my institute, AIIMS New Delhi chose long back to not adopt this broken system of obsequious honorifics. The contrast is clearly visible when we see the UG culture at any other med college in India. We address all UGs by their names and have absolutely no hierarchy – from freshers to interns. Such an environment is hardly seen in any other medical school in India.
Bhavik, first year, med student at AIIMS writes -
- “ It’s the culture and the community which makes AIIMS an interesting place….This lack of hierarchy not only brings people closer but also gets great science done.” [4]
An GoI officer writes -
- “ More than the personal discomfiture, I am disturbed by the apparent deleterious consequences of this cultural norm.” [5]
He hypothesises that the cultural norm of Sir/Ma’am in the Indian bureaucracy leads to a significant increase in conformance, thereby reducing the quality of executive decisions.
Another peer from a med school in Southern India says,
- “It’s a false sense of respect and superiority that comes from it (sir madam culture) and gives seniors the confidence to rag. It’s not very obvious, it’s a very subtle thing and it’s so ingrained in us. We are blind to it.”
Some students hypothesise ragging magnifies the use of honorifics and keeps it self perpetuating in a way. Breaking the chain gets tougher. From extensive discussions with my peers at other medical colleges I felt the difference due to this particular norm is often sharp and obvious. At our place it’s impossible to differentiate who is more senior by the way we interact (the only hint is receding hairline). We often have deep friendships with seniors much older than us.
The perceivably invincible habit of addressing “Sir” & “Madam” is more popular than “chai” & “samosas” in our workplaces. We are healthier without them.
Its Irrelevance & Harm
This cultural norm works against professionalism and harms both the ends by bringing confirmation bias.
We often fail to differentiate the translucent smudgy line differentiating respect & humility from sycophancy.
We must be cautioned if our communication focuses more on people and less on ideas. This servitude culture serves just a few & hardly the institution.
It’s a highly opinionated subject because it affects our social thread much more than individual beads, the effects are more pronounced over a larger time scale and it has more to do with our primitive limbic lobe than our rational frontal lobe.
Solution?
“It is important that students bring a certain ragamuffin, barefoot irreverence to their studies; they are not here to worship what is known, but to question it.”
~ The Ascent of Man by Jacob Bronowski
The solution is simple but not easy.
- Simple because the only logical way ahead is understanding how undesirable the practice is and discouraging your colleagues (no matter how junior) from addressing you as sir or madam or any title for that matter.
- It’s not easy because it is awkward, irritating and uncomfortable to change & making it our priority in daily conversations. It’s about our choice between what is easy and what is right.
Conclusion
“ The prize is the pleasure of finding the thing out, the kick in the discovery, the observation that other people use it [my work] – those are the real things, the honors are unreal to me. I don’t believe in honors, it bothers me, honors bother, honors is epaulettes, honors is uniforms. I can’t stand it, it hurts me….. This kind of thing bothers me psychologically….honours..always bothered me.”
~ Richard Feynman
Ending with an optimistic note – The Google Books Ngram Viewer shows a significant decline in usage of titles in our written literature and I hope the same reflects uniformly in our speech too.[6] With globalisation dissolving national boundaries & world becoming truly interconnected, we will have lots of opportunities to learn from each other’s beautiful cultures. I’m sure our Indian institutions and bureaucracy will learn eventually.
Let us refuse honorifics. They must be returned.
The End.
Additional pro-tip by Dr Vinay :
You can decondition the honorific usage by calling your juniors ‘sir/madam’ if they call you ‘sir/madam’. Basically create dissonance in a conditioned response.
(For those who want to avoid honorifics but feel it’s too awkward/irritating to remind your juniors again & again)
Acknowledgements :
Writing this article was impossible without the help of my friends – Jerry, Rahul, Bhavik, Lajja, Rhytha, Lovedeep & waitbutwhy.com !
References :
[1] https://www.nationalreview.com/2015/08/racist-microaggression-list/
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baa,_Baa,_Black_Sheep
[3] https://elitetitles.co.uk/sir_dame.html
[4] https://www.quora.com/What-differentiates-an-AIIMS-UG-student-and-other-medical-students/answer/Bhavik-Bansal-5?ch=3
[5] https://medium.com/@DheepJoy/should-the-indian-bureaucracy-learn-to-say-no-to-yes-sir-madam-e8002eff06f9
[6] https://books.google.com/ngrams
[7] https://newrepublic.com/article/119432/history-female-titles-mistress-miss-mrs-or-ms
