What?s in a name?

What?s the difference between ?My Lord? and ?Your Honour?? And what makes the Bar Council so certain every judge has honour? Asks Karan Thapar.

I must say we’re a strange lot. We have an uncanny knack of taking decisions which are correct in the narrowest sense of the term but on a broader and more meaningful canvas make little sense whatsoever. But the really sad part is we usually don’t realise this. The Bar Council’s silly decision to stop referring to judges as ‘My Lord’ or ‘Your Lordship’ and instead call them ‘Your Honour’ or ‘Honourable Court’ is a perfect example. I can find fault with it at multiple levels.

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To begin with, what’s the difference between ‘My Lord’ and ‘Your Honour’? And what makes the Bar Council so certain every judge has honour? In many cases it would be an unwarranted presumption. But if it’s only politeness then how is it different to the term ‘My Lord’?

More importantly, the Bar Council’s objection takes a simple traditional term of address far more seriously than sensible lawyers should. Frankly, if they’re so obsessed with how they address a judge — and really believe that in the process they are deferring more than they should — they need to question themselves rather than the language they use.

Americans call everyone ‘sir’ — the word literally trips off George Bush’s lips — but there’s no deference, as opposed to politeness, intended. Nor is any assumed. And I can still remember the stinging admonition I received from the Porter at Pembroke College in Cambridge when I walked across the College Court — “Get off the f’ing grass, Sir!” There was absolutely no deference there. Not much politeness either. Just tradition.

More importantly, does the Bar Council really believe that a diktat from its offices can change the way the legal fraternity has behaved since time immemorial? Come Monday morning, will lawyers change their language just because a group of busybodies has told them to do so? Definitely not. And do you know why I can assert this with such confidence? Because it’s been tried and failed. In 1993 the Bar Council took a similar decision. India’s lawyers ignored them.

The saddest part is if you do away with ‘My Lord’ you will also do away with its affectionate abbreviation ‘Milud’. The latter is a mixture of correct protocol with a broad hint of easy familiarity. I cannot imagine any lawyer at the Old Bailey intending the judge thus addressed to really be his Lord. In fact, the term conveys more insouciance than respect.

Years ago, when army generals could look forward to the prospect of a title on retirement, one of Daddy’s favourite jokes was to claim the only way his wife could become a lady was if he was made a knight! Milud falls into the same category. It may be a title but no right thinking person would make too much of it.

However, the present nonsense about terms of legal address is only the latest example of how we can be right on narrow details but wrong in terms of the big broad picture. The way we have set about renaming our cities is another. In fact, it’s something I find particularly irritating.

Let’s be honest, Bombay, Calcutta and Madras are how the cities came to be, how we learnt about them and how they became a part of our lives. The names are therefore part of their character. Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai are different entities. You simply can’t substitute one for the other. Bombay is Bombay. Mumbai is not.

Often cities are known in different languages by different names but that’s how they’ve become familiar to the speakers of that language. Thus Al-Kahir is Cairo in English, Moskva is Moscow, München Munich and Praha Prague. Even the French would not insist on the local pronunciation when they speak of Paris in English. And certainly the Italians wouldn’t call it Roma outside Italy. So why can’t we in India accept that regardless of what we call our cities in our language, in English and for the outside world that knows them through that language, they will be and must remain Bombay, Calcutta and Madras?

If you don’t accept my point pause and consider how often a Satinder or a Mahinder hates being called Satendra or Mahendra. Even though Satendra and Mahendra may be the more accurate Sanskrit version, when it’s your name accuracy is irrelevant. Familiarity and the name you are comfortable with is what counts. Bombay, Calcutta and Madras are no different.

So three cheers for Bangalore. Except in my nightmares, I’ll never visit Bengaluru!