What’s in a name, you might ask. Not much, unless it happens to be Kamala and its election season in the US. In fact, before she became internationally famous, she might have heard herself being referred to as Kamala Harish—an eminently Tamil sounding name—in India. But in a country like the US where names in public life trace their roots to all parts of the globe, how they are pronounced should not matter. Much less be cited as proof of racist ‘othering’.
After all, how many people knew how to enunciate Zbigniew Brzezinski back in the 1960s and 1970s when he was a key figure in US policy making? Maybe Americans got to know the correct pronunciation once they heard it being rattled off by properly prepped TV anchors. But most of the rest of the world (barring perhaps Poland, where he was born) did not. Including Indians. If desis stumbled over his Z-category name, it was not because they were being racist.
Western pronunciations often stress on second and third syllables, whereas such conventions don’t exist in the east. That leads to predictable errors. Those named, say, Nigella, Camilla, Barack or Denzel may not have been very happy with how Indians (at least in India) pronounced their names had fame not ensured familiarity! And Sonia Gandhi probably does not mind most Indians pronouncing the first syllable of her name to rhyme with “bone” rather than “don”.
It is important to understand regional predilections. When I arrived in the US in 1972 as a child, even the most affable of school-teachers simply could not get their tongues around Tilottama. Indians would know that the accent is on the third of four syllables in that name; but the American teachers unanimously stressed the second. Hence little Tilottama simply did not realise she was being called. A teacher finally asked my mother what name I went by at home.
From then on, I was Reshmi for them. Except, once again the teachers wrongly pronounced the first syllable as ‘resh’ (like ‘thresh’) instead of ‘ray-sh’. I let that go. They were clearly just inept if well-meaning, not racist—even though I could possibly have alleged precisely that as I was the only Indian student in the school. In any case, it was not as if my complicated “real” name did not get short shrift back in India, not to mention Reshmi routinely becoming Rashmi.
So Kamala becoming Ka-maa-lah in America is perfectly understandable though many newly-minted pundits of Indian names sanctimoniously state “It’s Comma-la, not Ka-maa-lah.” Indeed, even as anchors in US networks carefully enunciate Kamala as has been decreed, media elsewhere continue using the latter. In fact, Americans may be surprised to learn that Kamala is also pronounced several ways in India, from ‘Kamla’ to ‘Komola’, without rancour that too.
Americans may also be chastened to learn that Padma (which like Kamala also means lotus) is not pronounced in India as they do, nor is Lakshmi, which together comprise the double barrelled moniker of their favourite food goddess. If we must quibble, she isn’t ‘Pad’ as in ‘mad’ but Pad as in ‘bud’ and not Lak as in ‘lack’ but Lak as in ‘luck’. But those who reverentially chant her name wrongly as she whips up some thaiyir-sadam are not being racist. Just untutored.
Conversely, the most unrepentant mispronouncer of Kamala also got his own name mangled when he came to India in 2020. Versions ranged from Doh-laand to Do-naaald Trump. But racism was certainly not the intention of the crowds (and VIPs) who got it wrong. Reagan was Roh-naald even though he never came to India, and Clinton became Quintal when he did in 2000. But what Indians made of Dwight D Eisenhower when he arrived in 1959 remains unclear.
Residents of a part of Chennai will affirm there is a street named after one Guru Shev; research reveals it was named after the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev who came to India in 1955. Reverential mispronunciation and misspelling should be forgiven; but how his first name changed gender here and became a favourite name for girls is a mystery. Kannady Street in the same city is apparently not named after John F Kennedy though Indians may pronounce it thus.
Many people cannot enunciate Chinese proper names, or indeed most words in that language correctly; ditto for those from the Caucasus area, Ireland, Iceland and countless other countries. Many Malayalam and Tamil names are equally challenging for non-native speakers. All tongues are not flexible enough to handle the complicated twists demanded of it by many languages. But equating mispronunciation with discrimination and racism cannot become a rule.
However, the more it is made an issue, the more the chances of people resorting to deliberate mispronunciation just to make a point, as is happening in US election rallies now, defeating the purpose of enunciation homilies. Mispronunciations are annoying but the intention is conveyed by the tone and Trump’s definitely conveys scorn, Unfortunately, this will be used to imply that all those who also say ‘Ka-maa-lah’ share his opinion too. But that may not be true.
There could be a less obvious reason for Trump’s repeated distortion of Kamala. All US Presidents except Barack Obama had names that stress the first syllable—from George Washington to Joseph Biden. Is Trump inadvertently conveying to US voters that Harris as Ka-maa-lah is not qualified to be President or drawing attention to what else she may have in common with Obama apart from the obvious one? But Lotus may yet become POTUS anyway!
The author is a freelance writer. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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