Today a random security guard at a Buddhist monastery closed the zip of my backpack and then proceeded to tie my shoelaces because I was holding books in my hands 😭
Policies like this dehumanize women. They erase identity instead of protecting it. And in this case, they are taking away a young artist’s dream. @airindia, it’s time to change your policy, and your attitude.
I’ve spent the last week being tossed between @airindia and @makemytrip over something that should have been resolved with basic empathy and common sense. This thread is about Air India’s ignorant policy on name changes and how it’s costing a Dalit artist her first flight.
And now, because @airindia won’t do some paperwork, a Dalit folk artist, who has never flown before, is going to miss her first ever performance in Delhi. A milestone moment, denied by bureaucracy.
This isn’t about one passenger. It’s about an entire system that refuses to recognise the lived reality of women in India where name change after marriage is cultural, legal, and unavoidable.
These policies are made as if Indian women don’t exist.
As a Sindhi woman myself, every woman in my family, my mother, aunts, cousins has struggled with this. My own mother doesn’t have a passport because her documents carry two different names.