Mothers are people too. If Ms Sheila Dikshit?s government in Delhi makes sure that everyone acknowledges this officially, maybe there is hope for mothers in other states too. In some of these, including West Bengal, there is a celebration of love for ?Mummy? on Mother?s Day, in which children are the enthusiastic and innocent celebrants. This is no bad thing, for rituals, imported or otherwise, do have a role in the forming of attitudes. But rituals cannot make up for lack of substance, and it is the insubstantiality of the mother?s presence on her children?s official documents that is the real indicator of her status. The Union ministry of human resource development had asked state governments to include the names of both parents on all official documents. The Delhi government has directed that everything, from school certificates to ration cards and driving licences, should have the mother?s name along with the father?s. Not any one, but both.

The resonance of this change would reach far and deep. The insistence on the father?s identity as the sufficient and only definition for the child?s, while consolidating patrilineal principles, seeks to make irrelevant the mother?s presence, not only legally and socially, but in the offspring?s emotional history and his self-understanding. For those who appreciate the significance of the erasure, such as Mr Sanjay Leela Bhansali, have to make an outstanding statement to claim publicly the invisible part of his rightful inheritance. In recent changes, the mother?s name as guardian has become sufficient to open a minor?s bank account, for example, or for admission to schools ? although some schools still baulk at admitting children with mothers as guardians. Along with laws reiterating the woman?s right to property and to the disposal of inheritance, the weight of her signature on some of her children?s official documents has been a step in asserting her status within the social structure. But the compulsory inclusion of the mother?s name on all documents is an acknowledgment that both parents are equally important in officially defining an individual?s identity. This is a gentle but undeniable nudge to the logic of a patriarchal institution.

Incremental changes do make a difference. While law cannot change the status of women in Indian society, it can provide the tools which will encourage and help hasten change. The question in this case is one of political will. Even West Bengal has not responded to the Centre?s direction to include both parents? names on official papers, although the state government boasts of having conceded to women the right to admit their children to school on the strength of their names alone. But Delhi has made the mother?s name a matter of necessity, not choice. The other states will have to choose whether they want their mothers to be people too.