God’s own country by another name? Kerala’s assembly wants state to be known as ‘Keralam’

The Kerala assembly on Wednesday unanimously adopted a resolution requesting the Union government to change the state’s name to “Keralam” across languages and revert to its original Malayalam nomenclature, a move that cut across fractious party lines, but the fate of which ultimately rests on the Centre’s assent.

Chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan tabled the motion, which was unanimously passed by all members, including legislators of the Opposition United Democratic Front (UDF) without any amendments.

The ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) has 98 members in the 140-member Kerala assembly, the UDF has 40, while two seats are vacant.

Speaker AN Shamseer declared the resolution as adopted after a show of hands.

Explaining the rationale behind the resolution, Vijayan argued that the state’s name has always been Keralam in Malayalam. However, he said, it was referred to as Kerala in other official languages, as mandated under the eighth schedule of the Constitution.

“States were formed on linguistic lines in the country on November 1, 1956. Kerala’s formation day is also on the same day. It was a demand during the freedom struggle to form a united Kerala State for all Malayalam-speaking people,” he said.

“But under the first schedule of the Constitution, the state’s name was recorded as Kerala. The assembly unanimously requests the central government to make amendments necessary under Article 3 of the Constitution to change the official name of the state to Keralam in all official languages under the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution,” Vijayan added.

To be sure, the state’s official communications use the name Kerala.

A years-old demand, the issue was also raised in the state assembly in 2010, when then chief minister VS Achuthanandan assured legislators that he would look into demands that the state’s name be changed. This, however, is the first time the state assembly has passed a resolution to this effect.

A state government can only request Parliament to change a state’s name. The actual process requires parliamentary approval under articles 3 and 4 of the Constitution with the President referring the issue to the relevant state legislature.

In the past, the Centre in 2006 approved changing Uttaranchal’s name to Uttarakhand, six years after the new state was formed. In 2011, Orissa’s name was changed to Odisha and the language’s became Odia from Oriya, years after the state government adopted a resolution in 2008.

Among the first name changes approved by the Centre was in 1950, when East Punjab became Punjab and United Provinces became Uttar Pradesh.

However, several states have adopted similar resolutions that haven’t been accepted. For instance, in 2011, the West Bengal assembly passed a resolution, seeking that the state’s name be changed to “Paschim Banga”. Five years later, the assembly passed another resolution seeking that its name be changed to Bengal in English and Banga in Bengali. The Centre turned this proposal down in 2020.

CP Chandran, Congress general secretary, said, “It is the right move. In Malayalam, we refer to our state as Keralam so it’s natural that we change the official name to that.”

The Kerala unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has no members in the assembly, also said they were on board with the move.

“Keralam is what we say in Malayalam. So yes, the state’s official name should be Keralam. At the same time, the LDF and UDF should also install a statue of Thunchath Ramanujan Ezhuthachan, the father of modern Malayalam, in his birthplace Tirur,” she said.