What happens to Kerala now, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor asked on Tuesday as reports emerged that the Union Cabinet is expected to consider approving the renaming of Kerala as ‘Keralam’.
The move comes in the wake of a resolution passed twice by the Kerala Legislative Assembly urging the Center to amend the Constitution to reflect the state’s name in its Malayalam form across all languages listed in the Eighth Schedule.
Reacting to this development, Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor said: “All this for the good, no doubt, but a little linguistic question for the English speakers among us: What now happens to the terms ‘Keralite’ and ‘Keralan’ for the people of the new ‘Keralam’?”
‘Keralamite’ looks like a microbe and ‘Keralamian’ looks like a rare earth mineral…!” he said on
Regarding the bill to rename Kerala as ‘Keralam’, BJP state president Rajeev Chandrashekhar said the new name would be appropriate because “we will be a state that will work to restore and protect our traditions and culture and also build a forward-looking state economy.”
“It is clear that every Malayali wants change and wants to leave aside the politics of lies and broken promises and introduce the politics of performance…,” he said, according to a video clip published by news agency ANI.
The Kerala Assembly had in the past passed a resolution demanding that the name be changed to ‘Keralam’, taking into account how it is pronounced and written in Malayalam.
All parties, including CPM, Congress and BJP, are in favor of the name change.
