The Kerala Assembly unanimously passed a second resolution on Monday, requesting the Centre to officially change the state’s name to ‘Keralam’. This comes nearly a year after a similar resolution was unanimously passed and subsequently returned by the Centre for corrections.
The resolution will be sent to the Union government for approval. In August last year, the Union Home Ministry reviewed the previous resolution and suggested some technical changes after the Kerala government sought “immediate steps” to change the state’s name.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan proposed the resolution, asking the union government to change the state’s name in all the languages listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution.
While presenting the resolution, Vijayan noted that the state has traditionally been called ‘Keralam’ in Malayalam, and the demand for a united Kerala for Malayalam speakers has been strong since the national freedom struggle.
“But the name of our state is written as Kerala in the First Schedule of the Constitution. This Assembly requests the Centre to take immediate steps to amend it to ‘Keralam’ under Article 3 of the Constitution and have it renamed as ‘Keralam’ in all the languages mentioned in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution,” PTI quoted Vijayan as saying.
Members of both the ruling LDF and the opposition UDF supported the resolution. UDF legislator N Shamsudeen suggested some changes, but the government rejected them. Speaker A N Shamseer announced that the assembly then unanimously adopted the resolution.
Since India’s independence, over a hundred cities and several states have changed their names. Uttaranchal became Uttarakhand in 2007, honouring the Uttarakhand Andolan movement that led to the state’s separation from Uttar Pradesh in 2000. Orissa was renamed Odisha in 2011, following the Orissa (Alteration of Name) Act. In 2006, the Union Territory of Pondicherry became Puducherry. Some capital cities that have undergone name changes include Bombay, now Mumbai, and Madras, now Chennai.
West Bengal has also been seeking a name change to Bangla, which would move it up in the alphabetical listing of Indian states.
