Kerala Seeks Renaming To Keralam:
The Kerala Assembly unanimously passed a resolution asking the Centre to rename the state as “Keralam’’ in the Constitution.
- Article 3 of the Indian Constitution empowers the Centre to change the name of existing states which also needs amendment in the name of the state listed under Article 1 of the constitution.
- Kerala is the English word for the Malyali Keralam and the earliest mention of the word can be found in Emperor Ashoka’s Rock Edict II of 257 BCE which mentions “Keralaputra”.
- Keralaputra in Sanskrit literally means “son of Kerala” which refers to the dynasty of the Cheras, one of the three main kingdoms of southern India (the other two dynasties being Chola and Pandya).
- The demand for a united Malayalam-speaking state was first raised in the 1920s and after independence, in 1949, the state of Travancore-Cochin was formed by integrating the two Malayalam-speaking princely states of Travancore and Cochin.
- Based on the recommendation of the State Reorganisation Commission, the state of Kerala was finally created on a linguistic basis.
