What is in a name? The Shakespearean question has particular relevance in a country like ours, where name-changing is an integral part of attempts to reinterpret history and re-establish cultural links with the past. No wonder, the first cabinet meeting at Seva Tirth—the new name for the Prime Minister’s Office in New Delhi—wholeheartedly cleared a request unanimously passed by the Kerala assembly to change the state’s name from Kerala to Keralam in official records by amending the first schedule of the Constitution.

The state assembly, in its resolution, called for the name change to honour Kerala’s linguistic and cultural identity. Since the state is known as Keralam in Malayalam, the resolution argued that its anglicized form— Kerala—should be replaced with the original name. The assembly passed the resolution on June 24, 2024.

Interestingly, BJP, which has no representation in the state assembly, declared its support for the move and wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi endorsing the demand. The party has already renamed its state unit as BJP Keralam, apparently in an effort to establish a closer cultural connection with the state, which still evades its political grip.

The rare gesture of unity between BJP and CPM even prompted West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee to allege a secret understanding between the two parties. She said the Centre’s refusal to sympathetically consider her govt’s request to rename West Bengal as Bangla, for practical and historical reasons, was unacceptable. The name change in Kerala has also sparked debate among Malayalis, spanning its linguistic, historical and political implications.

“This is nothing but eyewash. Nothing is going to happen in the lives of people in Kerala by changing the name of the state from Kerala to Keralam. It is another political gimmick in a state where politics is plumbing new depths every day,” says political scientist and academic Prof J Prabhash.

The quest for changing names was closely associated with right-wing politics, and the Marxist party-run govt’s interest in the move exposed the losing ideological ground of the left parties in general, he adds.

Many in political and academic circles think that the Centre’s decision to support the cosmetic change in the state’s name aligns more with the saffron party’s political agenda of reinventing a ‘pure heritage’, free of colonial and other extraneous influence.

It may be noted that the state assembly had made a similar request to the Centre in 2023 to change the name of the state from Kerala to Keralam in official records. The Centre, however, rejected it citing procedural issues. The assembly passed the resolution again in 2024 after incorporating the changes recommended by the Centre, and its clearance has now come as the state gears up for the next assembly election.

Shashi Tharoor, MP, who criticized the Central govt for focusing on a name change rather than development projects for Kerala, also raised linguistic questions arising from the move. “What happens now to terms such as ‘Keralite’ and ‘Keralan’ for the denizens of the new ‘Keralam’? ‘Keralamite’ sounds like a microbe and ‘Keralamian’ like a rare earth mineral,” he tweeted.

Historians have repeatedly pointed out that the popular belief linking keram (coconut tree) to Keralam has little empirical basis. Keralam and keram, they argue, share no umbilical connection. The name Keralam itself may have evolved from the compound words Cherntha Alam (land closer to the mountains) or Cherante Alam (land of the Cheras), they suggest.

“Coconut came to Kerala in the 6th or 7th century CE, and it came from Ceylon (Sri Lanka). So, it is wrong to assume that the state got its name from coconut trees. There were references to Kerala Puthran or Cherala Puthran in emperor Ashoka’s edict in 300 BCE. There were references to Keralam or Cheralam in Kalidasa’s Raghuvamsam,” said historian M G Sashibhooshan.

So, the historical and literary evidence suggests that Kerala got its name from its association with the Chera Dynasty, one of the three major Tamil Sangam kingdoms that ruled parts of Kerala and Tamil Nadu between the 4th and 12th century CE. It means that digging too much into history in the pursuit of an original culture and heritage may lead to terrains that appear as foreign in the current milieu.

According to Sashibhooshan, the change from Kerala to Keralam is an inevitable step in the process of reinventing cultural legacy. “De-anglicization is an ongoing process. Just as Trivandrum became Thiruvananthapuram, Bombay became Mumbai, and Madras became Chennai. The anglicized forms, though they may sound rhythmic, do not have any meaning,” he said.

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