The change in the official name of the state from 'Kerala' to 'Keralam' has now become law after the Kerala (Alteration of Name) Bill, 2026, was passed by both Houses of Parliament and signed by the President. The process followed a resolution adopted by the Kerala Assembly in 2024 and subsequently forwarded by the state government to the Centre in June that year.
The Union government argued that the change would restore the state’s original name. The formal change, however, raises a question that deserves greater historical and linguistic examination: Is 'Keralam' really the original name of the region, as the government’s justification suggests? Or does the historical record point to a broader and more popular identity—'Malayalam'?
The distinction is not merely semantic. If a government undertakes a major administrative change and spends public money to alter the official name of an entire state, the historical justification for that decision should be subjected to serious scrutiny.
The assumption that changing 'Kerala' to 'Keralam' represents a straightforward return to an ancient or original name risks overlooking the history of how the region has been named and understood.
A name with a longer popular history
Historical records indicate that 'Malayalam' was used to identify the land and its people. Portuguese, Dutch and British records contain numerous references to 'Malayalam' in geographical and cultural contexts. Manuscripts and documents preserved in European institutions likewise demonstrate that the term circulated widely as a designation for the region. This evidence is important because the contemporary understanding of Malayalam as exclusively the name of a language may obscure its earlier and broader usage.
My own academic research at Griffith University, which examined South Indian migrant communities in Fiji, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States, also revealed the persistence of 'Malayalam' as a homeland identity in diaspora communities.
Oral histories, family memories and community traditions seldom used 'Keralam' to describe the place from which people originated. This continuity across generations is significant: it suggests that the term carried a geographical and cultural meaning in popular consciousness, rather than functioning solely as the name of a language.
Colonial records and the evolution of names
Archival collections provide further evidence. Materials preserved in institutions including the Vatican Library, the University of Tübingen, and the Basel Mission archives contain references to 'Malayalam' in descriptions of the region and its people. Early European ethnographic and missionary writings similarly employed the term in ways that went beyond a purely linguistic definition.
The evolution of Keralam as a state name was influenced by the development of European scholarship and colonial systems of classification.
Hermann Gundert, for example, played a major role in documenting and standardising Malayalam as the name of the language. While his contribution to Malayalam studies is important, the subsequent tendency to treat 'Malayalam' primarily as a linguistic category also helped narrow a term that had previously carried broader geographical and cultural meanings.
Francis Buchanan and other early European observers used 'Malayalam' to describe the region. These records suggest that the name was widely established in reference to the area, although its meaning and usage subsequently shifted within changing colonial and oligarchical contexts.
The etymology of the word 'Malayalam' itself may further illuminate its earlier geographical and cultural associations. The word is commonly understood as deriving from malaya (mountain) and alam (place, region, or dwelling), suggesting a meaning connected to a particular landscape or place rather than to a language. This interpretation is also significant when considered alongside the usage of certain tribal communities in the interior forests of Nilambur, who continue to use the term alam in reference to their traditional places of dwelling, including caves.
Historical traditions such as the Keralolpatti add another dimension to this discussion. They point to a broader cultural and territorial understanding associated with 'Malayalam', while 'Kerala' could denote a more specific geographical and political place within the wider Malayalam region. Regardless of how these sources are interpreted, they caution against presenting 'Keralam' as a single, universally accepted ancient name for the entire region that the present-day state comprises.
From vernacular usage to official identity
The emergence of 'Kerala' as the modern official name was part of a longer historical process. With the consolidation of administrative structures under colonial rule and, later, the linguistic reorganisation of Indian states, names that had multiple vernacular meanings increasingly acquired standardised administrative definitions. In this process, 'Kerala' became the official territorial designation, while 'Malayalam' became primarily associated with the language. That distinction is now deeply established in modern usage.
The fact that the name change has now been legally approved makes the question of priorities even more relevant. Changing the official name of a state is not merely a symbolic exercise. It involves administrative revisions, official records, government documents, signage, stationery, databases and numerous other institutional changes.
At a time when governments face pressing economic and social priorities, substantial public expenditure on a nomenclature change should be justified by more than the assertion that one spelling is supposedly more “original” than another.
If the purpose is primarily to honour historical identity, then the government should first establish what historical identity it intends to restore. That requires an open examination of archival evidence rather than relying on a simplified narrative.
If we are restoring history, why not Malayalam?
The central issue, therefore, is not whether 'Kerala' or 'Keralam' is a legitimate word. It undoubtedly has a long history of usage. The more important question is whether replacing 'Kerala' with 'Keralam' can reasonably be described as a return to the “original” name when another term—'Malayalam'—has a more clearly documented history as a name associated with the land and its people.
If the guiding principle is historical authenticity and popular usage, then 'Malayalam' deserves serious consideration. It was not simply the name of a language imposed at a later stage. It was a term through which generations of people identified their homeland and cultural world.
A call for historical reassessment
The fact that the change has now been approved should not prevent historians, linguists and the public from continuing to examine the historical assumptions behind it.
A serious examination should bring together archival documents, vernacular literature, missionary records, European collections, oral histories and diaspora traditions. It is important how 'Kerala', 'Keralam', and 'Malayalam' were used across different periods and by different communities.
Such an exercise would not diminish Kerala’s identity. On the contrary, it would deepen our understanding of it. Names are not merely administrative labels. They carry memories of people, places, languages and historical experiences. If the purpose of the change was to reconnect the state’s official identity with its historical roots, then that objective should be pursued with intellectual honesty and a willingness to acknowledge the complexity of the historical record.
The question before us, then, should not simply be "Kerala or Keralam?” It should be a more fundamental one: If history is the justification for changing the name, why should 'Malayalam'—a name long associated with the land, its people and their collective memory—not be given equal, if not greater, consideration?
The law may now have changed the official name, but the historical question remains open—and deserves a much more serious debate than it has received.
The author is an Honorary Fellow at the Edward Cadbury Centre, University of Birmingham.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of THE WEEK.
