NEW DELHI, Feb 2026 : Congress MP Shashi Tharoor has criticised the central government over the renaming of Kerala to ‘Keralam’, saying it focuses on name change but not on projects. Tharoor also highlighted that Kerala already translates to ‘Keralam’ in Malayalam, raising questions on the need to rename the state.
“It has already been ‘Keralam’ in Malayalam. So now, a Malayalam word is coming into English. I don’t know what difference it makes. The government has not given us an AIIMS or any new institutions. They have given us no projects in the Union Budget. But when it comes to a name change, they are willing to authorise it,” Tharoor said.
Tharoor, in a separate post on X, had a “small linguistic question” – what happens now to the terms “Keralite” and “Keralan” for the “denizens” of the new “Keralam”. He asserted that ‘Keralamite’ sounds like a microbe and ‘Keralamian’ like a rare earth mineral.
