New Delhi, February 25 A gentle transition from "Kerala" to "Keralam" will not trigger an identity extinction event, CPI(M) leader John Brittas said on Wednesday while responding to Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, who asked what happens to terms such as "Keralite" and "Keralan" now that the state has been renamed.
"Identity isn't a spelling test," Brittas, a Rajya Sabha MP, said in a post on X.
Tagging the Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha MP, Brittas said he should "step away from the microbe-mineral anxiety," and joked that "the rest of us continue to be Malayalees or Mallus" as we have been for decades.
"We've happily maintained our identities as Malayalees in polite society and Mallus among friends (and in JNU, where it was both a teasing term and a term of endearment). A gentle transition from 'Kerala' to 'Keralam' will not trigger an identity extinction event," Brittas said on X.
He emphasized that someone from Andhra is still Telugu, one from Tamil Nadu is still Tamilian, and people from West Bengal remain Bengalis.
"No one panicked, coined 'Teluguite,' or set Twitter on fire," Brittas said.
"So, if 'Keralam' makes you want to invent new terms, feel free to use 'Keralite.' The rest of us will continue with Malayalee/Mallu, as we have for decades," he added, concluding with, "Because identity isn't a spelling test. It's what survives when you're ordering biryani in Delhi and someone yells, 'Mallu da!' – with a grin."
The Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Tuesday approved the Kerala government's proposal to rename the state as "Keralam." The decision was made during the first Cabinet meeting held at Seva Teerth, the new PMO complex.
In a post on X on Tuesday, Tharoor had a witty take on Kerala's name change, asking what happens to terms such as "Keralite" and "Keralan" for the "inhabitants" of the new "Keralam."
In a lighter vein, Tharoor had said that "Keralamite" sounds like a microbe and "Keralamian" like a rare earth mineral, and added that the Kerala Chief Minister's Office might want to launch a competition for new terms resulting from this electoral enthusiasm.