Undoing colonial legacy, Kerala abolishes 'colony' title for tribal settlements

Thiruvananthapuram: In a landmark order, the Kerala government on Tuesday decided to do away with terms like 'colony', 'sanketham' and 'ooru' for tribal settlements.

Kerala Devaswom and SC/ST Welfare minister K Radhakrishan, who resigned from the post on Tuesday after being elected to the Lok Sabha, took the decision in this regard.

Radhakrishnan, who is a senior CPM leader, told reporters that terms like 'colony', 'sanketham' and 'ooru' that were being commonly used to refer to tribal settlement sounds like a symbol of colonial slavery. Hence, it was decided to do away with such terms. Instead, terms like 'nagar', 'unnathi' or 'prakrithi' could be used to refer to tribal settlements. Otherwise, any other names that suit the region could also be used.

The order in this regard, which was the last one issued by Radhakrishnan before submitting his resignation to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, also said that giving names of individuals to such regions could lead to disputes and that shall be avoided. But existing settlements with names of individuals could be retained.

Radhakrishnan won from Chelakkara assembly seat in Thrissur five times. In the Lok Sabha elections, he defeated Congress' Ramya Haridas with 20,000 votes at Alathur seat. He had also served as Kerala assembly speaker.