Kerala

From ePedia, the electronic encyclopedia
Kerala (IPA: ['keːɹeɭã]; Malayalam: കേരളം — Kēraḷaṁ) is a state on the tropical Malabar Coast of southwestern India. To its east and northeast, Kerala borders Tamil Nadu and Karnataka; to its west and south lie the Indian Ocean islands of Lakshadweep and the Maldives, respectively. Kerala envelops Mahé, a coastal exclave of the Union Territory of Pondicherry. Kerala is one of four states that comprise the linguistic-cultural region known as South India.

In prehistory, Kerala's rainforests and wetlands — then thick with malaria-bearing mosquitoes and man-eating tigers — were largely avoided by Neolithic humans. There is no evidence of habitation prior to around 1,000 BCE. Only then did tribes of megalith-building proto-Tamil speakers from northwestern India settle in Kerala. Subsequent contact with the Mauryan Empire spurred development of new Keralite polities — including the Cheran kingdom and feudal Namboothiri Brahminical city-states — and an indigenous Keralite culture, including kalarippayattu, kathakali, and Onam. More than a millennium of overseas contact and trade culminated in four centuries of struggle between and among multiple colonial powers and native Keralite states. This ended when the November 1, 1956 States Reorganisation Act elevated Kerala to statehood.

Radical social reforms begun in the 19th century by the kingdoms of Cochin and Travancore — and spurred by such leaders as Narayana Guru and Chattampi Swamikal — were continued by post-Independence governments, making Kerala among the Third World's longest-lived, healthiest, and most literate regions. Kerala's 3.18 crore (31.8 million) people now live under a stable democratic socialist political system and exhibit unusually equitable gender relations. However, Kerala's rates of suicide, unemployment, and violent crime are among India's highest.

Accounts of the etymology of "Kerala" differ. According to the prevailing theory, the word is an imperfect portmanteau that fuses kera ("coconut palm tree") and alam ("land" or "location"). Natives of Kerala — "Keralites" — thus refer to their land as Keralam. Another theory has the name originating from the phrase chera alam ("land of the Chera").

<< Home | Post a Comment | Email Page | Edit Page | New Page

0 Comments: