Think globally for Malayalam

To have a place in the cultural wagon of Malayalam it is advised to join the company of O N V Kurup, Sugathakumari and of course with all the LDF leaders as they are seemingly the saviours of Malayalam language.  Kerala government's alleged attempt to withdraw an order making a proficiency test in Malayalam language mandatory for getting jobs in its services has annoyed all of them. They termed the move as a disgrace to the mother tongue.

Then the question that immediately arises is:  a Malayali friend now employed in Odisha should soon leave the state because when appointed he was unaware of the alphabets of Oriya. Likewise many other people employed elsewhere in the country without knowing local language should return to Kerala immediately. 

Language passion is a familiar sight in Tamil Nadu as they hate Hindi and people speaking languages other than Tamil. We Keralites were reproving them all the time for their narrow mindedness with language fanaticism. Keralites are supposed to be world citizens and when employed outside Kerala they soon catch up the local language and soon accommodate. If language barriers were existed in those areas many people would have lost their job. With the present move of cultural leaders like ONV, Sugathakumari, Vishunarayanan Namboothiri et al, we have shrunk to the shell losing all the openness we had. The order imposing proficiency in Malayalam mandatory for those who are at the entry cadre is unwarranted as such a move would adversely affect thousands seeking job outside Kerala. It would be better to instruct employed ones to learn Malayalam during probation.   

The Keralites are the ones who make more advantages of job outside the state and the country. The move of the sort in guise of protecting Malayalam will make Kerala a ‘country’ rather than a state and thereby the meaning of the Indian Union is lost.  The so-called saviours of Malayalam should, therefore,  think globally and not locally.

K A Solaman
Published The New Indian express on 31-8-2013