Malayalam, Kerala’s main native language, originated as an offshoot of Tamil, the principal native language of neighboring Tamil Nadu. Malayalam (from the Tamil: mala (”mountain”) and alam (”location”)) as a composite phrase means the “living/inhabitants in mountain”. This phrase, which in earlier times implied the geographical location of the region, was later replaced by Kerala. Thus, what is now Kerala was once simply another region inhabited mainly by Tamil-speakers; however, Kerala and Tamil Nadu diverged into linguistically separate regions by the early 14th century. The ancient Chera empire, whose court language was Tamil, ruled Kerala from their capital at Vanchi. Allied with the Pallavas, they continually warred against the neighbouring Chola and Pandya kingdoms.

A Keralite identity, distinct from the Tamils and associated with the second Chera empire and the development of Malayalam, subsequently evolved sometime during the 8th-14th centuries. Meanwhile, both Buddhism and Jainism reached Kerala in this early period. As in other parts of ancient India, Buddhism and Jainism co-existed with early Shaivite tribal beliefs during the first five centuries.

It was only after the “Sangam” period that Kerala saw large-scale immigration of Brahmins from the north. These influxes may have coincided during the Kalabhra, Rashtrakuta, Chalukya, Pallava and Hoysala invasions. By the 8th and 9th centuries, 2nd Chera kings inclined to Vaishnavism and some of them wrote great literary works in the stream of Vishnu Bhakthi. When Hinduism was revived by intellectuals like Shankara and by Bhakti movements all over India, Buddhism and Jainism merged into their mother religion.

Overseas contact

Jewish people, fleeing persecution in their homeland, migrated to Kerala in the early centuries. Arab merchants founded Kerala’s early Muslim community, the Mappilas, in the 8th century. According to some the history of Christianity in Kerala dates back to the arrival of St. Thomas the Apostle at Kodungallur in A.D. 52. For a long time this was disputed. However in 2002 The British researcher William Dalrymple travelled across the Arabian Sea to Kerala in a boat similar to those mentioned in ancient Jewish and Roman texts and showed how the Nasrani-Jewish people had travelled to Kodungalloor.

He followed the same course as mentioned in the Acts of Thomas, a copy of which survives in a monastery on Mount Sinai. A Christian-Jewish community was later established by a contingent of Jewish Nasranis led by Knai Thoma (Thomas of Cana) who arrived in 345. Cheraman Perumal, the then king of Malabar issued a proclamation giving land and privileges to the Knanaya Yehudeya(Jewish)-Nasranis on copper plates on a Saturday in March (Kumbham 29), 345.

This was followed by another round of migration from Syria recorded in the Tharisappally records from around the 8th century. When the Portuguese arrived in the early 1500s, they tried to impose Roman Catholicism on the original Syrian-Christian (Nasrani) people. A section of Nasranis (also called Syrian-Christians in Kerala) resisted the conversion attempts of the Portuguese to bring them under Romans or the Pope with Latin rite, and remained faithful to ancient Hebrew-Jewish traditions using original Syriac/Aramaic language for their liturgy.

Colonial

Vasco da Gama’s voyage to Kerala from Portugal in 1498 was largely motivated by Portuguese determination to break the Arabs’ control over trade of spices grown in Kerala. The spice trade with the Middle East pre-dates Islam. Da Gama established India’s first Portuguese fortress at Cochin (Kochi) in 1503 and, taking advantage of rivalry between the royal families of Calicut and Cochin, ended the Arab monopoly. Conflicts between Calicut and Cochin, however, provided an opportunity for the Dutch to come in and finally expel the Roman Catholic Portuguese from their forts.

The Dutch were, in turn, routed by the Travancore (Thiruvithamcoore) ruler Marthanda Varma at the Battle of Kulachal in 1741. Hyder Ali of Mysore conquered northern Kerala in the 18th century, capturing Kozhikode in 1766. Hyder Ali and his successor, Tipu Sultan, came into conflict with the British, and the four Anglo-Mysore wars were fought across southern India in the latter half of the 18th century. Tipu Sultan ceded Malabar District to the British in 1792, and South Kanara, which included present-day Kasargod District, in 1799.

The British concluded treaties of subsidary alliance with the rulers of Cochin (1791) and Travancore (1795), and they became princely states of British India, maintaining local autonomy in return for a fixed annual tribute to the British. Malabar and South Kanara districts were part of British India’s Madras Presidency.

Organised expressions of discontent with British rule were relatively infrequent in Kerala. Uprisings of note include the rebellion by Pazhassi Raja, Veluthampi Dalawa, and the Punnapra-Vayalar revolt of 1946. Mass protests were mainly directed at established social evils such as untouchability. The non-violent and largely peaceful Vaikom Satyagraha of 1924 was instrumental in securing entry to the public roads adjacent to the Vaikom temple for people belonging to backward castes. In 1936, Sree Chithira Thirunal Balaramavarma Maharaja, ruler of Travancore issued the Temple Entry Proclamation, declaring the temples of his kingdom open to all Hindu worshippers, irrespective of caste.

Modern post-colonial

After India’s independence in 1947, the princely states of Thiruvithamcoore and Kochi were merged to form the province (after 1950 a state) of Travancore-Cochin on July 1, 1949. Madras Presidency became India’s Madras State.

The state of Kerala was created on November 1, 1956 when Malabar District was merged with Tranvancore-Cochin state and Kasargod taluk of South Kanara District to form the State of Kerala, based on the recommendations of the State Reorganisation Commission set up by the Government of India.[2] Elections for the new Kerala Legislative Assembly were held in 1957; this resulted in the formation of a communist-led government[2] headed by E.M.S. Namboodiripad.

Many Indians consider this the first democratically elected communist government[3] in the world; however, both San Marino (in 1948) and Guyana (in 1953) had elected communists to power years earlier. Radical reforms introduced by the Namboodiripad government in favour of farmers and labourers helped change, to a great extent, the iniquitous the social order that had prevailed in Kerala for centuries.