ThiruvananthapuramOctober 12, 2025 07:00 AM IST
First published on: Oct 12, 2025 at 07:00 AM IST
Replying to a calling attention motion moved by the ruling CPI(M)’s Devikulam MLA A Raja in the Kerala Assembly Tuesday, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said his government will urge the Centre to change norms for issuing caste certificates to linguistic minorities that have migrated to the state.
Though the state issues these certificates, the discretion to fix the eligibility criteria for it rests with the Central government.
Which are linguistic minorities in Kerala?
Kannada-speaking people, mainly settled in Kasaragod district of north Kerala, and Tamil speakers in Palakkad, Idukki and Thiruvananthapuram have had the linguistic minority status in Kerala, where Malayalam is the principal language.
The state also has Tulu speakers from Karnataka and a Konkani-speaking population that migrated from Goa, but they do not enjoy linguistic minority status.
What is the eligibility criteria?
According to existing norms, caste certificates for linguistic minorities are issued only to those who migrated to Kerala from Tamil Nadu or Karnataka before 1950, the year when the Presidential Order – Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order – was issued.
However, this resulted in several beneficiaries being ineligible to obtain caste certificates as the cut-off date preceded the state’s formation. Before Kerala was formed in 1956, the region fell under the princely state of Travancore-Cochin and Malabar district, which was part of the Madras Presidency.
As many Tamil and Kannada-speaking people lack documents to prove that they migrated to Kerala before 1950, they are ineligible to avail of OBC benefits in the state.
Why Kerala wants 1970 as cut-off year?
In 2017, the Kerala government constituted a single-member commission, headed by Professor Naduvattam Gopalakrishnan of the International School of Dravidian Linguistics, University of Kerala, to study the issue.
Gopalakrishnan in 2019 recommended that linguistic minorities who had migrated to the state and settled in Kerala till 1970 be made eligible for caste certificates, reasoning that the Kerala Official Language (Legislation) Act — which designated Malayalam and English as the official languages of the state — was enforced in 1969.
What else did the panel recommend?
The Gopalakrishnan panel also made a case for the inclusion of Konkani speakers to be declared as linguistic minorities, arguing that the language had been included in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution, which lists the official languages of the country.
The panel also stated that the demand of Tulu speakers to be included in the list of linguistic minorities could be considered given their significant numbers in Kasargod.