Article published in Sept 2016 issue of GIS India is reproduced in memory of Mr.TMG Nambisan who expired in April 2018
Thekkile Madathil Govindan Nambisan
Former Dy. Director, Survey of India
28-01-2016;......In today’s newspaper, I saw a suggestion that the name of Kerala should be written as KERALAM and not Kerala in all government publications. This reminded me of an incident that happened in the latter half of 1960s. A few topographical maps of the Kerala area were being fairmapped in my unit of Survey of India. In these maps, the name of the State to which the area pertains to is given as central heading in big fonts. I got the map sheets completed with the heading KERALA as was existing in the old maps and sent them to the Director for his scrutiny. My Director was a Hindi fanatic . ….. [ I use the adjective deliberately as he carried his enthusiasm to a ridiculous extent. He had returned my application for a day’s casual leave twice; first time for not writing it in Hindi and second time for changing my name to ते.मा.गो.नम्पिशन (for Thekkile Madhathil Govindan Nambisan) from टी.एम्.जी नम्पिशन which I had to refuse and ask him to refuse the leave on that count]…….
He changed the heading from KERALA to KERAL saying that there should not be an A at the end of the name. I argued with him that it should be KERALA and not KERAL on the same lines as Karnataka, Maharashtra, Haryana etc., but to no avail. According to him they were also not correct. I believe that those sheets were printed with the heading KERAL and I do not know the version followed now in Survey of India.
The above reminds me of a similar instance for a place name of Medak District – Sangareddy, in Telangana. This was in 1966. The Hindi officer changed it to Sangaredipet like Siddipet in the neighbourhood. His argument was “How can name of a person be name of a place ?” – GS Kumar, Editor, GIS India, Former Director, Survey of India