Kerala has a cosmopolitan cultural heritage where we have a multi-religious cultural spectrum that evolved over more than fourteen hundred years.
Our food, poetry, politics, and people are influenced by such an amazing multicultural legacy of living together as one people for centuries. We are proud of such a cosmopolitan cultural heritage. We have probably one of the longest histories of cultural globalization. We are happy that our food, language, art, architecture and everything else have been influenced by the great cultural and civilizational heritage across the world, from Latin America, Africa, China, Egyptian, Syrian, Arab world and Europe.
The history of trade relations are more than 2500 years old. Various religious heritages grew up in this fertile soil organically. Religions emerged here through trade and not through war- and hence we inherited a cosmopolitan cultural heritage .
Our spices went all around the world and pepper changed the history of the world. The dawn of the colonial history began in Kerala when Vasco De Gama came in search of our spices and pepper in 1498. But our people fought them when they sought to dominate us- and the first struggle against Colonial power began in Kerala- and then the Dutch came too and they too did not survive here- and they lost the war here. English too could not dominate us completely.
Our spices went all around the world and pepper changed the history of the world. The dawn of the colonial history began in Kerala when Vasco De Gama came in search of our spices and pepper in 1498. But our people fought them when they sought to dominate us- and the first struggle against Colonial power began in Kerala- and then the Dutch came too and they too did not survive here- and they lost the war here. English too could not dominate us completely.
So the moral of the story is we are a community happy to receive anyone and also learn from everyone. However, if anyone tries to impose or dominate us with their arrogance and mono-culture, we will resist such incursions and impositions.
All religious traditions are in Kerala and one of the most ancient Jewish communities was also in Kerala. Muslims cultural heritage, Christian cultural heritage and varied Hindu cultural heritage are not all separate ones here but a part and parcel of all of us- a shared and collective legacy. We grew up in a syncretic society. We are Malayalies first and foremost- and not at all apologetic about our cosmopolitan heritage, language or multi religious society. We are happy to be a part of society and we will nurture and protect such ethos of our society.
All religious traditions are in Kerala and one of the most ancient Jewish communities was also in Kerala. Muslims cultural heritage, Christian cultural heritage and varied Hindu cultural heritage are not all separate ones here but a part and parcel of all of us- a shared and collective legacy. We grew up in a syncretic society. We are Malayalies first and foremost- and not at all apologetic about our cosmopolitan heritage, language or multi religious society. We are happy to be a part of society and we will nurture and protect such ethos of our society.
Our people too went across the world as much as we embraced the world over the last 2500 years.We embraced diversity for thousands of years.While we will critique ourselves on many counts ,we are also proud that we are among the most democratic state in India with best of social and economic and Governance indicators.
Hence we will reject the Brahminical mono-culture and monopoly as well as political hegemony from elsewhere. So we will reject any divisive agenda. We will also not compromise on democratic rights and human Rights. We will stand together against any divisive agenda .We will not allow the cow-belt hegemonic agenda to divide us.
We never elected the same government or party alliance to rule us for two consecutive terms, because we are an aware people who will not like anyone in governmental power to take us for granted. Despite different political perspective, when it comes to our Malayali cosmopolitan cultural heritage, we will not allow anyone ( media or modi) to mess up with our food, our language, and thousands of years of cultural heritage.
We never elected the same government or party alliance to rule us for two consecutive terms, because we are an aware people who will not like anyone in governmental power to take us for granted. Despite different political perspective, when it comes to our Malayali cosmopolitan cultural heritage, we will not allow anyone ( media or modi) to mess up with our food, our language, and thousands of years of cultural heritage.
We are proud that we have culture where a temple will organize an iftar party and the people across religious spectrum may contribute to the making of a temple, church or mosque.
We are happy to be part of a plural, multi-cultural and and democratic India. We are indeed happy that we are a part of a democratic country with one of the best constitutions . We are indeed happy to be Indians - an India that belongs to each and every people of this country. And stand up for such a democratic India that respect the diversity of religions , language, culture, food and histories.
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