NAGERCOIL: That old confusion about the formal name of the district has come back to haunt the southern tip of the Indian subcontinent – is it Kanyakumari or Kanniyakumari? Triggering the latest round of debate is the district administration’s decision to install a new nameplate for the collectorate that sported the latter, which activists here say could end the confusion once and for all.
The region was part of the erstwhile Travancore State, before the local public successfully agitated to annex it to Tamil Nadu. Under the States Reorganisation Act, 1956, the new district was formed on November 1, 1956, christened Kanniyakumari, with headquarters at Nagercoil.
However, the spelling Kanyakumari, too, remained in currency – in many cases, it was more popular than the formal name – often causing confusion. Name boards of establishments here interchange the two, so is the case of documents including government papers.“Kanniyakumari is the nearest Tamil transliteration,” said professor James R Daniel, a retired English teacher who was the principal of Scott Christian College, adding that the name was fixed after considering the geo-historical and cultural importance of the place. To end the confusion conclusively, an organisation, the Consumer Protection Association, took efforts to trace documents that would offer clarity on the right spelling.
Now, the district collectorate that has been undergoing civil works have changed the name on the board to Kanniyakumari, much to the surprise of those who have been campaigning in this regard. The consumer association hailed this as the definitive step to end the confusion, though that could be a little too early to declare.