THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Kerala has not received a single paisa of the Rs 100 crore, which, it was widely believed, the state would get when Malayalam was accorded classical language status, Cultural Affairs Minister K C Joseph said on Tuesday. ‘’Everybody is on the lookout for the Rs 100 crore grant from the Centre. We have not received a single paisa yet,’’ he said, releasing the revised edition of ‘Sarvavijnanakosham Volume 8’ brought out by the State Institute of Encyclopaedic Publications (SIEP) here.
The delay in the introduction of the Malayalam Language Act was due to procedural delays in the Kerala Assembly. It can be enforced only by respecting everyone’s views, he said. On the hue and cry for declaring Malayalam the first language for governance, he said that criticism was welcome. ‘’But it should be remembered that what we are doing now is something that should have been started off in 1956, when the states were reorganised on the basis of language,’’ Joseph said.
The Minister released the revised volume by handing a copy to Benyamin, the author of ‘Aadujeevitham.’ Historian M G S Narayanan, who delivered the keynote address, lauded the SIEP team for bringing out the volume but said they should have included a bibliography and index of terms.
Benyamin said that the accumulation of knowledge was of no consequence if it failed to make a society more humane.
The eighth volume is being revised for the first time nearly three decades after it was published. The 900-plus page volume is unique among the SIEP’s encyclopaedias in that it contains the longest article on a subject. Volume 8 has a 405-page article on Kerala, covering its history, geography, economy, demography and various other facets of Kerala life. T S Joy presided over the function.