Among the nearly two hundred flags at the UNO, only Sri Lanka has a violent flag a ferocious animal, carrying a raised sword in one of its paws in an attacking posture. Facing that brute is the saffron stripe representing the Tamils. Muslims are not directly attacked as the green stripe is on the other side of the saffron stripe. This flag represents nicely what has gone on in Lanka from the early 1950s.

Many Sinhalas still subscribe to their ancestral myth that they descended from a lion only about 2600 years ago. I think that the myth, as narrated in the Mahavamsa, should be studied carefully as it seems to explain the deep-seated Sinhala fear/insecurity in dealing with the Tamils. According to the myth, the lion came across a (human) princess, took her to its den and cohabited with her. They had two children. The lion kept the princess and children within the closed den. Only the lion goes out and then returns. The lion loved its freedom, but it did not allow freedom to its family. The lion was acutely aware of its own beastly/brutal nature. No human being would continue to be with it, if she had a chance to leave.

Similarly, the Tamils started claiming equal status and equal opportunity with the majority community following independence. As discrimination and oppression worsened, Tamils demanded federalism, but were willing to settle for much less, as demonstrated in the Bandaranaike Chelvanayagam Pact of 1957 and the Dudley Senanayaka Chelvanayagam Pact of 1965. These agreements were abrogated because of opposition from the Sinhala side.

The Sinhala side insisting on finding a solution within the unitary constitution is similar to the position taken by the ancestor of the Sinhalas. The Sinhalas tell the Tamils that no freedom of movement outside the den is possible. If freedom were allowed beyond the den, the `people of the lion` seem to feel that humans may run away from the beasts.

THE SINHALA FLAG:

Ceylon, as Sri Lanka was called in 1948, had no national flag at the time of independence. The present national flag, without the saffron and green stripes, is exactly the same as a flag seized by the British conquerors from the Kandyan king in 1815. The Sinhalas were strongly attracted to the lion flag in an attacking posture, as the myth of the origin and connection of the Sinhalas to lion was fascinating to them. Tamils did not accept that lion flag and suggested a national flag acceptable to all ethnic communities.

The government appointed a Parliamentary Select Committee to make its recommendation to the Parliament. This committee had a majority of Sinhalas, two Tamils and a Muslim. The Sinhalas insisted on the attacking lion flag. No other country in the modern world seems to have such a militant banner as its national flag. How do you resolve such a problem when the majority ethnic community insists on having its way?

The Tamils did not agree with this design for the national flag. Theye wanted to have a new flag, without the ferocious animal representing the majority community.

LION and TIGER:

It is interesting to note the emergence of a national flag among the Tamils. Tamils look upon the tiger flag as one capable of resisting the lion flag. The Tamil Kingdom, which existed for centuries in Lanka, had a flag whose main feature was a seated recumbent bull. The Tamil resistance movement did not choose this flag, as a bull could not be expected to stand up to a marauding lion. The Chola kingdom of Tamils in South India had a tiger flag. There is lot of symbolism in the changeover from a bull to a tiger. When the lion was attacking the Tamils for about two decades, the peaceful, law-abiding Tamils were behaving like a cow/bull. A realization that they had to behave like a tiger occurred to a few Tamils in the seventies. This view is shared by a vast number of Tamils now.

The marauding lion of yore is complaining that the newly emerged, prowling tiger is a terrorist. Just because one ethnic community has forced the marauding lion to be the central figure on the national flag of a State and behaves likewise against another ethnic community in that State, the international community should not turn a blind eye to what goes on and decide that an established State however evil and cruel it may be has to be defended.

If the lion flag does not appear to be a terrorist flag, how could anybody say that the tiger flag is a terrorist flag?

If a really united, peaceful country for the whole island were to emerge out of the tragic events, a new national flag transcending the marauding lion and the prowling tiger will have to be DEVISED.