Comments on: O country, Thy National Anthem…

By: cssuntherrao .

cssuntherrao . — Wed, 01 Apr 2015 04:54:00 +0000

In reply to Citizen.

…” It was falsely propagated by colonial authorities that the song was written and first sung to praise and felicitate King George V and Queen Mary on their visit to India in 1911. The rumors gave way when Tagore wrote a letter to the Emperor, stating the mentor and creator of Bharath(India) mentioned in the song is not King George V but God himself. The copy of the letter can be found in his autobiography and Jana Gana Mana (hymn) ……” – Wikipedia

By: Paradiselost

Paradiselost — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 11:35:10 +0000

I am a Sri Lankan Tamil; and I remember as a child growing up in Jaffna in the 70’s I was standing up to the national anthem in the cinema theaters as they played this before the movie with the news clip. I do not remember if it was in Tamil or Sinhalese but I did it dutifully and I knew the Tamil version too. But now I ask myself if I happen to win an international award in sports or a Nobel prize, would I be happy to listen to the SL national anthem at this event; my answer is NO; why? because I am not feeling that I am being treated as a Srilankan (or at least as a second class citizen of this country), not from the politics and not from the majority of Sinhalese, and it is tragic.
Nobody was asking the Sinhalese to sing the national anthem in Tamil. And for the Tamils it is easy to sing it in Tamil than in Sinhalese, And actually everybody should be happy about it, isn’t it? And what disturbs the Politicians like MR and WW in this simple matter; they try to impose something on the Tamils to show that they dictate the terms like the “Sinhalese only” rule in the 50’s and we see now what we have from it. If the Tamils want to sing the anthem in Tamil to identify themselves with the country there is no better way to do it than allowing them to do it. And if we try to impose the Sinhalese version on the Tamils and they refuse to sing along because they do not master the language then the Sinhalese majority is going to shout at them that they are nationalistic and separatist not want to sing the national anthem. So isn’t it wise to get them into the boot than pushing them into the water for just to be able to say they could have asked for our help. The attempt to ban the Tamil version of national anthem is motivated by nationalistic and political ideas and to show the Tamils the predominance of the Sinhalese in Sri Lanka and to punish them for something and the same time to impress the Sinhalese voters. And you can ask yourself who is nationalistic (fascistic)? The Tamils who deny to or cannot sing the national anthem, because they do not speak Sinhalese? or the Sinhalese who removed the Tamil version and force the Tamils to sing it and only in Sinhalese?
By the way in Spain, there are Spanish, Catalans and Corsicans, the national anthem has no text only a musical composition. May be this would resolve the problem of having more languages and a single national anthem. But the question is would the big ego of the majority would allow it?

By: santhi

santhi — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 22:02:54 +0000

It is a pathetic situation to find excuses to justify and promote a racist flag as a country’s national flag. A flag should not have anything to represent a particular race or religion and all the colours should be equal in size. If you want to continue to have that Sinhala Buddhist flag, you are free to use it for yourself, but leave us alone.
For your information, freedom fighters are always called the ‘terrorists’ by the relevant governments and the government killing its own citizens is also a licensed terrorist in the eyes of those people affected.

By: wijayapala

wijayapala — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 21:53:22 +0000

In reply to Padda. Dear Padda, "Be happy that at least minorities are represented in the flag. In India it does not," The orange and green on the SL flag do NOT represent minorities, despite what you'll find on the internet. They were borrowed from the Indian flag as a show of solidarity after independence. The green on the Indian flag represents the Muslim minority. Together with the orange, the tricolor represents Hindu-Muslim coexistence and secularism.

By: Ravi Shankar

Ravi Shankar — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 12:16:52 +0000

Pada said “Be happy that at least minorities are represented in the flag. In India it does not, In USA it does not as well as Aussieland and in Kiwiland.”

In fact, the Indian flag has nothing to do with any ethnicity. See the official explanation below:

The Indian flag is a horizontal tricolour in equal proportion of deep saffron on the top, white in the middle and dark green at the bottom. The ratio of the width to the length of the flag is two is to three. In the centre of the white band, there is a wheel in navy blue to indicate the Dharma Chakra, the wheel of law in the Sarnath Lion Capital. This center symbol or the ‘CHAKRA’, is a Buddhist symbol dating back to 200th century BC.

By: Padda

Padda — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 07:24:17 +0000

In reply to Citizen. Yes, Mr. Weerawardhana, could you care to explain what "Adhinayaka" means in Bengali?

By: Padda

Padda — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 07:21:31 +0000

In reply to ram. Ram will not reply, because the answer is a big "NO".

By: Padda

Padda — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 07:19:45 +0000

In reply to santhi. @ Shanthi - You sound like a bitter Tamil separetist. Let's analyze your arguments one by one. "If Sinhalese think in a wise manner, they will realize the wrong path they are taking in issues like national flag and national anthem. Suppose, in a Sinhalese dominated audience, if we hoist a tiger flag (it is not a Tamil’s flag, but of LTTE’s) and sing tiger song and ask them to stand up and respect, are they going to obey it?" There's no national flag for LTTE. That is only a terrorist flag. No one from any country will stand up to that crap, because it symbolises human bombs and slaying of the innocent civillians. "No! In the same way, how can they expect Tamils to respect a flag with strong representation of Sinhalese Budhists authoritatism with an animal pointing towards inside, to those two colours (said to be added later to represent other communities)? Be happy that at least minorities are represented in the flag. In India it does not, In USA it does not as well as Aussieland and in Kiwiland. Now if the coloured stripes were behind the lion, that separatists / terrorist sympathisers like you'd tell that lion is farting towards minorities. If it was above the lion you'll still say lion is pointing the sword at them, and if it was below, you'd say lion is trampling them. Simply people like you whine, and whine and whine continuously until you get your dream land Peelam. You'll never want to stand under a Sri Lankan flag what ever that flag contains. Instead you keep whining petty things as above to find a cause to not stand under it. If they say the Tamils to go back to India, I advise them to go back and read their own Mahawamsa No one asks the Tamils to go back to India. But people who cannot think themselves as Sri Lankans can certainly leave the country and go whereever they like. And BTW, Mahavansa is not regarded as the Bible of SL history. It's beyond doubt that Sinhalese is a Dravidian race which speaks an Indo-Aryan language and writes using a Dravidian script. Some times Sinhalese may be one of the oldest Dravidian races, and we are seeing some artefacts of 5 - 7BC in A'pura with Sinhalese written in Southern Brahmi Script.

By: Citizen

Citizen — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 04:38:31 +0000

In reply to veedhur. some says Tagore's song originally written to praise King George V. :D so it was transparently selected right?

By: Neon

Neon — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 01:42:48 +0000

In reply to veedhur. So what you're saying is that Sri Lanka should call for submissions for a national anthem, get Tamil submissions, and then just pick the Sinhala one?