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The Pandya Dynasty of South India featured the emblem of a twin fish on its flag (Meen Kodi). Fish, it seemed, was its mascot. Historical artefacts, such as coins, literature, and architecture, provide evidence of this. The active maritime and fishing activities of the Pandya kingdom led to the association of the fish image with prosperity. The patron deity, Meenakshi, meaning ‘fish-eyed’, was believed to guard the capital, Madurai.
Lately, YouTubers have started associating the fish with the mythical ‘Kumarikandam’, which corresponds to sunken Lemuria in the Western psyche.
Advances in early Tamil Sangam Literature are said to have happened when the Pandya’s two capitals before it submerged. Occupants from Kumarikandam journeyed across to the South of India and made Madurai their capital city.
The emblem of fish in the Pandya pantheon is so strong that one look at a fish would remind everyone of the splendour and grandeur of the Pandya Empire.
That is how it has been all through our civilisation. A powerful nation would exert its authority by placing its seal of sovereignty on a piece of land and becoming a rallying symbol during both peacetime and war. It served as a cultural identity and an umbrella to unite the subjects.
This piece of cloth, labelled a flag, may have been first sewn on Chinese silk.
Now, in independent Malaysia, the flag has become a tool for some people to gauge their citizens’ loyalty. Every so often, somebody would find another person’s flag hung upside down or with the wrong number of stripes and would immediately share it virally.
Politicians would jump onto the bandwagon and steamroll their ideologies all over the place to show how ‘patriotic’ they are.
The whole hysteria has reached such a feverish pitch that Malaysians have had it up to their necks. People are scared to place flags outside their houses to mark Independence Month. Fearful that some joker would find fault in his neighbour’s sincere hoisting of the Jalur Gemilang.
It is intriguing how a piece of cloth that is used to unite people is now sowing discontent and hatred. People’s businesses are shut down, and business owners are fined. All these smells evoke a dystopian future, reminiscent of 1984.
(P.S. Sometimes I wonder if the upside-down placement of the flag was done on purpose, to denote a nation under duress!)
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