News
Finally, Nil Manel wins battle with imposter
View(s):- Cabinet paper soon to “reinstate” its name as Lanka’s National Flower
By Kumudini Hettiarachchi
To right the wrong done to Nil manel, the Environment Ministry will be submitting a Cabinet paper on July 31, to “reinstate” its name, confirmed ministry Secretary Dr. Anil Jasinghe.
Prof. Deepthi Yakandawala
The battle to make things right for Nil manel has been going on for a long time. First it was the picture that accompanied the National Flower that was wrong, with the name being right. The picture was of the usurper, the violet-coloured water lily.
Later it was the name that was wrong, with the most important ‘Nil’ being dropped, consigning this native National Flower of delicate beauty into the same basket as commoners of the manel variety.
The Sunday Times as far back as November 7, 2010, in an exclusive report headlined ‘The Great Pretender’ wrote about the image error, quoting extensive research conducted by Peradeniya University don, Prof. Deepthi Yakandawala.
“The official picture of the Nil manel or Blue Water Lily (Nymphaea nouchali Burm. f) is wrong,” Prof. Yakandawala, Professor in Botany, Department of Botany, Peradeniya Faculty of Science, said in a stunning disclosure then, 13 years ago.
But the violet imposter’s picture continued to adorn all official material of the government. Ironically, the imposter which may have been introduced to the country long ago and been naturalised, was neither endemic nor native.
Going into the murky depths of this controversy, Prof. Yakandawala this week told the Sunday Times that Nil manel was declared the National Flower in February 1986. The image though was of the imposter.
In 2010, Prof. Yakandawala and her team after extensive research informed the authorities on the need to replace the wrong photograph with the right one. They also requested that the scientific name of Nil manel should be updated from Nymphaea stellata to Nymphaea nouchali. There was no issue with regard to the Sinhala name.
Following these disclosures and discussions at the Environment Ministry’s Biodiversity Secretariat, an expert committee had been appointed. The committee’s recommendations were:
The National Flower is Nymphaea nouchali Burm. f. (‘bluish variety’). Sinhala name: ‘Manel’/‘Nil Manel’/Nil-mahanel’/Nilupul’; Tamil name: ‘Nilotpalam’; & English name: Water Lily/Blue Water Lily
The correct image of the National Flower should be used every time it is mentioned, while the correct scientific name should be used in all places.
National Flower Nil manel, the delicate beauty
Time flowed by, the Sunday Times learns, and in the Cabinet paper presented on June 10, 2015 to correct the mistakes, the Sinhala name of the National Flower had been erroneously called ‘Manel’; English name as ‘Blue Water Lily’ and Tamil name as ‘Nilotpalam’. The right picture, however, was included.
According to Prof. Yakandawala this was contrary to all purposes as the removal of the prefix ‘Nil’ would erase all links and values (social, cultural, historical and religious) associated with the name. This, in turn, would leave room for questions as to why it should be declared the National Flower, as it would be in a common basket with all ‘manels’.
The ministry had justified the deletion of ‘Nil’ on the grounds that ‘Sinhala Language specialists’ had corrected the language.
However, Prof. Yakandawala’s team had immediately pointed out the error to the then President and ministry officials, insisting that the globally accepted norm was that “the original vernacular/common name stands, but the scientific name can be revised”. Invited to present their views to the National Biodiversity Expert Committee on May 11, 2018, they had done so, but the matter had stagnated with no follow-up.
When in May 2022, this botanist and her team saw a news report that the Committee on Public Accounts (COPA) had instructed the Environment Ministry to make the public aware that the national flower was the ‘Water Lily’ (‘Manel’ in Sinhala, ‘Blue Water Lily’ in English and ‘Nilotpalam’ in Tamil), they had written to the COPA Chairman, informing him about the mistake in the Sinhala name.
Back and forth, there had been an exchange of information, like the water lilies swaying this way and that in rushes of wind, between the Environment Ministry and COPA, with the matter later being referred to the Parliamentary Ministerial Consultative Committee on Environment scheduled to meet on December 6, 2022 (last year).
Manel the imposter
The defenders of Nil manel had also been invited to the meeting at the Parliament on December 6, where they presented their case. Once again, the Environment Ministry Secretary had been instructed to appoint a committee including Prof. Yakandawala and Prof. Kapila Yakandawala of the Wayamba University to arrive at a final conclusion.
This committee which comprised academia in the fields of botany/plant taxonomy from many universities and officials from the National Herbarium/Royal Botanic Gardens, the Forest Department and the Central Environment Authority, had met on May 3, 2023 (this year) at the Environment Ministry.
The resounding opinion of one and all had been – the Sinhala name of the National Flower should be ‘Nil manel’.
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