The Day

Today

To understand anything that we experience, we need to get to the cause of those events. Tamils in Sri Lanka have made it their home for eons. There has been no ethnic conflict before Sri Lanka attained independence in 1948.
So what was different now?

Britain conquered Sri Lanka in 1815, Christian Missionaries settled on the Northern and Eastern Parts of the Island, which had a predominantly Tamil Population. These missionaries brought with them European education and Political ideas, influencing Tamil mindset. The predominantly Hindu Tamils countered by developing their own culture and community, schools, temples, universities, libraries, etc. , resulting in high levels of political and economic awareness.. By 1948 60% of Government posts had been occupied by Tamils, who constituted 15% of the overall population.

After Independence an urgent need to uplift the Sinhalese was felt by the majority government. Here is where the problem starts. The first wrong move was made by the Lankan Government, The Ceylon citizenship act of 1948.

This act, while defining the criteria for citizenship of Sri Lanka, included certain clauses that made citizenship impossible for Indian-Lankan Tamils. For the uninformed, the Lankan Tamils are the Tamils residing in lanka before the arrival of the colonists, when Tamil Kingdoms had economic and political ties with Ceylon. Indian-Lankan Tamils are the ones brought in from present day Tamil Nadu in India to work in the tea plantations of the Hills in Central Sri Lanka. They are also known as ''Hill Country Tamils" . To view the Citizenship act, visit http://www.sangam.org/FB_SL_LAWS/citizenship.htm.

Now, the Lankan Government wanted this act because it would reduce the number of votes for Tamil Parties, but he perplexing thing was that there were Tamil Leaders supporting the act. Needless to say, they were Lankan Tamils, the big fish being G.G.Ponnambalam of the erstwhile Tamil Congress. Other Tamils, including a majority of Lankan Tamils branded him a traitor, but this act of support itself gives room for some nagging thoughts...

Many Lankans had supported the cause of Indian Tamils, but the fact that a few did not shows that maybe they saw each other as different, maybe they saw an opportunity in an united section, it would certainly make them a bigger votebank in a system where they were outnumbered 1:6 already. And for G.G.Ponnambalam, the maybe does not apply at all. Added, he did not want the 'aliens' on Lankan soil, he wanted them out, even if it meant the loss of thousands of votes.

This act was the start of tensions between the Sinhalese and Tamils.