TAMILS IN SRI LANKA: THEIR HISTORY, DIFFERENCES AND RELATIONS WITH THE SINHALESE

TAMILS IN SRI LANKA

Tamils are the largest minority in Sri Lanka. They make up about 16.4 percent of the population of Sri Lanka compared to Buddhist Sinhalese, who make up three quarters of Sri Lanka’s population. Tamils live primarily in the north and east and the tea-growing areas of central Sri Lanka. Many are Hindus but some are Christians. Tamil-speaking Muslims are called Moors. They make up 9.2 percent of the population of Sri Lanka and are regarded as a separate group. If you add the Tamils and the Moors — both Tamil-speaking groups — together they make up 25.6 percent of Sri Lanka’s population.

The Tamils in Sri Lanka are divided into Sri Lankan Tamils (11.2 percent of Sri Lanka’s population), whose descendants arrived in Sri Lanka many centuries ago, and the so-called Indian Tamils (4.2 percent), descendants of Tamils who were brought into Sri Lanka from India by the British during the last 150 years. Tamils in Sri Lanka are linguistically and culturally related to the Tamil- and Malayalam-speaking people of southern India, particularly the 70 million residents of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, just 32 kilometers miles across the Palk Strait, which separates northern Sri Lanka from southern India.

The people collectively known as the Tamils use the Tamil language as their native tongue. Tamil is one of the Dravidian languages found almost exclusively in peninsular India. Ethnic Tamils are united to each other by their common religions beliefs and culture. Some 80 percent of the Sri Lankan Tamils and 90 percent of the Indian Tamils are Hindus. They have little contact with Buddhism, and they worship the Hindu pantheon of gods. Their religious myths, stories of saints, literature, and rituals are distinct from the cultural sources of the Sinhalese. The caste groups of the Tamils are also different from those of the Sinhalese, and they have their rationale in religious ideologies that the Sinhalese do not share. Religion and caste do, however, create divisions within the Tamil community. Most of the Indian Tamils are members of low Indian castes that are not respected by the upper- and middle-level castes of the Sri Lankan Tamils. Furthermore, a minority of the Tamils — 4.3 percent of the Sri Lankan Tamils and 7.6 percent of the Indian Tamils — are converts to Christianity, with their own places of worship and separate cultural lives. In this way, the large Tamil minority in Sri Lanka is effectively separated from the mainstream Sinhalese culture and is fragmented into two major groups with their own Christian minorities. [Source: Russell R. Ross and Andrea Matles Savada, Library of Congress, 1988]

Tamils used to comprise a larger share of the population than they do now — they made up approximately 18.2 percent of the population in 1981 compared to 16.4 percent today — but many of them died, fled the country or were forced to leave as a result of the civil war and conflict with the Tamil Tigers that lasted from 1983 to 2009. At one time an estimated 60 percent of the Tamil population were refuges. Some say their numbers are higher than those shown in census figures, saying the Sinhalese-dominated government purposely underestimates their numbers to reduce their inference.

Some Tamils have darker skin than Sinhalese, but Sinhalese can also be quite dark. The Tamils found in Sri Lanka are quite different than those found in India. They have different settlement patterns, kinship customs and village “folk” religion. Some of this explained is by interaction between the Tamils in Sri Lanka and the Sinhalese. It also may have something do with the fact that many of the first “Tamil” settlers in Sri Lanka were actually from Kerala (an area in southeast India. . Early European visitors to Sri Lanka used the term "Malabars" — a reference to people from the Kerala area — not "Tamils" to describe Sri Lankan Tamils.

Sri Lankan Tamils and Indian Tamils

Sri Lankan ("Ceylon") Tamils are descendants of Tamils that arrived beginning in ancient and medieval times through migration and invasion. The "Indian" Tamils are mainly descendants of plantation workers and laborers indentured by the British colonial government during the 19th and 20th centuries. Some 80 percent of the Sri Lankan Tamils and 90 percent of the Indian Tamils are Hindus. Most of the Muslims in Sri Lanka (Sri Lanka’s third largest group) are Tamil-speaking Moors (making up 9.2 percent of the total population). [Source: South Asian Free Media Association]

Sri Lankan Tamils and Indiam Tamils have quite different origins and relationships to the country. The Sri Lankan Tamils trace their immigration to the distant past and are effectively a native minority. In 1981 they made up 12.7 percent of the population. The Indian Tamils are either immigrants or the descendants of immigrants who came under British sponsorship to Sri Lanka to work on plantations in the central highlands. In 1981 they accounted for 5.5 percent of the population. Because they lived on plantation settlements, separate from other groups, including the Sri Lankan Tamils, the Indian Tamils have not become an integral part of society and indeed have been viewed by the Sinhalese as foreigners. The population of Indian Tamils has been shrinking through programs repatriating them to Tamil Nadu. [Source: Russell R. Ross and Andrea Matles Savada, Library of Congress, 1988]

About 70 percent of the Tamils in Sri Lanka are Sri Lankan Tamils". They are Sri Lankan citizens with full voting rights. In addition to residing in northern and eastern Sri Lanka, many also live in Colombo and throughout the island. As for the Indian Tamils, which make up about 30 percent of the Tamil population, most were disenfranchised in Sri Lanka by legislation passed in 1948. Because India also refused to recognize them as citizens, the Indian Tamils were considered stateless. A 1964 agreement with India provided for repatriation of many to India and the granting of Sri Lankan citizenship to others on a 60-40 ratio. In 1988, Sri Lankan citizenship was extended to 230,000 stateless Indian Tamils. [Source: Cities of the World , The Gale Group Inc., 2002]

Indian Tamils were brought in from southern India by the British beginning in the 1830s to work on the British coffee, tea and rubber plantations because the Sinhalese refused to do that kind of manual labor. Indian Tamils generally belong to lower castes than the Sri Lankans Tamils and live in the hill country where there are a large number of tea plantations, Many are still employed as tea pickers. They have stronger bonds with India than those who arrived earlier and were less supportive of the Tamil Tigers during the civil war and were less involved in the war.

Difference Between Tamil-Speakers in Sri Lanka and Tamils in India

Bryan Pfaffenberger wrote in the “Encyclopedia of World Cultures”: “A predominantly Saivite Hindu and Tamil-speaking population that might be mistaken as an extension of south Indian society, Sri Lankan Tamils developed their culture in relative isolation from the great cultural centers of southern India. [Source: Bryan Pfaffenberger”Encyclopedia of World Cultures, Volume 3: South Asia,” edited by Paul Hockings, 1992 |~|]

For centuries, Sri Lankan Tamils appear to have interacted more closely with their southern compatriots, the predominantly Buddhist Sinhalese, than with southern Indians; apart from language and religious affiliation, Sri Lanka Tamil and Sinhalese social systems, customs, and folk religious practices resemble each other far more closely than either does to the cultures of neighboring India. The Sri Lanka Tamils' unique geographical and historical experience generated a distinctively Sri Lankan variant of Tamil culture — a fact that is keenly felt by Sri Lankan Tamils themselves, who often speak of themselves as a small, unique, and deeply threatened community with no real ties to India.

“Sri Lankan Tamil affiliation is by no means merely linguistic; Sri Lankan Tamils distinguish themselves (and are so distinguished by the country's largest ethnic population, the Sinhalese) from other Tamil-speaking groups in the region. These are the so-called "Indian Tamils" as well as from the indigenous, Tamil-speaking Muslim population of Sri Lanka, and the Sri Lankan Moors, who dwell in the eastern coastal region and in the central highlands. Viewing their postcolonial situation in dramatically different terms and rarely amenable to political cooperation, the three Tamil-speaking communities have been unable to work together to improve the conditions of Tamil speakers in Sri Lanka. |~|

Tamil Areas in Sri Lanka

Bryan Pfaffenberger wrote in the “Encyclopedia of World Cultures”: “The center of Sri Lankan Tamil population and culture is the densely populated Jaffna Peninsula of the extreme north; other Tamil population concentrations are found on the island of Mannar and along the eastern coastal littoral, stretching from north of Trincomalee to Batticaloa. Many of today's Sri Lankan Tamils refer to their traditional Northern and Eastern Province homelands using the politically charged term "Tamil Eelam," which originally meant "Tamil Sri Lanka" but has now become virtually synonymous with the Tamils' quest for a separate state. [Source: Bryan Pfaffenberger, “Encyclopedia of World Cultures, Volume 3: South Asia,” edited by Paul Hockings, |~|]

“Since mid-nineteenth century, there has been a series of emigrations that amount to a diaspora. Considered by the colonial British as more hard-working and reliable than the Sinhalese, Sri Lanka Tamils found favor in civil service employment (a fact that generated significant Sinhalese enmity and led to anti-Tamil measures enacted by the Sinhalese-dominated postindependence government). Many Tamils took overseas civil service jobs; in consequence, significant and enduring Sri Lanka Tamil communities arose in Malaysia and Singapore. In the twentieth century, Sri Lankan Tamils migrated to the North Central Province as rain forest contraction and irrigation made new lands available, as well as to Colombo, where the many English-speaking Tamils found ready employment.

Beginning around the time of independence in the 1940s there was an efforts to encourage Sinhalese to move to Tamil areas in the north and east. After independence many Tamils migrated to the North Central Province and to Colombo. By the 1980s about half of Tamils lived outside the traditional Tamil areas. By 1975, almost half the Sri Lankan Tamil population dwelled outside the group's traditional homelands. More recently, the Tamil diaspora has been fueled by the intractable conflict between Sri Lankan security forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a militant separatist group that seeks an autonomous Tamil homeland in Sri Lanka. According to a 2001 estimate by the U.S. Committee for Refugees, more than 500,000 Sri Lankan Tamils have been internally displaced by the fighting, while an additional 100,000 had fled to India and some 50,000 have sought political asylum in Britain, Europe, and Canada. Expatriate Sri Lankan Tamils typically try to maintain close ties with families back home. Foreign remittances have long been a significant factor in the otherwise impoverished Jaffna Peninsula; since the mid-1980s, these remittances have also provided crucial support for LTTE operations. |~|

Sinhalese and Tamils

Sinhalese and Tamils are physically very similar and difficult to distinguish from each other. They have traditionally not spoken each other’s language and since the British colonial era have spoken to each other largely in English. The Sinhalese and Tamils have their own holidays and generally do not celebrate the holidays of the other. Even on Sinhalese and Tamil New Year which occurs on the same day, the holiday is celebrated differently by each group.

Sinhalese and Tamils have traditionally lived in close proximity to one another and have borrows a number of customs from each other. Tamil have traditionally lived in the cities and towns while Sinhalese have been well represented in both urban and rural areas. Matrilineal descent is common among Sri Lankan Tamils while patrilineal descent is common among Indian Tamils. The two groups have a long history of distrust and dislike. There has been incidents of violence between the two groups periodically over the years. The conflict with the Tamil Tigers from 1983 to 2009 is only the most recent and most extreme version of this animosity.

Predominately Buddhist Sinhalese make up about 75 percent of Sri Lanka’s population. Sri Lanka’s history, and the complexity of its society, is at least partly rooted in the reality that Sinhalese and Tamil Sri Lankans were fated by history and geography to coexist in close proximity. This coexistence could be discordant or amicable, and examples of both could be drawn from Sri Lanka's history. This message, however, was lost when the ethnic communities were drawn increasingly into a vortex of rancor and violence beginning in earnest in the early 1980s that made the restoration of harmony a persistently elusive goal for the Sri Lankan government for decades.

During the colonial period and the early years of Sri Lankan independence the Sinhalese and Tamils got along reasonably well or at least didn’t have any overt animosity towards one another. After independence in 1948, the Sinhalese felt that their greater numbers entitled them to more rights and powers. As time went on they began to resent the relatively egalitarian arrangement set up by the British. The relationship between the Sinhalese and Tamils began to disintegrate in 1956 when the Sinhalese used their numbers to elect Solomon W.R.D. Bandaranaike as prime minister. Bandaranaike was a populist who changed the careful balanced British policy to favor the Sinhalese.

Bandaranaike made Sinhala the official language of Sri Lanka and the language of the government and promised to give uneducated Sinhalese a more active role in the government. Tamils were required to learn Sinhalese and use it in schools rather than their own language. The British-educated Tamil government elite was thrown out in the cold. The "Sinhala only" policy placed Tamils in the position of quickly learning the Sinhalese or lose their the jobs. They resented this.

Some of the first actions taken by the new SLFP government in 1956 reflected a disturbing insensitivity to minority concerns. Shortly after its victory, the new government presented parliament with the Official Language Act, which declared Sinhala the one official language. The act was passed and immediately caused a reaction among Tamils, who perceived their language, culture, and economic position to be under attack. Before this English was the national language in part because it was not the native language of a particularly ethnic group. One Sri Lankan man told National Geographic, "When we rejected English as our national language, we went from the solution to the problem." [Source: Russell R. Ross and Andrea Matles Savada, Library of Congress, 1988]

Early History of the Tamils in Sri Lanka

There was a constant stream of migration from southern India to Sri Lanka from prehistoric times. Once the Sinhalese controlled Sri Lanka, however, they viewed their own language and culture as native to the island, and in their eyes Tamil-speaking immigrants constituted a foreign ethnic community. Some of these immigrants appear to have abandoned Tamil for Sinhala and become part of the Sinhalese caste system. Most however, continued to speak Tamil and looked toward southern India as their cultural homeland. Their connections with Tamil Nadu received periodic reinforcement during struggles between the kings of Sri Lanka and southern India that peaked in the wars with the Chola. It is probable that the ancestors of many Tamil speakers entered the country as a result of the Chola conquest, for some personal names and some constructions used in Sri Lankan Tamil are reminiscent of the Chola period. [Source: Russell R. Ross and Andrea Matles Savada, Library of Congress, 1988]

Jon Lee Anderson wrote in The New Yorker: “The Sinhalese have traditionally lived in the south, with its lush land and ancient reservoir-fed rice paddies. The Tamils lived in the arid scrublands of the north, known as the Vanni, and the lowland jungles of the east, areas their ancestors had occupied two thousand years ago, during wars of conquest waged by Hindu kings from Tamil Nadu, the southernmost state of India. Sinhalese nationalists trace their lineage to Aryan tribes of northern India, despite the lack of evidence to support the idea. [Source: Jon Lee Anderson, The New Yorker, January 17, 2011]

It is a generally accepted fact that both the Sinhalese and Tamils migrated from India beginning in the 5th or 6th century B.C. The Sinhalese are traditionally believed to be the descendants of migratory Aryans from northern India. It is, however, controversial whether the founder of the Sinhala race came from Bengal or from Gujarat. Be that as it may, the Sinhalese traditionally trace their ethnic origin to Vijaya Singha who was an Indian by birth. The Sinhalese settled in the North-Central, North-Western, and Southern Provinces of Ceylon. [Source: South Asian Free Media Association ^^]

The Tamils also migrated from India to Ceylon. They belong to the Dravidian stock of India. They are divided into the two categories "Ceylon Tamils" (also called indigenous Tamils) and "Indian" Tamils. While the Ceylon Tamils arrived in Ceylon in the pre-Christian period, the Indian Tamils migrated into Ceylon in the 19th and early 20th centuries in the wake of the introduction of plantation economy into the island by the British Empire. The Ceylon Tamils settled in Jaffna, Mannar, Vavuniya, Batticaloa and Mullaitivu in the northern and eastern coast of the country. The Indian Tamils settled in the traditional tea garden areas of Colombo, Kalutara, Kandy, Matale, Nuwara Eliya, Badulla Ratnapura and Kegella. ^^

See Separate Article EARLY HISTORY OF THE TAMILS IN SRI LANKA

Politics, Nationalism and the Arrival of the Tamils in Sri Lanka

Bryan Pfaffenberger wrote in the “Encyclopedia of World Cultures”: “It is not known when Tamils first settled in Sri Lanka, and the answer is not likely to be known any time soon. Regrettably, the quest for historical truth too often takes a back seat to political extremism in Sri Lanka's tense academic circles. Clearly, Tamil-speaking fishing folk visited the coasts, seasonally or permanently, as early as the opening centuries of the Christian era, either for their own fishing needs or to engage in the pearl trade between Sri Lanka and Rome. near Mannar. [Source: Bryan Pfaffenberger, “Encyclopedia of World Cultures, Volume 3: South Asia,” edited by Paul Paul Hockings, 1992 |~|]

During the period of the classical Sinhala dry zone civilizations (from approximately the first to the twelfth centuries c.e.), there is some evidence that Tamil-speaking Buddhist merchants settled in the northern and eastern seacoast regions, where they built towns and shrines. Permanent Sri Lanka Tamil settlements may have arisen in the north as early as the eleventh century. Clearly, by the thirteenth century, Tamil settlement in the north and east was well established; by that date, an independent Tamil Hindu kingdom arose in the Jaffna Peninsula. More focused on Sri Lanka than India, this state vied with its Sinhalese counterparts for control of one of the world's richest pearl banks, located

Also entering into the controversy of who came first in Sri Lanka, there are numerous accounts of wars between the Armies of Sinhalese and Tamils. The Chola rulers of south India, launched many invasions into the island. At one time the Chola invasions of Ceylon reached their peak as they conquered the whole or most of the island. Different Kingdoms were established in the country. When in 1505, Portuguese sailors landed on the coast of Sri Lanka, they found three Kingdoms in Sri Lanka — a Tamil one in Jaffna and two Sinhala, one in the Kotte (near present day Colombo) and the other in Senkadagalle (present day Kandy). The Tamilian and Sinhalese Kingdoms remained separated under both the Portuguese administration and that of the Dutch who succeeded them. It was only under British colonial rule that, after the administrative reforms of the 1930s, the island was brought under a single administrator. [Source: South Asian Free Media Association ^^]

Who Was the First in Sri Lanka: the Tamils or the Sinhalese

Sri Lanka claims the world's second oldest continuous written history - but history and religious mythology have played a key role in the development of communal animosity. In particular, there is controversy over whether Tamils or Sinhalese were first on the island. [Source: BBC, 16 May, 2000]

The first Sinhalese are said to be Aryans (Indo-Europeans) who arrived in Sri Lanka late in the 6th century B.C., probably from northern India. Buddhism was introduced circa 250 B.C., and the first kingdoms developed at the cities of Anuradhapura (from circa 200 B.C. to circa A.D. 1000) and Polonnaruwa (from about 1070 to 1200). In the 14th century, a south Indian dynasty established a Tamil kingdom in northern Sri Lanka. [Source: CIA World Factbook, 2020]

Much of what is known about ancient and medieval Sri Lanka — as well as a lot about ancient and medieval India — is based on the historical chronicles, the “Mahavamsa” (“Great Chronicles”), which describes the history of the Sinhalese beginning with the arrival of the first settlers from northern India in the 6th century B.C. The Sinhalese claim descent from the Aryan settlers from north India, who displaced the Veddas from their territory. Aryan tribes from northern are believed to have arrived in Sri Lanka from southern India around 500 B.C. Some believe that they came from an area currently part of West Bengal and Bangladesh. Prince Vijaya is said to have founded the first Sinhalese dynasty.

There are some people that say the first Tamils were brought to Sri Lanka by the British in the 19th century to pick to tea leaves. Although some arrived then under those circumstances, the true story of the Tamils is much longer and more complicated. The Tamils are a Dravidian people from southern India. It is not known when they first arrived in Sri Lanka. It seems plausible that Tamil fishermen and mariners arrived at a very early date because the southern Indian homeland of the Tamils is so close to northern Sri Lanka (only about 32 kilometers away).

Because the Mahavamsa is essentially a chronicle of the early Sinhalese-Buddhist royalty on the island, it does not provide information on the island's early ethnic distributions. There is, for instance, only scant evidence as to when the first Tamil settlements were established. Tamil literary sources, however, speak of active trading centers in southern India as early as the third century B.C. and it is probable that these centers had at least some contact with settlements in northern Sri Lanka. There is some debate among historians as to whether settlement by Indo-Aryan speakers preceded settlement by Dravidian-speaking Tamils, but there is no dispute over the fact that Sri Lanka, from its earliest recorded history, was a multiethnic society. Evidence suggests that during the early centuries of Sri Lankan history there was considerable harmony between the Sinhalese and Tamils. [Source: Russell R. Ross and Andrea Matles Savada, Library of Congress, 1988 *]

Tamil Kingdoms in Sri Lanka

In the seventh century A.D., Tamil influence became firmly embedded in the island's culture when Sinhalese Prince Manavamma seized the throne with Pallava assistance. The dynasty that Manavamma established was heavily indebted to Pallava patronage and continued for almost three centuries. During this time, Pallava influence extended to architecture and sculpture, both of which bear noticeable Hindu motifs. [Source: Russell R. Ross and Andrea Matles Savada, Library of Congress, 1988 *]

By the middle of the ninth century, the Pandyans had risen to a position of ascendancy in southern India, invaded northern Sri Lanka, and sacked Anuradhapura. The Pandyans demanded an indemnity as a price for their withdrawal. Shortly after the Pandyan departure, however, the Sinhalese invaded Pandya in support of a rival prince, and the Indian city of Madurai was sacked in the process.

In the tenth century, the Sinhalese again sent an invading army to India, this time to aid the Pandyan king against the Cholas. The Pandyan king was defeated and fled to Sri Lanka, carrying with him the royal insignia. The Chola, initially under Rajaraja the Great (A.D 985-1018), were impatient to recapture the royal insignia; they sacked Anuradhapura in A.D. 993 and annexed Rajarata — the heartland of the Sinhalese kingdom — to the Chola Empire. King Mahinda V, the last of the Sinhalese monarchs to rule from Anuradhapura, fled to Rohana, where he reigned until 1017, when the Chola took him prisoner. He subsequently died in India in 1029.

Under the rule of Rajaraja's son, Rajendra (1018-35), the Chola Empire grew stronger, to the extent that it posed a threat to states as far away as the empire of Sri Vijaya in modern Malaysia and Sumatra in Indonesia. For seventy-five years, Sri Lanka was ruled directly as a Chola province. During this period, Hinduism flourished, and Buddhism received a serious setback. After the destruction of Anuradhapura, the Chola set up their capital farther to the southeast, at Polonnaruwa, a strategically defensible location near the Mahaweli Ganga, a river that offered good protection against potential invaders from the southern Sinhalese kingdom of Ruhunu. When the Sinhalese kings regained their dominance, they chose not to reestablish themselves at Anuradhapura because Polonnaruwa offered better geographical security from any future invasions from southern India. The area surrounding the new capital already had a well- developed irrigation system and a number of water storage tanks in the vicinity, including the great Minneriya Tank and its feeder canals built by King Mahasena (A.D. 274-301), the last of the Sinhalese monarchs mentioned in the Mahavamsa.

After the Sinhalese empires collapsed in the 13th century the Tamils established a Hindu kingdom in the north in the Jaffna peninsula. There a Hindu king and a palace. In the 16th century the Tamils started getting the upper hand against the Sinhalese , and civil war left the land ravaged and the dams and canals destroyed.

During the thirteenth century, the declining Sinhalese kingdom faced threats of invasion from India and the expanding Tamil kingdom of northern Sri Lanka. Taking advantage of Sinhalese weakness, the Tamils secured control of the valuable pearl fisheries around Jaffna Peninsula. During this time, the vast stretches of jungle that cover north-central Sri Lanka separated the Tamils and the Sinhalese. This geographical separation had important psychological and cultural implications. The Tamils in the north developed a more distinct and confident culture, backed by a resurgent Hinduism that looked to the traditions of southern India for its inspiration. Conversely, the Sinhalese were increasingly restricted to the southern and central area of the island and were fearful of the more numerous Tamils on the Indian mainland. The fact that the Hindu kingdom at Jaffna was expending most of its military resources resisting the advances of the expansionist Vijayanagara Empire (1336-1565) in India enhanced the Sinhalese ability to resist further Tamil encroachments. Some historians maintain that it was the arrival of the Portuguese in the sixteenth century that prevented the island from being overrun by south Indians.

Tamils During the European Period in Sri Lanka

According to the “Encyclopedia of World Cultures”: “The Portuguese subdued the Hindu king in 1619. Unable to operate safely beyond the seacoasts due to the threat of disease, the Portuguese left their legacy in coastal Catholic communities that persist today. In 1658, the Dutch supplanted Portuguese rule; unlike their predecessors, the Dutch penetrated more deeply into the social fabric of the Sri Lanka Tamil community. The Dutch codified the traditional legal system of Jaffna, but in such a way that they interpreted indigenous caste customs in line with Roman-Dutch definitions of slavery. Taking advantage of the situation, agriculturists of the dominant Vellala caste turned to tobacco-growing using Pallar slaves brought from southern India. Jaffna soon became one of the most lucrative sources of revenue in the entire Dutch colonial empire; Jaffna tobacco was widely esteemed throughout Asia, and remnants of this esteem survive to this day. [Source: Bryan Pfaffenberger, “Encyclopedia of World Cultures, Volume 3: South Asia,” edited by Paul Paul Hockings, 1992 |~|]

“In 1796, the British expelled the Dutch from the island. During the first four decades of British rule, few changes were made, with the exception of granting freedom of religious affiliation and worship, a move that was deeply appreciated by the Tamil population. Slavery was abolished in 1844, but the change in legal status brought few meaningful changes to the status of Pallar and other low-caste laborers. More threatening to the structure of Tamil society was a conversion campaign by Christian missionaries, who built within the Tamil areas (especially Jaffna) what is generally considered to be the finest system of English-language schools to be found in all of Asia during the nineteenth century. |~|

“In response to a tide of Christian conversions, Arumuka Navalar (1822-1879), a Hindu religious leader, reformulated Hinduism in line with austere religious texts so that it omitted many practices Christian missionaries had criticized as "barbarous," such as animal sacrifice. Navalar's movement was resented by many Hindus who felt that sacrifice and other practices were necessary, but his reformed Hinduism stemmed the tide of Christian conversions. Benefiting from the missionaries' English-language schools without converting to Christianity, many Sri Lankan Tamils (except those of low caste) turned away from agriculture — which became far less lucrative as the nineteenth century advanced — and toward government employment in the rapidly expanding British colonial empire. |~|

“In this adaptation to foreign rule, an accommodative, utilitarian culture arose that stressed rigorous study in professional fields, such as medicine, law, and engineering, together with staunch adherence to Hindu tradition. Family support of educational achievement led to extraordinary success in the British meritocracy but to disaster later: after Sri Lanka's independence in 1948, many Sinhalese came to feel that Tamils were disproportionately represented in Sri Lanka's civil service, as well as in its professions, judiciary, and business affairs.

Tensions Between Tamils and Sinhalese

Some of the first actions taken by the new SLFP government in 1956 reflected a disturbing insensitivity to minority concerns. Shortly after its victory, the new government presented parliament with the Official Language Act, which declared Sinhala the one official language. The act was passed and immediately caused a reaction among Tamils, who perceived their language, culture, and economic position to be under attack. Before this English was the national language in part because it was not the native language of a particularly ethnic group. One Sri Lankan man told National Geographic, "When we rejected English as our national language, we went from the solution to the problem." Tensions over the language act led to the 1958 riots, in which Sinhalese mobs attacked Tamils living in Sinhalese areas. [Source: Russell R. Ross and Andrea Matles Savada, Library of Congress, 1988]

Bryan Pfaffenberger wrote in the “Encyclopedia of World Cultures”: “In the 1970s, the ruling, Sinhalese-dominated Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) imposed quotas on Tamil university admissions and civil service employment; the net effect of these quotas was to all but eliminate Tamil access to a university education or civil service jobs. Despondent and intractably unemployed, Tamil youths increasingly turned to radical youth organizations. Fearing the consequences of increasing youth militancy, the ruling Tamil political party called, in 1974, unsuccessfully, for the peaceful creation of a separate Tamil state in the Northern and Eastern Provinces. [Source: Bryan Pfaffenberger, “Encyclopedia of World Cultures, Volume 3: South Asia,” edited by Paul Paul Hockings, 1992 |~|]

“In the early 1980s, the rise of a violent Tamil separatist movement resulted in a wave of bank robberies and violent assassinations, mainly aimed at Tamils who were suspected of collaborating with Sinhalese organizations. In 1981, Sinhalese security forces went on a brutal rampage in Jaffna, burning down Jaffna's public library (formerly one of the best in Asia) and terrorizing the population. Even those Sri Lanka Tamils who had still hoped for a peaceful solution came to believe that only the militant youths, collectively known as "The Boys," could protect them; however, they soon learned that the militant Tamil groups presented their own dangers owing to their practice of forced conscription. Those who could fled overseas or to Colombo, but the 1983 Riots, which appeared to have the unofficial guidance and support of some sections of the government, effectively eliminated the Tamil business presence in Colombo. |~|

See Separate Article TENSIONS, VIOLENCE AND DISCRIMINATION INVOLVING TAMILS AND SINHALESE IN SRI LANKA

Tamils and the Sri Lankan Civil War (1983-2009)

Racial tension between the Sinhalese and Tamil communities erupted into violence in 1983 and continued in varying degrees of intensity in what became one of the world’s longest civil wars. Tens of thousands of people were killed and hundreds of thousands of Tamils fled the island or were internally displaced. According to Time: “It is the friction between the Sinhalese and Tamils that has nearly destroyed the nation. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or LTTE, are fighting for a separate Tamil nation in Sri Lanka's north. Their leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, is clever and ruthless — victims of his suicide bomb squads include a Sri Lankan President, Ranasinghe Premadasa, and former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi — and his argument is stark: the Sinhalese can't live with the Tamils peacefully and therefore a separate state is needed. Thus put, it seems like a hopeless tale of two groups speaking different languages and praying to different gods who haven't gotten along from time immemorial.” [Source: Time, February 9, 1998]

In 1992 book on Sri Lanka, "Only Man Is Vile", William McGowan traces back the roots of the conflict to how in 1880 Theosophy's Henry Steel Olcott riled up the Sinhalese with talk about their Aryan superiority over the Tamils, an argument similar the one used by Hitler and his pursuit of racial purity.

The LTTE and Sri Lankan security forces battled one another for over two and half decades. The struggle is characterized by a back-and-forth conflict in which Sinhalese security forces were sometimes able to recapture Northern and Eastern Province towns and cities, leaving the countryside, in effect, in LTTE hands; the Sri Lankan troops, meanwhile, were easy targets for LTTE reprisals. After failed truces and peace efforts, Sinhalese, Sri Lankan government forces prevailed in 2009 with a brutal offensive against the LTTE.

See Separate Articles: 1) 1983 RIOT, THE TAMIL INSURGENCY, INDIA AND THE FIRST EELAM WAR; 2) LIBERATION TIGERS OF TAMIL EELAM (LTTE): THE TAMIL TIGERS; 3) VELUPILLAI PRABHAKARAN: THE TAMIL TIGER LEADER; 4) TAMIL TIGER TERRORISM, SUICIDE BOMBINGS AND ASSASSINATIONS; 5) SRI LANKAN CIVIL WAR: THE WAR WITH THE TAMIL TIGERS; 6) TAMIL TIGERS IN THE EARLY AND MID 2000s: PEACE TALKS, THE TSUNAMI AND BREAK UP OF THE TIGERS; 7) EELAM WAR IV: LAST PHASE OF SRI LANKAN-TAMIL TIGER CIVIL WAR; 8) END OF THE SRI LANKAN CIVIL WAR IN MAY 2009; 9) HOW SRI LANKA WON THE WAR AGAINST THE TAMIL TIGERS ; 10) KILLING CIVILIANS IN THE NO-KILL ZONES AT THE END OF THE SRI LANKA CIVIL WAR; 11) AFTER THE WAR WITH THE TIGERS

Sinhalese Identity, Buddhism and the Tamil Threat

Robert D. Kaplan wrote in The Atlantic: Buddhist Sinhalese “have lived in fear of being overwhelmed by the Hindu Tamils, who, although they are only 18 percent of the population, can theoretically call upon their 60 million ethnic and religious compatriots living just across the Palk Strait in southeastern India. The history of Tamil invasions against the only homeland that the Buddhist Sinhalese possess is not just the stuff of ancient history, but a living reality underpinned by latter-day Tamil terrorism. [Source: Robert D. Kaplan, The Atlantic, September 2009]

Writes the Sri Lankan scholar K. M. de Silva: “Sri Lanka’s location off the coast of South India, and especially its close proximity to [the Indian state of] Tamilnadu, separated by a shallow and narrow stretch of sea serves to accentuate this sense of a minority status among the Sinhalese. Their own sense of ethnic distinctiveness is identified through religion — Theravada Buddhism — and language — Sinhala. They take pride in the fact that Buddhism thrives in Sri Lanka while it has practically disappeared in its original home, India. Their language, Sinhala, has its roots in classical Indian languages, but it is now a distinctly Sri Lankan language, and one that is not spoken anywhere else.

“The Sinhalese, argues de Silva, see their historical destiny in preserving Theravada Buddhism from a Hindu revivalist assault, with southern India the source of these invasions. As they see it, they are a lonely people, with few ethnic compatriots anywhere, who have been pushed to their final sanctuary, the southern two-thirds of Sri Lanka, by the demographic immensity of majority-Hindu India. The history of the repeated European attacks on their sacred city, Kandy, the last independent bastion of the Sinhalese in that southern two-thirds of the island, has only accentuated the sense of loneliness.

“The Sinhalese must, therefore, fight for every kilometer of their ethnic homeland, Bradman Weerakoon, an adviser to former Sri Lankan presidents and prime ministers, told me. As a result, like the Serbs in the former Yugoslavia, the Jews in Israel, and the Shiites in Iran, the Sinhalese are a demographic majority with a dangerous minority complex of persecution.

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Lonely Planet Guides, Library of Congress, Sri Lanka Tourism (srilanka.travel), Government of Sri Lanka (www.gov.lk), The Guardian, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Reuters, Associated Press, AFP, Wikipedia and various books, websites and other publications.

Last updated February 2022