Tamils having failed to seek redress for their grievances within the confines of Parliamentary debates resorted to extra parliamentary agitations, by means of sit in protests in front of the parliament in 1956. Passionate pleas in the Sri Lankan Parliament by the Tamil politicians was to no avail. Several thousand Tamils lost their jobs instantly due to lack of proficiency in Sinhala, and with that thousands of Tamil families lost their means of survival. The intensity and the scope of the Sinhala attack on Tamils was on the rise and eventually in 1956, Sinhala was made the sole official language of Sri Lanka replacing English. Land is the primary basis for a human race to exist and reproduce, without which any race will whither away over time. This was followed by the colonization of Tamil areas in the Eastern Province of Sri Lanka with Sinhala settlers from the South, under the guise of development schemes, to deny the existence of contiguous Tamil Homeland and with that the Tamils’ claim for a homeland. The attack on the Tamils commenced in earnest with the infamous Citizenship Act of 1948, depriving the upcountry Tamils of Indian origin their citizenship and with it, all allied political rights and made more than two million Tamils stateless overnight. State oppression and Tamils’ agitation against it
Since independence from the British, in 1948 Sinhalese started a two pronged endeavour: one of creating a unique Sinhala Buddhist identity distinct from that of the Tamil or Indian, and the other the systematic oppression and annihilation of all the minorities, but with a vengeance towards, the Tamils.
India’s existence with a larger Tamil population close to the Sri Lankan borders is the major cause of the never ending civil unrest in Sri Lanka. This very fear and numerous invasions in the past by successive Tamil Empires from South India, is the root cause of the ethnic war. Tamils in Sri Lanka have been viewed as enemies by the majority Sinhalese, not because of the existence of 4 Million Tamils in Sri Lanka, a country of 20 Million, but because of the very existence of 65 Million Tamils in India, just across the narrow palk straits, makes the Sinhalese feel a minority in the region. In Sri Lanka the conflict, popularly known as ethnic war is over the sovereignty of two competing races, the Tamils and the Sinhalese Tamils fight to regain it, as it is the only alternative left for their very survival and the Sinhalese fight to annihilate the Tamils in pursuit of a homogeneous Sinhala Buddhist State in Sri Lanka. This author tries to evaluate this phenomenon with respect to the Ealam War IV.īefore, proceeding any further, one needs to define the conflict and the key players in it. Chinese leaders unlike Indians or Westerners allow their actions to speak for themselves. It is becoming more and more evident that this century belongs to China. The West represented by USA, European Union (EU) and Japan are the casualties in the cross fire.
Sri Lankan government under the presidency of Mahinda Rajapaksa, blew out both India and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE) the former its traditional enemy and the latter, its recent enemy of 30 years of existence.
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