The learned au­thor ex­plains why Tamils had strug­gled for Tamil Ee­lam and how Tamils who were the orig­i­nal in­hab­i­tants of Cey­lon, now called Sri Lanka, were sys­tem­at­i­cally re­duced to sec­ond-class cit­i­zens in the is­land na­tion. The ar­ti­cle was first pub­lished in The World Sikh News in De­cem­ber 2007. So­cial sci­en­tists need to see this as an as­pect of con­tem­po­rary his­tory as a chap­ter of Bud­dhist ex­trem­ism.  

In 1948, the very year that the British handed over the Cey­lon Gov­ern­ment to the Sin­halese ma­jor­ity on a plat­ter with­out any safe­guards for mi­nori­ties, the Sin­halese-dom­i­nated gov­ern­ment passed a law ren­der­ing half the Cey­lon Tamil pop­u­la­tion state­less in the land of their birth.  Un­der the Cey­lon Cit­i­zen­ship Act, of the nearly two mil­lion Tamils in Cey­lon, over one mil­lion Up­coun­try Tamils, who had lived in Cey­lon for gen­er­a­tions, were de­prived of their cit­i­zen­ship. To make mat­ters worse, the Sin­halese gov­ern­ment dis­en­fran­chised these Tamils by de­priv­ing them of their vot­ing rights by pass­ing the Cey­lon Elec­tions Amend­ment Act.

The Up­coun­try Tamil lead­ers launched a peace­ful satya­graha to protest against this racist pol­icy, but it was ig­nored by the gov­ern­ment.  The first Prime Min­is­ter of Cey­lon, D. S. Senanayake -a schem­ing racist, set the dan­ger­ous prece­dent for oth­ers to fol­low.

Sub­se­quently, there was mas­sive land-grab­bing, forc­ing planned col­o­niza­tion of the tra­di­tional home­land of the Tamils in the North­east by set­tling Sin­halese from the South. In­dige­nous Tamils were up­rooted and Sin­halese crim­i­nals made to re­side in Tamil-dom­i­nated vil­lages. All protests by Tamils and their lead­ers were scrupu­lously ig­nored.

In 1956, the Sin­halese gov­ern­ment passed the Sin­hala Only Act, mak­ing Sin­hala the only of­fi­cial lan­guage, di­vest­ing of­fi­cial sta­tus of the Tamil lan­guage.  The Tamil lan­guage spo­ken by Tamils and Mus­lims was the mother tongue of one-third of the peo­ple of Cey­lon, but it was sup­pressed.  This cul­tural at­tack was car­ried out by Prime Min­is­ter Mrs Ban­daranayake.

Fur­ther­more, in 1956, Sin­halese mobs at­tacked and drove out Tamils from their vil­lages in the Gal Oya Val­ley in the Bat­ticaloa dis­trict.  This was the com­mence­ment of Sin­hala mob ter­ror­ism against un­armed Tamils.  The po­lice were in­ef­fec­tive and re­mained mute spec­ta­tors.

The next step in the geno­ci­dal pro­gramme was to stop em­ploy­ment to Tamils.  Those al­ready in the gov­ern­ment ser­vice were de­prived of their in­cre­ments un­less they passed the Sin­hala pro­fi­ciency tests.

In 1957 Tamil lead­ers signed the Ban­daranayake-Chel­vanayagam Pact with the Sin­halese gov­ern­ment, to de­volve power to re­gional coun­cils, but it was soon uni­lat­er­ally and dis­hon­estly ab­ro­gated.  Again in 1965, Tamil lead­ers signed the Chel­vanayagam-Senanayake Pact to de­volve power to dis­trict coun­cils was also ab­ro­gated.

In 1958 Sin­halese mobs and crim­i­nals un­leashed ter­ror against the Tamils all over the Sin­halese provinces.  Tamils were mas­sa­cred, their houses burnt, peo­ple burnt alive, women raped and tor­tured.  Ren­dered de­fence­less, over a 100,000 Tamils fled to their tra­di­tional home­lands in the North­east.

In 1970, by a scheme of stan­dard­iza­tion, Tamil stu­dents were dis­crim­i­nated and barred from higher ed­u­ca­tion.  Tamil stu­dents were re­quired to score higher marks than the Sin­halese for ad­mis­sion to higher stud­ies.

In the early six­ties of the last cen­tury, Mrs Sri­mavo Ban­daranayake in­dulged in the mass de­por­ta­tion of the state­less and dis­en­fran­chised Up­coun­try Tamils to In­dia.  The In­dian gov­ern­ment col­luded with the Cey­lon gov­ern­ment in this move by sign­ing the Sri­mavo-Sashtri Pact in 1964.  Half a mil­lion Tamils were forced out of Cey­lon to In­dia.

In 1974 the Sin­hala state un­leashed po­lice vi­o­lence against the Tamils who had gath­ered to hold the Tamil Re­search Con­fer­ence in Jaffna, killing nine and wound­ing many.  In 1976 the Sin­halese po­lice opened fire at a mosque killing many Tamil-speak­ing Mus­lims.

In 1977 the UNP gov­ern­ment of Prime Min­is­ter J.R. Jayawar­dena un­leashed mob vi­o­lence against the Tamils par­tic­u­larly in the plan­ta­tions, killing hun­dreds of in­no­cent peo­ple. Nearly 40,000 Tamils were made refugees and des­ti­tute and many fled to In­dia.  Nearly 100 Hindu tem­ples were de­stroyed with the ac­tive in­volve­ment of Sin­halese politi­cians.

In 1978 the Sri Lankan Par­lia­ment en­acted the no­to­ri­ous Pre­ven­tion of Ter­ror­ism Act and armed forces were given a free hand to kill Tamil youth.  Tor­ture camps were set up and Tamils dis­ap­peared in­vol­un­tar­ily in large num­bers. The gov­ern­ment un­leashed the Sin­halese and Mus­lim home-guards to op­press Tamils.

In 1981, the Sin­halese armed forces ram­paged in Jaffna, killing and set­ting fire to build­ings in­clud­ing the his­toric Jaffna Pub­lic Li­brary con­tain­ing 94,000 in­valu­able books.  This act of cul­tural geno­cide was car­ried out by two Sin­hala min­is­ters, Athu­lath­mu­dali and Cyril Mathew, who were pre­sent in Jaffna at the time of the at­tack. The Sin­halese gov­ern­ment chased out Tamils from their vil­lages in large num­bers in the North­east and re­placed them with the Sin­halese from the South.  Plan­ta­tion Tamils, who had taken refuge in North­east due to Sin­hala ter­ror, were forcibly put into buses and dumped in the Cen­tral Province.  Tamil stu­dents in the Uni­ver­sity of Per­adeniya were also at­tacked. Tamils were ar­rested in large num­bers and held with­out trial for long pe­ri­ods.  Many were tor­tured and many dis­ap­peared, ob­vi­ously in­vol­un­tar­ily.  In the We­likade jail, many Tamil pris­on­ers were killed in July 1983.

The dev­as­ta­tion to the Sri Lankan Tamil peo­ple caused by the Sin­halese pogrom re­duced the Tamil pop­u­la­tion to 30 per cent of what it was in 1948.  It is time that the Sin­halese ac­cused are tried for geno­cide and crimes against hu­man­ity.

This reign of ter­ror con­tin­ued dur­ing the tenure of J.R. Jayawar­dena, Pre­madasa, and Chan­drika Ku­maratunga.  The Sin­hala armed forces con­tin­ued a reign of state ter­ror. Mass ar­rests, killings, dis­ap­pear­ances, tor­ture, rape, burn­ing of houses, de­struc­tion of schools, hos­pi­tals, busi­nesses, shops, tem­ples and churches ren­dered Tamils des­ti­tute. Tamil vil­lages were bull­dozed and the army fol­lowed a scorched-earth pol­icy in the Tamil home­land.

In the vil­lage of Man­alaru, where the Tamils were up­rooted, it was re­named We­lioya, and Sin­halese con­victs were set­tled. Jaffna, Palali, Ne­dun­thivu, Man­alaru, Val­vetti­tu­rai, Ki­lali, Trin­co­ma­lee, Bat­ticaloa, Kokkadi­cholai, Man­nar, Bidunuwewa, Kanchi­rankuda have suf­fered the most.  Tamils were mas­sa­cred and buried in mass graves in Chem­mani. It is dis­gust­ing to note that some of the gross vi­o­la­tors of hu­man rights have been re­warded with am­bas­sador­ships.

The Sin­hala gov­ern­ment im­posed an eco­nomic em­bargo on Tamil provinces pre­vent­ing sup­ply of food, cloth­ing, and med­i­cines, build­ing ma­te­ri­als, fuel and other ba­sic ne­ces­si­ties.  Peo­ple were dy­ing, but in­ter­na­tional bod­ies were de­nied ac­cess.

Ac­cord­ing to an es­ti­mate, some 800,000 Tamils have fled from Sri Lanka to In­dia, U.K., Eu­rope, North Amer­ica, Aus­tralia and Africa.  One mil­lion Tamils have been dis­placed in­ter­nally and most of them have be­come home­less.  A large num­ber of chil­dren have been or­phaned and many more have been maimed.

Even af­ter years of the cease-fire, Sin­halese armed forces oc­cu­pied Tamil homes, hos­pi­tals, schools, places of wor­ship and pub­lic places in many provinces. The Sin­halese po­lice and army were guilty of sadis­tic tor­ture of Tamil girls and women. There was forced ster­il­iza­tion of Plan­ta­tion Tamils. Due to ab­ject poverty, a large num­ber of Tamil chil­dren are em­ployed in Sin­halese homes as do­mes­tic ser­vants and are sub­jected to abuse. The cul­prits es­caped pun­ish­ment due to state pa­tron­age and a bi­ased ju­di­ciary.

Ac­cord­ing to an es­ti­mate, some 800,000 Tamils have fled from Sri Lanka to In­dia, U.K., Eu­rope, North Amer­ica, Aus­tralia and Africa.  One mil­lion Tamils have been dis­placed in­ter­nally and most of them have be­come home­less.  A large num­ber of chil­dren have been or­phaned and many more have been maimed.

The dev­as­ta­tion to the Sri Lankan Tamil peo­ple caused by the Sin­halese pogrom re­duced the Tamil pop­u­la­tion to 30 per cent of what it was in 1948.  It is time that the Sin­halese ac­cused are tried for geno­cide and crimes against hu­man­ity.

S. Mak­en­thi­ran is a grad­u­ate of the Uni­ver­sity of Cey­lon, Colombo and a Fel­low of the Char­tered As­so­ci­a­tion of Cer­ti­fied Ac­coun­tants of UK.   He has served in Sri Lanka and dif­fer­ent coun­tries in Africa in­clud­ing Zam­bia, Malawi and Botswana.  He was a World Bank Pro­ject Fi­nance Of­fi­cer, be­fore im­mi­grat­ing to Canada. In Canada he works as an ac­coun­tancy, fi­nan­cial and tax con­sul­tant.