Full of lies, half truths on repeat mode
For those who need to learn Sinhala Tamil conflicts.
During British period, the power in SL was concentrated in the hands of an elite, english speaking educated elite which was comprised of both Sinhala and Tamils. The Tamils especially high caste Vellalas held more power than their numerical strength.
This went on until SL gained universal suffrage in 1931.
Tamil politicians like Arunachalam went to London and requested the british authorities not to give universal suffrage to SL. He even requested caste system to be institutionalised.
One of the biggest reasons for the objection for universal suffrage was Tamil political class realised with one vote for one man system, they will lose the hegemony that had held. As predicted once the elections were held, more sinhalese were elected under the democratic system. Now this lead to Tamil elite losing their hegemony.
Since late 1930s racist tamil politics started in SL by people like GG.Ponnambalam. The tamil politicians were in a race to beat each other at racist politics. More racist vituperation in political stages the more success they got. That was the trend in SL politics.
During 1930s Tamil politicians like GG turned into historians where they rejected the standard history of Sri Lanka and invented a history where Sri Lanka is essentially a Tamil country.
Now this history debate lead to conflict and finally war.
Any indian who has knowledge on their country and its politics should know when it comes to ethnic nationalism, craze for their own langauge, no one can beat Tamils. So Tamils inherently have an unhealthy nationalism. So we can see the same in SL and Tamil politicians use it for political motives.
Quoted from http://www.srilankaguardian.org/2011/07/keeping-tamil-culture-and-uprooting.html
Opposition to Progressive legislation as the origin of separatism.
When Colombo began to push socially progressive legislation like universal franchise, free education, women's rights, worker's rights etc., the Colombo Peria-Dorei class couldn't stand it any more. The building of causeways giving access to depressed villages was followed by attempts to upgrade village councils to town councils, town councils to urban councils, and urban councils to municipalities. "Enough is enough", said the
Chelvanayagams, Ponnambalams, and other absentee land lords of these village councils and urban councils as they could not see why they should pay higher taxes for these "developments". The idea of Eelam was born decades before "Sinhala Only", as you can appreciate by a modern re-reading of the Hansard of the 1930s, 1940s and early 1950s. Check how the upgrading of Jaffna to a municipal council was opposed tooth and nail by our Tamil leaders! Taking control of the North and East, away from Colombo, was the only possibility if the ruling class of the Tamils are to remain in the saddle.
unlike yours , my sources have always been neutral to maintain credibility, harp as much but Tamils gave yu hell for 35 yrs , the pain must still be hurting you.
Its common knowledge as who is / was churning out lies and half truths since independence - as the Sinhalas have all the propaganda machineries and power at their disposal.
refute if you can, that Black July didn't trigger the civil war, instead of going on a merry go round
from the lion's mouth
My name is Sarath Athokorale, I am a Sinhalese and I have a confession to make.
- By Sarath Athokorale.
Part 03. ...
What went wrong and who are the culprits?
Even at the time when the Donoughmore Commission was proposing universal suffrage to the island both the Sinhalese and Tamil elites were united, for a wrong cause too, to oppose the extension of franchise to ordinary Sinhalese and Tamil people.
But, soon after the Donoughmore constitution was introduced our lions, who got the first tasteof the territorial majority, lost no time in manipulating the system to exclude the Tamils and other numerically small nationals of the country from the process of state building and inunscrupulously grabbing total power into their hands.
The formation of the homogenous Board of Pan-Sinhalese Ministers (1936 -39) has become the harbinger to the lion’s majoritarian political offensive of the immediate post-independence phase.However, until the British left the country our lions could not take the law and state power into their hands.
After gaining independence our lions did not see any virtue or relevance of pluralism and inclusivity in building a new post-colonial state. They interpreted the independence as halfway house in the direction of ‘liberating the Buddhist country’ from the ‘aliens’, Non- Buddhists of the country. They depicted establishment of Sinhala Buddhist hegemony through exclusionism as the last will of lord Buddha. Thus they sought to entrap the innocent Sinhalese into Mahavamsa mindset.
Even minor attempts by the Tamil people to highlight their genuine grievances through peaceful and legal means had been used by our lions to develop anti-Tamil sentiment among the Sinhalese over the years and answered with repression.
The recognition of the rights of the non-Sinhalese nationals of our country was translated by our lions as a step toward weakening of state sovereignty and encouraging the tendency of secession.
Here are a few from the long list of such examples:
The first victims of the development of exclusion of non- Sinhalese were the Malayaga Tamils (Indian origin Tamil plantation workers), whose sweated labour had fetched over 80% of the foreign exchange to the country. They were decitizenized and disenfranchised. They were virtually rendered ‘stateless’ under theCeylon Citizenship Act No 18 of November 15, 1948 in a stroke.
This inhuman Act was imposed upon them in spite of the united opposition of all the Tamil Speaking Members of Parliament. When the Malayaga Tamil leaders launched a peaceful satyagraha protest belatedly against this racist Act, they were baton charged, bundled into vans and dropped at various places. This is how our lions responded to the plantation workers’ just demand at the dawn of independence.
In 1956 when the Sinhala Only Act was passed and Sinhala language was made as the only official language of the country itdeprived one of the basic the rights ofover one-third of the population of the country whose mother tongue was Tamil. It has not only marked the beginning of linguistic- apathy in the country but also created a permanent divide between the Sinhalese and the Tamil speaking nationals.
Federal Party MPs staged a nonviolentsatyagraha protest against this obnoxious Act, but it was broken up by racist mobs in the presence of the police and other state authorities, who failed to take action to stop the uncivilized barbarian act. Chelvanayakam's son was thrown into the dirty waters of the Beira Lake. Amirthalingham was hit on his head by a stone pelted by the political hooligans. Amirthalingam went into the Parliament Chamber, blood streaming from his head, to be greeted scornfully by S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike: "the honoured wounds of war!" No orders were given to arrest the culprits.
Think what would have happened if a Sinhalese leader was assaulted by the Tamil mobs for protesting peacefully? But unfortunately, in this country there were and are two different kinds of treatments: one for the Sinhalese elites and the other for the rest.
In 1958 Sinhalese mobs and criminals unleashed terror against the Tamils all over the Sinhalese provinces with the connivance of the state. In the name of Sinhala and in the name of lord Buddha free licence were given to the racist elements to physically attack even the Tamil leaders.Could this happen in a true Buddhist country?
Again when the Tamil leaders adopted passive resistance in the North and East in 1961 against implementation of the Sinhala Official Language Act, as thugs could not go all the way to disrupt the Satyagraha to Jaffna, the Srimavo Bandaranaika government sent the armed forces to put down the campaign violently.
Emergency was declared, a curfew was imposed and the military attacked on the satyagrahis on 17th April 1961. When an strike on the estates ensued in protest the angry Prime Minister who went to the radio station and issued an arrogant warning as follows:
“We cannot allow the Federal Party supporters in the North and East, the estate workers in the plantations and their friends and allies in other parts of the country to dictate to the government with threats of paralyzing the economy…”
Following this warning, about 90 volunteers and the Tamil leaders were arrested by the army under the emergency powers. The Tamil leaders were taken to the army cantonment at Panagoda, Maharagama, where they were held in custody for about six months. It reflected our elite’s mind-set of expecting the non-Sinhalese people of the country to accept condone whatever injustices inflicted on them and to meekly accept whatever the in humiliations imposed on them.
In 1974 our lions went one step further in this direction tounleash police violence against the Tamils who had gathered to hold the Tamil Research Conference in Jaffna, killing nine and wounding many.
The impact of the heinous crime committed by our lions of killing innocent people who had gathered to listen a lecture delivered by a south Indian Muslim scholar on Tamil literature, cannot be underestimated.
In this way the violence of the oppressor who had silenced the non-violence struggles of the oppressed went further to suppress their cultural aspirations too. When the non-violent means of agitations were met with brute force of the lions the moderate Tamil leaders began to lose the moral authority they had over the Tamil society and a fertile breeding ground for militancy had flourished.
Thus, it was our heartless lion that gave birth to the ruthless tiger cub and led the country to a terrible, but unnecessary, blood bath.
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