The roots of almost every major conflict in the 20th and 21st centuries can be traced back to a rise in nationalism. Hand in hand with the rise of nationalism comes the power of religious fundamentalists and opportunistic politicians. A small tear-drop shaped country that produces tea treasured throughout the world, and has scenery to rival that of New Zealand’s, learned first hand the devastation caused by nationalism and its counterparts. Nationalism in Sri Lanka came in the form of lingual conflict more than anything else. Tamil or Sinhala was the crux of the matter.

Sri Lanka is made of a diverse population, the two major constituents of which are the Sinhalese Buddhists and the Tamil Hindus. Sinhala is a language that is similar to other Indo-Aryan languages such as Marathi and Gujurati. The Tamil language is part of the Dravidian branch of languages, primarily used in Southern India and Sri Lanka. It is important to note that there are also Sinhalese and Tamil Christians, Muslims, Tamil Buddhists, and Sinhalese Hindus. But the conflict is between the two primary factions of Tamil Hindus and Sinhalese Buddhists.

The Sinhalese far right contingent claims that Sri Lanka is Sihidipa, the island of the Sinhalese, and Dhammadipa, the land of Buddhism. The Sinhalese also believe that they were the first to settle Sri Lanka, and have contentious discussions with Tamils over who settled the land first. However, the idea of Buddhism and the Sinhalese right to Sri Lanka has continued and propagated through generations.

Sri Lanka has suffered through two of the most horrific civil wars witnessed by the world, and is presently engaged in an uneasy “covert” war between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Sinhalese-dominated Government of Sri Lanka.

It is a country violently torn between two opposing factions, consumed by hatred, accustomed to discrimination, and indoctrinated with a culture of war. Given such a tainted, hostile environment, one must wonder if peace can stand a chance. Although the issue between the factions in the war is now complex, it stemmed from a rather uncomplicated series of events.

Before independence, Tamils formed 33% of the civil service, 40% of the judicial service, and 31% of the students in the university system. But in Sri Lanka, Sinhalese were the majority population at 74%¹. After the right to vote was granted universally in 1931, and in an effort to ward off ethnic inequality, the Tamils and the Sinhalese joined as one force to demand independence from Britain through the 1930s and 40s.

When Sri Lanka became independent in 1948, the country was on a forked path. One fork led to ethnic conflict, the other to harmony. 1952 was the first true election campaign, and the major decision to be made revolved around whether the official language should be Sinhala, Tamil, or both, or remain English. During this election, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) took the platform supporting language parity. It seemed as though Sri Lanka would successfully transition into self-government without becoming a country of chaos.

However in 1956 the SLFP and their leader SWRD Bandaranaike reversed their language parity position and decided to pursue a platform of Sinhala only. This was possibly the greatest mistake in terms of future consequences, but also the best option for politically maneuvering SLFP into power.

Bandaranaike realized that the best way to mobilize the Sinhalese majority was to polarize the Tamils and the Sinhalese to opposite sides of the language issue. To accomplish this, Bandaranaike took to the streets and claimed that the Sinhalese were fighting against the Tamils in an issue that would determine whether or not they would be socially marginalized in a Tamil-dominated Sri Lanka. He even went so far as to threaten that the use of Tamil as a national language would eventually lead to complete assimilation into India.

Bandaranaike and his divisive platform went on to win the 1956 election, and that June, the House of Representatives passed Official Language Act No. 33, making Sinhala the only official language of Sri Lanka.

At first, the Tamil population reacted with non-violent protests but their efforts were met with Sinhalese anti-Tamil riots that killed over 150 Tamils. The consequences of the Sinhala Only Act were both immediate and far reaching. The Act in itself showed that Sri Lanka would be run by majority rule at the expense of the rights of the minority. It also served as an omen of the discriminatory actions that would later be taken by the Sri Lankan government in the name of protecting the Sinhalese from becoming a minority in Sri Lanka.

After the passage of the Sinhala Only Act, Bandaranaike made a pact with the Tamil’s Federal Party (FP) leader, Chelvanayakam, to allow the Tamil language to be used for all administrative purposes in the Northern and Eastern provinces (where the Tamils were concentrated). But the SLFP’s rival party, the United National Party (UNP), used demagoguery to rouse the masses and the idea of language parity disappeared again, buried under more Tamil corpses from anti-Tamil riots.The SLFP would not stand up to the UNP and sacrifice its grasp on power for a minority Tamil population.

In keeping with a notable South Asian trend, Bandaranaike was assassinated in 1959 by a Buddhist monk who, ironically, believed that Bandaranaike was not doing enough for the Sinhalese. Then, in keeping with another notable South Asian trend more or less perpetuated across the subcontinent to this very day, the SLFP put Bandaranaike’s wife, Sirimavo, in charge.

Sirimavo worked to expand the rift between the Sinhalese and the Tamils, and thereby solidify her own power. Under her rule, the government passed the Language of the Courts Bill in 1961, which forced all courts and officials to use only Sinhala. Although similar to the earlier ruling that made Sinhala the only national language, the ‘61 ruling effectively disenfranchised those who were Tamil and did not speak Sinhala. At the same time, Sirimavo replaced Tamils in government service positions with Sinhalese workers, and did away with the old guarantee of equality of opportunity. As though that wasn’t enough, during Sirimavo’s first years in government while still finishing her husband’s term, she managed to turn the Sri Lankan army into a force essentially dedicated to reducing the Tamil population and their rights.

In 1972, during her second session of government, Sirimavo passed a law that reinforced Sinhala as the only official language and also promoted Buddhism over over other religions. She supported ethnic quotas and cut-offs, and reworked the education system such that Tamil students had to score at least 20 points over the average acceptance score of the Sinhalese students in order to be competitive².

By the time Prime Minister Jayawardene (UNP) came into power in August of 1978, nothing could truly reverse the damaging effects of the past two decades of discrimination. Jayawardene did, however, pass a new constitution that made Tamil a national language and also created an electoral system designed to help Tamils influence who remained in power.

But the concessions came too little too late: the Tamils had already had enough, and rebelled in large numbers in the Northern and Eastern areas of Sri Lanka. Unfortunately, Jayawardene was no different from his predecessors in that he ignored the underlying causes of the rebellion, and resorted to military repression instead of dialogue.

In 1979, the government passed the Prevention of Terrorism Act that acted much like the current anti-terrorism acts in the United States. It suspended basic rights and gave the military and police authority to arrest anyone based purely on suspicion, and hundreds of Tamils were tortured and imprisoned as a result. The last straw was in July of 1983, when Tamil rebels killed a force of 13 soldiers. This roused the Sinhalese to action and led to many violent, deadly riots and massacres. Entire Tamil neighborhoods were burned down, people were dragged out of their homes and killed in the streets, businesses were torched, and the Sinhalese effectively set their economy, academia and society back by several decades.This was the beginning of the civil war³.

The most tragic part of all of the rioting is that the government failed to intervene, and in some instances, even aided in the deaths of the Tamils. The LTTE is not an outlet of mischief for a troublesome band of Tamil rebels, but an organization formed out of necessity, to stand up for Tamils at a time when nobody would. It is a monster of the Sinhalese government’s own creation.

In hindsight, Sri Lanka’s conflicts are examples of extreme administrative folly and political selfishness, perpetuated by nationalism. There is no excuse for the behavior of the politicians: had they not resorted to appealing to the worst in their people, and abused cultural differences and nationalist fervor to rile up the Sinhalese, then the deep divide between the Tamils and the Sinhalese would have been far less pronounced, the riots may never have occurred, and the culture of violence they spawned might never have been.

References:
1. CIA World Factbook
2. Politics of Conflict and Peace in Sri Lanka by P. Sahadevan and Neil Devotta.
3. Sri Lanka: Witness to History- A Journalist’s Memoirs by Subramanium Sivanayagam

Photo Courtesy: sharynmorrow, indi

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