Origins of SL war

[The Headache]

In late 60s there was dravidian movement in India where demands were rising for a separate Tamil country for indian tamils. So that was a move probably to stop propaganda coming to SL. But as far as i know it was never implemented. Tamil language films and culture thrive in SL.

There was no assimilation attempt in SL otherwise Tamil population would not rise n SL,

Even if books were banned how does that even remotely be compared with ISIS?

Incidentally, we had 3 Tamils as our presidents.

 

[Saradiel]

Tamil also rant you guys targeted them by ethnic quotas
'The qualifying mark for admission to the medical faculties was 250 (out of 400) for Tamil students, whereas it was only 229 for the Sinhalese. Worse still, this same pattern of a lower qualifying mark applied even when Sinhalese and Tamil students sat for the examination in English. In short, students sitting for examinations in the same language, but belonging to two ethnic groups, had different qualifying marks.'
Policy of standardisation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yes then government introduced an ethnic quota system which was bad and discriminative. There are only few people in SL that would defend that move. And know what? it was scrapped 5 years later and replaced with a regional base one. Now that is what is used in SL.
The result is a student in Colombo has to get more marks irrespective of his/her ethnicity while a student in tamil dominated area will go at lesser qualifying mark.
I am not saying SL government did nothing wrong, but they are mostly exaggerated. Most people who talk about university standardiasation do not mention that it was scrapped 2 years later. And also the regional based one is more advantageous to people in tamil areas now.

Dude, I am not pro anyone. I speak the truth.
At first I ask whether there is institutional discrimination against Sinhalese in favor of Tamil, Sara denied. Then I asked about Tamil over-representation in Devil Island elite profession, Sara downplay it.
I want to make things clear before moving on.
And let you know I always think Hinduism is world most shit religion, far worse than Islamofascism, and I am consistence.
Now you admit, I can continue.

How do you know you speak the truth?
I did not down play anything. Please go and read it. I said the tamil elite and Sinhala elite were similar in numbers. I did not speak about professions. If civil service was to be considered yes tamils had a high number compared to their population percentages.
Your understanding of SL issue is very narrow. The professions, or the university entrance were not what lead to SL war. Tamils and Sinhalese had been at war with each other for 2000 years. There is history behind it. The tamils and Sinhalese have two different versions of history and who came first argument. That is the real issue that lead to war. If you go through any discussion regarding SL war with the resident LTTE supporter you will see every discussion ends with SL history. Because that is the root cause of SL war.

this is a bias Sinhala version , where Sinhala atrocities are covered up, ommitting the Sinhala Only Act and Black July 1983, an incident which triggered the 35 yr old civil war

Yeah, your version is the unbiased version. What you said were happened later after independence. This is about the root causes of war. That is why it is titled ‘Origins of SL war’. If you can debate the content in the article.

Nope dravida nadu movement was prevelant in the 50s. In early 60s it lost all of its support due to rise of Nationalist sentiments arising from our disastrous Loss to China in 1962 War.

Yes it was prevalent in 50s. But by late 60s we could see similar patterns in SL.

Exactly. That is why I said in the other thread, Sinhalese has more wrong than Tamil.
But I give them some confident of doubt and question whether British instituted racism against Sinhalese in the first place.
Maybe I institute is a strong word, but I would say British has help Tamils to take over Devil Island, to create a dominant minorities.
I see Sinhalese here try to bluff their way out.
I am quite informed in Devil Island history.

I wonder how informed you are.
I guess Sinhala only act, university standardization, 83 these are the things that you are informed of. That is the dominant narrative of SL issue. But there are many information that is deliberately hidden. What is in the article may be from a Sinhala point of view. But that is a view not known to the world. That is why I opened the tread. SL issue started prior to independence and before any government brings any policy.

That is one of my doubts I need to clear.
I am quite skeptical about 2 sides of argument. One claim Tamil was there due to meritocracy and the other side says Tamil was there due to British patronage.
I think the truth is somewhere in the middle.
I also tends to believe that Hindu Tamil are more incline to ethnic nepotism that make people piss. I observe their conduct in SE Asia including Singapore.
Many Indians here brag they are talent but in realty they are there due to discrimination against others, and they run everything into shit.

Yes the truth is somewhere in the middle. But the number of tamils in civil service is not what caused the issue. The SL issue has different origins. The origin is in history.

My sympathy in Sinhalese rest on the fact that if you guys do not take down the Tamil elites, you guys will have no chance because these people will keep putting goons and unqualified people into top jobs.
But I say you guys got more wrong, and if this thread goes on, you may see my point.
The main reason why this shit war happen is Indian caste system.
What if Lankan people believe that the top position is going to be win by meritocractic means instead of caste? There wont be war.

The caste system did impact SL war. Prior to 1922 the SL elite was caste driven. After british introduced ethnic representation, ethnicity became a factor. I will talk how caste system impacted SL war.
Please tell me did you read the article?
There is no Tamil elite that rule over Sinhalese.

You are going off tangent the issue with Lanka is language, ethnicity and power sharing
Yours might be an exceptional - thats not the case with the Sinhala Buddhist government sponsored Tamil genocide
this is Sinhla Mahavamsa mnetality in a nutshell
Ven. Mahanama has created an imaginary link between the three elements, Country-Race-Religion and made it into one unit similar to the Holy Trinity, whereby Sri Lanka (Dhamma Deepa), Buddha's chosen people (Sinhalese), and Buddhism (Buddha Sasana) should be protected for 5000 years. This is known as the Jathika chintanaya or the Mahavamsa mindset and its outcome is the ‘Sinhala-Budda Deepa' and ‘unitary state'. Therefore, for the next 2500 years, a Sinhala Buddhist will never allow a federal state or any autonomy for others (non-Sinhala-Buddhists) in Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka | From Sinhala-Buddhism to Civilized Buddhism

@Lux de Veritas, Please see how he refers to history and history books. That is my point. This is not about elite in profession or university entrance. This is about history.

Sinhala Buddhism too have caste system -e.g Govigamas, Karavas , Salagama, Rodiyas etc

They does not have any religious basis, they are certain communities doing different professions or recent immigrants. All those people are absorbed into a main Sinhala community.

What I mean is rampant tribal behavior of Indian which is an undertone of caste system. If Ceylon Tamil take over all your instituion, there is will be a "neo-Brahmin Tamil caste" created. Then Sinhalese will become neo-Dalits.
Racism and ethnic nepotism as well as mutual suspicious is what trigger the war.
But I do not sanction Sinhalese behavior.
You guys kick Tamil out by brute force.
Sinhala Only Act - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The act had its intended effect. In 1955 the civil service had been largely Tamil; by 1970 it was almost entirely Sinhalese, with thousands of Tamil civil servants forced to resign due to lack of fluency in Sinhala. For much of the 1960s government forms and services were virtually unavailable to Tamils, and this situation only partly improved with later relaxations of the law

Well if I am to use your terminology there was attempt to create a neo Brahmin tamil caste and a Sinhala dalit. But there are other factors. Tamils as a whole were not part of the tamil elite. To be fair there was a poor peasant tamils. I will talk about it later.
About the act
I personally think it is not good. The official language of SL was English and they changed that to Sinhala without concerning Tamil. I think both Sinhala and Tamil should be given official status. Anyway they both are now. Since 1987 both Sinhala and tamil are official languages.
What is not known is after language act, Tamil was given a regional status where the Administration of North and East was done in Tamil.

This is the mindset of caste-ist and Islamofascist. I do not know if you like to get penalize in college admission just because you are from some tribe.
You guys can just use results as the only criterion for college admission. Then you will not have trouble.
If Sinhalese is confident they are able to win Tamil, why not set up a few schools in Sinhalese land and see if those schools become good schools.

SL has a very good school network in all the three mediums. If you check in literacy and school attendance SL tops South Asia and even among the top in Asia.
The issue is not university entrance issue. The issue is history which is highlighted by the article. If you read you will understand.

With those missionary schools in Sinhalese land, why cant you guys ace Tamil?

I see East Asian able to thrive in bad schools. I do not mean that patronage in not important.

But even when Tamil is scoring good grade, why penalize them?

You guys can always hire good teachers and produce elite sinhalese schools.

Why should SInhalese? There is a very good school network in SL in all three langauges. There is no issue at all in university education. Your understanding on SL issue is limited that is why you keep talking about university entrance and schoold.

Incidentally, we had 3 Tamils as our presidents.

How it is relevant here?

And does it negate the tamilnadu separation issue that existed in TN?

what gave rise to SL issue is the following...

G. G. Ponnambalam (Tamil politician) held that:

(1)Universal franchise was a mistake. There were roughly equal numbers of "educated upper-caste Tamils" and "educated upper-caste Sinhalese". So the vote should be restricted and the chamber should be 50%-50% between the two communities ("balanced representation"). Basically, low-caste Tamils and Indian Tamils, and also most Sinhalese should not count!

(2)He upheld the caste system, and agreed with Ponnambalam Ramanathan, who went several times to London in the 1930s to ask the British government to uphold the caste system.

(3)Ponnnamblam held that the Tamils had always ruled the Sinhalese, and that Vijaya was " Vijayan", Kasyapa was "Kasi-appan", and Parakramabahu was a Tamil whose actual name was Pandya-Parakrama. His favorite attack theme was to begin by bashing the Mahavamsa. (this is prevalent even among modern day LTTE ideology. Manlion fellow also brings this out as taught by their GG Ponnambalam)


(4)Ramanathan Ponnambalam, and also G. G. Ponnambalam and others REFUSED to accept that the Tamils are a minority in a democratic government, and did not attempt to create a political strategy that accepted the reality of being a minority.


(5)GGP visited Nazi Germany several times, accompanied by his right-wing British friends, in the mid 1930s, and probably copied the racist nationalism of Europe, just as N. M. Perera, Philip Gunawardena, Colvin R de Silva and other intellectuals copied the equally deadly leftist ideology of Marxism. Racism was fashionable in Europe in the 1930s and GGP imported it to Sri Lanka .

(6)When D. S. Senanayake managed to get both SWRD and GGP into his cabinet by his adroit political manipulations, a vacuum was created in the Tamil extremist space, and this was filled by the Tamil Sovereign party (Tamil Arasu Kachchi), falsely translated as "The Federal party", as every one knows the real meaning of the Tamil word "Arasu". The name came from the "League of Tamil federations", which had published a book in 1942 claiming to show that the Tamils were the main inhabitants of Sri Lanka, and that the Mahavamsa was a recent (16th century), false fabrication.

 

[Lux de Veritas]

Yes then government introduced an ethnic quota system which was bad and discriminative. There are only few people in SL that would defend that move. And know what? it was scrapped 5 years later and replaced with a regional base one. Now that is what is used in SL.
The result is a student in Colombo has to get more marks irrespective of his/her ethnicity while a student in tamil dominated area will go at lesser qualifying mark.
I am not saying SL government did nothing wrong, but they are mostly exaggerated. Most people who talk about university standardiasation do not mention that it was scrapped 2 years later. And also the regional based one is more advantageous to people in tamil areas now.

How do you know you speak the truth?
I did not down play anything. Please go and read it. I said the tamil elite and Sinhala elite were similar in numbers. I did not speak about professions. If civil service was to be considered yes tamils had a high number compared to their population percentages.
Your understanding of SL issue is very narrow. The professions, or the university entrance were not what lead to SL war. Tamils and Sinhalese had been at war with each other for 2000 years. There is history behind it. The tamils and Sinhalese have two different versions of history and who came first argument. That is the real issue that lead to war. If you go through any discussion regarding SL war with the resident LTTE supporter you will see every discussion ends with SL history. Because that is the root cause of SL war.

Yeah, your version is the unbiased version. What you said were happened later after independence. This is about the root causes of war. That is why it is titled ‘Origins of SL war’. If you can debate the content in the article.

Yes it was prevalent in 50s. But by late 60s we could see similar patterns in SL.

I wonder how informed you are.
I guess Sinhala only act, university standardization, 83 these are the things that you are informed of. That is the dominant narrative of SL issue. But there are many information that is deliberately hidden. What is in the article may be from a Sinhala point of view. But that is a view not known to the world. That is why I opened the tread. SL issue started prior to independence and before any government brings any policy.

Yes the truth is somewhere in the middle. But the number of tamils in civil service is not what caused the issue. The SL issue has different origins. The origin is in history.

The caste system did impact SL war. Prior to 1922 the SL elite was caste driven. After british introduced ethnic representation, ethnicity became a factor. I will talk how caste system impacted SL war.
Please tell me did you read the article?
There is no Tamil elite that rule over Sinhalese.

@Lux de Veritas, Please see how he refers to history and history books. That is my point. This is not about elite in profession or university entrance. This is about history.

They does not have any religious basis, they are certain communities doing different professions or recent immigrants. All those people are absorbed into a main Sinhala community.

Well if I am to use your terminology there was attempt to create a neo Brahmin tamil caste and a Sinhala dalit. But there are other factors. Tamils as a whole were not part of the tamil elite. To be fair there was a poor peasant tamils. I will talk about it later.
About the act
I personally think it is not good. The official language of SL was English and they changed that to Sinhala without concerning Tamil. I think both Sinhala and Tamil should be given official status. Anyway they both are now. Since 1987 both Sinhala and tamil are official languages.
What is not known is after language act, Tamil was given a regional status where the Administration of North and East was done in Tamil.

SL has a very good school network in all the three mediums. If you check in literacy and school attendance SL tops South Asia and even among the top in Asia.
The issue is not university entrance issue. The issue is history which is highlighted by the article. If you read you will understand.



Why should SInhalese? There is a very good school network in SL in all three langauges. There is no issue at all in university education. Your understanding on SL issue is limited that is why you keep talking about university entrance and schoold.


How it is relevant here?

And does it negate the tamilnadu separation issue that existed in TN?

what gave rise to SL issue is the following...

G. G. Ponnambalam (Tamil politician) held that:

(1)Universal franchise was a mistake. There were roughly equal numbers of "educated upper-caste Tamils" and "educated upper-caste Sinhalese". So the vote should be restricted and the chamber should be 50%-50% between the two communities ("balanced representation"). Basically, low-caste Tamils and Indian Tamils, and also most Sinhalese should not count!

(2)He upheld the caste system, and agreed with Ponnambalam Ramanathan, who went several times to London in the 1930s to ask the British government to uphold the caste system.

(3)Ponnnamblam held that the Tamils had always ruled the Sinhalese, and that Vijaya was " Vijayan", Kasyapa was "Kasi-appan", and Parakramabahu was a Tamil whose actual name was Pandya-Parakrama. His favorite attack theme was to begin by bashing the Mahavamsa. (this is prevalent even among modern day LTTE ideology. Manlion fellow also brings this out as taught by their GG Ponnambalam)


(4)Ramanathan Ponnambalam, and also G. G. Ponnambalam and others REFUSED to accept that the Tamils are a minority in a democratic government, and did not attempt to create a political strategy that accepted the reality of being a minority.


(5)GGP visited Nazi Germany several times, accompanied by his right-wing British friends, in the mid 1930s, and probably copied the racist nationalism of Europe, just as N. M. Perera, Philip Gunawardena, Colvin R de Silva and other intellectuals copied the equally deadly leftist ideology of Marxism. Racism was fashionable in Europe in the 1930s and GGP imported it to Sri Lanka .

(6)When D. S. Senanayake managed to get both SWRD and GGP into his cabinet by his adroit political manipulations, a vacuum was created in the Tamil extremist space, and this was filled by the Tamil Sovereign party (Tamil Arasu Kachchi), falsely translated as "The Federal party", as every one knows the real meaning of the Tamil word "Arasu". The name came from the "League of Tamil federations", which had published a book in 1942 claiming to show that the Tamils were the main inhabitants of Sri Lanka, and that the Mahavamsa was a recent (16th century), false fabrication.

After doing so many things, such as penalizing Tamil in college admission, reducing them in civil service representation, sinhalese language nazism, it would be inevitable that most tribe will go for arm insurgency.

@Azizam, @Gibbs, @HeinzG, @samv@manlion[/USER

 

[HeinzG]

With those missionary schools in Sinhalese land, why cant you guys ace Tamil?

I see East Asian able to thrive in bad schools. I do not mean that patronage in not important.

But even when Tamil is scoring good grade, why penalize them?

You guys can always hire good teachers and produce elite sinhalese schools.

LOL who said anything about acing anyone. We have no problem with Tamils.

 

[Lux de Veritas]

LOL who said anything about acing anyone. We have no problem with Tamils.

If you guys are able to ace Tamil, why penalize them in college admission?

 

[Saradiel]

After doing so many things, such as penalizing Tamil in college admission, reducing them in civil service representation, sinhalese language nazism, it would be inevitable that most tribe will go for arm insurgency.

No. If you check with issues minority faced in other countries these are not major issues. Compare US. In 60s a black person was not even allowed to travel in a bus with whites. Same case in Europe though not that severe.

That is what real discrimination is. SL did take discriminative steps but corrected after few years. Discrimination? yes! but not to an extent to pick arms....
The reason for picking arms in History....

I guess you are commenting without reading the content of the article. If you read before comment you will understand.

If you guys are able to ace Tamil, why penalize them in college admission?

How are they penalised now? Actually they are at an advantaged state now because of district system.
The so called entrance thing was started in 71 and abandoned in 77 totally. Just 6 years out of 68 years of post independance. So without commenting in the article what is the point in commenting on something that doesnt exist?

 

[Lux de Veritas]

No. If you check with issues minority faced in other countries these are not major issues. Compare US. In 60s a black person was not even allowed to travel in a bus with whites. Same case in Europe though not that severe.

That is what real discrimination is. SL did take discriminative steps but corrected after few years. Discrimination? yes! but not to an extent to pick arms....
The reason for picking arms in History....

I guess you are commenting without reading the content of the article. If you read before comment you will understand.

Picking up arm things put Devil Island Tamil in the wrong. I am not saying they are pure like a virgin.

They should have work out less violent ways.

Sinhalese has certainly shown willingness to eat back their nazism.

 

[Saradiel]

Picking up arm things put Devil Island Tamil in the wrong. I am not saying they are pure like a virgin.

They should have work out less violent ways.

Sinhalese has certainly shown willingness to eat back their nazism.

Do you understand youre comments are totally irrelevant to what is being discussed?

 

[Lux de Veritas]

Do you understand youre comments are totally irrelevant to what is being discussed?

Lets point out the irrelevant.

You guys bully Tamil. Being bullied is an irrelevant reason why Tamil start the war.

 

[Saradiel]

My points is bullying or being bullied is not the REAL reason (which is why i termed it as origins) for SL war. The roots were from pre independance and that is interpretation of country's history.

In other words war was going on for a very long period...
Tamils did not face such a very difficult situation. If that is so almost all minorities in different countries face that situation.

Did you read the article?

 

[Lux de Veritas]

My points is bullying or being bullied is not the REAL reason (which is why i termed it as origins) for SL war. The roots were from pre independance and that is interpretation of country's history.

Did you read the article?

Definitely but I do not buy some of it. If you guys are fully meritocratic and let Tamil have their own languages, it wont blown up so big.

 

[Saradiel]

That is my point. It is not because of some meritocratic thing that you always bring up, it is because of interpretation of history. I hope atleast now you get the point

 

[Lux de Veritas]

That is my point. It is not because of some meritocratic thing that you always bring up, it is because of interpretation of history. I hope atleast now you get the point

wiki

Origins of the Sri Lankan civil war - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A primary contributor to the development of political awareness amongst Tamils during the European colonial rule was the advent of Protestant missionaries on a large scale from 1814. Missionary activities by missionaries of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Methodists and Anglican churches led to a revival amongst Hindu Tamils who built their own schools, temples, societies and published literature to counter the missionary activities. The success of this effort led the Tamils to think confidently of themselves as a community and prepared the way for self-consciousness as a cultural, religious and linguisitic community in the mid-19th century.[4][5]

Great Britain, which had come to control the whole of the island in 1815, instituted a legislative council in 1833 with three Europeans and one each for Sinhalese, Sri Lankan Tamils and Burghers. This council's primary requirement was to play an advisory role to the Governor. These positions eventually came to be elected. From the introduction of advisory council to the Donoughmore Commission in 1931 until the Soulbury Commission in 1947 the main dispute between the elite of Sinhalese and Tamils was over the question of representation and not on the structure of the government. The issue of power sharing was used by the nationalists of both communities to create an escalating inter ethnic rivalry which has continually gained momentum ever since.[6]

There was initially little tension amongst Sri Lanka's two largest ethnic groups, the Sinhalese and the Tamils, when Ponnambalam Arunachalam, a Tamil, was appointed representative of the Sinhalese as well the Tamils in the national legislative council. However, the British Governor William Manning actively encouraged the concept of "communal representation" and created the Colombo seat which was dangled between the Tamils and the Sinhalese.[7] Subsequently, the Donoughmore Commission strongly rejected communal representation, and brought in universal franchise. The decision was strongly opposed by the Tamil political leadership, who realized that they would be reduced to a minority in parliament, according to the proportion of the population they make up. G. G. Ponnambalam, a leader of the Tamil community, proposed to the Soulbury Commission that there should be 50-50 representation (50% for the Sinhalese, 50% for all other ethnic groups, including Tamils) in the proposed independent Ceylon – a proposal that was rejected.[8] The Second World War served as an interregnum where the adroit politics of D. S. Senanayake successfully balancing the polarising tendencies of the Sinhala as well as Tamil nationalists.[citation needed] Following independence in 1948, G. G. Ponnambalam and the party he founded, the All Ceylon Tamil Congress (Tamil Congress), joined D. S. Senanayake's moderate,[citation needed] Western-oriented, United National Party Government. This Government pass the Ceylon Citizenship Act of 1948, which denied citizenship to Sri Lankans of Indian origin and resulted in Sri Lanka becoming a majoritanian state. Sri Lanka's government represented only the majority community, the Sinhalese community,[citation needed] and had marginalized the minorities, causing a "severe degree of alienation" among the minority communities.[9] When this Act was passed, the Tamil Congress was strongly criticized by the opposition Marxist groups and the newly formed Sri Lankan Tamil nationalist Federal Party (FP). S. J. V. Chelvanayakam, the leader of this new party, contested the citizenship act before the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka, and then in the Privy council in England, on grounds of discrimination towards minorities, but he did not prevail in overturning it. The FP took two seats in the 1952 election, against the Tamil Congress' four, but in the 1956 election it became the dominant party in the Tamil districts and remained so for two decades. The FP's came to be known for its uncompromising stand on Tamil rights.[10] In response to the parliamentary act that made Sinhala the sole official language in 1956, Federal MPs staged a non violent sit in (satyagraha) protest, but it was broken up by a nationalist mob. The police and other state authorities present at the location failed to take action to stop the violence. The FP was cast as scapegoats and were briefly banned after the 1958 riots in which many were killed and thousands of Tamils forced to flee their homes.

Another point of conflict between the communities was state sponsored colonization schemes that had the effect of changing the demographic balance in the Eastern province in favor of majority Sinhalese that the Tamil nationalists considered to be their traditional homeland. It has been perhaps the most immediate cause of inter-communal violence.[11]

In the 1970s importing Tamil-language films, books, magazines, journals, etc. from the cultural hub of Tamil Nadu, India was banned. Sri Lanka also banned local groups affiliated with groups such as the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and the Tamil Youth League. Foreign exchange for the long established practice of Tamil students going to India for university education was stopped. Equally, examinations for external degrees from the University of London were abolished. This had the effect of culturally cutting off the links between Tamil Sri Lankan and Tamils from India. The then government insisted that these measures were part of a general program of economic self-sufficiency as part of its socialist agenda and not targeted against the Tamil minority.[citation needed]

In 1973 the policy of standardization was implemented by the Sri Lankan government to what they believed was to rectify disparities created in university enrollment in Sri Lanka under British colonial rule. It was in essence an affirmative action scheme to assist geographically disadvantaged students to gain tertiary education. The resultant benefits enjoyed by Sinhalese students also meant a significant fall in the number of Tamil students within the Sri Lankan university student populace.[12]

 

[Saradiel]

@Lux de Veritas

This is from the wiki page you yourself copied down.

Subsequently, the Donoughmore Commission strongly rejected communal representation, and brought in universal franchise. The decision was strongly opposed by the Tamil political leadership, who realized that they would be reduced to a minority in parliament

G. G. Ponnambalam, a leader of the Tamil community, proposed to the Soulbury Commission that there should be 50-50 representation (50% for the Sinhalese, 50% for all other ethnic groups, including Tamils) in the proposed independent Ceylon – a proposal that was rejected

This is mentioned in the above infor I mentioned, but more details are given.

There is no mention about 1939 Sinhala-Tamil riot following GG Ponnambalam's speech. You can google it if you want.

I told you before there is a dominant narrative specially spread by separatists. And at the sametime there is more information deliberately hidden. That is what i mentioned first in the article...

University entrance or langauge were not real issue. The real issue or the origin of SL war is history which is my point.

 

[The Headache]

Yes then government introduced an ethnic quota system which was bad and discriminative. There are only few people in SL that would defend that move. And know what? it was scrapped 5 years later and replaced with a regional base one. Now that is what is used in SL.
The result is a student in Colombo has to get more marks irrespective of his/her ethnicity while a student in tamil dominated area will go at lesser qualifying mark.
I am not saying SL government did nothing wrong, but they are mostly exaggerated. Most people who talk about university standardiasation do not mention that it was scrapped 2 years later. And also the regional based one is more advantageous to people in tamil areas now.

How do you know you speak the truth?
I did not down play anything. Please go and read it. I said the tamil elite and Sinhala elite were similar in numbers. I did not speak about professions. If civil service was to be considered yes tamils had a high number compared to their population percentages.
Your understanding of SL issue is very narrow. The professions, or the university entrance were not what lead to SL war. Tamils and Sinhalese had been at war with each other for 2000 years. There is history behind it. The tamils and Sinhalese have two different versions of history and who came first argument. That is the real issue that lead to war. If you go through any discussion regarding SL war with the resident LTTE supporter you will see every discussion ends with SL history. Because that is the root cause of SL war.

Yeah, your version is the unbiased version. What you said were happened later after independence. This is about the root causes of war. That is why it is titled ‘Origins of SL war’. If you can debate the content in the article.

Yes it was prevalent in 50s. But by late 60s we could see similar patterns in SL.

I wonder how informed you are.
I guess Sinhala only act, university standardization, 83 these are the things that you are informed of. That is the dominant narrative of SL issue. But there are many information that is deliberately hidden. What is in the article may be from a Sinhala point of view. But that is a view not known to the world. That is why I opened the tread. SL issue started prior to independence and before any government brings any policy.

Yes the truth is somewhere in the middle. But the number of tamils in civil service is not what caused the issue. The SL issue has different origins. The origin is in history.

The caste system did impact SL war. Prior to 1922 the SL elite was caste driven. After british introduced ethnic representation, ethnicity became a factor. I will talk how caste system impacted SL war.
Please tell me did you read the article?
There is no Tamil elite that rule over Sinhalese.

@Lux de Veritas, Please see how he refers to history and history books. That is my point. This is not about elite in profession or university entrance. This is about history.

They does not have any religious basis, they are certain communities doing different professions or recent immigrants. All those people are absorbed into a main Sinhala community.

Well if I am to use your terminology there was attempt to create a neo Brahmin tamil caste and a Sinhala dalit. But there are other factors. Tamils as a whole were not part of the tamil elite. To be fair there was a poor peasant tamils. I will talk about it later.
About the act
I personally think it is not good. The official language of SL was English and they changed that to Sinhala without concerning Tamil. I think both Sinhala and Tamil should be given official status. Anyway they both are now. Since 1987 both Sinhala and tamil are official languages.
What is not known is after language act, Tamil was given a regional status where the Administration of North and East was done in Tamil.

SL has a very good school network in all the three mediums. If you check in literacy and school attendance SL tops South Asia and even among the top in Asia.
The issue is not university entrance issue. The issue is history which is highlighted by the article. If you read you will understand.



Why should SInhalese? There is a very good school network in SL in all three langauges. There is no issue at all in university education. Your understanding on SL issue is limited that is why you keep talking about university entrance and schoold.


How it is relevant here?

And does it negate the tamilnadu separation issue that existed in TN?

what gave rise to SL issue is the following...

G. G. Ponnambalam (Tamil politician) held that:

(1)Universal franchise was a mistake. There were roughly equal numbers of "educated upper-caste Tamils" and "educated upper-caste Sinhalese". So the vote should be restricted and the chamber should be 50%-50% between the two communities ("balanced representation"). Basically, low-caste Tamils and Indian Tamils, and also most Sinhalese should not count!

(2)He upheld the caste system, and agreed with Ponnambalam Ramanathan, who went several times to London in the 1930s to ask the British government to uphold the caste system.

(3)Ponnnamblam held that the Tamils had always ruled the Sinhalese, and that Vijaya was " Vijayan", Kasyapa was "Kasi-appan", and Parakramabahu was a Tamil whose actual name was Pandya-Parakrama. His favorite attack theme was to begin by bashing the Mahavamsa. (this is prevalent even among modern day LTTE ideology. Manlion fellow also brings this out as taught by their GG Ponnambalam)


(4)Ramanathan Ponnambalam, and also G. G. Ponnambalam and others REFUSED to accept that the Tamils are a minority in a democratic government, and did not attempt to create a political strategy that accepted the reality of being a minority.


(5)GGP visited Nazi Germany several times, accompanied by his right-wing British friends, in the mid 1930s, and probably copied the racist nationalism of Europe, just as N. M. Perera, Philip Gunawardena, Colvin R de Silva and other intellectuals copied the equally deadly leftist ideology of Marxism. Racism was fashionable in Europe in the 1930s and GGP imported it to Sri Lanka .

(6)When D. S. Senanayake managed to get both SWRD and GGP into his cabinet by his adroit political manipulations, a vacuum was created in the Tamil extremist space, and this was filled by the Tamil Sovereign party (Tamil Arasu Kachchi), falsely translated as "The Federal party", as every one knows the real meaning of the Tamil word "Arasu". The name came from the "League of Tamil federations", which had published a book in 1942 claiming to show that the Tamils were the main inhabitants of Sri Lanka, and that the Mahavamsa was a recent (16th century), false fabrication.

You simply wanted to prove Tamilians are well off in SL. I proved contrary. Now stop bluffing.