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Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka: A Political Dead End?
| Article
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10220 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
Date : |
8 / 1986 |
3,005 Words |
| Author
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Urmila Phadnis
Urmila Phadnis is a professor at the Center for South,
Southeast and Central Asian Studies at the School of
International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi,
India. Currently, she is a visiting scholar at the Southern
Asian Institute at Columbia University in New York City. |
Among Third World countries, Sri Lanka (officially known as Ceylon until 1972) has complied an enviable track record of relative political stability in regard to its democratic system. Lately, however, its multiethnic, sociopolitical mold has been under severe pressure. On the ethnic front, for instance, consequent to the decade-old Tamil demand for the creation of Eelam, a separate state in the northern and eastern provinces, the internal war between the Tamil insurgents and the Sinhalese-dominated military has intensified, engulfing, at times, other parts of the country as well.
Underlying the ethnic conflict are the challenges of participation and integration in a civic society that has been politically volatile as well as competitive, economically maldeveloped, ethnically diverse, and highly youthful - more than two-thirds of its people are below the age of 25. Covering an area of 25,232 square miles, Sri Lanka has a population of over 15 million, comprised of Sinhalese from north India who claim Dravidian descent (18 percent), Moors (7 percent), and burghers, Malays, etc. (1 percent).
Apart from claims of racial distinctiveness, the Sinhalese-Tamil identities have been strengthened in religious and linguistic terms. Thus, while the bulk of the Sinhalese are Buddhist and speak Sinhalese, the Tamils are Hindu with Tamil as their mother tongue. Among the Tamils, those who migrated from southern Indian during the British colonial period to work on plantations in the heartland of Sinhalese areas are called "Indian Tamils," while the rest, concentrated in the capital of Colombo as well as in the northern and eastern areas, are known as "Ceylon Tamils."
Added to the racial-religious-linguistic congruence of the Tamils is also the territorial factor. In two provinces - the northern and the eastern - comprising seven districts, the Tamils are numerically predominant in six out of the seven. These are contiguous areas and are viewed by them as their "traditional homeland."
Alongside such territorial concentration of the Tamils, two points deserve attention. First, about half of the Tamil population lives outside these two provinces. Second, about half of the Muslim population lives in the eastern province. Any discussion on the issue of Eelam must reckon with such geographic considerations.
More significantly, until 1975 Eelam, at best, was a concept, and Tamil insurgency was virtually nonexistent. However, over the decades,
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