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The Evolution of Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka Arul S The Evolution of Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka Arul S. Aruliah and Anusha Aruliah Wecan chart ourfuture clearly and wisely The British provided the Ceylonese context. At the time, the British gover- only when we know the path which has led with an infrastructure that was quite nors enforced a policy of state neutrality. to the present. modem. But unification, in a traditional Buddhism was slowly and convertly - Adlai Stevenson. nationalist sense (that is, identification supported, especially after the Kotahena Introduction with the nation as opposed to ethnic or riots of 1883 (a Buddhist-Catholic con- regional identification), was noticeably flict), with small monetary donations for Ethnic conflict in the world today is a absent. Prior to the arrival of the British, the repair of a dagold and a gift of lamps. familiar situation. History is integral to the northem regions of Sri Lanka were The incremental growth of Sinhala-Bud- understanding the ethnopolitics of any not integrated with the south. In fact, dhist nationalism ensured that elitist nation. Such is the case in Sri Lanka. Sri there were three independentkingdoms. Christian Sinhala leaders, unlike their Lanka is an island nation located off the "Out of what once were the two Tamil brethren, would conform to na- southern tip of India's coastline. Its his- Sinhalese kingdoms of Kandy and Kotte tionalist principles if they wanted to lead tory has been as varied as the many and the Tamil kingdom of Jaffna, in 1802, that community. Communal conflicts names it has had, among them the British created their first crown were religion-based at the turn of the Tamaraparani, Taprobane, Lanka, Ilam, colony, Ceylon" (U.S. Committee for century; as the end of the twentieth cen- Serendib, Ceylon and, in 1972, Sri Lanka. Refugees 1991,4). tury draws near, Sri Lanka is being rav- The Sinhalese (mostly Buddhist) consti- English education was beginning to aged by a civil war that has its basis in an tute approximately 74 percent of the be the norm for the higher castes of both ethno-cultural perspective. "Ethniciden- population; the Tamils (mostly Hindu) the Sinhalese (the goyigad) and their tity has taken over from religious iden- are approximately 18 percent (1981 cen- Tamil counterparts, the vellalas. The an- tity" (Stirrat 1984 197).In fact, in the 1983 sus); and Tamil-speaking Muslims con- glicized schooling that prevailed was riots that devastated Colombo, the Sri stitute 7 percent of the population. Other taught at missionary schools in the late Lankan capital, both Sinhalese Catholics minorities includeBurghers1 and Malays. nineteenthand earlytwentiethcenturies. and Buddhists camed out attacks on Islam was introduced to Ceylon by Arab For many new Christians, motives for Tamil Catholics (Stirrat 1984). The traders around the eighth century A.D. conversion were more practical than re- change in the nature and size of the con- The Portuguese introduced Catholicism ligious. They became entitled to free flict in Sri Lanka has ramifications be- in 1505. In 1638, the Portuguese were schooling. Introduction of the North- yond the tiny nation itself, especially for replaced by the Dutch, who were subse- South railway system facilitated the countries at the receiving end of the quently overthrownby the British (1796) southward migration of English-edu- steady stream of refugees from Sri Lanka. in their quest to expand the British Em- cated Tamils. And, as a result, "during The ethnic struggle used to have po- pire. The British were a different type of the first two decades of Sri Lankan inde- litical beneficiaries; now there can be no invader. Their policies left a lasting im- pendence, Ceylon Tamils, who consti- beneficiaries until the war is over. The pact on Sri Lanka in a way that had never tutedonly12%of theisland'spopulation, evolution and escalation of the conflict occurred before. Historian D.C. Mendis held 40% of public sector employment" took place over a number of years with suggested that: (Perera 1992). There was a feeling in the the tacit acknowledgment and later di- [the] Portuguese [had] left behind the majority community that the minority rect intervention of the state. There were Roman Catholic Church, and the community had a disproportionate hold many indications of where the conflict Dutch their system of law. The British on public service positions. would lead-the type of government administrative system, helped by the Furthermore, during the colonial pe- and its problems after independence and great changes brought about by the riod, there was growing discontent the communal riots that plagued the modem industrial civilization, helped within the Sinhala-Buddhist community country are examples. After 1983, the Ceylon to be unified and the people to on the secondary position of Buddhism very nature of the conflict changed. But progress once more (Mendis 1932,8). in the country. "The Buddhist revival of the progress of the conflict was left un- the second half of the nineteenth century checked. Painfully tragic results have was the first phase in the recovery of changed the way of life for a nation. national pride in the island, the first step Arul S. Aruliah is the managing editor of Refuge Stirrings of Discontent and guest edited this sped issue on Sri Lanka. in along process which culminated in the Anusha Aruliah is a student of political science and growth of nationalism in the twentieth The religious conflicts that occurred in philosophy at the University of Toronto. century" (De Silva 1981,343).The truth the early 1900s were the Sinhalese and of this becomes obvious when placed in Tamils' responses to the emerging sense Refuge, Vol. 13, No. 3 (June 1993) 3 of animosityagainst an alien culture with smaller racial groups. The situation But the Tamil leaders did not get what all its trappings. One element of the alien changed findamentallyafter 1922 [the they demanded. Sri Lanka was unique at culture was the Catholic church. There time of the Donoughmore Constitu- that stage. It was a full twenty years were a series of violent encounters be- tion] when .. there was one majority ahead of its African and Asian counter- community - the Sinhalese- the Tamils parts in the British Empire or Common- tween Catholics and Buddhists: now regarding themselves increas- Ambalangoda in 1890, Wadduwa in ingly as a minority community. It has wealth with its universal suffrage. In 1891, Kalutara in 1897 and remained so ever since (DeSilva 1981, 1931, 1936 and 1947, legislatures were Anuradhapura in 1903; and between 387). elected by means of universal suffrage Catholics and Hindus Negombo in 1899 and the Sinhalese majority began to get and Neervali in 1902. According to K.M.De Silva, this more and more power because of their The elite class of Sri Lankan society promising time inSriLankanhistorywas numbers. did not have well defined "racial" unparalleled. However, there were Disenfranchisement and the Issue boundaries at the time. They were sirn- stirrings of trouble from the outset. It is ply Ceylonese. A combination of wealth true that these were not of ethnic lean- of Colonization and English education elevated them to ings, but were instead due to the fact that When Sri Lanka became an independent that position. They were mobilizing the Ceylon National Congress was the nation in 1948, replete with Westrnin- among themselves to become a viable bastion of the elite, none of whom shared ster-style democracy, Britain and the political force. Their motives were quite the same political outlook. When the Ceylonese overlooked a fundamental clear-cut. They were being barred from party was formed, there were two iden- flaw. By ignoring the fact that, although the highest echelons of the land, no mat- tifiable factions: the constitutional elite, Tamils constituted a minority of the gen- ter how qualified or how capable. In an who proposed a political goal of respon- eral population, they constituted a very extreme example, a Whitehall (British sible self-government for Ceylon as a definite majority in certain areas of Sri government)official tolda prominent Sri member of the British Empire. The other Lanka - the northern and, to a slightly Lankan lawyer that the man chosen to be sector was radical; they favoured force- lesser degree, eastern parts of the coun- attorney-general "must be a good law- ful opposition to British rule in the tradi- try - Sri Lanka was left in a state that yer and ought to be pure white.. ." (De tion of the Indian model. could easily have led to disarray and Silva 1981,322) . In 1919, Sir William Manning, the eventually did so. Political representation under the new British governor, amved. He did Colonization was and remains an British was in the form of the Legislative not approve of the Ceylon National Con- important issue of conflict. It was the Council. The ratio for the council, whose gress (CNC) and he used his consider- government-sponsored colonization purpose was to elicit information about able power to hasten the path of schemes of predominantly Tamil areas local conditions, was fixed, by conven- self-destruction that the CNC appeared that caused a problem. "Tamils see it as a tion, at three Europeans and one from to be taking. By the late 1920~~after the deliberate attempt to deprive their areas each Ceylonese community: Sinhalese, deliberations over the Donoughmore of continuity and thus decrease their Tamil and Burgher. However, the effec- Constitution, the shift towards ethnocen- communal bargaining power. They tiveness of the representation was tric perspectives began. "Whilst the point out that hardly any Tamils have greatly limited by the fact that the succes- Sinhalese leaders favoured the 'one man, been settled under official auspices in sive Sri Lankan members of the council one vote' system, Tamil leaders objected Sinhalese areas" (Schwarz 1988,lO).
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