Sri Lanka, formerly Ceylon or just Lanka, is an ancient land with amazing culture and has much influence from Indian and Portuguese cultures. Sinhalese has been the main language of the Buddhist sangam and culture in the country for thousands of years. However, there is a minority located in Sri Lanka, the Thamizh (Ta-mil), originating from South India. The Thamizh language also spans many years, a good 5,000 to be exact, but its presence in Sri Lanka has a complicated history.
Starting in the late 20th century, a movement to create a state for the population of Thamizh people living in Sri Lanka known as the ‘Liberation Thamizh Tigers of Eezham’ (LTTE) rose to prominence. This had been due to multiple factors, such as the Sri Lankan Official Language Act in 1956, making Sinhalese the only language with official status, thus excluding Thamizh from recognition. Thamizh protesters asking for Thamizh to be recognised were met with Sinhala mob violence in 1958. In May 1983, Sinhala students attacked Thamizh classmates in Trincomalee, a city in the northeast. Later in June, adult rioters killed 27 Thamizh people (including women and children) and destroyed many homes.
Why are there historical tensions and contested narratives surrounding the Thamizh people of Sri Lanka? It started around 200 BCE, when Dravidian warriors—specifically Thamizh warriors—invaded Sri Lanka under the rule of King Manu Needhi Chozhan, a prominent king in Thamizhagam (the Thamizh-speaking land comprising the modern states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and south Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh). By the 5th century CE, there was a significant Thamizh population who called Ilangai (Sri Lanka) home. The Thamizh kingdoms, such as the aforementioned Chozhas, the Pandyas, and the Pallavas, had raided the Sri Lankan kingdoms in various levels of destruction, sometimes attacking the Buddhist sangams and viharams. During the 10th and 11th centuries, after conquering much of Lanka, the Chozha Empire gained the upper hand and ruled the majority of the island for a hundred or so years. Though initially destroying historical architecture, Chozha emperors restored the many temples and much infrastructure of northern and central Sri Lanka. Other Dravidian Empires, such as the Kannada-speaking Vijayanagar Empire (1335-1660), invaded Sri Lanka, but the Thamizh invasions were the ones burned into Sri Lankan history as the villains. Worth mentioning is the bringing of Indian Thamizh labourers from the Indian Peninsula to Sri Lanka by the British Empire in the early 1800s, bringing more Thamizh persons to the already significant population established in ancient times. This population was more educated than the Sinhala population due to the abundance of missionary schools where they originated. The British subsequently appointed more Sri Lankan Thamizhs into government jobs and universities, thus furthering tensions between the two linguistic groups.
My own family is distantly related to the great Chozha Dynasty, and they lived in Thamizh Nadu until my paternal great-grandfather (or possibly my great-great-grandfather) moved away from the family to the central hill city of Kandy. His family had a good presence, owning many of the main street’s shops and land and building a shrine in the main Hindu temple in Kandy. It was a good life, and my father’s family lived in Sri Lanka for a while, eventually moving north to Jaffna, where there were many Thamizh people. The good times were not to last, for all the rioting against the Thamizh aforementioned hadn’t been well received by the LTTE. In July 1983, the LTTE attacked a military patrol outside Jaffna and killed 15 men. This occurrence was also because the group’s leader was killed by the Sri Lankan army, and also due to claims that the army had sexually assaulted three Thamizh schoolgirls.
Whatever the reasoning behind the attack, there would soon be a response by the Sinhalese remembered by millions as Black July.
To be continued…
