Opting Out Of Sri Lanka And The Tamil Homeland
Dr. Rajan Hoole
The 1972 Republican Constitution of Mrs. Bandaranaike’s United Front govern- ment, which included the LSSP and CP, was a turning point in the Tamil question. The new Constitution took a hard-line approach to the Tamils. It removed even Section 29 of the Soulbury Constitution, which provided at least a psychological guarantee to the minorities by barring discrimination on grounds of group af- filiation. The youth were in a militant mood and the stress was on opting out of the Sri Lankan mainstream and safeguarding the Northern and Eastern Provinces as the homeland of the Tamils.
In one instance of communal violence in the Delta and Sanquahar estates, the attacking mobs were shouting “Victory to Jayaratne”. The latter was then MP for Gampola and recently the General Secretary of the SLFP. For the first time, Sri Lanka witnessed scenes of starvation with Tamil labour rummaging through dustbins in the hill country towns and in Colombo too.
Uppermost in their mind was the safeguarding of territory against planned state sponsored colonisation by Sinhalese.
The nationalisation of the British owned plantations in the mid-1970s resulted in dislocation of services to Tamil plantation labour. This was accompanied by some violence in which the plantation families were thrown out of their line rooms onto the streets. A combination of these led to starvation and vagrancy. In one instance of communal violence in the Delta and Sanquahar estates, the attacking mobs were shouting “Victory to Jayaratne”. The latter was then MP for Gampola and recently the General Secretary of the SLFP. For the first time, Sri Lanka witnessed scenes of starvation with Tamil labour rummaging through dustbins in the hill country towns and in Colombo too. A doctor in a provincial hospital confided that when these folk died of starvation, their instructions were to certify the cause as malnutrition. In one pro- vincial town at least the folk on the streets in search of food were forced into lorries by the authorities and dumped in the wild to clear the town of their presence. Many of them went in search of a new life in the Northern and East- ern Provinces. Tamils at all levels helped them to settle down on mainly permit lands (see Sul- len Hills, our Special Report No.4).Read More
