The first target of the Sinhalese Buddhists' efforts was the Indian Tamils who, because they had originally been brought to Sri Lanka by the British, were not considered to be "Sri Lankans." Shortly after independence, the government passed a law in 1949 determining who was a citizen of Sri Lanka. The law was written in such a way that most Indian Tamils were unable to claim citizenship. Even though almost all of them had been born in Sri Lanka, those who could not prove their ancestry were to be deported to India. India, however, was not interested in granting citizenship to large numbers of people with few ties to India and resisted Sri Lanka's efforts.
At the time the Indian Tamils constituted about 12 percent of the Sri Lankan population. The legislation strengthened the influence of the Sinhalese majority but was also supported by Sri Lanka Tamil leaders, who supported the legislation because the Indian Tamils tended to support left-wing and communist candidates for office. For many years large numbers of Indian Tamils remained stateless while the Indian and Sri Lankan governments negotiated their fate. Although most were either given citizenship or deported to India during the 1980's, about fifty thousand still remained stateless by the late twentieth century.
In 1956 a newly elected government passed the Sinhala Only Act. This law made Sinhala the official language of Sri Lanka. Prior to this, English had been the language of government, even though most Sri Lankans could not understand or speak it. However as English was the language of the educated elite of Sri Lanka, most Sinhalese and Tamil leaders were comfortable using it in government. After the Sinhala Only Act, Tamils became angry over what they saw as the government's effort to exclude them from public life. Sinhalese argued that because they were a majority in their country, their language deserved to be the language of government.
During the 1960's efforts were made to restrict Christian schools. In 1962 private religious schools, which were almost all Christian, were taken over by the government. This action was followed in 1972 when the name of the country was officially changed from Ceylon, the name the British gave the island, to Sri Lanka, the name that most Sinhalese used for it in the Sinhala language. These actions alienated many Tamil speakers. However, the action that most affected ethnic relations was to occur during the 1970's.
World History
