Causes of Conflict in Sri Lanka

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  • Topic: Sri Lanka, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, Tamil language
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  • Published : January 16, 2011
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Causes of Conflict in Sri Lanka :

Citizenship rights
In 1948, Sri Lanka granted citizenship to those who were either born there in Sri Lanka or those fathers and grandfathers were born there. As a result, many Indian Tamils found themselves stateless. Though India tried to solve the problems, many Indian Tamils continued to stay stateless in the 1980s.In 2003, Sri Lanka passed the Grant of Citizenship to the person of origin Bill-Citizenship was given to any person or descendants of Indian Origin for those who have lived there since 1964.This meant that they were unhappy even though they contribute to the economy, they were not given any citizenship. Thus they supported the Tamil Tigers in the conflict against the government.

Sinhala-only policy
Under the British rule, Tamils held the powerful jobs in the government service because of their good command of English. However based on the 1956 Official Language Act, only Sinhala was used as the language of administration. The Tamils held a peaceful demonstration which was however disrupted by the supporters of Sinhala language. Since 1957, the government granted greater recognition to the Tamil language by declaring it as a national language, language of administration in the northern and southern provinces. This upset the Tamils as they are unable to secure their jobs or to be promoted. This also concluded that peaceful means might not work and violence may be the answer to the problem.

University Admission
Before 1970, the Tamils were unhappy about the education system because it was based on merits. However from 1970 onwards, the Tamils had to score higher marks than the Sinhalese in order to enter the same courses in the universities. This system is still in place today. This made the Tamils unhappy and resent the government. They felt that the government was biased to them and in the process, deprived them of good job opportunities. They thus supported the Tamil Tigers against the...
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