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Chapter 3 - 1948: Disenfranchisement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 March 2012

Valli Kanapathipillai
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Summary

For a hundred years we have labored honestly in Sri Lanka. And yet, look at what these ungrateful people are doing to us.

In sailing ships we came. In those days many among us lost their lives while travelling. We stayed in the belief that this was our new motherland. We are pained by the unspeakable cruelty meted out to us now.

(Reprint of a poem written by Mrs. Meenachchi Nadesa Aiyar, wife of the trade union pioneer on the plantations in the 1940s. Published by WERC, Colombo. Translation from Tamil to English by the author.)

The period prior to independence was signified by considerable effort made by the government of India and that of Sri Lanka in creating a dialogue aimed at settling the problem over the status of the Indian Tamils in Sri Lanka. Unfortunately, their dialogue did not result in a compromise or an understanding on the issue. India took the stand that the Indian Tamil community had the right to live in Sri Lanka as bona fide citizens, while the government of Sri Lanka took the view that India had the responsibility to take them back. In 1948, as Sri Lanka gained independence, in what seemed to be a symbolic assertion and identification of sovereign and independent nationhood, the new government of Sri Lanka passed citizenship laws that effectively disenfranchised the Indian Tamil community.

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Chapter
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Citizenship and Statelessness in Sri Lanka
The Case of the Tamil Estate Workers
 , pp. 39 - 70
Publisher: Anthem Press
Print publication year: 2009

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