Includes statistics.

The Plantation Tamils in Sri Lanka who toil in the plantations and make a huge contribution to the economy of the country by their blood and sweat, are the very people who remain the poorest community in the island. They faced numerous problems such as economic deprivation, social neglect and political abuse in the 19th and 20th centuries. Legislative measures soon after Sri Lanka gained independence in 1948 made them stateless and thereafter the community suffered continuous discrimination. The discriminatory measures relate to their civil and political rights. They also suffered discrimination in the areas of employment, education, housing, health, industrial relations, language and trade. Special administrative measures and targeted legislation has been used for the purpose of denying the Plantation Tamils their basic rights that would enable them to lead a normal life with dignity. As a result, the community is afflicted by poverty, ill-health, illiteracy and unemployment in the 21st Century. This book examines the laws, regulations and administrative action that affect the Plantation Tamils in Sri Lanka, mainly relating to citizenship, franchise and language rights. Political events connected with the enactment of the laws are also referred to in the book. Brief accounts on education, health and housing, land reform and trade union rights have also been included.

The period since 1989 has been marked by the global endorsement of open markets, the free flow of finance capital and liberal ideas of constitutional rule, and the active expansion of human rights. Why, then, in this era of intense globalization, has there been a proliferation of violence, of ethnic cleansing on the one hand and extreme forms of political violence against civilian populations on the other? Fear of Small Numbers is Arjun Appadurai’s answer to that question. A leading theorist of globalization, Appadurai turns his attention to the complex dynamics fueling large-scale, culturally motivated violence, from the genocides that racked Eastern Europe, Rwanda, and India in the early 1990s to the contemporary “war on terror.” Providing a conceptually innovative framework for understanding sources of global violence, he describes how the nation-state has grown ambivalent about minorities at the same time that minorities, because of global communication technologies and migration flows, increasingly see themselves as parts of powerful global majorities. By exacerbating the inequalities produced by globalization, the volatile, slippery relationship between majorities and minorities foments the desire to eradicate cultural difference. Appadurai analyzes the darker side of globalization: suicide bombings; anti-Americanism; the surplus of rage manifest in televised beheadings; the clash of global ideologies; and the difficulties that flexible, cellular organizations such as Al-Qaeda present to centralized, “vertebrate” structures such as national governments. Powerful, provocative, and timely, Fear of Small Numbers is a thoughtful invitation to rethink what violence is in an age of globalization.

This book is a comprehensive history of the Sri Lankan Tamils, their territories, their politics, religion, language, socio-economics, art, literature and culture.Until the publication of this book, based on historical evidence, the Tamils' struggle for freedom has not been understood in its true light by those engaged in research, the majority of academics, politicians and ordinary people.The existing primary sources were not sufficient to write such an historical work. The author, in order to gather incontrovertible evidence, visited various archives, libraries, state institutions and university research centres located in the countries that are closely related to the history of Sri Lankan Tamils. These include India, Portugal, the Netherlands, Britain and the United States of America. This invaluable material has been compiled for the first time in this book.Here are some excerpts: " ... generally accept that the ancient people of Sri Lanka belonged to the Dravidian Language family and followed the Dravidian (Megalithic) culture of 'Urn Burials'. The findings of these scholars also show that there was a strong similarity between the ancient people of Sri Lanka and those of India, particularly from Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Kannada and the Andhra regions in South India where Dravidian languages are spoken."" ... that Saivaism was firmly established in Sri Lanka long before the arrival of Buddhism to the island. The kings of the Anuradapura Kingdom had been Saivaites before the advent of Buddhism.""... Archaeological evidence shows that the ancient Dravidian people of ancient Sri Lanka, influenced by the arrival of Buddhism and the North Indian languages associated with it, gradually embraced Buddhism, its cultural traditions and the languages related to it."

Focusing on notions of diaspora, identity and agency, this book examines ethnicity in war-torn Sri Lanka. It highlights the historical development and negotiation of a new identification of Up-country Tamil amidst Sri Lanka's violent ethnic politics. Over the past thirty years, Up-country (Indian) Tamils generally have tried to secure their vision of living within a multi-ethnic Sri Lanka, not within Tamil Eelam, the separatist dream that ended with the civil war in 2009. Exploring Sri Lanka within the deep history of colonial-era South Asian plantation diasporas, the book argues Up-country Tamils form a "diaspora next-door" to their ancestral homeland. It moves beyond simplistic Sinhala-Tamil binaries and shows how Sri Lanka's ethnic troubles actually have more in common with similar battles that diasporic Indians have faced in Fiji and Trinidad than with Hindu-Muslim communalism in neighbouring India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Shedding new light on issues of agency, citizenship, displacement and re-placement within the formation of diasporic communities and identities, this book demonstrates the ways that culture workers, including politicians, trade union leaders, academics and NGO workers, have facilitated the development of a new identity as Up-country Tamil. It is of interest to academics working in the fields of modern South Asia, diaspora, violence, post-conflict nations, religion and ethnicity.

A day in the life of Vickneswari provides the starting point for an analysis of educational progress among the plantation Tamil community of Sri Lanka. Using a wide variety of primary and secondary evidence, Angela Little traces educational progress from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day. The analysis is embedded within historical, political, social and economic relations which stretch beyond the confines of the plantation; within a plural society in which plantation people have gradually become more central to the political mainstream; and within a national and global economy in which plantation production has become less central and less profitable over time.

Since the late 1970s civil war has left Sri Lanka in an almost permanent state of crisis; conventional histories of the country by liberal and Marxist scholars in the last two decades have thus tended to focus on the state’s failure to accommodate the needs and demands of the minorities. The entire history of the twentieth century has been tied to this one key issue. Sri Lanka in the Modern Age offers a fresh perspective based on new research. Above all, the author has written a history of the peoples of Sri Lanka rather than a history of the nation-state.

Focusing on the historical events of post-independence Sri Lanka, S. J. Tambiah analyzes the causes of the violent conflict between the majority Sinhalese Buddhists and the minority Tamils. He demonstrates that the crisis is primarily a result of recent societal stresses—educational expansions, linguistic policy, unemployment, uneven income distribution, population movements, contemporary uses of the past as religious and national ideology, and trends toward authoritarianism—rather than age-old racial and religious differences. "In this concise, informative, lucidly written book, scrupulously documented and well indexed, [Tambiah] trains his dispassionate anthropologist's eye on the tangled roots of an urgent, present-day problem in the passionate hope that enlightenment, understanding, and a generous spirit of compromise may yet be able to prevail."—Merle Rubin, Christian Science Monitor "An incredibly rich and balanced analysis of the crisis. It is exemplary in highlighting the general complexities of ethnic crises in long-lived societies carrying a burden of historical memories."—Amita Shastri, Journal of Asian Studies "Tambiah makes an eloquent case for pluralist democracy in a country abundantly endowed with excuses to abandon such an approach to politics."—Donald L. Horowitz, New Republic "An excellent and thought-provoking book, for anyone who cares about Sri Lanka."—Paul Sieghart, Los Angeles Times Book Review

On the ethnic relations and politics in post 1978 Sri Lanka.