10 ways Sirimavo Bandaranaike marginalised Sri Lankan Tamils

Sirimavo Bandaranaike’s two governments (1960-65 and 1970-77) pursued policy upon policy geared to make Tamils second class citizens:

1. They avoided developing Tamil areas in the north-east and instead developed Sinhalese areas;
2. Barred Tamils being hired into the government service;
3. Forced the remaining Tamil civil servants to learn Sinhala in order to be promoted;
4. Stationed Sinhalese civil servants in Tamil areas, disregarding the difficulties this posed to Tamils when interacting with these transplants who knew no Tamil;
5. Instituted Sinhala only into the courts system in the predominantly Tamil north-east;
6. Instituted policies that required Tamil students to score higher to enter the university system;
7. Created a quota system so that Sinhalese students from especially rural areas could enter the university at the expense of hitherto overrepresented Tamils;
8. Banned Tamil publications promoting Tamil culture from nearly Tamil Nadu;
9. Pursued Sinhalese colonisation by flooding traditionally Tamil areas with Sinhalese from the south;
10. Disregarded Tamil input when crafting an ethnocentric constitution that codified Sinhala as the only national language and Buddhism as the foremost religion.

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