ABSTRACT
The transition of Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict into a civil war between the state and Tamil nationalist groups began in the late 1970s, and accelerated in the early 1980s,particularly after the anti-Tamil ethnic riots of July 1983.1There is a pre-civil war phase to the ethnic conflict, running back to the early post-independence years. Since political independence in 1948, Sinhalese-Tamil relations, specifically the relations between the state and the minority Tamil community, had been characterized by tension and conflict.The Tamil community’s experience of discrimination and political exclusion had produced a particular project of minority aspirations translated into a demand for federalist regional autonomy. It is perhaps fair to say that Sri Lanka’s ethnic minorities were “unreconciled to the constitutional arrangements” that came along with political independence; but only a “few expected that the majority rule would be so quickly followed by discriminatory legislative measures.”2 The peaceful and parliamentary agitation for autonomy rights continued until the late 1970s,but with little success. As Kearney, Roberts, Wriggins, and Wilson have documented and commented on in great detail, there were many barriers to interethnic accommodation
through political reforms.3 The failure of the Bandaranaike-Chelvanayakam agreement of 1957 and the Senanayake-Chelvanayakam agreement of 1965 were crucial landmarks in the ethnic politics of accommodation failure. The inflexibility of Sinhalese nationalism in responding to minority ethnic grievances and aspirations as well as the electoral politics of “ethnic outbidding” have been crucial in shaping the breakdown of Sinhalese-Tamil ethnic relations throughout these years.4
