Talk:Sri Lankan Tamil nationalism

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Tamil civilization (inactive)

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A fact from Sri Lankan Tamil nationalism appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 11 May 2008 (check views). A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2008/May.

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Fact tag

I think we should cite that information Taprobanus (talk) 16:15, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Will do Watchdogb (talk) 18:17, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A few issues

Ponnampalam voted in favour of the Ceylon citizenship act which lead the Tamil public to believe that Ponnampalam had no interest in protecting the Indian Tamil population. These feelings lead to the formation of a new Tamil party called the ‘Ilankai Thamil Arasu Kadchi’ (Federal Party) by the people who broke away from ACTC and was lead by Chelvanayakam

This is not entirely true. A sizable number of Sri Lankan Tamil leaders supported the move to disenfranchise Indian Tamils. And it certainly wasn't a key issue in splitting the party in two. That happened, as explained in the previous sentence, because of the reluctance of some members to join the government.

However, Federal Party never asked for a separate state or even for self-determination.

Not correct. The resolution to form the party read

This gathering of active workers in the cause of freedom for the Tamil-speaking people in Ceylon, here met in conference at the General Clerical Service Union Hall (GCSU), Maradana, on December 18, 1949, deeply conscious of the inferiority status of which Tamil-speaking people...and fully alive to the implications of dangers inherent in the legislative and administrative policy of the Government ... clearly realizing that the only fair and democratic solution to these fundamental problems (consistent with the island's unity) is the establishment of an 'Autonomous State' for the Tamil-speaking people of Ceylon, hereby resolve to constitute itself as Ilankai Thamil Arasu Kadchi (ITAK) and become the framework of the National Organization of the Tamil-speaking people of Ceylon, pledged to strive increasingly for the attainment of their goal of self-government based on the principle of self-determination for the Tamil-speaking nation of the island.

First the government introduced two system of standardisation of marks for admission which favoured the Sinhalese students. This system required the Tamil students to achieve more marks than the Sinhalese students to get into university.

As detailed in the article Policy of standardization, the university admission rules did not "favor Sinhalese students". It balanced out admissions based on what district university applicants were from. From the article

In 1969, the Northern Province, which was largely populated by Tamils and compromised 7%[2] of the population of the country, provided 27.5 percent of the entrants to science based courses in Sri Lankan universities. By 1974, this was reduced to 7%.[1] However, the hardest hit population group were the urban Sinhalese in the Western Province, which contained 26%[2] of the islands population. In 1969, the Western Province provided 67.5 percent of admissions to science based courses. This reduced to 27% in 1974, after the law came into effect.[1]

--snowolfD4 ^{( talk / @ )} 22:26, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]