The roots of the conflict have been traced back to Sri Lanka's colonial era. Jaffna Tamils became overrepresented in civil service jobs partly due to a disproportionate amount of English medium schools in Jaffna. These English language schools were established in the Tamil-majority
Jaffna by
American missionaries since the British wanted to prevent conflict with the English missions in the south. Since Jaffna soil was economically unproductive unlike the south, Tamils there invested more heavily in education to secure government jobs. A small section of the Jaffna society benefited from this while most of the Tamil areas remained uneducated. The British selected their candidates for the civil service on a merit basis through civil service examination without an ethnic quota. Therefore, historian
E. F. C. Ludowyk explained the Tamil overrepresentation in civil service in terms of "their greater industry and thrift".
S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike, the fourth Prime Minister of the Dominion of Ceylon, stated that the Tamils gained a "dominant position in the public services" due to their hard work and merit in passing the qualifying examinations. By 1946, 33% of clerical jobs in Ceylon were held by Sri Lankan Tamils, although they were 11% of the country's population. However, the focus on percentages obscures the fact that the actual difference in number of jobs was quite small, for example, in 1948, Tamils accounted for 46% of government accountants and 40% of irrigation engineers, which was equivalent to 20 more Tamil accountants and 10 more Tamil engineers in proportion. The overall difference in number of government jobs was minute considering that the overall workforce was approximately 3 million people, most of whom were working in agriculture, petty manufacturing and trade. Contemporary data shows that
Sri Lankan Tamils were not over-privileged as a group, and had similar levels of average income and wealth to low-country Sinhalese, who both were in a better position than Kandyan Sinhalese and
Indian Tamils. Sri Lankan Tamils were also considerably underrepresented in the thriving plantation economy, and had less access to good agricultural land and state power and patronage. Upon independence, the ruling Sinhalese elite would vilify Tamils as having been favoured by the British to justify discriminatory policies against them.
Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism sparked by the grievances of the majority against the domination of a Westernized elite would lead to ethnic polarization.
Missionary education and demand for equal representation A primary contributor to the development of political awareness amongst Tamils during the European colonial rule was the advent of
Protestant missionaries on a large scale from 1814. Missionary activities by missionaries of the
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions,
Methodists, and
Anglican churches, led to a revival amongst Hindu Tamils, who built their own schools, temples, societies and published literature to counter the missionary activities. The success of this effort led the Tamils to think confidently of themselves as a community and prepared the way for self-consciousness as a cultural, religious and linguistic community in the mid-19th century.
Great Britain, which had come to control the whole of the island in 1815, instituted a
legislative council in 1833 with three Europeans and one each for
Sinhalese, Sri Lankan Tamils and
Burghers. This council's primary requirement was to play an advisory role to the
Governor. These positions eventually came to be elected. From the introduction of the advisory council to the
Donoughmore Commission in 1931 until the
Soulbury Commission in 1947, the main dispute between the Sinhalese and Tamils elites was over the question of representation and not on the structure of the government. The issue of power sharing was used by the nationalists of both communities to create an escalating inter-ethnic rivalry which has continually gained momentum ever since. There was initially little tension amongst Sri Lanka's two largest ethnic groups, the Sinhalese and the Tamils, when
Ponnambalam Arunachalam, a Tamil, was appointed representative of the Sinhalese as well the Tamils in the national legislative council. However, the British Governor
William Manning actively encouraged the concept of "communal representation" and created the
Colombo seat which alternated between the Tamils and the Sinhalese. Subsequently, the
Donoughmore Commission strongly rejected communal representation, and brought in
universal franchise. The decision was strongly opposed by the Tamil political leadership, who realized that they would be reduced to a minority in parliament, according to the proportion of the population they make up.
G. G. Ponnambalam, a leader of the Tamil community, proposed to the
Soulbury Commission that there should be 50–50 representation (50% for the Sinhalese, 50% for
all other ethnic groups, including Tamils) in the proposed independent Ceylon – a proposal that was rejected. In 1936, a
Pan-Sinhala Board of Ministers was created which excluded non-Sinhala members, and further divided the Sinhala and Tamil elites. The
Second World War served as an interregnum where the adroit politics of
D. S. Senanayake successfully balancing the polarising tendencies of the Sinhalese as well as Tamil nationalists. ==1948 - Independence==