Dominion Dominion status followed on 4 February 1948 with military treaties with Britain, as the upper ranks of the armed forces were initially British, and British air and sea bases remaining intact. This was later raised to independence itself and Senanayake became the first Prime Minister of Sri Lanka. In 1949, with the concurrence of the leaders of the
Ceylon Tamils, the UNP government disenfranchised the
Indian Tamil plantation workers. This was the price that Senanayake had to pay to obtain the support of the Kandyan Sinhalese, who felt threatened by the demographics of the tea estates where the inclusion of the "Indian Tamils" would have meant electoral defeat for the Kandyan leaders. Senanayake died in 1952 after falling from a horse and was succeeded by his son Dudley Senanayake, the then minister of Agriculture. In 1953 he resigned following a massive
Hartal ("general strike") by the Left parties against the UNP. He was followed by
John Kotelawala, a senior politician and an uncle of Dudley Senanayake. Kotelawala did not have the enormous personal prestige or the adroit political acumen of D. S. Senanayake. He brought to the fore the issue of national languages that D. S. Senanayake had adroitly kept on the back burner, antagonising the Tamils and the Sinhalese by stating conflicting policies with regard to the status of
Sinhala and
Tamil as official languages. He also antagonized the Buddhist lobby by attacking politically active Buddhist Monks who were Bandaranaike's supporters. In 1956, Sinhala was established as the official language, with Tamil as a second language. Appeals to the
Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London were abolished and plantations were nationalised to fulfil the election pledges of the Marxist program and to "prevent the ongoing dis-investment by the owning companies". In 1956, the
Sinhala Only Act came into being. This established Sinhala as the first and preferred language in commerce and education. The Act took effect immediately. As a consequence vast numbers of people, mostly Burghers, left the country to live abroad as they felt discriminated against. In 1958, the first major riots between Sinhalese and Tamils flared up in Colombo as a direct result of the government's language policy. While developing secret cells and regional commands, Wijeweera's group also began to take a more public role during the elections of 1970. His cadres campaigned openly for the United Front of Sirimavo R. D. Bandaranaike, but at the same time they distributed posters and pamphlets promising violent rebellion if Bandaranaike did not address the interests of the proletariat. In a manifesto issued during this period, the group used the name Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna for the first time. Because of the subversive tone of these publications, the United National Party government had Wijeweera detained during the elections, but the victorious Bandaranaike ordered his release in July 1970. In the politically tolerant atmosphere of the next few months, as the new government attempted to win over a wide variety of unorthodox leftist groups, the JVP intensified both the public campaign and the private preparations for a revolt. Although their group was relatively small, the members hoped to immobilize the government by selective kidnapping and sudden, simultaneous strikes against the security forces throughout the island. Some of the necessary weapons had been bought with funds supplied by the members. For the most part, however, they relied on raids against police stations and army camps to secure weapons, and they manufactured their own bombs. Wijeweera was arrested and sent to Jaffna Prison, where he remained throughout the revolt. In response to his arrest and the growing pressure of police investigations, other JVP leaders decided to act immediately, and they agreed to begin the uprising at 11:00 P.M. on 5 April 1971. Rebel groups armed with shotguns, bombs, and Molotov cocktails launched simultaneous attacks against seventy- four police stations around the island and cut power to major urban areas. The attacks were most successful in the south. By 10 April, the rebels had taken control of Matara District and the city of Ambalangoda in Galle District and came close to capturing the remaining areas of Southern Province. The new government was ill-prepared for the crisis that confronted it. Bandaranaike was caught off guard by the scale of the uprising and was forced to call on India to provide basic security functions. Indian frigates patrolled the coast and Indian troops guarded Bandaranaike International Airport at Katunayaka while Indian Air Force helicopters assisted the counteroffensive. Sri Lanka's all-volunteer army had no combat experience since World War II and no training in counterinsurgency warfare. Although the police were able to defend some areas unassisted, in many places the government deployed personnel from all three services in a ground force capacity. Royal Ceylon Air Force helicopters delivered relief supplies to beleaguered police stations while combined service patrols drove the insurgents out of urban areas and into the countryside. After two weeks of fighting, the government regained control of all but a few remote areas. In both human and political terms, the cost of the victory was high: an estimated 10,000 insurgents—many of them in their teens—died in the conflict, and the army was widely perceived to have used excessive force. In order to win over an alienated population and to prevent a prolonged conflict, Bandaranaike offered amnesties in May and June 1971, and only the top leaders were actually imprisoned. Wijeweera, who was already in detention at the time of the uprising, was given a twenty-year sentence and the JVP was proscribed. Under the six years of emergency rule that followed the uprising, the JVP remained dormant. After the victory of the United National Party in the 1977 elections, however, the new government attempted to broaden its mandate with a period of political tolerance. Wijeweera was freed, the ban was lifted, and the JVP entered the arena of legal political competition. As a candidate in the 1982 presidential elections, Wijeweera finished fourth, with more than 250,000 votes (as compared with Jayewardene's 3.2 million). During this period, and especially as the Tamil conflict to the north became more intense, there was a marked shift in the ideology and goals of the JVP. Initially Marxist in orientation, and claiming to represent the oppressed of both the Tamil and Sinhalese communities, the group emerged increasingly as a Sinhalese nationalist organization opposing any compromise with the Tamil insurgency. This new orientation became explicit in the anti-Tamil riots of July 1983. Because of its role in inciting violence, the JVP was once again banned and its leadership went underground. The group's activities intensified in the second half of 1987 in the wake of the Indo-Sri Lankan Accord. The prospect of Tamil autonomy in the north together with the presence of Indian troops stirred up a wave of Sinhalese nationalism and a sudden growth of antigovernment violence. During 1987 a new group emerged that was an offshoot of the JVP—the Patriotic Liberation Organization (Deshapremi Janatha Viyaparaya—DJV). The DJV claimed responsibility for the August 1987 assassination attempts against the president and prime minister. In addition, the group launched a campaign of intimidation against the ruling party, killing more than seventy members of Parliament between July and November. Along with the group's renewed violence came a renewed fear of infiltration of the armed forces. Following the successful raid of the Pallekelle army camp in May 1987, the government conducted an investigation that resulted in the discharge of thirty-seven soldiers suspected of having links with the JVP. In order to prevent a repetition of the 1971 uprising, the government considered lifting the ban on the JVP in early 1988 and permitting the group to participate again in the political arena. With Wijeweera still underground, however, the JVP had no clear leadership at the time, and it was uncertain whether it had the cohesion to mount any coordinated offensive, either military or political, against the government.
Republic The Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka was established on 22 May 1972 with the
Sri Lankan Constitution of 1972. By 1977, the voters were tired of Bandaranaike's socialist policies and elections returned the UNP to power under
Junius Jayewardene, on a manifesto pledging a market economy and "a free ration of 8 seers (kilograms) of cereals". The SLFP and the left-wing parties were virtually wiped out in Parliament, although they garnered 40% of the popular vote, leaving the
Tamil United Liberation Front led by
Appapillai Amirthalingam as the official opposition. This created a dangerous ethnic division in Sri Lankan politics. After coming to power, Jayewardene directed the rewriting of the constitution. The document that was produced, the new
Constitution of 1978, drastically altered the nature of governance in Sri Lanka. It replaced the previous Westminster style, parliamentary government with a new presidential system modeled after France, with a powerful chief executive. The president was to be elected by direct suffrage for a six-year term and was empowered to appoint, with parliamentary approval, the prime minister and to preside over cabinet meetings. Jayewardene became the first president under the new Constitution and assumed direct control of the government machinery and party. A few Sinhalese kept Tamil neighbours in their homes to protect them from the rioters. During these riots the government did nothing to control the mob. Conservative government estimates put the death toll at 400, while the real death toll is believed to be around 3000. Also around 18,000 Tamil homes and another 5,000 homes were destroyed, with 150,000 leaving the country resulting in a Tamil diaspora in Canada, the UK, Australia and other western countries. In elections held on 17 November 2005
Mahinda Rajapakse was elected president after defeating
Ranil Wickremasinghe by a mere 180,000 votes. He appointed Wickremanayake as Prime Minister and
Mangala Samaraweera as Foreign Minister. Negotiations with the LTTE stalled and a low-intensity conflict began. The violence dropped off after talks in February but escalated again in April and the conflict continued until the military defeat of the LTTE in May 2009. The Sri Lanka government declared total victory on 18 May 2009. On 19 May 2009, the Sri Lankan military led by
General Sarath Fonseka, effectively concluded its 26-year operation against the LTTE, its military forces recaptured all remaining LTTE controlled territories in the Northern Province including Killinochchi (2 January), the Elephant Pass (9 January) and ultimately the entire district of Mullaitivu. On 22 May 2009, Sri Lankan Defence Secretary
Gotabhaya Rajapaksa confirmed that 6,261 personnel of the Sri Lankan Armed Forces had died and 29,551 were wounded during the
Eelam War IV since July 2006. Brigadier
Udaya Nanayakkara added that approximately 22,000 LTTE fighters had died during this time. The war caused the death of 80 000-100 000 civilians. There are allegations that
war crimes were committed by the
Sri Lankan military and the rebel
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (Tamil Tigers) during the
Sri Lankan Civil War, particularly during the final months of the
Eelam War IV phase in 2009. The alleged war crimes include attacks on civilians and civilian buildings by both sides; executions of combatants and prisoners by both sides; enforced disappearances by the Sri Lankan military and paramilitary groups backed by them; acute shortages of food, medicine, and clean water for civilians trapped in the war zone; and child recruitment by the Tamil Tigers. Several International bodies including
UNROW Human Rights Impact Litigation Clinic,
Human Rights Watch and
Permanent People's Tribunal have raised allegations on the Sri Lankan Government for genocide against Tamils. On 10 December 2013,
Permanent People's Tribunal unanimously ruled Sri Lanka guilty of the crime of genocide against the Tamil people.
Post-conflict period Presidential elections were completed in January 2010. Mahinda Rajapaksa won the elections with 59% of the votes, defeating General Sarath Fonseka who was the united opposition candidate. Fonseka was subsequently arrested and convicted by court martial. In January
2015 presidential elections Mahinda Rajapaksa was defeated by the common candidate of opposition,
Maithripala Sirisena, and Rajapaksa's attempted return was thwarted in the
parliamentary election the same year by
Ranil Wickremesinghe This resulted in a unity government between the UNP and SLFP
Easter Sunday Attacks On 21 April 2019,
Easter Sunday, three churches in
Sri Lanka and three luxury hotels in the commercial capital,
Colombo, were targeted in a series of coordinated Islamic
terrorist suicide bombings. A total of 267 people were killed, including at least 45 foreign nationals, three police officers, and eight bombers, and at least 500 were injured. All eight of the suicide bombers in the attacks were Sri Lankan citizens associated with
National Thowheeth Jama'ath, a local militant
Islamist group with suspected foreign ties, previously known for attacks against
Buddhists and
Sufis.
Rajapaksa brothers in power Sri Lankan President,
Maithripala Sirisena, decided not to seek re-election in 2019. In November
2019 presidential election former wartime defence chief
Gotabaya Rajapaksa was elected as the new
President of Sri Lanka. He was the candidate for the
SLPP, the Sinhalese-Buddhist nationalist party, and brother of former president Mahinda Rajapaksa. In August
2020 parliamentary elections the party, led by the Rajapaksa brothers, got a landslide victory. Mahinda Rajapaksa, former Sri Lankan president and brother of current president, became the new
Prime Minister of Sri Lanka. Since 2010,
Sri Lanka has witnessed a sharp rise in
foreign debt The onset of the
COVID-19 pandemic-induced
global recession accelerated the crisis and by 2021, the foreign debt rose to 101% of the nation's GDP, causing
an economic crisis. In March 2022,
spontaneous and organized protests by both political parties and non-partisan groups over the government's mishandling of the economy were reported from several areas. On 31 March, a large group gathered around the residence of Gotabaya Rajapaksa to protest against the power cuts that had reached over 12-hours a day. The protest was initially spontaneous peaceful protest by citizens until the police attacked the protestors with tear gas and water cannons and the protestors burned down a bus carrying riot control troops. The government declared a curfew in Colombo. On 9 July 2022 after many months of protests, the President's residence was stormed by protesters. The President escaped and then fled the country on a military jet to the Maldives. His departure followed months of mass protests over soaring prices and a lack of food and fuel. The country's foreign currency reserves have dipped low and the country has missed debt interest payments. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa appointed Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe as acting president, who declared a state of emergency in western providences. Thousands of Sri Lankan protesters streamed the streets of the capital, Colombo. In July 2022, protesters occupied
President's House in
Colombo, causing Rajapaksa to flee and Prime Minister
Ranil Wickremesinghe to announce his own willingness to resign. About a week later, Parliament
elected Wickremesinghe as president, on .
Since 2024 On 23 September 2024,
Anura Kumara Dissanayake was sworn in as Sri Lanka's new
president after winning the presidential
election as a left-wing candidate. Later on,
Harini Amarasuriya was sworn in as the new
Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, became the third woman to hold the role. On 14 November 2024, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake's
National People's Power (NPP), a left-leaning alliance, received a two-thirds majority in parliament in Sri Lankan
parliamentary election. ==See also==