Early arrivals During 19th century and early 20th century some
Sri Lankan Tamils especially from
Jaffna migrated or settled in
India for various reasons such as
education, employment in the British Indian government, business and other reasons. Among them were Hensman family, who migrated to
Chennai from
Jaffna during late 19th century.
1960s In 1948, immediately after the country's independence, a controversial law labelled the
Ceylon Citizenship Act was passed in the
Sri Lankan parliament which deliberately discriminated against the
Tamils of South Indian origin, whose ancestors had settled in the country in the 19th and 20th centuries. This act made it virtually impossible for them to obtain citizenship and over 700,000 Tamils (consisting of up to 11% of the country's total population) were made stateless. In 1964, a pact was signed between Bandaranaike and the then Indian Prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri to repatriate much of the population of the stateless Tamils. Over the next 30 years, successive
Sri Lankan governments were actively engaged in deporting over 300,000 Tamils back to India. It wasn't until 2003, after a
state-sponsored pogrom against Tamils and a
full-scale civil war, that
Indian Tamils were granted citizenship but by this time, their population had dwindled to just 5% of the country's population. Tamils repatriated to India were assimilated with location population after taking Indian Citizenships, except a few pockets in Tamil Nadu, where they are still called as Ceylon Tamils. Most of the Tamils, who were repatriated, settled in various parts of
Tamil Nadu, while a few hundred families have settled in
Punalur taluk of
Kollam district in
Kerala, and in
Sulya and
Puttur taluks of
Dakshina Kannada district in
Karnataka where a majority of them work in tea and rubber plantations.
1980s Following the events of the
Black July riots, and later the outbreak of the
Sri Lankan Civil War, tens of thousands Sri Lankan Tamil refugees arrived in
Tamil Nadu in four waves. The first wave on 24 July 1983, after
Black July, to the 29 July 1987 up until the
Indo-Sri Lanka Accord, 134,053 Sri Lankan Tamils arrived in India. The first repatriation took place after the signing of the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord in 1987 and between 24 December 1987 and 31 August 1989, 25,585 refugees and non-camp Sri Lankan nationals returned to Sri Lanka. The second wave began with the start of
Eelam War II after 25 August 1989, where 122,000 Sri Lankan Tamils came to Tamil Nadu. On 20 January 1992, after the assassination of
Rajiv Gandhi 54,188 refugees were voluntarily repatriated to Sri Lanka, until March 1995.
Eelam War III commenced in April 1995 starting the third wave or refugees. By 12 April 2002, nearly 23,356 refugees had come to Tamil Nadu. The flow of refugees had stopped in 2002 because of the cease fire agreement. ==Demographics==