For many Sinhalese nationalists the Sri Lankan ethnic conflict begins with the British colonialists. They allege that the British used divide and rule tactic by showing favouritism to the Tamil minority in civil service employment and discriminating against the Sinhalese. They use this as a basis to argue that Tamils were a privileged group who had benefited unfairly at the expense of the Sinhalese and that the discriminatory policies aimed at Tamils in post-independent Sri Lanka were justified corrective measure to redress the supposed past injustices.
The Sinhalese nationalists are not the only ones to make these allegations about the colonial divide and rule tactic. Number of academics who write about the Sri Lankan ethnic conflict have also made similar allegations but they fail to provide primary sources in support of their claims.
But how does discriminating against a country's majority at the risk of causing resentments giving into revolts make for a good ruling strategy? Unless direct evidence proving intentional discrimination is established, it's reasonable to doubt such allegations, as one author writes:
"there is no reason to think that the British colonial administrators (at least after they had established stable rule over the island) intended or desired such tensions. Internal conflict, after all, does not make for an easily governed country."- 'Enemy Lines: Childhood, Warfare, and Play in Batticaloa', p. 43
Although Tamils (particularly the ones from Vellalar caste in Jaffna) were disproportionately represented in educational and professional fields, the vast majority of Tamils were "no better off educationally or economically than the majority of Sinhala people." Ibid., p.44
A segment of the Sinhala dominant caste, Govigama, too benefited from the British rule:
"Many of the low-country Govigama elite embraced Anglicanism and rose the ranks of the colonial bureaucracy. They were the favoured and trusted lieutenants of English rule. With independence and the emergence of political Buddhism, many returned to Buddhism. Jayewardene, Kotelawala, Bandaranaike and Wickremasinghe were examples. The Govigama elite had collaborated with the colonial masters benefiting in terms of employment, education and land ownership. The Maha Mudaliyar Christofel de Saram and his son Johannes Hendrick were examples of the deracinated and Anglicized Govigama elite in the early 1800s. The de Sarams were the forebearers of the Jayewardenes."In fact, far from favouring Tamils the Colombo-centric British administration focused its development in the Sinhalese south and favoured the Sinhalese elites:
"The Sinhalese also had a special advantage – a singular advantage, over the Tamils. When smallholdings were introduced, quite a number of Sinhalese became owners. Thus, in terms of economy, and socio–economic mobility the Sinhalese were in a relatively superior position. There was no economic development in the North and East during the entire British period – not even infrastructures like Link-Roads and easing of travel and transport because the North and East did not come within the purview of the colonial economy of the British."- Tamils were not the ‘favoured’ under British colonialism: Theva Rajan
"If the British were favouring Tamils in education why a university was not given to Tamils during the entire British rule? Even the native institutions in Jaffna that were affiliated to Calcutta and Madras were made into ‘secondary schools’ by the British-Colombo administration, while a university college and later a university was started only in Colombo. Those who argue that the British favoured Tamils should read what the Report of the Donoughmore Commission that was sent to Ceylon in 1927 by the first Labour government of Britain has said on the communities in the island. The coastal Sinhalese were the most ‘progressive’ people in the island according to the Donoughmore Report, which implied that they were the favourite of the British in having a special relationship and in eventually transferring power. That’s what the British did under the Donoughmore constitution and between 1945 and 1948 under the Soulbury constitution– transferring power to the coastal Sinhala leadership, despite witnessing an All-Sinhala cabinet for 10 years under Donoughmore constitution."- Tehelka report misled on British treatment of Tamils: Jaffna academic
Hence, it is wrong to say only the Tamils benefited under the British rule.
Moreover, a group being disproportionately represented in a field doesn't by itself prove favouritism or discrimination. Other factors ought to be taken into account such as the disparity among different groups in what they value, how diligent they are, how qualified they are, the opportunities available to them, etc.
Perceptions of Tamils by the British show that they were seen as a hard-working and industrious people compared to the Sinhalese.
Herwald Ramsbotham (1st Viscount Soulbury), who was the British Governor-General of Ceylon from 1949 to 1954, wrote in 1964:
"I was much impressed by the important contribution that the Tamils had made and were making to the economy of Ceylon – and I was aware that the Ceylon Tamils were better educated and more industrious than the Sinhalese – in many ways they were playing the part of the Scots had played and still play in the economy of England."Earlier accounts of outsiders corroborate this perception (these accounts are by no means biased toward the Tamils as full reading of these texts will show some of their social customs are denounced and certain negative traits are also ascribed to them while the Sinhalese are described positively in other aspects):
"The Tamulians, who it is supposed came over from the opposite coasts of India ; they are more active and industrious than the Cinghalese [...]"
- https://books.google.com/books?id=zOtiAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA165
"In the evening we drove along the shore to Valvettitorre, a village about three miles to the west of Point Pedro, containing a much larger population, and one equally industrious and enterprising. There was a vessel of considerable tonnage on the stocks, the Tamil ship-builders of this little place being amongst the most successful in Ceylon. [...] Jaffna is almost the only place in Ceylon of which it might be said that no one is idle or unprofitably employed. The bazaars are full of activity, and stocked with a greater variety of fruits and vegetables than is to be seen in any other town in the island. Every one appears to be more or less busy; and at the season of the year when labour is not in demand at home, numbers of the natives go “off to trade in the interior; carrying adventures of curry stuffs, betel-leaves, and other produce, to be sold in the villages of the Wanny. Large bodies of them also resort annually to the south, where they find lucrative employment in repairing the village tanks,——a species of labour in which they are peculiarly expert, and which the Singhalese are too indolent or too litigious to perform for themselves. If the deserted fields and solitudes of the Wanny are ever again to be re-peopled and re-tilled, I am inclined to believe that the movement for that purpose will come from the Tamils of Jaffna; for, looking to their increasing intelligence and wealth, their habits of industry and adaptation to an agricultural life, I can have little doubt that, as population increases, and the arable lands of the peninsula become occupied, emigration will gradually be directed towards the south, where, with the natural capabilities of the soil and the facilities for irrigation, one half of the exertion and toil bestowed on the reluctant sands of Jaffna would speedily convert the wilderness into a garden. Already there is a satisfaction, experienced in no other portion of Ceylon, in visiting their villages and farms, and in witnessing the industrious habits and improved processes of the peasantry. The whole district is covered with a net-work of roads, and at certain situations there exist what are maintained in no other part of the island (except at Matura in the south), regular markets, to which the peasantry resort from a distance, and bring their fruit, vegetables, and other produce for sale. These markets are generally held in the early morning, before the sun pours down his fiercest rays; and in driving along the roads at such an hour, the active and busy picture which they present would have strongly reminded me of some rural scenes in England [...]"
- https://books.google.com/books?id=bx8-AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA535
"The Cingalese are, for the most part, extremely poor, which arises from their very indolent habits, for they dislike exertion to such a degree, that frequently nothing short of positive starvation will rouse them to the exercise of their bodily energies, though these are considerable, and their mental powers occasionally of no mean order. [...] [The Tamils] are much stouter, more active and enterprising, than the Cingalese, who are so addicted to laziness, that a favourite maxim with them is, “It is better to stand than to walk ; it is better to sit than to stand ; it is better to lie down than to sit ; it is better to sleep than to be awake, and death is the best of all.”"
- https://books.google.com/books?id=kR_nAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA92
"The Cinghalese occupy themselves principally with agriculture, growing rice, planting palms, bananas and other trees needing culture, and shunning all hard or severe labour. This is undertaken by preference by the Malabars [Tamils], who find employment as road-makers, masons, porters, coachmen, etc., in the low country, and as labourers in the coffee plantations in the higher districts."
- https://books.google.com/books?id=ccgNAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA88Sir Henry Word, Governor of Ceylon (1855-1860), wrote in a despatch to the Colonial Office in June 1855, that the Sinhalese were not at all interested in improving their livelihood by engaging in the economic endeavours of the British as they were already content in their fertile lands therefore Tamils from India had to be brought to work there instead:
“The attempt to induce the native population to take part in those improvements that have converted the jungle into thriving coffee plantations upon which an enormous amount of British capital and Enterprise has been expanded, has so failed so entirely that the whole of the work of plantations is carried on by immigrants coolie labour (from South India). No amount of wages, no hopes of prospective advantages, no desire to improve their conditions by imitating habits of their European neighbours, have acted as yet upon the Singhalese mind, or roused the people from their apathy. With wants easily satisfied, and a fertile soil subdivided into small holdings, they can always command the absolute necessaries of life and seem to look no further.” (Sri Lanka National Archives)
All of this lend credence to the idea that Jaffna Tamils were simply more motivated and their accomplishments were not due to favouritism but their own merits, especially given their lands were not hospital to agriculture which drove them to seek alternative ways to make a living. As a Sinhalese writer and a former government diplomat observes:
“On the other hand the Jaffna peninsula has an impoverished soil and has a very low rainfall. There are no rivers anywhere near the Jaffna peninsula. The water table is high but is contaminated with sea water. Thus, even in modern times, tube well irrigation is not possible. Besides in the Jaffna peninsula there is no industrial base and no prospect for oil. Therefore since the nineteenth century parents have invested heavily in education and thereafter employment in the salubrious Sinhalese speaking areas. It is largely a matter of opinion whether the school network on the District of Jaffna or the District of Colombo was better organised. […] When the Colombo Medical College was set up in 1872 approximately half the students were from Jaffna. When the Technical College was established in 1902 and the Colombo University College in 1921, approximately half the students were from Jaffna. This produced some tantalising results. … These figures reveal to what extent the Tamil community was oriented towards the well established professions for at least two generations and not due to any favouritism as perceived by some Sinhalese.”
- 'War Or Peace in Sri Lanka' by T.D.S.A. Dissanayaka, pp. 22-23
In addition to their disposition to industriousness Jaffna Tamils had an advantage in English education not because of the British rulers but due to the many schools opened in Jaffna by anti-colonial American missionaries and native revivalists. As the founding General Secretary of the Ceylon Communist Party Nagalingam Shanmugathasan explains in detail:
"One of the main reasons why the Tamils occupied a better place in the government service and the professions under British rule than the Sinhalese did was due to the head start they had in the sphere of learning English although this was by accident and not design.
The American Ceylon Mission was started in the Jaffna peninsula by the American Methodist Missionaries in 1816. In her very recent book, "Communal politics under the Donoughmore Constitution" Jane Russell gives a good account of the services rendered by these missionaries to education in Jaffna.
According to her, the reason why the Mission chose Jaffna as the focus of its activities was because "the colonial government was anxious to avoid a clash with the English Missions and partly because its strategic position was the key to India which was the Mission's main target".
By 1822, 42 schools staffed by Americans who were fluent in Tamil, had been established in the peninsula. In 1823, was set up the Batticotta (not to be confused with Batticaloa) Seminary at Vaddukoddai. This was the first English school in Asia. It was a free boarding school whose standard has been compared to that of a University, It taught English, Tamil prose, Mathematics, Greek, Latin History, Geography and. Philosophy.
In 1833, a professor of Medicine arrived and thereafter the Seminary turned out medical students and potential doctors. The methods of the American Ceylon Mission was reported to be infinitely more advanced and the missionaries more dedicated than those in the English Mission Schools in the rest of Ceylon.
Having learnt Tamil thoroughly, the Americans translated English text books into Tamil and compiled comprehensive English-Tamil dictionaries. As Colebrooke pointed out in 1830, the level of English education imparted in Jaffna was much higher than elsewhere in Ceylon as a result of the Americans asserting the importance of teaching English (unlike other missions).
Due to a financial crisis, the colonial government cut down expenditure on education by half during the end of 1847. This did not affect the American Ceylon Mission. The effect was that the governments schools in the South-West were outclassed completely. In 1929 there existed in the Jaffna peninsula 65 English schools, 10 of them being first/class Collegiate Schools, and 426 Vernacular schools. In that year, the Northern province had 6 out of 7 children attending some form schools.
As K. Balasingam said in a speech in 1913, we have cultivated the only thing that could have been cultivated with profit despite the aridity of our soil. We 'have attempted to cultivate men'.
The Americans were followed by Catholic and Protestant Missionaries who all proceeded to set up schools as part of their aim of proselytising. When Hindu revivalism started, there was formed the Hindu Board of Education which, in turn, opened up its schools. Thus, Jaffna became blessed with many schools. It was said that, at one stage, Jaffna had more schools per square mile than anywhere else in the world.
This gave a great impetus to the study of the English, a language which was the language of administration of the British Colonialists. Naturally, the Tamils obtained more posts in the governments service and the professions, like law and medicine, out of proportion to their numbers. But, they were obtained in open competition and not through the back door. According to Jane Russel, the Ceylon Tamils constituted over 40 percent of the franchise for the Educated Members seat in 1918.
A particular reason as to, why the Tamil felt the urgent need for better and higher education, particularly in English, was his consciousness that he lived in the most barren and uneconomic part of Sri Lanka which did not boast of a river, a mountain or forest. Education was the only passport to a better life. So he studied hard.
It was a slightly different picture with the Sinhalese in the South. They were blessed with a more fertile land where literally anything grew. Sustenance was easy. But, the educational facilities available to them were less than those available to the Tamils. Besides, till the economic crisis of 1929-1931, the Sinhala middle classes were not that keen to join government service or the professions as their lands could sustain them. It was in the years just before and just after the Second World War that the competition for jobs between the Sinhala and Tamil middle classes grew."
Genesis of the Sinhala - Tamil Conflict by N.Sanmugathasan
The Soulbury Commission too acknowledges Jaffna Tamils "benefited for over a century from first-rate secondary schools founded and endowed by missionary effort" and notes the superior literacy that Tamil possessed led disproportionate number of them gain admission by competitive examination to Public Services. Thus the Tamils came to dominate the civil service on merits alone as the British needed qualified and competent individuals, which is why for example they relied on the literate Brahmin class to manage their administration in the British Raj despite their apprehensions about them.
The Commission also reports the complaints that Tamils had made about discrimination against them by Sinhalese Ministers who exerted influence on Selection Board to prefer candidates of their own race by removing arithmetic from General Clerical Service examination as a compulsory subject since "the well-known aptitude of the Tamils for mathematics was thought to give them an advantage in it over their competitors of other races." The Commission, however, dismissed this as "small acts of discrimination". See the full text here (pages 48-50): Soulbury Commissions Report
Unfortunately, these "small acts of discrimination" paved the way for bigger acts of discrimination for decades to come which would replace meritocracy in Sri Lanka in favour of numerically proportionate ethnic representation because of ethnic majoritarianism politics. According to a Sinhalese government official:
"For generations the Tamils have yearned to join Government service and since 1956 all manner of obstacles have been placed in their path. Now, under President R. Premadasa the interests of all communities have been safeguarded in admission to the Government service. Recruitment is strictly on the basis of ethnic ratio. . . ."- 'Postcolonial Insecurities India, Sri Lanka, and the Question of Nationhood', pp. 48-49
Decades after the British transferred power to the racist Sinhalese leaders who substantially reduced Tamil representation in civil service through discriminatory policies like Sinhala Only act which forced Tamil civil servants who couldn't speak Sinhala to resign, Tamils continued to outperform Sinhalese in other fields and higher education.
'War Or Peace in Sri Lanka' by T.D.S.A. Dissanayaka, p. 42
The Sinhalese alleged that Tamil examiners were being biased and giving higher marks to students of Tamil ethnicity. There was no truth to this harmful allegation but this led to another discriminatory policy in 1971 requiring Tamil students to score several points higher than their Sinhalese counterparts to be granted admission to universities. This was later scrapped and replaced with a less overt form of discrimination based on district quotas which still drastically reduced Tamil entrance into universities and drove disgruntled Tamil youth to militancy.
"During the first half of the 1970s the SLFP-led government enacted measures intended to drastically reduce the number of Tamil students gaining admission to coveted university programs in medicine and engineering. Since 1956 Tamil representation in most sectors of state employment had fallen substantially, except among doctors and engineers, since high-achieving Jaffna Tamils, in particular, excelled in university programs in these fields. New government policies introduced district-based admission quotas that drastically cut the numbers of Jaffna Tamil students admitted to such programs. The beneficiaries were less-qualified, less-competent Sinhalese students from rural and small-town backgrounds, the SLFP’s traditional following. The new policy caused deep disquiet and anger among the substantial educated stratum of Jaffna Tamils—the Tamil federalists’ core base—and inflamed their youth."
- 'Contested Lands: Israel-Palestine, Kashmir, Bosnia, Cyprus, and Sri Lanka', p. 24
Why were Tamils continuing to outperform Sinhalese even decades after the supposedly Tamil-favouring British left the island and even after the Sinhalese government passed several discriminatory policies aimed at reducing Tamil representation in various fields?
Either Tamils are more intelligent or they were simply continuing their tradition of industriousness and prioritising education that I described above.
The founding father of Singapore Lee Kuan Yew, who had once looked upon Ceylon as a model country with a promising future later described it as an example of a failed state that his own country shouldn't emulate, said this about the Sri Lankan Tamils:
"One-man one-vote led to the domination of the Sinhalese majority over the minority Tamils who were the active and intelligent fellows who worked hard and got themselves penalised. And English was out. They were educated in English. Sinhalese was in. They got quotas in two universities and now they have become fanatical Tigers. And the country will never be put together again."
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Another informative article on the issue:
Did the British Divide & Rule Ceylon?
