Role of Ethnicity in Sri Lankan Politics

Abstract

The study attempts to discuss the role of ethnicity and its socio-economic and political implications with the Sri Lankan society. As it is the major purpose of the paper, it does not pay much attention to examine the conceptual base of ethnicity except to examine the role of ethnicity in Sri Lankan politics in pre and post independent Sri Lanka. Objectively the more emphasis is given to discuss the causes and consequences of the conflict between the Sinhalese and the Tamils with a historical overview of the conflict. At the initial stage, the conflict did not take the form of conflict based on ethnicity but was a war organized by Sinhalese against the South Indian Dravidian invaders. At the second stage in which South Indian Tamil invaders established their colonies in Northern territories, the conflict occurred as the form of the strengthening the central authority over the peripheral disobedient rulers. Yet during the colonial rule especially under the British Empire, the role of ethnicity shifted from its previous form of the conflict between the central authority and the territorial autonomy to acquire more opportunities in colonial politics and administration under the banners of ethno-cultural identities. The role of ethnicity during the post independent Sri Lanka moved towards the conflict between the unitary(ism) and separatism which made a severe damage to the development and progress of the country in human and physical perspectives. Still the ethnicity plays a prominent role in socio-economic and political spheres of the Sri Lankan society.