I believe there’s another sinister dimension to the Sinhala-Tamil strife. And I think it goes beyond average prosperity, religion & language. Plan to cover that, once I get thru my posts on the Death Penalty.

The divisive politics in Srilanka is terrible, with the extreme right wing lunatic fringe claiming that anyone who’s not a Sinhala Buddhist is an outsider. And the Marxist JVP joining the fray. Plus, the situation in the North East – where Tamils believe is theirs – doesn’t help.

Two of the strongest characters of any living being is the necessity to survive and improving oneself. Unfortunately, to work in a functioning co-existing society there needs to be certain compromises needed to make, by all sides concerned. Unfortunately, when the rule of the people is based on the emotion of the people, these compromises are rarely made.

The native Sinhalese chose to use their number to shove in their “pro-Sinhalese” agenda, while the Tamils based in Sri Lanka chose to hang on to their roots instead of adopting their nation. Same thing happened in India during the British rule and continues to happen still.

I have a query about the current political setup in Sri Lanka, though it is probably unrelated to the post. Is there any divisive politics played in Sri Lanka (to the extent we see in India or more). They have an elected President and an elected Parliament, which can give a sense of ambiguity in leadership (Seen when Kumaratunga was the President and Wickramasinghe was the PM). When we have opposing parties in power at the same time, they have to play to their votebank all the time. Not exactly an ideal scenario, in my views.

Identity is indeed a complex thing. Should Sinhala Christians side with the Sinhala Buddhists who beat them up, or join hands with the Tamil Christians to oppose the state religion? Should the Tamil Muslims hang out with Tamil Hindus, even though they share their values with the Muslim Moors & Malays? Should the Tamil elite join hands with other Tamils, or side with the Sinhala elite that faced similar problems?

Tight spot for all concerned.

Regarding Muslims who were tamils. For some during the course they sided with the sinhala. There was a mini hindu-muslim tension brewing among tamils itself. The muslim tamil sided with the sinhala army.

There was a war within a war. Complicated. PHEW!!!

Muslims who consider themselves Sinhala – I don’t know enough about this now to answer. Perhaps I can add some points around this, when I write about the Moors. Thanks for your question.

Burghers are a very small non-Sinhala minority now, representing utmost 0.2% of the population. They were probably blind-sided by the Language bills, I think. After that, many of them emigrated to Australia & other English speaking countries in droves.