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Ceylon Citizenship Acts

Ceylon citizenship acts presented in 1948 and 1949 is to define thecitizenship of Sri Lanka after Independence.

The Ceylon Citizenship Act No. 18 of 1948 required that anyonewishing to obtain citizenship had to prove that their father is aCeylon citizen.

Indian and Pakistani Residents (Citizenship) Act No.3 of 1949 actgranted citizenship to anyone who had 10 years of uninterrupted

residence in Ceylon (7 years for married persons) and whoseincome was above the stipulated level.

This act affected only onhill country Tamils,different ethnic group fromSri Lankan tamils.

Later several agreements[8]

signed between Sri Lanka and India (Nehru-

Kotelawala Pact,Sirima-Shastri Pact) to resolve who should accept the

stateless Indian workers. India repatriate 525,000 Indian Tamils, another300,000 would be offered Ceylon citizenship. Finally Sirimavo-Gandhi

Pact signed on 1974 ( 9 years before starting the civil war) agreed to

grant citizenship for rest of the unresolved citizens. But majority of the

Indian Tamils liked to live in Sri Lanka even without citizenship. On 7

October 2003 the Sri Lanka granted citizenship for 168,141 persons who

had been Sri Lanka without citizenship.

hill country Tamilswho affected by this act didn't fight back with

government or didn't supportLiberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.Sri Lankan Tamil peoplewho didn't affected on this act claims

[5][6]that

Ceylon Citizenship Act was a major reason to resorting to militancy. Also

surprisingly, most of the Sri Lankan Tamils in the UNP or Tamil

Congress (was the major Tamil party in Sri Lanka) either voted or didn'topposed to the second bill in 1949.[9]

^ This Part is from Wikipedia. It may make me look like a hypocrite since

trashed all that Wikipedia stuff everyone sent me but I actually read the

entire act to ensure it was perfectly accurate.

Policy of standardization

In 1971, a system of standardisation of marks was

introduced for admissions to the universities, obviously

directed against Tamil-medium students (referred to

earlier). K.M. de Silva describes it as follows:

`The qualifying mark for admission to the medical facultieswas 250 (out of 400) for Tamil students, whereas it was only

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Tamils_of_Sri_Lankahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Tamils_of_Sri_Lankahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Tamils_of_Sri_Lankahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_conflict_in_Sri_Lanka#cite_note-8http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_conflict_in_Sri_Lanka#cite_note-8http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_conflict_in_Sri_Lanka#cite_note-8http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Tamils_of_Sri_Lankahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Tamils_of_Sri_Lankahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_Tigers_of_Tamil_Eelamhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_Tigers_of_Tamil_Eelamhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_Tigers_of_Tamil_Eelamhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Lankan_Tamil_peoplehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Lankan_Tamil_peoplehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_conflict_in_Sri_Lanka#cite_note-Neutrality_tag_consensus-5http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_conflict_in_Sri_Lanka#cite_note-Neutrality_tag_consensus-5http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_conflict_in_Sri_Lanka#cite_note-Neutrality_tag_consensus-5http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_conflict_in_Sri_Lanka#cite_note-9http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_conflict_in_Sri_Lanka#cite_note-9http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_conflict_in_Sri_Lanka#cite_note-9http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_conflict_in_Sri_Lanka#cite_note-9http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_conflict_in_Sri_Lanka#cite_note-Neutrality_tag_consensus-5http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_conflict_in_Sri_Lanka#cite_note-Neutrality_tag_consensus-5http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Lankan_Tamil_peoplehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_Tigers_of_Tamil_Eelamhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Tamils_of_Sri_Lankahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_conflict_in_Sri_Lanka#cite_note-8http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Tamils_of_Sri_Lanka

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229 for the Sinhalese. Worse still, this same pattern of a

lower qualifying mark applied even when Sinhalese and

Tamil students sat for the examination in English. In short,

students sitting for examinations in the same language, but

belonging to two ethnic groups, had different qualifying

marks.`

He observes that by doing this in such an obviously

discriminatory way, `the United Front Government of the

1970s caused enormous harm to ethnic relations.

This was not the end in 1972 the `district quota system` was

introduced, again to the detriment of theCeylonTamils. The

(Sinhalese) historian C.R. de Silva wrote:

`By 1977 the issue of university admissions had become a

focal point of the conflict between the government and

Tamil leaders. Tamil youth, embittered by what they

considered discrimination against them, formed the radical

wing of the Tamil United Liberation Front. Many advocatedthe use of violence to establish a separate Tamil state of

Eelam. It was an object lesson of how inept policy measures

and insensitivity to minority interests can exacerbate ethnic

tensions .`

Effect

[`...Nothing aroused deeper despair among Tamils than thefeeling that they are being systematically squeezed out of

higher education. They have complained particularly of the

system of `standardisation` in force after 1972, in which

marks obtained by candidates for university admission are

weighted by giving advantage to certain LINGUISTIC groups

and/or certain districts...` - Walter Schwarz: Tamils of Sri

Lanka - Minority Rights Group Report,1983]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Lankahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Lankahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Lankahttp://www.lankanewspapers.com/news/2006/11/9354_image_headline.htmlhttp://www.lankanewspapers.com/news/2006/11/9354_image_headline.htmlhttp://www.lankanewspapers.com/news/2006/11/9354_image_headline.htmlhttp://www.lankanewspapers.com/news/2006/11/9354_image_headline.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Lanka