Conflict in Sri Lanka: Ground Realities - Tamil Nation & Beyond

4. Consequently the feeling of a minority complex by theSinhalese who not only see themselves as a few millionsin an ocean of Tamils in South India and in Sri Lankawho can be overwhelmed by the language and publishedliterature of the elites of the big neighbour In effect to theoutside observer, Sri Lanka is an island inhabited by twominorities, two ethnic groups (Sinhalese and Tamils) eachseized with a minority complex.The Indian FactorThus during the period 1948 to the present the Tamils underthe leadership of the Tamil Federal Party were being kindled bya burgeoning Tamil nationalism in a quest for equal status withthe Sinhala Buddhist majority. The Tamils quickly realised thatwith India’s intervention in July 1987 the Indian governmentwould not permit a separate sovereign state in their backyardwhich from Indian perceptions would not only become thehappy hunting ground of foreign powers hostile to India such asPakistan, Bangladesh and China. India was willing to sponsoranything short of an independent state. Hence the Sri. Lanka-India Accord of July 1987. Mr Rajiv Gandhi claimed that hehad ensured that the Sri Lankan Tamils were being granted ‘thesubstance of Eelam’ without actual separate statehood.The Federal InitiativeWhen federalism was introduced by the Tamil leadership as aprotest and disapproval of the unjust and inhuman parliamentarylegalisations introduced against the Tamils of Indian origin, theconcept was not so readily accepted for nearly three decades(1949-76) by the Tamil electors. Whereas the ideology of aseparate state was more easily grasped because it was easier tocomprehend; it gained currency in a short span of three years--as it was a reversion to the past of the Tamil kingdom and theTamil kings.Thus from the year of the inauguration of the Tamil FederalParty to the launching of the Eelam Wars from 1983 onwards,federalism was not so much enthusiastically supported perhaps49