Sinhala Only Act - British Rule

British Rule

Under the British Empire, English was the language of rule in Ceylon (now known as Sri Lanka). Until the passage of the Free Education Bill in 1944, education in the English language was the preserve of the subaltern elite and the ordinary people had little knowledge of it. A disproportionate number of English-language schools were located in the mostly Tamil-speaking north. Thus, English-speaking Tamils held a higher percentage of coveted civil service jobs, which required English fluency, than their share of the island's population.

After their election to the State Council in 1936, the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) members N. M. Perera and Philip Gunawardena demanded the replacement of English as the official language by Sinhala and Tamil. In November 1936, a motion that "in the Municipal and Police Courts of the Island the proceedings should be in the vernacular" and that "entries in police stations should be recorded in the language in which they are originally stated" were passed by the State Council and referred to the Legal Secretary.

In 1944, J. R. Jayawardene moved a motion in the State Council that Sinhala should replace English as the official language.

However, nothing was done about these matters and English continued to be the language of rule until 1956.