British Colonial Period
The Sri Lankan Tamils were eager to take up the educational and economic opportunities available to them when Sri Lanka was under British colonial rule.
Many of the Vellalar Jaffna Tamils availed themselves of the educational opportunities provided by the colonial authorities & missionaries and together with their hard work earned many government posts offered to locals by the British. In foreign lands under British rule, the British needed obedient, trusted, hard-working and skillful people to take up government posts, mainly as clerks. This led to the first wave of migrations by the Tamils to countries such as Malaysia (then Malaya), Singapore and the then Madras Presidency in India.
Read more about this topic: Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora
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“I am actually what my age and my upbringing have made me—a bourgeois who adheres to the British constitution, adheres to it rather than supports it, and the fact that this isn’t dignified doesn’t worry me.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
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—Jean Genet (1910–1986)
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—Karl Marx (1818–1883)