Politics
See also: Politics of Sri Lanka- Community Development
The community was a closed community confining themselves to the plantations, while t actively contributed and contributes to the economic well-being of this country but the socio economic indicators of the community was amongst the worst in the country. The community in general was isolated, living in ghettoes within the central region as well as linguistically isolated from the majority Sinhalese villagers who live in the valleys. They were captive labor whose life in its entity was decided by the employers. Any social relationship or cultural ties were only among themselves or with South India. In the 1940s the trade union movement had galvanized the plantation workers into a militant working class. They joined hands with the Lanka Sama Samaja (or Socialist) Party, which carried the message of a working-class struggle for liberation from the exploitation by mostly British plantation companies.
Sri Lanka became independent in 1948 and the community believes that it became the first community marked out for discrimination by the new state of Ceylon in 1948. In the elections to the first parliament of Ceylon, seven Indian Tamil representatives were returned to Parliament. The plantation workers voted either for Indian Tamil candidates or for Lanka Sama Samaja Party candidates. Dr.N.M.Perera was the leader of the opposition in the 1st parliament and the Lanka Sama Samaja Party was the second largest party after the United National Party.
Read more about this topic: Indian Tamils Of Sri Lanka
Famous quotes containing the word politics:
“His talk was like a spring, which runs
With rapid change from rocks to roses:
It slipped from politics to puns,
It passed from Mahomet to Moses;
Beginning with the laws which keep
The planets in their radiant courses,
And ending with some precept deep
For dressing eels, or shoeing horses.”
—Winthrop Mackworth Praed (1802–1839)
“Philosophy, astronomy, and politics were marked at zero, I remember. Botany variable, geology profound as regards the mud stains from any region within fifty miles of town, chemistry eccentric, anatomy unsystematic, sensational literature and crime records unique, violin player, boxer, swordsman, lawyer, and self-poisoner by cocaine and tobacco.”
—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930)
“The history of American politics is littered with bodies of people who took so pure a position that they had no clout at all.”
—Ben C. Bradlee (b. 1921)