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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“We may be scum, but at least we’re la crème de la scum.”
—Report on the British royal family. quoted in Sunday Times (London, Nov. 13, 1988)
“In colonial America, the father was the primary parent. . . . Over the past two hundred years, each generation of fathers has had less authority than the last. . . . Masculinity ceased to be defined in terms of domestic involvement, skills at fathering and husbanding, but began to be defined in terms of making money. Men had to leave home to work. They stopped doing all the things they used to do.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)
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—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)