STOP LYING! SRILANKA IS NOT A HISTORICAL TAMIL HOMELAND!

By Ranjith Galabada

The History

The excavations of archaeologist Prof.Raj Somadeva, on the trail of Balangoda human (Homosapiens balangodensis) – the skeletal evidence of anatomically modern homosapiens that lived 50,000 years ago in Sri Lanka are unravelling a fascinating history that had been suspected all along. Sri Lanka has had a developed human presence much before the Indian Prince Vijaya’s expedition in 600 BC. Prince Vijaya married a Prince known as Kuveni who was living in SriLanka. Later Vijaya brought another lady from North India as his queen. In fact, the archaeologists believe modern humans existed in Sri Lanka as far back as 125,000 before present (BP) through the Ice Age.

An indigenous Stone Age culture can be traced back to 10,000 BC, a few hundreds of this Veddha people, related inter alia to the indigenous tribes of Australia, have survived, just, until today. The first Sinhalese arrived in the country in the sixth century BC – probably from northern India. Buddhism, later to become a powerful religious influence in the country, came in the mid-third century BC. A great civilization grew up around the cities of Anuradhapura (a kingdom from 200 BC to AD 1000) and Polonnaruwa (1070 to 1200).

Tamils and Foreign Invasions in Sri Lanka   

1. Tamil military leaders were powerful as far back as 200 BC, and a successful Tamil invasion took place from AD 432.
2. In 237 BC Island was ruled by two south Indians holding the throne at Anuradhapura.
3. In 145 BC a Tamil General named Elara of the Chola dynasty ruled the country from South India for 44 years.
4. In the modern period, a crucial date was 1505, the arrival of the Portuguese who soon occupied parts of the coastal areas.

5. After 1656 the Dutch defeated the Portuguese on land and at sea, and foreigners secured a tighter grip of the island, though Kandy, hidden in deep jungle, continued to rule itself, along with some strange customs. In 1660 a young sailor from London named Robert Knox was held in Kandy for nineteen years.
6. In 1796, the British — concerned about revolutionary France’s ambitions — wrested the island from the Dutch. As a bonus, the coveted natural harbour at Trincomalee became a Royal Navy staging post. In 1802 Ceylon was declared a British Crown Colony.

7. In 1815 the last king of Kandy was deposed and exiled, though guerrilla wars spluttered on.

Tamils Settlement in the Country

In 1805 tens of thousands of Tamils were imported from south India to work on first the coffee and then the far more successful tea plantations by the British. The ‘new Tamils’ did not integrate well with the existing minority Tamil population who settled down in 1400, because, firstly the incomers were considered “low caste’’ by the Northern Tamils who had forgotten their beginnings as indented labour in the tobacco plantations. Furthermore, the newcomers soon almost equalled the numbers of indigenous Tamils.

The picture below shows how British’s treated Tamils who were brought by them to work for them.