Stifled hotbed

Few celebrated the birth of the University of Jaffna in 1974, when it came into existence as a campus affiliated to the University of Sri Lanka. The demand for a Tamil university had been put forward by the Federal Party as far back as 1953, at a time when Tamils were beginning to feel nervous about the growing communal polarisation. Thereafter emerged the Tamil University Movement, which purchased land in Trincomalee for the proposed university – land that till today remains unused and under constant threat of encroachment. Yet from the very beginning, the Tamil political left had deep reservations about such moves, which came from a nationalist mindset that further isolated the Tamils, precluding alliances with progressive sections of the Sinhalese.

Though not evident during the 1950s and 1960s, events of the 1970s precipitated an explosion in Tamil nationalist feeling while also exposing the weak underbelly of an isolationist Tamil nationalism. Partly owing to discrimination in government employment, Tamil students, particularly in Jaffna, had to work extra hard at gaining entry to universities. The preponderance of Tamil admissions to prestigious degree courses in 1970 had led the newly elected left-backed government of Sirimavo Bandaranaike to introduce a policy of 'standardisation' of marks on a linguistic basis. This was aimed at bringing down the number of Tamils, with subsequent schemes likewise enacted to bring down the Tamil entrants drastically.