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Lanka, the Aryan Invasion at Last
Dr. Koenraad Elst
The Lankan Army, mostly consisting of ethnic Sinhalese, are taking over
the last strongholds of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
The self-declared Tamil state of northern Lanka is about to pass into
history. On balance, this may not be a bad thing.
 The LTTE
In
Lanka, in the Tamil Tigers' understanding, the Aryan-Dravidian
confrontation of about 4,000 years ago is now being re-enacted. The
Indo-Aryan-speaking Sinhalese Buddhists have tried, since independence,
to impose their language on the whole country, trampling on the
distinct identity of the Tamil minority. They managed to get India's
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's co-operation for the "repatriation" of
those Tamils whose parents had been settled in Lanka during British
rule. They tried to suppress the Tamil attempt to preserve their
identity and freedom by setting up an independent Tamil Eelam. And now
they are militarily overrunning and dismantling that de facto Tamil
state.
Contrary to international perception, this is not
primarily a religious war. The Sinhalese resented the Tamil
"overrepresentation" in the civil service and the professions that had
developed under colonial rule. Along with the Indian Muslims, the Sikhs
and particular Christian groups, the Tamils were "the spoiled children
of the British empire". In the British scheme of the racial
characteristics of their subject nations, the Buddhists in Lanka and
Burma counted as indolent, the Tamils as hard-working. Therefore, they
transferred Tamil labour to Lanka and Burma, whence the immigrants were
again expelled in the 1960s, as well as to Malaysia, where they eke out
a meagre existence as dhimmi-s, and Singapore, where they thrive.
Ethnic envy and mistrust is sufficient to explain the genesis of the
Tamil-Sinhalese conflict. The key event in its escalatioon was the
declaration of Sinhalese as only national language.
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