The Little Lost War for Sri Lanka's North
In the late 1980s, India was sucked into the vortex of the Sri Lankan civil war. It would become India's own Vietnam. Ultimately defeated they left behind thousands dead and the casualties included a former prime minister. This video tells the story of the origins of the war, and how India came to be an army of occupation on the Jaffna Peninsula.
Sources:
-A History of Sri Lanka, K. M. de Silva
-Elephant Complex; Travels in Sri Lanka, John Gimlette
-The Cage: The Fight for Sri Lanka and the Last Days of the Tamil Tigers, Gordon Weiss
-The Ocean of Churn: How the Indian Ocean Shaped Human History, Sanjeev Sanyal
-This Divided Island: Stories from the Sri Lankan War, Samanth Subramanian
+ Various news sources, especially The Economist
00:00 Intro
00:52 Background
05:42 Black July
10:10 Kataragama
12:00 Nuwara Eliya
12:55 Nuwara Eliya to Arugam Bay
15:15 Arugam Bay
18:05 Batticaloa
21:31 IPKF and Indian Intervention
27:16 Rajiv Gandhi
28:36 Tamil Tigers
The more I look at our history, the more I realize how important it is to foster a generation that doesn't see people through a racial lens, but sees them for their merit.
i love this comment. i hope this can happen.
Firstly, thanks for your comment! Secondly, my perception in my travels was that in the cities amongst young people, the racial/ethnic/religious divisions are far less strong. It seemed like in many ways the generation that is coming of age now is already post-racial. What do you think about that? Am I wrong?
@@AlexRothman You're not wrong, younger people are more accepting of racial diversity than their parents and grandparents. The disparity will of course exist between high income and low income populations. Those young people who can afford to attend international schools, engage at work with international clients, participate in international events, travel overseas, etc. will be exposed to people coming from a plethora of racial backgrounds. But the young people brought up in a small village, attending public school, working on a local farm or local shop won't have that same exposure, and they become the target of political campaigns that are racially divisive. The political elite know that if they can tap into the racial prejudice of people, they can effectively secure their votes. This is only going to be exacerbated by the economic crisis. Politicians will lay the blame of the economic crisis on other races different to that of their target voter base, and that is effectively going to swing votes in favour of them, regardless of how bad their policies are. It is in the interest of the political elite to keep the society racially divisive, so that they can stay in power. When people's votes are racially driven, bad things happen. That is why it is important for us as citizens to continue to foster a new generation that doesn't see things through a racial lens, and I'm happy to see we are heading in that direction.
@@AlexRothman I hope that is true. There should have been a South African style Truth & Reconciliation Commission to bring an understanding between the two communities. In the absence of it and the local political realities on the ground, I am pessimistic about the future. In the North, vast amount of private land is still occupied by the military which most see as an occupying force. Also, 90% of the police force there consists of Sinhalese who have little or no communication skills in Tamil to deal with day-to-day issue of the ordinary people. Can you imagine a scenario where 90% of the police unit in Galle can't speak Sinhala ?
as a half sinhalese adoptee raised in the classic liberal color blind philosophy, i can tell you that this can easily become wishful thinking and be highly destructive. yes, race and ethnicity are human constructs and should never define any of us as people, but i grew up in a world that didn't behave like that. still yo this day, i - and so many "ethnic minorities" - are shaped by society's racism. Ignoring it or wishing it away doesn't work. Racism needs honesty and acknowledgment on all sides. i may be 50% sinhalese but all humans are my brothers and sisters. that includes tamils and anyone else.
As a Sri Lankan born Tamil Canadian this is hard for me to watch.I remember my grandfather told me many stories about that violent past.I’m soo grateful for my family for saving us.🇱🇰❤🇨🇦
Genocidal flag
@@jeyaramsathees6128even aliens spoke tamil
Yeah same, my grandpa has similar stories
As a Sri Lankan sinhalese I'm very sorry your ancestors had to save themselves and leave their motherland because of my racist ancestors.
@@kittensintheattic5546 lol. very emotional but fake. what happened in sri lanka was not tamil vs sinhala. it was vellala vs lower caste tamils and goyigama vs lower caste sinhalas. lower caste tamils and sinhalas (JVP & LTTE) were allies. Vellala and goyigama were allies. The sri lankan army and State were attacking only the lower caste militants, and doing so on behalf of the vellalas. the 1983 riots were carried out by Jeyawardene Chettiar only on lower caste tamils, mostly from kandy. But most of those who emigrated to first world countries were vellala tamils, from north SL. beautiful, ain't it? :) beautiful people, beautiful race. majority of the 'tamils' in canada and europe are from the vellala caste. and, they are the perpetrators of the sri lankan tamil war, not its victims. the vellalas had kept the lower caste tamils in slavery for centuries. at one point, the lower castes erupted. and, the vellalas tried to suppress that uprising. they couldn't. so, the vellalas brought their friends, the sri lankan army, to their fight the sri lankan army was attacking only the lower caste tamils, and doing so on behalf of the vellala tamils. majority of the tamils who emigrated post-1983 are vellalas, and they are they perpetrators, not the victims, of the war. they used 1983 as a springboard to get asylum in first world countries where they built lives of luxury. lives built on lies and blood. it is the scam of the millennium. Alex here is just repeating the bullshit the vellalas have been telling everyone. the truth lies under the carpet. don't feel too much.
During the English period , sinhala people were fighting for independence. Tamils were supporting the British. So English discriminated against sinhalease. After the independence situation changed. Due to South Indian politics .India made tamil rebels strong. L.t.t.e became the largest terrorist organisation. During war, tamils came to Colombo until now they are living in there.
90% of socalled sri lankan tamil was Brought here by portuguese , dutch , english to costal aria to work as slave workers (before they were lower cast tamils in india , sakkiliyar, roddi,.. etc , who later became suicide attackers and were forced to do so by upper cast tamils ) after the massacred of those costal living sinhalese by colonizers and immediately sinhalese villages became tamil villages , after ponnambalam ramathan (also migrated from sound india and who didn' t even knew much about ceylon people or culture and british gave him higher possession in government than sinhalese becouse sinhalese were alway fighting for freedom against the british ) became registar general changed those indian tamils Identity as a ceylon tamils and nowadays they says they are oldest here , my advice you to read old ceylon gazettes and what was did by Ponnambalam ramathan and arunachalem🧐 30 years of civil war was created by british , dutch and portuguese colonialism and their slave labours outnumbered native people and disenfranchised the identity of vanni and north-eastern coastal living sinhalese
The same the British did in India with the Muslims and Hindus.
Your documentary style is exceptionally good. This channel needs to grow.. Its 100% better than the other travel channels.
Great video, Alex! Very captivating, informative and respectful, as the whole series has been. Thank you for putting in so much work to share Sri Lanka’s complex history with us.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Amazing work Alex, I have watched them all. Well done, this is what KZhead is for.
I love how in depth your video go into topics, some people would only cover the history but you have made it so all the context needed is given, cheers mate
Once again, thanks for watching Alejandro
@@AlexRothman You got a loyal follower buddy 👍
i rarely comment on videos but I had to say that your work on this documentary was excellent and captivated me throughout, especially your storytelling and the footage you provided. Great work 👍👍
Glad you enjoyed it! I hope you enjoy some of the other vids, more to come soon! Thanks for watching and commenting
Wow. Your documentaries should be on PBS in the states, extremely well done. I visited Ceylon/Sri Lanka in 1971, 72, 73, 74, 78 and 79. I heard bits and pieces but your reporting deserves world attention and awards. I'm going to review all your documentaries. Thank you
Gary you're too kind! Thanks for watching and hoping to get more in the series coming out soon
Being a middle aged Sri Lankan 🇱🇰🇱🇰, who lived most of the life in the island, I can vouch for the most of these facts. Very accurate and good quality. Deserves the world attention for sure.
So many false Information
His documentary is one sided lol. Idk what makes you think a westerner who's random and sources are sri lankan government and supporters is credible.
@@tj5180 I don't know why you call Alex a westerner. New Zealand is one of the Eastern most countries in the whole wide world. 😂😂
I am traveling in Sri Lanka right now and binge wathcing this too. Thank you so much, I love this and hope you travel to other places to make more docu series. east Timur, Indonesia, Papua, etc.
Great video Alex 👍 very informative.I am Sinhalese and I must say I am deeply ashamed of all the atrocities done by my people to the minority groups in SL. I believe politicians are to be blamed for all of this, they were and still are exploiting people’s emotions to stay in power. I think the best way to build unity amongst my people is to have a proper truth and reconciliation process in place to make sure such events wouldn’t happen in the future plus to give justice to the people who have lost their lives and to their families. Anyway thank you again Alex, looking forward to seeing your next video soon.
Thank you very much for watching and commenting!
Wow, feels refreshing to hear someone say that. This thought right here is what can start to bring all the divided groups more together. It's a shame that the government would rather spend millions on defence instead of spending it on researching and implementing ways to bring everyone together. It would be much more effective way to avoid future conflict. As a Sri Lankan-Tamil, thank you. Thoughts like yours need to spread.
It's too late to give justice, I think most people forgot about this in srilanka. I am a mainland Tamil. Most of us feel that the tamils in srilanka have went through a genocide. But what I am seeing in internet is that most tamils in srilanka are not seeing that as a genocide but rather a war of good (sl gov) over evil (ltte), in which good won. They have totally brainwashed by the media and the history they are getting thought by the government. Better to just forgot what have happened just like the srilankan tamils.
@@kumaragurusubramanian581 wtf do you mean by main land Tamil? There's nothing called mainland Tamil.... India is not the main land for us, we Sri Lanka Tamils are of Sri Lanka and our main land is Sri. Lanka or Eelam, and as you say we don't see LTTE as evil... You biased idiot Or are. You a. Sinhales trying to create division between Tamils??? This is the second time I see you comment as mainland Tamil. Para punda
@@240695mBut I have to say it's not just a one sided story. Alex didn't get the whole story from whoever his sources are. There were injustices done to Sinhala students through corruption in the Department of education which passed Tamil Students to medical college even with low grades and failed sinhalese students with higher grades. But that doesn't justify any killings of Tamil people or Sinhalese. Alex is painting a picture as Tamils good Sinhalese bad just like the BBC chanel 4? And for Alex's information Tamil Civil Servants continued to work in English as govt and private sector were working in English and Sinhalese. It's the Sinhalese youth that were affected the most after the Sinhala only act. As they couldn't secure jobs in their field without English, after graduating from Universities. It was a known fact. Tamil politicians equally have to be responsible for the present situation.
I am Indian tamil living in NZ and surprised to see a kiwi talking about Sri Lankan civil war. Great video!
Sinhalese and tamils lived peacefully throughout the island's history, until europians set the first domino down!
Not true , Sinhalese will never let anyone live in peace. You can see wherever they went , problems were created. For example - Australia/ UK has nothing to do with this conflict yet Sinhalese are creating problems but the victim mentality is strong and they will always blame something else
Your presentation of facts are greatly appreciated. Your reporting is unbiased. This is Sri Lanka's modern history. I wish that every Sri Lankan would watch your videos, especially, the younger generation. Tgank you Alex for your hard work.
The Indian Intervention during the Sri Lankan Civil War was basically India's Vietnam. The 1983 Black July riots were some of most violent and bloodiest riots in modern history. I'm so far liking your documentaries on Sri Lanka and I plan to visit that country and India one of these day.
You know my original title for the vid was "India's Vietnam"
They weren't just riots but state sponsored genocide that was imposed on Eelam Tamils.
@@AlexRothman Your report missing some important issues. Firstly who trained LTTE enough to kill 13 solders. On root causes. When you consider government jobs and university education what percentage of tamils were effect by language policy? I think you know in 80’s good education was only available in cities. And in 80’s when good jobs are mainly available in private sector and language you have to know is English the language policy had little meaning.
@@dushsh4857Bingo 💯 That's what I said. I know how the Sinhala only act actually affected the sinhalese youth the most. Without English even University educated sinhala youth couldn't find jobs. And Tamil Civil Servants didn't lose their jobs, as they continued to work in English. So Alex didn't fact check this or his so called sources were biased. I know there were some corruption going on in the Education department, which passed mainly Tamil students to Medical college and failing sinhala students even with correct answers. Mr.Iriyagolla published a book about it with printed pass papers. It was never allowed to be sold. But it was circulated and I was able to go through it, which made me quite disgusted.
@@vision2096 I studied medicine at Peradeniya from 1973, and needed much higher A-level grades than my Sinhalese batchmates. The instruction was in English. The issue of education and fluency in English needs to be addressed dispassionately. Simply replacing English with Sinhalese is not the answer.
wow! 😀great video I really enjoy watching your videos hope you release an other video soon
Thank you, I will!
Exceptional quality as always Alex. I wish I could have seen these before my first trip to Sri Lanka in 2021. Oh well, I'm binge watching them now before my second trip to Sri Lanka in one week :D Keep up the unique and great work!
Hey mr.Alex, Im a young people who is 13 now, I’ve been watching your content sinsce 5 months ago and i realize that your content is pretty usefull to the people who has an interest for history and Iam so happy that you are supporting History subject by posting increadible videos on youtube. Every time i get notification on youtube that you are posting an videos, I watch them and have a more nologe of peace of history. And in my opinion I like history, especially learning about old heroes and mysterious and what they’re action was so, If you mind making a cintent which is about “History of Egypt” and teach us more nologe, I would be really appricated. (by Mustafo)
Wonderful content mate❤
Awesome video again!!
Glad you enjoyed!
I never comment on this app but I will make an exception to compliment you on your style, research, tome and film editing skills. I hope you continue to grow.
Amazing content!
The Indian intervention in Sri Lanka was pretty much the worst thing India could do at the time as neither the GoSL nor LTTE wanted them to be in Sri Lanka in the first place. Their intentions were understandably right to act as a PKF but their execution of whatever the peace plan they had was terrible. They were heavy handed in approach and like it was said in the video, probably escalated the intensity of the warfare to higher level that what it was before their arrival. I honestly think they were too excited by their successful intervention in east Pakistan and wanted to probably replicate that success here but as you know, one conflict is never the same as another. IPKF is a black mark in Indian military history. The funny thing is they were not just hated Sri Lanks, but also by Indian tamils due to their conduct. In fact when they were leaving Sri Lanka and going back to Tamilnadu, there were no civilians to welcome them back but instead got stones thrown at them. I'm not sure if this was real at all but oh well.
Yes you are right. In 87 Sri Lankans came to the streets calling the indians "the ape force".
People of Tamilnadu actually wanted the Indian army to intervene in the situation.
Not true , certainly made up stories. The Tamil Nadu civilians built up this pressure over time that forced the government to send peacekeeping force. My dad was sent to Sri Lanka also and I know all about it. Of course, that's true that they were not very good with their conduct and some were very heavy handed and many soldiers were court martialed and jailed after returning to India but no stones were thrown at them. The people wanted this to happen and it happened.
5:40 In 1830s British brought more than 60000 south indian tamils, malabarians , malays,...slaves to construct colombo to kandy main road , after the road construction all of them were settle down in north and East coastal area of sri lanka as "Ceylon tamils" , nowadays they want separate sri lanka
They are Indian Tamils. Separate people
90% of socalled sri lankan tamil was Brought here by portuguese , dutch , english to costal aria to work as slave workers (before they were lower cast tamils in india , sakkiliyar, roddi,.. etc , who later became suicide attackers and were forced to do so by upper cast tamils ) after the massacred of those costal living sinhalese by colonizers and immediately sinhalese villages became tamil villages , after ponnambalam ramathan (also migrated from sound india and who didn' t even knew much about ceylon people or culture and british gave him higher possession in government than sinhalese becouse sinhalese were alway fighting for freedom against the british ) became registar general changed those indian tamils Identity as a ceylon tamils and nowadays they says they are oldest here , my advice you to read old ceylon gazettes and what was did by Ponnambalam ramathan and arunachalem🧐 30 years of civil war was created by british , dutch and portuguese colonialism and their slave labours outnumbered native people and disenfranchised the identity of vanni and north-eastern coastal living sinhalese
Brilliant 👏
Thanks mate!
Your videos are great, kind of reminds me of globe trekker/pilot guides in style.
I wish you had gone into greater detail on the role that British divide and rule policies played in setting the stage for ethnic tensions in Sri Lanka. It would've helped to have more context on the history of the issue. Great video though 👍🏽
Thanks for the comment! Have you seen the earlier videos? I think the 'Modern Origins' one and 'What the Europeans did to Sri Lanka' are the ones you are looking for
@@AlexRothman Thanks. I think I might've seen them when they came out but I can't remember. I'll go check them out again sometime 👌🏽
2:07 this guy chelvanayagan's family was migrated from south india during british colonial time and he saying he know the history and "Elam " was located in ceylon even it was really located in Midle east 🤣 what a jock
You should have talked about LTTE leader Thileepan when discussing Indian intervention, who fasted until his death, and the world ignored him to die. After Thileepan's death, many Tamil populations began to see the Indian peacekeeping force as enemies
As far as I know burning down the Jaffna library wasn’t a work of the Sri Lankan police. It was one of the earliest acts by the LTTE which was in its infancy.
The Sri Lankan government accepted that it was the police and a southern politician led it along with some drunk thugs
Also necklacing was pioneered during the insurrection days in the south. It's kinda crazy that Sri Lanka pioneered and popularized two such methods of terror during the conflic era (the second one being the suicide bombing by ltte).
8:39 president' s ancestor was also a tamil thamby mudaliyar from sound india during dutch colonial time
He was Madurai Telugu not Tamil .
Most of ksndyan kings were Telugu nayakkar in Kandy kingdom
What a good Vlog ❤
Thank you!
I am curious - did you use M.R. Narayan Swamy's 'Tigers of Lanka' as one of your sources?
God bless sri Lanka for ever. Great country Great people.
Came here at once when I saw the notification
Glad you're enjoying the series!
Alex Rothman You are wrong to claim that original Sri Lankan Tamils came after Singhalese just 1000 years ago. I am a srilankan origin Tamil in NZ. Tamils have lived in SriLanka for more than 2500 years and there is literature evidence to prove this if you really want to present a well researched documentary. Also, The anti Tamil pogramme in 1977 after Tamils expressed their wish by the available democratic & political means in the 1977 election is testimony to the real intentions of sri lanka
I really like your videos on Sri Lanka but the only thing I don't agree with you is the religious aspect of Tamils that you bring. LTTE wasn't a movement identifying under a specific religion (Hinduism in the case of the video), it was pretty much a secular ideology. Especially because a lot of LTTE soldiers were Christians or Atheist.
Thanks for the comment! I am interested to know, though, when did I call the LTTE Hindu? I hope I haven't portrayed it that way because I definitely have things in the next videos about how they really went against Hindu traditions (e.g graveyards instead of cremation)
@@AlexRothman You didn't say LTTE was a Hindu movement but sometime it sounded like you were describing it as an ethno-religious conflict (Buddhist V. Hindus).
@@grimoirehe4rt Ok I get what you mean! I think I was emphasising the Buddhist nationalism on one side (which I think is broadly true right?) which may have sounded like it was implying Hindus on the other, even though the LTTE weren't altogether very Hindu
@@AlexRothman I see. And yes you are totally right for the Buddhist nationalism, it was one the main reason that caused the civil war.
It was mostly a ethnolinguistic conflict, not religious in any meaningful way. Afterall, most Sinhalese people worship hindu gods as well.
Thank you for this very informative documentary ❤
Really enjoyed you’re documentaries. Going to visit Sri Lanka in a few months for the second time. My wife is Sri Lankan by birth.
Not thr scene im lookinv for but its the longest you spent in any location on the trip so far?😊😊😊
You can make a similar story for Bangladesh as it has a diverse history from it's origins, to the British occupation to independence until now, there is a lot to cover 🇧🇩 🇧🇩 🇧🇩
I was in school in India in the 80s when the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) was in SL. My father was in the Indian army and although he didn’t serve in SL, he knew many who did. It was a real shit show and a tragedy for everyone. We saw live the incident of the soldier who took a swing at Rajiv Gandhi. It made no sense to most Indians that we were supposed to the the “good” guys and here were these “ungrateful” Sri Lankans taking a swing at our PM. Of course, the truth is much more complicated and you had done a really good job of laying it out. India committed atrocities and justified it as a result of fighting a war “with one arm tied behind the back”. The Indian Tamil support of the SL Tamils took a decisive turn when the LTTE assassinated Rajiv Gandhi. It was self inflicted wound by the LTTE and ultimately led to their downfall.
Thank you very much as a Tamil from Zealand. I want to visit Sri Lanka to see the affects of the war. I really wanted Prabakharan to win a Tamil homeland for us but it did not materialise but such are geopolitics and war. He was on the precipice of victory but lost everything. It was heartbreaking. In my eyes the Tigers were heroes. Obviously they carried out atrocities, no war is clean. Thank you for taking the time off to make these videos. Your indepth knowledge of the subject matter, scouting the regions in question and interacting with the locals to gain their point of view and external research is amazing. Your report is nothing less than a quality dissertation. I am truly grateful because much of our history was destroyed and we were a broken nation. My great grandparents left the Madras Presidency looking for better prospects in South Africa. Little did they we know we would become involved in a bitter struggle against the Apartheid Regime as we were treated as semi human by most of the English descendents there in Durban as they were afraid we had greater numbers in Natal Colony. Even though we loyally served and supported them as some of them had been very good to us. As a result, my education has been almost 100% British/Afrikaans. The propaganda spread was that we where weak and backward so the British took over to exploit us and bring us to modernity. In reality, the indentured system was a system of slave wages with no respect to human rights or civil liberties, it was the greatest paradox as the British prided themselves on the enlightenment and liberty in the west. I suppose greed for cheap, reliable labour and outrageous profiteering can convince a man to look the other way.
I'm glad you enjoyed it, thanks for watching!
In love and war everything is fair , it’s just whose side you take in to justify em
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Animosity between sinhalese and tamils were fanned by two politicians. One is S.W.R.D Bandaranaike and other J.R Jayawardena.Ironically , both of them had south indian ancestors. I think they also were part of this tamil master plan in creating a homeland for tamils.
Bro I love your videos but need to correct u for one thing. It’s not fight between Hindus and Buddhist. It was a fight between two ethnic groups,Tamil and Sinhalese…Tamil were per were persecuted and not given equal rights….
My apologies, do I make it seem like it is? I tried to show that it is foremost a linguistic/ethnic thing but may not have communicated it clearly
@@AlexRothman thank you so much bro for replying and I appreciate that 🥰🥰. your video was 99% accurate I really loved it but only at the introduction part of your video I felt it was wrong, u mentioned as hindu suicide bomber that was my concern. U could have used tamil suicide bomber instead of hindu as it was a fight between ethnicity and not between religion... I love you bro and keep doin your work and we are expecting more videos from you on india also... waiting for your videos on india... with love from india 🥰🥰🥰🥰
your video on Tajiks was awesome can you also please a video about afghans and Pashtuns
Also the black july might have been encouraged by India. It was actually southern India that was the first choice for a Tamil homeland but India didn't allow their country to be separated anymore after Pakistan and Bangladesh. Then Sri Lanka seemed a very appealing choice and was chosen as the Tamil Homeland. The July riots was not the wish of the majority Sinhalese,it was the choice of very powerful higher-ups and people who worked for them. You should however have mentioned the riots during R.Premadasa where thousands of Sinhalese students were killed by the government and also the divide and conquer strategy of the British which set the foundation for the war. This video could have mentioned the exact similarities in societal changes in Myanmar. Like how Aung San Suki's father who was a military general favoured by all Burmese people including the minorities like Rohingya for siding with the minorities by another section of the military. These situations are best all highlighted on a video like this so it might clear things up for greater clarity regarding the conflicts.
Interesting. What is your source for Tamil Nadu being a Tamil homeland?
@@AlexRothman there is no Tamil Homeland in my opinion ,but i say that mainly because of the negativity i had to experience in SL. The search for a Tamil homeland was triggered when the Tamil language was not recognized in India. Even today Tamil people in India constantly blame the Indian government regarding giving no recognition to tamil identity and constantly forcing Hindi on the South. There were no official decline for the Southern Indian region to be recognized to become the Tamil Homeland. After independence it happened very quickly. ( It was more of a refuge land than homeland, basically a manner in which Tamil culture and identity can be protected and promoted as it is for hindi in the north of Bharath). But if anything a Tamil homeland must be in southern India when you consider the grandeur of Tamil architecture and the history. The northern area of Sri Lanka is the perfect example of settlements made by active merchants from two states rather than a result of pressure from war between states. Weirdly enough the rulers of South India who had tried to attack Sri Lanka did so to weaken the Sinhala states who would usually side with the Pandyan tamils against the Chola. Although Sinhalese chronical( Mahavamsa) draw king Elara in a respectable light rather than as an evil one.
@@szoom6066and the same time king dutugamunu didn't chase away the Tamil in north after winning Elara war .during king sangiliyan Sinhalese were chased away from jaffna
@@groundzero5708 right..liar liar pants on fire
What a blatant lie , Tamil was/is recognised as an official language in India. You unnecessarily involve Tamils and India in your dreams . There was never a Tamil Nadu separatist issue and never will be. Tamil people are not marginalised in India but they are respected everywhere. You should go out of your Sinhalese cocoon often and see the world , how different it is.
When's the next video coming?
I wouldn't necessarily say sinhalese aren't culuturally north indian, we are culturally and genetically much more closer to east & west Indians. But if you were thinking about categorizing Indian culturally into north and south, then you are right.
But recent genetic studies shows that Sinhalese and SL Tamils share almost same DNA, so I guess they're pretty much mixed between them with their own cultural specificities.
Right, but linguistically Sinhalese is solidly north Indian right?
@@AlexRothman Yeah, afterall it's origin is traced back to Elu prakrit which itself is descended from Sanskrit. But it's evolved on it's own for such a long time that it's very different when compared to it's sister languages. This is partly due to the fact that it developed on it's own without being in direct cotact with other Aryan languages and because it's vocabulary burrowed a lot from south Indian languages like Tamil.
@@AlexRothman In India regional divide sometimes taken as very seriously. For example North generally means states like UP , Bihar , Delhi etc. States like Maharashtra and Gujarat are considered West Indian states. People of these states won't like, if you call them North or south Indian. 😅 Sri Lankan say there ancestors might come from Gujrat which in west India not North.
There is no evidence of existence of tamils in the north. It happened mainly because east indian invasions which was taken place endlessly, tamils were not originals in north . Original tribesmen of sri lanka known as yakka, dhava , naga.
Those siw hela tribes
Jayawardene was from an elite Colombo family, an Anglican who converted to Buddhism to further his political career.
Bruv violated prof carlos words 11:03 he was hell bent on debunking these so called miracles 😂😂
Respect from Tamil.
90% of socalled sri lankan tamil was Brought here by portuguese , dutch , english to costal aria to work as slave workers (before they were lower cast tamils in india , sakkiliyar, roddi,.. etc , who later became suicide attackers and were forced to do so by upper cast tamils ) after the massacred of those costal living sinhalese by colonizers and immediately sinhalese villages became tamil villages , after ponnambalam ramathan (also migrated from sound india and who didn' t even knew much about ceylon people or culture and british gave him higher possession in government than sinhalese becouse sinhalese were alway fighting for freedom against the british ) became registar general changed those indian tamils Identity as a ceylon tamils and nowadays they says they are oldest here , my advice you to read old ceylon gazettes and what was did by Ponnambalam ramathan and arunachalem🧐 30 years of civil war was created by british , dutch and portuguese colonialism and their slave labours outnumbered native people and disenfranchised the identity of vanni and north-eastern coastal living sinhalese
The part about many present day Sinhalese being Tamils that are Buddhist is not false. Many Tamils today are also probably Sinhalese who adopted Tamil.
3:17 before "bo leaves" it was already simbol a of top of buddhist "stupa kotha"
2:07 this guy chelvanayagan's family was migrated from south india during british colonial time and he saying he know the history of ceylon and "Elam " was located in ceylon even it was really located in Midle east 🤣 what a jock made by india tamil politician
90% of socalled sri lankan tamil was Brought here by portuguese , dutch , english to costal aria to work as slave workers (before they were lower cast tamils in india , sakkiliyar, roddi,.. etc , who later became suicide attackers and were forced to do so by upper cast tamils ) after the massacred of those costal living sinhalese by colonizers and immediately sinhalese villages became tamil villages , after ponnambalam ramathan (also migrated from sound india and who didn' t even knew much about ceylon people or culture and british gave him higher possession in government than sinhalese becouse sinhalese were alway fighting for freedom against the british ) became registar general changed those indian tamils Identity as a ceylon tamils and nowadays they says they are oldest here , my advice you to read old ceylon gazettes and what was did by Ponnambalam ramathan and arunachalem🧐 30 years of civil war was created by british , dutch and portuguese colonialism and their slave labours outnumbered native people and disenfranchised the identity of vanni and north-eastern coastal living sinhalese
only 2 or 3 kings of kingdom of kandy were tamil (south indian)
Please do Bangladesh - I noticed sylhet and Dhaka culturally different. The language sounds different
You know, Bangladesh is very much in my plans. I was going to go there last December but wasn't able to. Videos will be coming, not soon, but they are on my list
Indian government keeps trying to impose Hindi only for government jobs and all, i see why Tamils till this day oppose it the loudest .
Instead of developing the country as one, Sinhalese ruined this country and moving backward and selling this country to the Chinese and Indians. Buddha will never forget what they did to the Tamil community. Buddha left Sri Lanka with the British
your balanced perspective that also comes from an understanding it's pre-colonial history makes these videos on our history quite refreshing. as a lot of what is propagated in lanka is a white washed propagandised version of our past.
This episode was pretty good and I hope you will do even better in the next videos. I hope you will include how and why during the late stages of the conflict, Indian government covertly and overtly supported GoSL to defeat the LTTE for once and for all.
You know, it's going to be really hard with these next ones to decide what to keep in and what to leave out without the video getting unreasonably long. I hope that you won't be disappointed but the role of India is definitely important
@@AlexRothman Understandable. IMO, India and other foreign nations involvement deserves it's own video since that aspect of the civil war seems to be underreported. India, Pakistan, China and even US & Israel played some major roles in the war that helped thr GoSL to defeat LTTE, especially diplomatically and politically. I just hope that you will manage to cover the most major aspects without having to cut down a lot.
And also how india trained, funded & armed ltte terrorists against sri lanka.
@@autoworld871 they did that at first but they redeemed themselves during the later stages of the war by supporting us. We wouldn't have won the war without support from India and other foreign nations.
@@malithaw How did they support us?????? Indian central government stayed quiet in the last stage & tamil nadu state government did everything they could to save the terrorists. Even after the war ended, India voted against us in UNHRC. How did they support us except enjoying the sri lankans' blood?
2:07 this guy's family was migrated from sound india during british colonial time and he saying he know the history and "Elam " was located in ceylon even it was really located in Midle east 🤣 what a jock
Sorry the civil.war started when the LTTe killed the Mayor of Jaffna in 1978 .
Glad you are using Terrorist to refer to a group that did 10 times less civilian casualties than the SL army 🤦🏽
You mention bo leaves being in the flag but didn’t mention the green and orange part of it ? You’re clearly a little biased …
Rajiv Gandhi was an inexperienced politician who came to power with a huge majority in parliament riding a sympathy wave post his mother's assasination..He had no experience as a politician and held no political position in government before being parachuted straight as the Prime Minister of a large nation..He was popular as he was young and seemed to represent the aspirations of a young nation and was projected by the Media so..He did try his best to resolve some long standing issues with a certain amount of success in the first two years in office but the balance 3 years were among the most disastrous for India..The Coetrie around him led him into all kinds of pathetic descisions and he neither had the political acumen or guile to counter it..He did a 360 degree turn in india's Sri Lanka policy as mentioned in your video which resulted in the Indian Army and the RAW (Intelligence Services) being on opposite sides in the IPKF operations!!..He was at his wits end in front of a Wily J Jayavardane while being diplomatically arm twisted to sign the Sri Lankan peace accord...The treaty turned out to be a disaster for all parties involved and worst of all for the Sri Lankan people..Rajiv also paid with his life for this..
The Disastrous military intervention by Rajiv Gandhi government is partly the reason India stopped actively supporting militant groups for our own interest. Even when the militants are overly pro Indian (for example BLA, TTP in Pakistan)
BLA isn't a large entity TTP isn't pro India
Actually Indians got away with what they did in East Pakistan but little did they realise that Pakistani army without public support was akin to a colonial force back in 1971. It was perhaps a simple walk in the park. But one good thing they did was that they left soon after the war. Sri Lanka on the other hand was an entirely different ball game. Due to its strategic importance Indians were perhaps eyeing the whole island for a very long time. They came in garbs of IPKF but became a colonial force instead. Resultantly they lost the sympathies of all. India was cash strapped, Soviet Union was crumbling. It was a non starter from the inception. My point is that the world order created after WWII should be implemented in letter and spirit by the super powers and no third or fourth level force should be allowed to become a hegemon acting on its own and invading foreign territories.
The argument of Tamils being 12% and the land mass should be proportional to that is not a logical criticism of the Tamil Eelam claim. Population density varies, and most of the dry zone in the northeast is uninhabited. The important point is that it was overwhelmingly Tamil speaking. A better criticism would be that Tamil speaking Muslims were against separatism.
Very fair point. I hadn't actually thought of it like that (although the claim also included a lot of the Tamil speaking east coast, right? And that was valuable land, inhabited by non-Tamil Tamil speakers).
@@AlexRothman although the LTTE claimed the eastern province, they in reality only fought for the eastern littoral which was traditionally Tamil speaking (prior to Sinhala colonisation). They never attempted to capture the Sinhalese areas of the interior which would have been impractical to rule over. They however never anticipated the opposition from the Tamil speaking Muslims. Just under half of the Tamil speaking population of the littoral (Muslims) were against separatism because they did not want to be divided from their fellow Muslims in the south. The other half (Tamil Hindus and Christians) supported separatism because they saw no protection under Sinhala rule following the state sponsored atrocities of the 80s. Of course this is a generalisation, there were anomalous exceptions in each group (e.g. tiny minority of Muslims supported separatism at the outset).
@@sltruth317 That’s a very thoughtful comment! I knew the broad picture but those are details I wasn’t familiar with. Thanks for sharing!
Again at the sane time new tamil history revisionism .like calling kuweni tamil. And vijays came outside lol 😅
The Sri Lankan army helped the Tamils in order to oust India out of the isle? Wow...
Btw there's an IPKF memorial in Colombo for fallen IPKF soldiers, which is really bizarre lol.
It is bizzare when we look from sri lankans' perspective of the indians. And also it is completely bizzare for hardcore ltte supporters. But in international relations wise, it is a briliant move.
What an utterly bizarre situation. Thanks for the comments guys
Not much research is done. Sri Lanka's ethnic crisis is a result of a spill over of extreme Tamil nationalism from neighboring Tamil Nadu. What most people who comment on SL crisis fail to notice (even though it is so obvious) is that both Sinhalese and Tamils have TWO different versions of history for the island. Sinhalese and Tamils are always debating about the history of the country. The root cause if actually this dispute on the history. Tamil identity was constructed in the 19th century by the British missionary orientalists. Along with orientalism, ideas like Dravidianism developed. Dravidianism resulted in the manufacture of a Tamil history and a homeland. Based on dravidian myths, Tamils believe that Sri Lanka used to be an ancient Tamil speaking Dravidian state. Tamil nationalism that came to SL from TN spread that idea. It is the root cause of the conflict.
there is no evidence to claim Tamil culture was in SL before Sinhalese. Indigenous tribes have to be humans out of Africa like Aboriginals.
Sri Lanka was India’s Vietnam
little bushfire makes long forests burn to dust. little bushfire - 13 solders who killed by Tamil mobs long forest fire - black July
6:23 and killed for what reason ? No atrocity against Tamils previous was mentioned
1977 Tamil program 300 Tamils dead by Sri lankan army. Burning of the Jaffna library.
There are several inaccuracies in some of the claims here.. for example the claim that laws enacted after independence excluded tamils is an exaggeration..prior to the language laws, the official language was english and it excluded all the non elite srilankan irrespective of the race. While the new law negate that injustice favouring the majority it also gave the tamil language a status in never had by making it the administrative language in the tamil dominated areas. Also the claim tamils had to score more points in university exam was wrong as well. The district quota system provided opportunities to less disadvantaged districts, whihc benefited tamils as well as others. All these tamil injustice claims coming from the fact thanks to these laws apartheid privileges enjoyed by the high cast christian tamil wellala tamils in jafna during british times gradually taken out of them and given to ordinary sinhala and tamils, and this they sold as laws against tamils in general to their people.... if the claim that if these people were discriminated based on the language is true, then this should have been a conflict between the sinhalese and the rest of all minorities like muslims and upcountry tamils who all speak tamils, now not a beef between north and south
The Indian intervention was so short sighted.
Rajiv Gandhi wanted his mother's success but failed maybe he should have realised how radicalized LTTE was and rather pressure the srilankan to actually stop discrimination of tamil
If rajiv did not nose in to our internal affairs rajiv is still alive
You from ? 🤔
New Zealand
@@AlexRothman ah 😍 🙃🙃
@@AlexRothman one of the best countries and I love the milk from your country ..
When you said "you are and will be second class" pissed me off very badly even though you got nothing to do with it.
Because it struck home or because you disagree?
@Alex Rothman because of both and it reminds me of how we are still treated, regardless of what the ill informed shinha people say.
@@AlexRothman hi Alex it is all about perspective. It is like when you don't know English and you try to live in UK. Since there is a 75 majority of Sinhala speaking people it is common sense to know the majority language to avoid getting alienated. Once you know how to communicate no one will discriminate you. As a tamil myself i live in the south and live like the Sinhalese. I can get any government service.,education healthcare , buy property etc..wherease in the north among the tamils there are hugh caste issues and they even have land laws where the neighbor has to agree whether you can buy land next to him (Thesavalami law). But of course it is the Tamil habit to blame the Sinhalese for everything. When you are lesser in number you get this inferiority complex in you.
@@tamarind1459 You are virtually a Sinhalese, can you even speak Tamil? Tamils have been living in the northeast for centuries, any sane person would give them native rights to live as they have been living for centuries, they did not need permission to live like Tamils in Tamil speaking areas over the last 1000 years. Only uncivilised idiots would force 'Sinhala only' on Tamil society in the north east. If not for these stupid intolerant laws which were made to favour Sinhalese unfairly, most Tamils in the northeast would have happily learnt Sinhalese as a second language for better job opportunities etc And its funny you talk about inferiority complex, it wasn't Tamils who made laws saying that Sinhalese had to get less marks to get into university...who had the inferiority complex there?
@@sltruth317 i can speak read and write..however i don't have a false complex like you.
Ian army lait because the generals were not allowed to fight a real war prabakaran was asked to be released 3 times after being captured dirty geopolitics
Buddhism has not been the state religion in post independece sri lanka
5:00 u r quoting some absurd sh!t as a stamp for whole ideology, bruh
There are no Hindu suiciders in our country, Bharat. Had we, our country wouldn’t even occupied by Islamists & Europeans.
1983 riot main reason 13 army soldires killed by ltte terrorist
Does it justify killing 4000 Tamils? Plus in 1953 and 1977 Sinhalese had anti Tamil programs killing hundreds of Tamils.
What about unprovoked previous riots & burning of Jaffna Library.
Ok they're terrorist killed solidar why Sinhalese kill innocent Tamil civilin
Dia wad Russian as ligned and the president JR was American UK as ligned that was the rea sf on, and in SD isnninwran as l pilirics😂
Ltte was a scourge that needed to be eliminated
Like ethnic differences before, the class differences are now threatening to divide Sri Lanka again by bankrupting the economy. Influential sector of the population such as politicians businesspeople and professionals (educated free of charge) who live in big cities are engaged in mega corruption and mismanagement. In addition they live higher middle income country life style requiring large amount of dollars (which the government readily accommodate) . So sacrifices made by poor rural youth from both factions in ending the war in 2009 are being betrayed by these influential factions of the society
What nonsense, the rajapakshas ruined the country and it is the poor and the so called rural youth who continue to follow and vote them in! Stop blaming the private sector for the downfall of the economy, the economy fell because the private sector was not supported with fuel, energy and availability of resources to take care of the populace! Get ur facts right. Few corrupt business people are not the norm of the private sector in Sri Lanka!
Look at the sources you used to make this video. All books and reports written by Tamils or foreigners. You have prepared the report about Sri Lanka with completely dismissing the Sinhala Buddhist race as savage villains. Also, the facts you presented about the settlement of Sri Lanka are mostly incorrect. On the other hand, you are a New Zealander and you have presented a lot of wrong information about Sri Lanka and the Sinhalese people. We lived in Sri Lanka during the war, and we know better than the foreigners who try to give character certificates about the war. Even today, Tamils in North and East are divided on the basis of caste system. They don't even want to donate blood to another Tamil, thinking that it will spoil the sanctity of their caste. Today, the army and Buddhist monks donate blood to hospitals in the northern and eastern provinces. Also, immediately after the end of the war, mines were cleared in the northern and eastern provinces, infrastructure was developed and houses were even built for many displaced Tamils with the labor contribution of the Sri Lanka Army. Since 2500 years ago, South India invaded the Sinhalese kingdoms more than 18 times, Tamils migrated to Sri Lanka every time, and every time the Sinhalese kings regrouped and expelled the invaders. But the Sinhalese kings did not kill the settled Tamils in the country like they killed the Sinhales. And the Sinhalese kings did not destroy the Tamil kovils like the invading Tamils destroyed the Buddhist temples, because we are "Sinhala Buddhists". If we are as racist a nation as the world says, how can a nation called Tamil remain in Sri Lanka for 2000 years? I'm not interfering with your freedom of speech, but I think you should be more moderate and responsible when reporting on an incident like this.
This is partial analysis in to this conflict. I think there should be a proper analysis of how the thesawalamayi law codified a and used by Dutch to develop devide and rule the country. Specially nationality based representation to constitutional councils of Sri Lanka under the British. These were again the influential policies towards this problem. I am agree with many content related to 1983 . But you shouldn't forget what happened to many other Tamil organizations started along with LTTE. Please check what happened to democratic leaders of Tamil people. Also what did by LTTE to other organizations. It is nothing other than what ISIS do today. They needed to be the dominant organization and destroyed others. Again, why you forgot the name of terrorists for the top most wanted terrorist organization by FBI. Please refer their list of terrorist organizations. Again never forget these topics too 1) why many tamils in Jaffna were against this? 2) why most of people from mulativu, kilinochchi and east were died in war as carders than Jaffna.what was the influence of cast problem. 3) what happened to Muslims and Sinhalese in jaffna , Mannar and east ? 4)What happened in kattankudy church. Simply , LTTE and Tamil general population are two things. At the same time please check how people connected today. It's the way to reconcilation. People are peacefull and connected.
Tamils were the original inhabitants. they were the closest to South India and look into the genealogy of both groups. Sinhala language was originated only after mid 6th century and the grammar is based on Tamil language. There were two nations living side by side before the colonial times. Why is this confusion in presenting the facts? after 1983 well documented materials are available.
90% of socalled sri lankan tamil was Brought here by portuguese , dutch , english to costal aria to work as slave workers (before they were lower cast tamils in india , sakkiliyar, roddi,.. etc , who later became suicide attackers and were forced to do so by upper cast tamils ) after the massacred of those costal living sinhalese by colonizers and immediately sinhalese villages became tamil villages , after ponnambalam ramathan (also migrated from sound india and who didn' t even knew much about ceylon people or culture and british gave him higher possession in government than sinhalese becouse sinhalese were alway fighting for freedom against the british ) became registar general changed those indian tamils Identity as a ceylon tamils and nowadays they says they are oldest here , my advice you to read old ceylon gazettes and what was did by Ponnambalam ramathan and arunachalem🧐 30 years of civil war was created by british , dutch and portuguese colonialism and their slave labours outnumbered native people and disenfranchised the identity of vanni and north-eastern coastal living sinhalese
That is new history written by tamil extremists. That movement also have little history more than 50 years
I feel like we don’t talk about how much the Sinhala citizens were involved, they brought the formation of the ltte on themselves. They should have left us and our library alone.
Last kings of srilanka weren’t Tamil they are telugu
Fundamentally .. it was an ethnic war.... not Hindu war.... Sadly repeatedly misinterpreted