The claim to self-determination: a Sri Lankan Tamil perspective

Abstract

Nationalism and self-determination have many definitions, varying from region to region, and evolving over time. Almost everywhere, the potency of these concepts has greatly increased in the course of the twentieth century. On the one hand, there is a regional or global dispersion of populations and virtually all states are becoming increasingly hetero-ethnic and hetero-national; on the other, the intensity of ethno-nationalism is also increasing and seems to be positively correlated to the degree of dispersion. In this paper, there is an attempt to formulate a definition of nationalism that is relevant to current realities, global and South Asian, and to trace the growth of Sri Lankan Tamil nationalism, virtually non-existent at the time of independence in 1948, in the context of the developments since then. The paper goes on to trace the gradual (and as yet partial) transformation of the Sri Lankan Tamils nationalist objective from internal to external self-determination, beginning in the mid-1970s. Despite the extended bloody civil war, this transformation is yet at an early stage, and it may still be possible to negotiate an end to the civil war on the basis of internal self-determination.