India's Influence on Sri Lanka's Language Issue and Linguistic Nationalisms in the Late 1940s and 1950s

Abstract

The aim of this research was to examine the influence and impact of India's language issue on determining the characteristics of Sinhalese and Tamil linguistic nationalisms and the commencement of the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka. The research, which was based on secondary data, used interpretive approach for the analysis. It found that the language issue of India influenced both the majority Sinhalese and minority Tamils in Sri Lanka to adopt inflexible and radical stances on language. On one hand, while the arguments and policies of Hindi language loyalists of North India encouraged Sinhalese to justify their demand to make Sinhala the sole official language, the radical Tamil linguistic nationalism prevalent at that time in South India ignited fear among Sinhalese that led them to be uncompromising on language issues. On the other hand, South Indian Tamil linguistic nationalism provided Tamils with both ideology and inspiration for a radical stance and activism, and profoundly influenced the development of a Tamil group identity that was solely based on language in Sri Lanka. The study proves that the conditions for the development of such an identity were largely unavailable domestically at that moment. Hence, it is clear that the influence and impact of India's language issue was very deterministic in characterising the two nationalisms; Sinhala and Tamil in Sri Lanka which later on collided with each other and resulted in an ethnic conflict.