Sri Lanka (from the Sanskrit श्री लंका “Venerable Island”), officially the Democratic Socialist
Republic of Sri Lanka before 1972 and as Taprobane in ancient times, is an island country
in South Asia, located about 31 kilometres (19.3 mi) off the southern coast of India.
As a result of its location in the path of major sea routes, Sri Lanka is a strategic naval
link between West Asia and South East Asia.[citation needed] It has also been a center of
the Buddhist religion and culture from ancient times as well as being a bastion of Hinduism.
The Sinhalese community forms the majority of the population; Tamils, who are concentrated
in the north and east of the island, form the largest ethnic minority. Other communities
include Moors, Burghers, Kaffirs, Malays and the indigenous Vedda people.
The country is famous for the production and export of tea, coffee, coconuts, rubber and
cinnamon - which is native to the country. The natural beauty of Sri Lanka's tropical
forests, beaches and landscape, as well as its rich cultural heritage, make it a world
famous tourist destination.[citation needed] The island also boasts the first female Prime
Minister in the world, Sirimavo Bandaranaike.
After over two thousand years of rule by local kingdoms, parts of Sri Lanka were colonized
by Portugal and the Netherlands beginning in the 16th century, before control of the entire
country was ceded to the British Empire in 1815.[citation needed] During World War II, Sri
Lanka served as an important base for Allied forces in the fight against the Japanese
Empire. A nationalist political movement arose in the country in the early 20th century with
the aim of obtaining political independence, which was eventually granted by the British
after peaceful negotiations in 1948.
Paleolithic human settlements have been discovered at excavations in several cave sites in
the Western Plains region and the South-western face of the Central Hills region.
Anthropologists believe that some discovered burial rites and certain decorative artifacts
exhibit similarities between the first inhabitants of the island and the early inhabitants
of Southern India. Recent bioanthropological studies have however dismissed these links, and
have placed the origin of the people to the northern parts of India[citation needed]. One of
the first written references to the island is found in the Indian epic Ramayana, which
described the emperor Ravana as monarch of the powerful kingdom of Lanka, which was created
by the divine sculptor Vishwakarma for Kubera, the treasurer of the Gods. English historian
James Emerson Tennent also theorized Galle, a southern city in Sri Lanka, was the ancient
seaport of Tarshish from which King Solomon is said to have drawn ivory, peacocks and other
valuables. The main written accounts of the country's history are the Buddhist chronicles of
Mahavansa and Dipavamsa.
The earliest-known inhabitants of the island now known as Sri Lanka were probably the
ancestors of the Wanniyala-Aetto people, also known as Veddahs and numbering roughly 3,000.
Linguistic analysis has found a correlation of the Sinhalese language with the languages of
the Sindh and Gujarat, although most historians believe that the Sinhala community emerged
well after the assimilation of various ethnic groups. From the ancient period date some
remarkable archaeological sites including the ruins of Sigiriya, the so-called "Fortress in
the Sky", and huge public works. Among the latter are large "tanks" or reservoirs, important
for conserving water in a climate that alternates rainy seasons with dry times, and
elaborate aqueducts, some with a slope as finely calibrated as one inch to the mile. Ancient
Sri Lanka was also the first in the world to have established a dedicated hospital in
Mihintale in the 4th century BCE. Ancient Sri Lanka was also the world's leading exporter of
cinnamon, which was exported to Egypt as early as 1400 BCE. Sri Lanka was also the first
Asian nation to have a female ruler in Queen Anula (47–42 BC).
Since ancient times Sri Lanka was ruled by monarchs, most notably of the Sinha royal dynasty
that lasted over 2000 years. The island was also infrequently invaded by South Indian
kingdoms and parts of the island were ruled intermittently by the Chola dynasty, the Pandya
dynasty, the Chera dynasty and the Pallava dynasty. The island was also invaded by the
kingdoms of Kalinga (modern Orissa) and those from the Malay Peninsula. Buddhism arrived
from India in the 3rd century BCE, brought by Bhikkhu Mahinda, who is believed to have been
the son of Mauryan emperor Ashoka. Mahinda's mission won over the Sinhalese monarch
Devanampiyatissa of Mihintale, who embraced the faith and propagated it throughout the
Sinhalese population. The Buddhist kingdoms of Sri Lanka would maintain a large number of
Buddhist schools and monasteries, and support the propagation of Buddhism into Southeast
Asia.
Sri Lanka had always been an important port and trading post in the ancient world, and was
increasingly frequented by merchant ships from the Middle East, Persia, Burma, Thailand,
Malaysia, Indonesia and other parts of Southeast Asia. The islands were known to the first
European explorers of South Asia and settled by many groups of Arab and Malay merchants. A
Portuguese colonial mission arrived on the island in 1505 headed by Lourenço de Almeida the
son of Francisco de Almeida. At that point the island consisted of three kingdoms, namely
Kandy in the central hills, Kotte at the Western coast, and Yarlpanam (Anglicised Jaffna) in
the north. The Dutch arrived in the 17th century. Although much of the island came under the
domain of European powers, the interior, hilly region of the island remained independent,
with its capital in Kandy. The British East India Company established control of the island
in 1796, declaring it a crown colony in 1802, although the island would not be officially
connected with British India. The fall of the kingdom of Kandy in 1815 unified the island
under British rule.
European colonists established a series of tea, cinnamon, rubber, sugar, coffee and indigo
plantations. The British also brought a large number of indentured workers from Tamil Nadu
to work in the plantation economy. The city of Colombo was established as the administrative
centre, and the British established modern schools, colleges, roads and churches that
brought Western-style education and culture to the native people. Increasing grievances over
the denial of civil rights, mistreatment and abuse of natives by colonial authorities gave
rise to a struggle for independence in the 1930s, when the Youth Leagues opposed the
"Ministers' Memorandum," which asked the colonial authority to increase the powers of the
board of ministers without granting popular representation or civil freedoms. Buddhist
scholars and the Teetotalist Movement also played a vital role in this time. During World
War II, the island served as an important Allied military base. A large segment of the
British and American fleet were deployed on the island, as were tens of thousands of
soldiers committed to the war against Japan in Southeast Asia.
Following the war, popular pressure for independence intensified. The office of Prime
Minister of Ceylon was created in advance of independence on 14 October 1947, Don Stephen
Senanayake being the first prime minister. On February 4, 1948 the country won its
independence as the Dominion of Ceylon. On July 21, 1960 Sirimavo Bandaranaike took office
as prime minister, and became the world's first female prime minister and the first female
head of government in post-colonial Asia. In 1972, during Sirimavo Bandaranaike's second
term as prime minister, the country became a republic within the Commonwealth, and the name
was changed to Sri Lanka. The island enjoyed good relations with the United Kingdom and had
the British Royal Navy stationed at Trincomalee.
Civil war
Main article: Sri Lankan Civil War
One of the aspects of the independence movement was that it was very much a Sinhalese
movement. As a result, the Sinhalese majority attempted to remodel Sri Lanka as a Sinhalese
nation-state. The lion in the national flag is derived from the banner of the last Sinhalese
Kingdom, which, to the Sinhalese majority, is a symbol of their fight against British
colonialism. One single strip of orange on the left part of the flag represents the Tamil
population, and it is seen by many Tamil as a symbol of their marginalisation.
In 1956, the Official Language Act (commonly known as The Sinhala Only Act) was enacted. The
law mandated Sinhala, the language of Sri Lanka's majority Sinhalese community, which is
spoken by over 70% of Sri Lanka's population, as the sole official language of Sri Lanka.
Supporters of the law saw it as an attempt by a community that had just gained independence
to distance themselves from their colonial masters. The immediate (and intended) consequence
of this act was to force large numbers of Tamil who worked in the civil service, and who
could not meet this language requirement, to resign. An attempt to make Buddhism the
national religion, to the exclusion of Hindu and Islam, was also made. Affirmative action in
favour of Sinhalese was also instituted, ostensibly to reverse colonial discrimination
against Sinhalese in favour of Tamil. Many Tamil, in response to this deliberate
marginalisation, came to believe that they deserved a separate nation-state for themselves.
From 1983 to 2009, there was an on-and-off civil war against the government by the
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a separatist militant organization who fought to
create an independent state named Tamil Eelam in the North and East of the island. Both the
Sri Lankan government and LTTE have been accused of various human rights violations.
On May 19, 2009, the President of Sri Lanka officially claimed an end to the insurgency and
the defeat of the LTTE, following the death of Velupillai Prabhakaran and much of the LTTE's
other senior leadership
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