2. Incomplete Citizenship of the Plantation Community: Access to Governance Institutions and Public Service Delivery R. Ramesh Introduction This chapter analyses the impact of the legal form of citizenship on access to social rights and legally mandated public services. A large body of literature argues that attaining legal citizenship is more likely to end years of marginalisation and discrimination of a previously stateless people, and furthermore provides avenues to access a range of rights and entitlements (Houtzager and Archarya 2010; Kymlika 1995). This chapter focuses on the context of Sri Lanka to analyse the impact of legal citizenship rights on access to governance institutions and social rights of the Plantation Community. This ethnic minority community has mainly lived and worked on tea and rubber plantations for over 200 years. While they may constitute a numerical majority in certain areas of central Sri Lanka, they were deprived of citizenship for five decades (since 1948), and the prolonged problem of citizenship was only fully solved in 2003 through the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, No 16 of 2003. This chapter provides empirical evidence that plantation workers still encounter problems and challenges in enjoying citizenship rights in general, specifically social citizenship. They are therefore lagging behind in social development, subjective

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