Charting Uncertain Futures: Diaspora, Citizenship and Belonging among Up-country Tamils Mannar district went from being 13.0 per cent Indian Tamil in 1981 to 0.4 per cent in 2011, Vavuniya from 19.6 per cent to 0.8 per cent, Mullaitivu from 14.5 per cent to 2.4 per cent, and Kilinochchi from 16.4 per cent to 1.5 per cent (Bandara 2012, 70). Many of those self-identified Indian Tamils likely left for India as refugees, and others may have migrated to Colombo or the up-country, but such a drastic drop cannot be totally explained by out-migration. Unfortunately, numerous Indian Tamils who lived in these districts in 1981 probably became victims of the war and were no longer alive to be counted in the census of 2011. But the most likely explanation for this demographic shift is that the experience during the war led these Indian Tamils to identify as Sri Lankan Tamils, not just in the census, but also in everyday life. These tensions in identification were present during an interview that I had with an O-level Tamil language teacher at a school near Ragala. When I asked, “Do you say you are Up-country Tamil or do you say you are Indian Tamil?” she unequivocally responded, “Up-country Tamil”. She explained that she lives in the up-country, and that her link to India is not very strong. Yet, when I next asked if she preferred to call herself “Sri Lankan Tamil” or “Up-country Tamil”, she said “Sri Lankan Tamil”, since the up-country is part of Sri Lanka, and “it is not necessary to separate from Sri Lanka”. She had a broad view of these ethnic identifications, choosing the most far-reaching possible identity, rather than narrowing on the specific differences, as is common in academic analysis. Ethnic labels mean different things in different contexts and many Up-country Tamils will sometimes identify as Sri Lankan Tamils, since they are citizens, ignoring the official associations of this term. 11