Up Country Tamils: Charting a New Future in Sri Lanka right to participate in electoral politics, Up-country Tamils hold that privilege in very high regard. Having lost this ability for generations, it is not something to be taken lightly. Second, Upcountry Tamils tend to value political participation since it is one of the few avenues that they have available to enact change in their lives. In recent decades, estate trade unions have become increasingly complacent, with union actions more related to leaders’ political positions than to improving the lives of workers. Additionally, fewer and fewer Up-country Tamils live and/or work on the estates, further reducing unions’ power and appeal. Third, the end of the war brought increasing political and economic attention to the North and East. While these areas undoubtedly need the development, the feeling among many Up-country Tamils is that they are being pushed further to the margins as Jaffna Tamils reclaim space in Sri Lankan politics and government. In June 2015, the Social Scientists’ Association conducted a multilingual survey of 1,500 households across 44 electorates in 22 electoral districts to gauge the island’s Political Weather Analysis (Social Scientists’ Association 2015). The ethnic breakdown of the survey reveals two notable instances where Up-country Tamils’ responses differed significantly from those of other ethnic groups. When asked whether relationships between ethnic communities will improve under Sirisena’s presidency, overall 66 per cent believed it would, with 12 per cent feeling ethnic relationships would greatly improve (Social Scientists’ Association 2015, 21). Breaking this down by ethnicity, Up-country Tamils felt the strongest, with 88 per cent saying that it will improve or greatly improve, with nearly 33 per cent saying it would greatly improve (Social Scientists’ Association 2015, 21). 16