Up Country Tamils: Charting a New Future in Sri Lanka
spheres such as education, health service provision, housing,
public sector employment and institutional and legal reforms.
Amendment to the Pradeshiya Sabha (PS) Act, establishment
of four new PS’s in the Nuwara Eliya district, and a separate
authority for plantation sector development, are some of the
significant changes in the post-war context. Yet, there are
limitations and institutional and structural issues in gaining
access to social rights and developmental benefits in full.
Furthermore, historical discrimination of this community since
independence also remains another key factor in the slow pace
of social development. This mainly includes the citizenship
problem, disenfranchisement, language act, land reforms act,
nationalisation of plantations, and then privatisation without
adequate social security measures. Put differently, some of the
structures, institutions, laws, and policies created during the
period of statelessness continue to remain in practice in Sri Lanka,
which continue to have an enduring impact on social citizenship
rights of this community, together with governance.
It is safe to argue that persistent social stigma, preconceived notions, stereotyping, and social classification may not
immediately disappear among a previously stateless people, and
it can possibly continue to generate some form of psychological
resistance to actively practice and enjoy citizenship rights.
Empirical evidence (Ramesh 2018) suggests that a significant
number of the Plantation Community still possess a sense of fear
and an inferiority complex in accessing public institutions since
they were left out from all forms of governance for about four
decades. Importantly, even after slowly gaining citizenship rights,
they had to encounter ill-treatment, disdain and discrimination.
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