168 SOCIO-LEGAL REVIEW VOL. 17 plantations.67 While the two groups of Tamils share a common language and are predominantly Hindus, they have separate identities.68 Since there is no single cause that led to the Sri Lankan civil war, it is helpful to view the situation holistically, as an occurrence caused due to a multitude of reasons.69 First, Sinhalese political parties dominated electoral politics.70 Even the most prominent Tamil party, the Tamil United Liberation Front, failed to muster votes in the 1977 and 1989 general elections.71 As a result, Tamils could not find a voice in law-making or key governmental positions in Sri Lanka. Second, armed with dominance in the state executive and the legislature, the Sinhalese government enacted a new constitution which declared Sinhalese as the official language,72 and Buddhism as the state religion.73 This constitution created a furore among Tamils, who viewed it as a direct attack on their language and religion.74 Third, the Sinhalese government enacted a citizenship law to strip Estate Tamils of citizenship.75 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 Rotberg (n 64). Wolozin (n 6). Wolozin (n 6); Rotberg (n 64); Fair (n 64); Ahilan Kadirgamar, ‘Polarization, Civil War and Persistent Majoritarianism in Sri Lanka’ in Thomas Carothers and Andrew O’Donohue (ed), Political Polarization in South and Southeast Asia: Old Divisions, New Dangers (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace 2020); Amita Shastri, ‘Estate Tamils, The Ceylon Citizenship Act of 1948 and Sri Lankan Politics’ [1999] 8 Contemporary South Asia 65. Rotberg (n 64); Fair (n 64). Fair (n 64); K Mohanasundram, ‘Tamil Nadu and LTTE: Changing trends in ethnic Relationships’ [1985] 69 Proceedings of the Indian History Congress 1161; Sonia Bouffard and David Carment, ‘The Sri Lanka Peace Process: A Critical Review’ [2006] 1 Journal of South Asian Development 151; Nuwan Senaratna, ‘A Brief History of Sri Lankan Parliamentary Elections’ (Medium, 17 December 2019) <https://medium.com/on-politics/a-brief-history-of-sri-lankan-parliamentary-elections-ea14a98afcca> accessed 28 July 2021. Constitution of Sri Lanka (Ceylon) 1972, art 7; the language policy had far-reaching consequences; for instance, it significantly reduced Tamils’ strength in civil services and allowed the Sinhalese to ‘take-over’ the schooling system as in Wolozin (n 6); Grace Pieris ‘The Contribution of Education to Tamil Separatism and to the Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka’ [2019] 16 Aleph, UCLA Undergraduate Research Journal for the Humanities and Social Sciences 145. Constitution of Sri Lanka (Ceylon) 1972, art 6. Wolozin (n 6); Rotberg (n 64); Fair (n 64); Shastri (n 69). Rotberg (n 64); Chowdhory (n 64); Rashmi Dias and others, Hill Country Tamils of Sri Lanka: Towards Meaningful Citizenship (2019); Ceylon Citizenship Act, 1948; Gerrard Khan, ‘Citizenship and Statelessness in South Asia’, Working Paper No. 47 Tufts University (2001) <https://www.unhcr.org/research/working/3bf0ff124/citizenship-statelessness-south-asia-gerrard-khan.html> accessed 28 July 2021; citizenship was available only by establishing descendants who were Sri Lankans, which was impossible for Estate Tamils whose forefathers were Indian citizens as in Shastri (n 69); the Supreme Court of Ceylon found that government officials were trying to intentionally reject Estate Tamils’ applications while implementing the Ceylon Citizenship Act, 1948 as in Wolozin (n 6); Shastri (n 69); Soosey Fernand v Commissioner for Registration of Indian and Pakistani Residents (1955) NLR 57 and Duraisamy v Commissioner for Registration of Indian and Pakistani Residents (1955) NLR 56 as in Luwie Ganeshathasan and Asanga Welikala, Report on Citizenship Law: Sri Lanka (2017) <https://cadmus.eui.eu/bitstream/handle/1814/46448/RSCAS_GLOBALCIT_ CR_2017_10.pdf> accessed 28 July 2021.