2021 STATELESSNESS AND THE CITIZENSHIP AMENDMENT ACT, 2019 169 Tamil militancy grew in Sri Lanka to counter Sinhalese dominance in State and polity, with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (“LTTE”) establishing themselves as the most critical group of the prevailing government. The LTTE primarily demanded for the creation of a separate Tamil nation, Eelam.76 The militancy groups embattled the Sinhala-dominated government for over three decades, punctuated by multiple failed peace talks.77 Amidst the ethnic violence which cost civilians their lives and property, thousands of Tamils fled the civil war and crossed the ocean into India seeking refuge.78 The fleeing groups primarily came into Tamil Nadu because they felt a deep bond of shared culture and language. In the aftermath of the Sri Lankan civil war, there are two main Sri Lankan Tamil clusters in India. The first group comprises the Estate Tamils, who were repatriated to India through pacts between India and Sri Lanka.79 The second group comprised of refugees fleeing the civil war, who were resettled in numerous camps by the Indian government (“Camp-Refugees”). They entered India in three waves starting in 1984, up to 2006, based on the ebb and flow of the Sri Lankan civil war.80 Over time, the Indian and Sri Lankan governments made several bilateral attempts to repatriate willing Sri Lankan Tamils from Indian refugee camps to Sri Lanka.81 However, political fallouts and the violence of the war marred 76 77 78 79 80 81 Rotberg (n 64); Fair (n 64); Shastri (n 69); Robert Kearney, ‘Ethnic Conflict and the Tamil Separatist Movement in Sri Lanka’ [1985] 25 Asian Survey 898; the LTTE demanded for a separate Tamil state in the Jaffna peninsula, the traditional homeland for Tamils, called “Eelam” as in Chowdhory (n 64). Chowdhory (n 64); Rotberg (n 64); Fair (n 64). Rotberg (n 64). Abhijit Dasgupta, ‘Repatriation of Sri Lankan Refugees: Unfinished Tasks’ [2003] 38 Economic and Political Weekly 2365; however, the term “repatriates” is somewhat misleading because neither Indian nor Sri Lankan governments considered their choices in the repatriation process. Interestingly enough, repatriates also distance themselves from Camp-Refugees. Ostensibly, they wish to dissociate from the poverty and the ad-hoc way of life in the camps. Instead, repatriates’ narratives in studies focus on resettlement into “respectable” neighbourhoods in Chennai and normalcy in everyday life, for instance, visiting Sri Lanka using their Indian passports like regular citizens as in Anne-Sophie Bentz and Anthony GoreauPonceaud, ‘To be or not to be a Refugee? Reflections on Refugeehood and Citizenship among Sri Lankan Tamils in India’ [2020] 24 Citizenship Studies 176. Chowdhory (n 64); Bentz and Goreau-Ponceaud (n 79); Pavithra Jayawardena ‘Sri Lankan Out-Migration: Five Key Waves Since Independence’ [2020] 1 University of Colombo Review 101; Himanshi Raizada, ‘Sri Lankan refugees in India: The Problem and the Uncertainty’ [2013] 1 International Journal of Peace and Development 1. Urmila Phadnis, ‘The Indo-Ceylon Pact and the “Stateless” Indians in Ceylon’ [1967] 7 Far Eastern Survey 226; Urmila Phadnis and Lalit Kumar, ‘The Sirimavo-Shastri Pact of 1964: Problems and Prosects of Implementation’ [1975] 31 India Quarterly: A Journal of International Affairs 249.