ISI VR Hill Country Tamils of Sri Lanka: Towards Meaningful Citizenship 1. Introduction S tatelessness is a global phenomenon that has deprived numerous individuals and communities of dignity, rights and sustainable development, leaving stateless persons and communities further behind with each passing generation.1 The legacy of statelessness remains part of Sri Lanka’s post-independence history: a large population of Tamils residing in the ‘Hill Country’ was deprived of their citizenship in 1948 and continues to suffer structural discrimination and disadvantage today. This study attempts to tell the developmental and human rights story of this community by examining the enduring effects of their statelessness. Sri Lanka is often considered a ‘success story’ in addressing statelessness, as it eventually granted citizenship to over 90,000 stateless persons through the enactment of the Grant of Citizenship to Persons of Indian Origin Act, No. 35 of 2003 (GCPIO Act). The main beneficiaries of this legal reform project were from the Hill Country Tamil community, consisting mainly of descendants of immigrants from India who were brought to work on Sri Lanka’s coffee, tea and rubber plantations between 1837 and 1939. The community is identified in various ways: as ‘Indian Tamils’, ‘Indian Origin Tamils’, or ‘plantation Tamils’. Members of the community typically identify themselves as Malaiyaha Tamils (Hill Country Tamils).2 Hill Country Tamils have histor- ically lived on Sri Lanka’s tea plantations, where they have worked as a permanent plantation labour force. When Sri Lanka gained independence from Britain in 1948, Hill Country Tamils were denied citizenship in the new state. Amidst domestic political campaigns and pressure from the Indian government for a resolution, members of the Hill Country Tamil community had their citizenship restored through successive rounds of diplomatic agreements, political negotiations and law reform between the 1960s and the early 2000s. Despite positive law reform, Hill Country Tamils remain one of the most discriminated against and economically, socially and politically marginalised communities in the country. By many developmental indicators, this community is the ‘furthest behind’ in Sri Lanka. This study argues that the persistent marginalisation and underdevelopment experienced by the Hill Country Tamil community stems from long-standing structural discrimination, of which their deprivation of nationality was a central feature. The study attempts to examine this structural discrimination using the lens of statelessness. It will explore how the Hill Country Tamils’ statelessness intersected with more long-standing conditions of marginalisation and vulnerability engendered by the plantation system. In this context, the mere granting of ‘formal citizenship’ page 3