Up Country Tamils: Charting a New Future in Sri Lanka Table 1. Tamil population of Sri Lanka, 1881–2011 In contrast with other ethnic groups in Sri Lanka, the population of “Indian Tamils” barely grew between 1981 and 2011. The average annual growth rate for Indian Tamils was just 0.09 per cent, compared with 1.04 per cent for Sinhalas, 0.60 per cent for Sri Lankan Tamils, and 1.87 per cent for Muslims, still officially called “Sri Lankan Moors” (Bandara 2012, 68). The critical question here is why this was the case. Significant numbers of Up-country Tamils must have identified as Sri Lankan Tamil and many others migrated elsewhere, especially to India, either as refugees or repatriates, but one single reason is unlikely to explain this decline. This shift in ethnic identifications between 1981 and 2011 is further reflected in the number of Indian Tamils residing in the Northern Province. While the Indian Tamil population of Jaffna district was 0.7 per cent in 1981 and only 0.1 per cent in 2011, other districts showed even greater changes (Bandara 2012, 70). 10