Thread by @cbkwgl

So, what is the problem with Sri Lanka? First of all, I will give you three maps. The first one is the demographic map of Sri Lanka, the second one is the map of Prabhakaran's Tamil Eelam. The third is religions in Sri Lanka.

A near 100% match in all three images. So, what's the inference? Sinhalese = Buddhists and Tamils = Hindus. So, Tamils are not us. That's the root cause of every problem Sri Lanka has. It's not that Sri Lanka is isolated from Tamil Country. For millenia, people moved in either

direction. Koneshwaram and the associated Shankari Shaktipeetham are some of the greatest Hindu temples. The last Kandy Nayak was not a Sinhalese and not even a Tamil - he is a Telugu. That closely knit they were. All problems started when the British opened the State Council

a public body with elected representatives in 1931. After 1936 elections, demands rose to replace English with Tamil and Sinhalese. By 1944, they became only Sinhalese and the Sinhalese chauvinism only grew with time. When Sri Lanka became independent, one of the first

laws passed was Ceylon Citizenship Act - it stipulates that you need to have documents to prove your parents were born in Sri Lanka. This excluded almost all of Indian Tamils from gaining citizenship even though they were the backbone of Sri Lankan economy for decades.

Another thing is, by virtue of their origins, they used to go back to Tamil Country to marry. And what of Sri Lankan Tamils. Where are the documents? In a village with 2% literacy and 1% migration, where exactly are the documents and who possesses them?

The impact of this is, of the 7 lakh Tamils (11% of population), only 5000 were eligible for citizenship. To avoid angering India and the world, they passed another act - granting citizenship for Indians and Pakistanis. That had income slab and educational qualification.

From then on, it was fish market business with India. In 1964, India accepted to take 550,000 and Sri Lanka was to provide citizenship to 300,000. The balance 150,000 were left stateless. They were given Indian citizenship in 1974.

Amidst all this, Sri Lanka was making life hell for the Tamils. In 1956, Sri Lanka declared Sinhala as the official language. Because of this, many Tamil speakers lost their jobs because their Sinhalese wasn't strong enough. Next was examination rules tweaked to favour the less

educated Sinhalese. Amidst all this, when there were rumours of a Communist Coup and India was protecting Sri Lankan government assets, Bangladesh War broke. Shamelessly, with India guarding Colombo Airport, Sri Lanka allowed Pakistani planes to land in Colombo Airport

to refuel!! With such a level of intolerance for anything Tamil or Indian, why would you be surprised when Sri Lankan Tamils launched a banner of insurrection and showed hell to Sri Lanka for almost 25 years? When LTTE troubles started, India scrapped off the 1974 agreement

in 1982. In 2003, to wean away people from LTTE, Sri Lanka had to give citizenship to all those people. In 1987, an India brokered peace deal resulting in the 13th Agreement in 1987. It spoke about Provincial Councils and having Tamil as a national language along with Sinhalese.

As late as 2016, Sri Lankan Tamils petitioned India to help facilitate implement the Amendment in full!! And when the Tamil rebellion erupted and IPKF were sucked in, what did Sri Lanka do? It armed LTTE to eject Indians from Sri Lanka!! What's the rationale?

If there is peace, there will be Tamils!! That's something Sri Lanka doesn't want. Neither they speak Sinhalese nor are they Buddhists. Eventually, when the LTTE was crushed with much brutality and the whole world was angry over the war crimes, Mahinda Rajapaksa approached

China for loans for reconstruction. Why China? Because pro-LTTE parties are in power in Delhi. And the downslide started. A small country with no resources to pay, Sri Lanka had no option but to be sucked into a debt trap diplomacy with Sri Lanka pawning national assets

to compensate for unviable projects like Hambantota Port which China leased to Chinese for 99 years as a way to settle the debt. The next government led by Maitripala Sirisena tried to make some amends but was largely ineffective.

When Mahindra Rajapaksa’s brother Gotabaya Rajapaksa became the President, it was a matter of time the pro-Chinese bias would surface. On the other hand, in 2015, Sri Lanka declared that it will be doing an internal enquiry on LTTE War Crimes

and in 2020, it acquitted all those charged in the 2015 trials and declared, Sri Lanka is effectively shutting down the investigations over LTTE War. By this time, Sri Lanka was sucked that deep into Chinese debts, coupled with corruption,

when Sri Lanka signed a pact with India and Japan to develop a container port, Colombo Port immediately erupted into labour protests backed by China. Sri Lanka declared there won't be foreign developers. This is in spite of the fact that 70% of Colombo's traffic is Indian.

What will happen if India decides to build it's own port bypassing Sri Lanka? Will the economy survive? One can never understand the rationale of escalating tensions with India. What explains this Totentanz? Just look at what and all Sri Lanka is doing.

Citing COVID, it cancelled Provincial Council Elections and is making noises over cancelling 13th Amendment itself. It wants India to extend a loan of 1 billion USD but India, which already gave 400 million USD asked it to follow IMF plan. Sri Lanka went to China.

After Indian Foreign Minister visited Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka suddenly tilted towards China. It returned the earlier loan which it took from India and scrapped the pact with India and Japan.

To provoke India further, it leased three islands to China North West of Jaffna, some 50-75 km from Indian border. India didn't tolerate Chinese submarines docking in Colombo, will it tolerate this? This is in spite India sending Sri Lanka vaccines when it asked for them.

I really don't understand this attitude. Sri Lanka cannot survive without India. In it's hatred for Sri Lankan Tamils whom they believe India will support, they are burning bridges with India. To achieve what? How will they survive if India blocks them or builds it's own port?

People speak about exodus from Pakistan. But it's just an exodus - coerced but there was no govt pressure. But, here in Sri Lanka, it's forced eviction by the state. You are ready to kick out 11% of your population and the world should say it's fine? Nothing works like that.