The Language Issue Caused Conflict in Sri Lanka.

The language issue caused conflict in Sri Lanka.
Under the British rule, only the Tamils could enter the government service and be promoted, since they were English – educated and English was the official language of Sri Lanka.
This caused unrest among the majority who were the Sinhalese as they could not read or write English well. Most of the extremely powerful jobs in the government were occupied by the Tamils. The policy of the university admission was based on merits and the examinations were in English. This benefited the Tamils and they were able to score well. The proportion of Tamils admitted to university was higher.  talk about the new language policy! Not JUST what was there before. After the government introduced new university admission criteria, a fixed number of places in the universities were reserved for the Sinhalese and admission was no longer based solely on academic results. When the official language was declared as Sinhala in 1956, the Tamils were upset as they were only given 3 years to learn Sinhala or else they would lose their jobs. This made it difficult for them to find jobs or be promoted, and they no longer enjoyed the privileges they once enjoyed. Although the Tamils resorted to a peaceful demonstration against the Official Language Act, they were disrupted by the Sinhalese. Riots occurred resulting to over a hundred deaths. In 1957, a pact to make Tamil the language of a national minority was signed. This was to allow the use of Tamil as a language of administration only in the northern and eastern parts of Sri Lanka where most Tamils lived. However, this caused more tension between the Sinhalese and the Tamils,  WHY? leading to more fighting and deaths.
herefore, language was one of the main causes of conflict between the Tamils and the Sinhalese of Sri Lanka as either way, both parties are at a disadvantage due to the change in the Sri Lanka official language. As they saw themselves being discriminated against the new...