Rameswaram is a municipality in the Ramanathapuram district of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is on Pamban Island separated from mainland India by the Pamban channel and is about 40 kilometres from Mannar Island, Sri Lanka. It is in the Gulf of Mannar, at the tip of the Indian peninsula. Pamban Island, also known as Rameswaram Island, is connected to mainland India by the Pamban Bridge. Rameswaram is the terminus of the railway line from Chennai and Madurai. Together with Varanasi, it is considered to be one of the holiest places in India to Hindus and is part of the Char Dham pilgrimage.
The Indo-Sri Lanka Peace Accord was an accord signed in Colombo on 29 July 1987, between Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Sri Lankan President J. R. Jayewardene. The accord was expected to resolve the Sri Lankan Civil War by enabling the thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of Sri Lanka and the Provincial Councils Act of 1987. Under the terms of the agreement, Colombo agreed to a devolution of power to the provinces, the Sri Lankan troops were to be withdrawn to their barracks in the north and the Tamil rebels were to surrender their arms.
Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) was the Indian military contingent performing a peacekeeping operation in Sri Lanka between 1987 and 1990. It was formed under the mandate of the 1987 Indo-Sri Lankan Accord that aimed to end the Sri Lankan Civil War between Sri Lankan Tamil militant groups such as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Sri Lankan military.
Indian Tamils of Sri Lanka are Tamil people of Indian origin in Sri Lanka. They are also known as Malayaga Tamilar, Hill Country Tamils, Up-Country Tamils or simply Indian Tamils. They predominantly descend from workers sent from Southern India to Sri Lanka in the 19th and 20th centuries to work in coffee, tea and rubber plantations. Some also migrated on their own as merchants and as other service providers. These Tamil speakers mostly live in the central highlands, also known as the Malayakam or Hill Country, yet others are also found in major urban areas and in the Northern Province. Although they are all termed as Tamils today, some have Telugu and Malayalee origins as well as diverse South Indian caste origins. They are instrumental in the plantation sector economy of Sri Lanka. In general, socio-economically their standard of living is below that of the national average and they are described as one of the poorest and most neglected groups in Sri Lanka. In 1964 a large percentage were repatriated to India, but left a considerable number as stateless people. By the 1990s most of these had been given Sri Lankan citizenship. Most are Hindus with a minority of Christians and Muslims amongst them. There are also a small minority followers of Buddhism among them. Politically they are supportive of trade union-based political parties that have supported most of the ruling coalitions since the 1980s.
The Tamil diaspora refers to descendants of the Tamil immigrants who emigrated from their native lands in the southern Indian subcontinent to other parts of the world. They are found primarily in Malaysia, Arab states of the Persian Gulf, South Africa, North America, Western Europe, and Singapore.
Sri Lankan Tamils, also known as Ceylon Tamils or Eelam Tamils, are Tamils native to the South Asian island state of Sri Lanka. Today, they constitute a majority in the Northern Province, form the plurality in the Eastern Province and are in the minority throughout the rest of the country. 70% of Sri Lankan Tamils in Sri Lanka live in the Northern and Eastern provinces.
Sri Lankan Mukkuvar is a Tamil speaking ethnic group found in the Western and Eastern coastal regions of Sri Lanka. They are primarily concentrated in the districts of Puttalam, Batticaloa, and Amparai.
Sri Lankan Moors are an ethnic minority group in Sri Lanka, comprising 9.3% of the country's total population. Most of them are native speakers of the Tamil language. The majority of Moors who are not native to the North and East also speak Sinhalese as a second language. They are predominantly followers of Islam. The Sri Lankan Muslim community is mostly divided between Sri Lankan Moors, Indian Moors, Sri Lankan Malays and Sri Lankan Bohras. These groups are differentiated by lineage, language, history, culture and traditions.
The origins of the Sri Lankan Civil War lie in the continuous political rancor between the majority Sinhalese and the minority Sri Lankan Tamils. According to Jonathan Spencer, a social anthropologist from the School of Social and Political Studies of the University of Edinburgh, the war is an outcome of how modern ethnic identities have been made and re-made since the colonial period, with the political struggle between minority Tamils and the Sinhalese-dominant government accompanied by rhetorical wars over archeological sites and place name etymologies, and the political use of the national past.
Operation Poomalai, also known as Eagle Mission 4, was the codename assigned to a mission undertaken by the Indian Air Force for airdropping supplies over the besieged town of Jaffna in Sri Lanka on 4 June 1987 to support the Tamil Tigers during the Sri Lankan Civil War.
Eelam War I is the name given to the initial phase of the armed conflict between the government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE.
Nainativu, is a small but notable island off the coast of Jaffna Peninsula in the Northern Province, Sri Lanka. The name of the island alludes to the folklore inhabitants, the Naga people. It is home to the Hindu shrine of Nagapooshani Amman Temple; one of the prominent 64 Shakti Peethas, and the Buddhist shrine Nagadeepa Purana Viharaya.
Elangai Murugesu Vijayaretnam Naganathan was a Ceylon Tamil physician, politician, senator and Member of Parliament.
The Ceylon Citizenship Act No. 18 of 1948 was a controversial law passed by the Ceylon Parliament which did not grant citizenship to Indian Tamils, who were 11% of the population.
Sri Lankans in India mainly refer to Tamil people of Sri Lankan origin in India and non resident Sri Lankans. They are partly who migrated to India and their descendants and mostly refugees from Sri Lanka because of the recently concluded Sri Lankan Civil War. There is also a small population of Sinhalese people in India, numbering about 3,500 and mostly located in Delhi and Chennai. 57 Sri Lankans have become Indian citizens through naturalization since 2017. According to records with the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, as on January 1,2021, there were 58,843 Sri Lankan refugees staying in 108 refugee camps in Tamil Nadu and 54 in Odisha.
Visvanathan Dharmalingam was a Sri Lankan Tamil politician and Member of Parliament.
Tamil settlement of Sri Lanka refers to the settlement of Tamils, or other Dravidian peoples, from Southern India to Sri Lanka. Due to Sri Lanka's close proximity to Southern India, Dravidian influence on Sri Lanka has been very active since the early Iron Age or megalithic period.
The Jaffna Tamil dialect is a Tamil dialect native to the Jaffna Peninsula and is the primary dialect used in Northern Sri Lanka. It is the oldest and most archaic of Tamil dialects in Sri Lanka and India. It is also very refined and considered to preserve many antique features of Old Tamil that predate Tolkāppiyam, the grammatical treatise of Tamil. The Jaffna Tamil dialect retained many forms of words and phonemes which were used in Sangam literature such as Tirukkuṛaḷ and Kuṟuntokai, which has gone out of vogue in most Indian Tamil dialects.
The Sirima–Shastri Pact or Srimavo-Shastri Pact was an agreement that was signed between Sirimavo Bandaranaike, the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, and Lal Bahadur Shastri, the Prime Minister of India, on 30 October 1964. Officially, it was known as Agreement on Persons of Indian Origin in Ceylon. It was a significant agreement in determining the status and future of people of Indian origin in Ceylon.
Contributions to popular culture involving direct reference to the Sri Lankan Tamil community in Indian cinema are listed below. All communities that speak Tamil and originally came from Sri Lanka are included. Tamils of Sri Lanka today are a trans-national minority and are found across the globe. While most films on the topic are made in Tamil cinema, there has also been Malayalam and Hindi content on the area.
