Diversity In A Nation State

A nation state is a group of people who share common bonds and live within a geographical territory under a system of government (S4 Integrated Humanities, 2016). The government of a nation state should provide for its people in the best possible way. Diversity refers to recognizing that each individual is unique, with their own differences, be it their race, ethnicity, religious beliefs or ideologies. When there is diversity in a nation state, there is bound to be disagreements, since different groups of people will have different opinions with others, which may escalate into conflict. A multiculturalist perspective should be attained by a nation in order to deal with cultural and ethnic diversity. In this essay, I will be focusing on how

The government only gave citizenship to those who were born or those who’s ancestors were born in Sri Lanka (S4 Integrated Humanities, 2016). And because many of the Indian Tamils were brought over by the British during the colonial era to work, and not born in Sri Lanka, many Tamils became stateless. 350,000 of them were sent back to India, while the rest was awarded citizenship over a period of time ( S4 Integrated Humanities, 2016). This caused the Tamils to be unable to vote for a representative in parliament, and with lesser Tamil representatives, their concerns and needs were overlooked. This caused distrust between the Tamils and the government, which only grew in the following years.

The Sinhala Only Policy was enacted in 1965, making Sinhala the official language. During the colonial period, the British made english the official language. However, after independence, the majority of Sinhalese felt that the use of English gave the Tamils majority of the power, and giving them hold over the civil administration ( S4 Integrated Humanities, 2016). In order to satisfy the majority Sinhala’s desire for a shift in political power, the policy stated that civil servants were required to learn Sinhalese in three years to keep their job (S4 Integrated Humanities,

This required Tamils to score a much higher score than the Sinhalese to gain a place in university ( S4 Integrated Humanities, 2016). Before that, the admissions were based on meritocracy and English proficiency. The Tamils tended to score well in entrance exams and many of them studied in university. But this policy resulted in many Tamil youth’s being deprived of a tertiary education, resulting in resentment toward the government by the youths. This policy put strain on the relationship between the Tamils and the Sinhalese, as the Tamils felt that they were being discriminated against as a minority. The youths who felt oppressed by the policies that were prejudiced against tamils organized themselves into a group named the Liberation of Tamil Tigers Elam (LTTE) whose sole purpose was to fight for Tamils’ rights (S4 Integrated Humanities, 2016). They engaged in violent conflict on several occasions, later on leading to a civil war between the Sinhalese and Tamils (S4 Integrated Humanities, 2016).

The failure of good governance by Sri Lanka in terms of participation, the rule of law and equity caused the rise in conflict. Along with disagreements between the Tamils and Sinhalese rife throughout the years, fueled by the poorly made policies with obvious discrimination