1977 anti-Tamil pogrom

After the independence and especially after the 1956 Sinhala Only Act, Tamil parties were asking for more power for the North and east of Sri Lanka where Tamils are the majority. Some had gone further, asking for a federal system. There were many agreements (at least two) with the Prime ministers, but nothing implemented. Finally, the desperate Tamil leaders decided that there was no point in co-existence and only solution was a separate state. In 1974, all major Tamil parties representing Tamils in the North east came under one forum (named as Tamil United Liberation Front - TULF) and in 1976 they adopted a resolution at their party convention in Vaddukoddai, Jaffna calling for a separate state (Tamil Eelam).

The election of 1977 took place on July 21, 1977. The Tamil districts voted almost entirely for the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF),[5] a political party in Sri Lanka to openly advocate separatism of the Tamil regions of the country.

For some years, there had been sporadic attacks on army and policemen in the Jaffna region, by militant Tamil youth groups which consisted a handful of members advocating separation through violent means. The new prime minister, Junius Richard Jayewardene, was convinced there was a link between the TULF and the militants, and wanted to suppress both.

Prior to the 1977 elections, JR Jayawardene promised that he would give the Police a week's leave so that his supporters could attack members of opposing parties. After his victory, his Government launched unprecedented state violence against the opposition, targeting supporters of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, the Lanka Sama Samaja Party, the Communist Party of Sri Lanka, and the People's Democratic Party. In particular, some 9,000 families of supporters of LSSP leader N.M. Perera in Yatiyantota were driven from their homes, many of which were destroyed.

There were different beliefs on how the riots started. Some believe they started when there was a dispute that began when four policemen entered a carnival without tickets. Apparently the policemen were inebriated and proceeded to attack those who asked for tickets. The conflict escalated and the policemen were beaten up by the public and in retaliation the police opened fire.

Others have the view that the carnival incident was a pretext, inquiries revealing that it was conducted in an organized manner and was hence a pre-planned attack. The riot started on August 12, 1977, within less than a month of the new government taking office.

Walter Schwarz wrote in Tamils of Sri Lanka, Minority Rights Group Report 1983':[1]

...'The trouble (in 1977) began in Jaffna, capital of the Northern province, when Sinhala policemen, believed to have been loyal to the defeated Sri Lanka Freedom Party of Mrs. Bandaranike, acted provocatively by bursting into a Tamil carnival. In the violent altercation that followed the police opened fire and four people were killed. A wave of rioting followed, spreading quickly to the south. Among 1,500 people arrested were several well known Sinhalese extremists, accused of instigating violence against Tamils.

Edmund Samarakkody in Workers Vanguard (New York) reported':[2]

The outbreak in mid-August (1977) of the anti-Tamil pogrom (the third such outbreak in two decades) has brought out the reality that the Tamil minority problem in Sri Lanka has remained unresolved now for nearly half a century, leading to the emergence of a separatist movement among the Tamils. As on previous occasions, what took place recently was not Sinhalese – Tamil riots, but an anti-Tamil pogrom. Although Sinhalese were among the casualties, the large majority of those killed, maimed and seriously wounded are Tamils. The victims of the widespread looting are largely Tamils. And among those whose shops and houses were destroyed, the Tamils are the worst sufferers. Of the nearly 75,000 refugees, the very large majority were Tamils, including Indian Tamil plantation workers...

Hundreds of Tamil women were also raped during the pogrom. The following Tamil victims of rape are from the Sansoni commission report of 1980:[6]

• Manonmani, daughter of Rengasamy, who was living with her parents at Bollegala, Kelaniya. She was gang raped by two Sinhalese men in her own home after her parents were threatened with violence to leave the house. This occurred at about 6 pm on 20 August 1977.[6]
• Mrs. Jeganathan Seetha from the Neboda Estate was dragged away and raped by two Sinhalese men on 22 August when she went to the aid of her uncle Perumal who was being stabbed during an attack on the estate lines.[6]
• Mrs. Letchumi Ramalingam from the Frotoft Estate, Ramboda was gang raped by three Sinhalese men during a mob attack near Nillala estate on 18 August. Her jewellery was also stolen.[6]
• 18 year old R. Thanaletehumi who worked on Lolgama Division. On 19 August, she saw persons coming from Galabodawatte Colony. They attacked her line room, and 6 men carried her to the bushes and raped her.[6]
• On the evening of 18 August about 35 Sinhalese went to the house of P. Ramasami Pillai in Kotagoda, Matale. He was hit and made to fall down. His house was looted and his six daughters, between the ages of 27–12 years were taken to a jungle 500 yards away and gang raped by about 8-9 men.[6]
• In Ibbankatuwa, some 50 estate Tamil families cultivated about 300 acres there. On the night of 17 August, their houses were all set on fire. When the Tamils eventually returned to their homes they were attacked by an armed Sinhala mob. 5 Tamil men were stabbed and clubbed to death. The witness of this attack spoke of 3 cases of rape. This included his own sister-in-law Seetha Letchumi who was raped by one of the killers Wije. Another girl named Desy was raped by 5 Sinhala men; and yet another girl Mariamma was also raped.[6]
• On Karadupona Estate a Tamil worker Raju was murdered by a Sinhala mob. Another Tamil worker S. Sellayi said that she was raped by the son of Baby Nona, a Sinhalese worker. Another Tamil worker S.Kandaie complained of being raped by a Sinhala estate watcher Medduma.[6]
• P. Sinnakaruppan, a worker on Rosyth Estate, Kegalle stated that 4 Sinhala men dragged her to the jungle and raped her on the 20th August following attacks on their lines.[6]

In a letter addressed to President J. R. Jayewardene, the leader of the main Tamil party, A. Amirthalingam accused Sinhala hoodlums of raping around 200 women during the 1977 pogrom.[7] His wife Mangayarkarasi Amirthalingam emotionally recounted some incidents of rape that occurred during the 1977 pogrom and said "Tamil women could not walk the streets during nights in safety."[8]

Questioned in Parliament by Amirthalingam, Prime Minister Jayewardene was defiant, blaming the riots on the TULF:

People become restive when they hear that a separate state is to be formed. Whatever it is, when statements of that type are made, the newspapers carry them throughout the island, and when you say that you are not violent, but that violence may be used in time to come, what do you think the other people in Sri Lanka will do? How will they react? If you want to fight, let there be a fight; if it is peace, let there be peace; that is what they will say. It is not what I am saying. The people of Sri Lanka say that.

Finally, on August 20, the government ordered curfews and deployed the military to quell the riots.

More than 75,000 plantation Tamils became victims of racial and ethnic violence and were forced to relocate to parts of North and East Sri Lanka. The events during the pogrom radicalized Tamil youths, convincing many that the TULF's strategy of using legal and constitutional means to achieve independence would never work, and armed insurrection was the only way forward. The outbreak of the pogrom highlighted the TULF's inability to provide safety for the Tamils. It was only after the pogrom, the TELO and LTTE, the two major Tamil liberation groups began an active campaign for a separate Tamil Eelam. Uma Maheswaran, a TULF activist, joined the LTTE in 1977 and was made the organization's chairman by Velupillai Prabhakaran. Many such Tamil activists began to join various Tamil militant groups to fight for separate statehood.[3]

• Black July
• Ethnic problem in Sri Lanka
• State terrorism in Sri Lanka
• List of riots and pogroms in Sri Lanka

• Chattopadhyaya, Haraprasad (1994). Ethnic Unrest in Modern Sri Lanka: An Account of Tamil-Sinhalese Race Relations. South Asia Books. ISBN 81-85880-52-2.
• Seneratne, Jagath P. (1998). Political Violence in Sri Lanka, 1977-1990: Riots, Insurrections, Counter-Insurgencies, Foreign Intervention. VU University Press. ISBN 90-5383-524-5.