Myanmar Tamils

Myanmar Tamils or Burmese Tamils are people of ethnic Tamil ancestry who reside in Myanmar. Tamils had the earliest contact with Myanmar during the first-second century CE.[1] The Tamil Chola empire had trade relationships with various Burmese kingdoms.[2] The large Tamil migration to Myanmar began during the British colonial era. Tamils worked as labourers in rice fields and rubber plantations. According to a report from 1966, there were 200,000 Tamils in Myanmar.[1] Since the Second World War, the number of Tamils has declined dramatically and many fled back to India and other countries. The Burma Bazaar in Tamil Nadu was set up in 1969 by Myanmar Tamil refugees.

Part of a series on
Tamils
History
Culture
People
Tamil diaspora
Tamil Australians, French Tamils, British Tamils, Tamil Italians, Tamil Indonesians, Tamil Canadians, Tamil Americans, Tamil South Africans, Myanmar Tamils, Tamil Mauritians, Tamil Germans, Tamil Pakistanis, Tamil Seychellois, Tamil New Zealanders, Swiss Tamils, Dutch Tamils
Religion
Politics
 Tamil portal

Between 1940 and 1942 many Malaysian and Myanmar Tamils were forced by Japanese occupiers to labour on a 415 kilometres (258 mi) railway track between Thailand and Burma. Over 150,000 Tamils died during the project by poisonous animals, illnesses, exhaustion and Japanese torture.[3]

Majority of the Tamils in Myanmar are Hindus and there are Tamil Hindu temples in Yangon. Many Myanmar Tamils have a Burmese name and some don't speak Tamil well or fluently, but they work to preserve their Tamil identity. Tamil community sometimes faces discrimination in Myanmar but less than other ethnic groups like the Rohingya people.[4]

After he seized power through a military coup in 1962, General Ne Win ordered a large-scale expulsion of Tamils. Although many Tamils had been living in Burma for generations and had integrated into Burmese society, they became a target for discrimination and oppression by the junta. This, along with a wholesale nationalisation of private ventures in 1964, led to the emigration of over 300,000 ethnic Tamils from Burma.[5] Many Tamils returned and were given 175 kyat for their trip to India. This caused a significant deterioration in Indian-Burmese relations and the Indian government arranged ferries and aircraft to lift Burmese of Tamil ethnicity out of Burma.[6]

See also

References
  1. Historical Dictionary of the Tamils (2007), Vijaya Ramaswamy, 258p.
  2. My Myanmar Years: A Diplomat’s Account of India’s Relations with the Region (2015), Preet Malik, 3 introduction
  3. "The real Kwai killed over 1.50 lakh Tamils". The Hindu. 27 August 2016. Retrieved 30 January 2017. Retrieved 30 January 2017
  4. "Myanmar's Tamil community works to maintain their culture". Mizzima.com. 13 February 2016. Retrieved 30 January 2017. Retrieved 30 January 2017
  6. "India and Burma: working on their relationship". The Irrawaddy. Vol. 7 no. 3. March 1999. Retrieved 3 January 2014.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.