LANGUAGE POLICY IN SRI LANKA CRITICAL JUNCTURES AND RESISTANCE FACTORS PREVENTING SUCCESSFUL IMPLEMENTATION

Abstract

Language rights have played a central role in the struggle for power and resources between the Sinhalese-Buddhist and the Tamil-Hindu and Tamil-Muslim communities in postcolonial Sri Lanka. The detrimental Sinhala Only Act that disregarded Tamil and consecrated Sinhala as the only national and official language of the country in 1956, exacerbated ethnic differences around language and has been identified as one of the root causes of the civil war that lasted almost three decades. The path that Sri Lanka took in making and adopting its language policy since independence is strewn with pivotal moments and critical junctures which exert an enduring influence on the country’s language policy direction. While both Sinhala and Tamil are now constitutionally enshrined as national and official languages of the country, historical, institutional and political resistance factors still undermine the successful implementation of Sri Lanka’s language policy and thus the effective building of post-war reconciliation. The changes needed at the institutional and political levels to address the shortcomings and failures of language policy implementation prove to be difficult to achieve, due to lack of political will, fears of fragmentation of territorial integrity and fears of undermining the Sinhalese-Buddhist hegemony.

Keywords: Sri Lanka, independence, postcolonial language policy, ethnic outbidding, reconciliation