From Independence to Aragalaya

An indispensable political history of independent Sri Lanka, from the post-war years to the 2022 uprising. In February 1948, following centuries of colonial rule-by the Portuguese, Dutch and British successively-Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) gained its independence.Unlike neighbouring India, it did so peacefully; indeed, at the time, many considered it a model for emerging post-independence states, with every prospect of a prosperous and successful future.Yet, within ten years, the island nation was already experiencing its first serious open ethnic tensions, revolving around the relationship between the majority Sinhalese and minority Tamil populations. Events like the anti-Tamil riots of 1958 both shook the nation and prefigured the wider civil war that erupted in 1983 between government forces and the insurgent Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), led by Velupillai Prabhakaran-a hugely destructive conflict that raged for twenty-six years until the Tigers’ final demise in May 2009. Sta