IndiaandAND⤬THE JUNCTION
5 SHARED EVENTSSri Lanka

Entangled histories

5 events in which either nation’s sourced chronicle names the other — including under earlier names of the same state. Each is the same record, with the same sources, as on its own chronicle; nothing here was written for this page.

ONE SPINE OF YEARS · TWO WALLS OF EVENTS · IND LEFT · LKA RIGHT

1. from c. 2nd century BCE

   Hydraulic civilisation and South Indian invasions

   Anuradhapura's kings build vast reservoir-and-channel systems to irrigate the dry plain, while recurrent invasions from South India culminate in the Chola conquest and the abandonment of the capital around 1017.

   Culture & Ideas · from the Sri Lanka chronicle · Anuradhapura and the Coming of Buddhism · REFS 2 — Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka, Sacred City of Anuradhapura

2. 1830s onward

   Plantation economy and Tamil labour migration

   British coffee and later tea estates transform the highlands; indentured South Indian Tamil labourers are brought in to work them, forming the Indian Tamil community of the plantation districts.

   Economy & Trade · from the Sri Lanka chronicle · British Ceylon and the Road to Independence · REFS 1 — Sri Lanka: History

3. 1949

   Indian Tamil plantation workers disenfranchised

   The estate workforce brought from South India is stripped of the vote a year after independence — the opening move of a nationalism that alienated the Tamil minority.

   Politics & Power · from the Sri Lanka chronicle · British Ceylon and the Road to Independence · REFS 1 — Sri Lanka country profile

4. 1987

   The Indo-Lanka accords and the Indian peacekeepers

   Accords create new councils for the Tamil north and east and bring in an Indian peacekeeping force, which spends three years bogged down in the fighting it came to end.

   Politics & Power · from the Sri Lanka chronicle · Republic, Civil War and the Modern Nation · REFS 1 — Sri Lanka country profile

5. 1990

   Indian withdrawal and the expulsion of northern Muslims

   Indian troops leave and the war escalates; the LTTE expels thousands of Muslims from the northern districts.

   Peoples & Migration · from the Sri Lanka chronicle · Republic, Civil War and the Modern Nation · REFS 1 — Sri Lanka country profile