State-engineered colonization has radically altered Sri Lanka’s eastern ethnic demographics
Evidence
The colonization policies successive governments have pursued since independence have been engineered by insisting “that such colonization is a Sinhalese entitlement on historical grounds, in which the resources of the state are dedicated to one community with no comparable benefits to others” (Peebles 1990: 52). This approach has allowed Sinhalese especially from the southwest to be transplanted to the east. Such colonization has altered radically the area’s ethnic demographics, proving that the nationalists’ aspirations are based on well-tested strategy. — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist Ideology, 271
The colonization policies successive governments have pursued since independence have been engineered by insisting “that such colonization is a Sinhalese entitlement on historical grounds, in which the resources of the state are dedicated to one community with no comparable benefits to others” (Peebles 1990: 52). … Such colonization has altered radically the area’s ethnic demographics, proving that the nationalists’ aspirations are based on well-tested strategy. — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist Ideology, 271
Categorization
- XREF: Eastward colonization to alter demographics parallels settler-colonial logics and connects to the reader’s manufactured-enmity question: material restructuring aimed at making a contested province ‘majority Sinhalese’ preempts rather than responds to ethnic threat. — connects to: Military security zones double as demographic colonization of contested Tamil land — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist…, 272; Sinhalese nationalists engineered demographic consolidation of Tamil regions through state land seizure.
- corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist…, 271