SINHALESE AND TAMIL NATIONALISM AS POSTCOLONIAL POLITICAL PROJECTS FROM ABOVE, 1948-1983

This article examines Sinhalese and Tamil nationalism in Sri Lanka in the period from independence in 1948 to the rise of militant Tamil sep aratist nationalism in the early 1980s. Inspired by recent development s in political geography, the core of the argument is that Sinhalese a nd Tamil nationalism represent post-colonial political projects where nationalist material and discursive practices have been initiated by s egments of the dominant class for the purpose of mobilization within p olitical alliances. More specifically, it is argued that Sri Lankan po st-colonial politics has been characterized by three kinds of politica l alliances; ethnic class alliances, political patron-client networks and strategic government alliances. The emergence and radicalization o f Sinhalese and Tamil nationalist politics should be understood as a m atter of continuities and changes in the material and discursive pract ices within these alliances. In the early post-colonial period, this p olitics of alliances ensured a degree of political participation and s ocial redistribution, and as such served to defuse ethnic and class te nsions. In the late post-colonial period, the neglect of the material and discursive practices of the ethnic class alliances and particularl y the strategic government alliances undermined the legitimacy of the political system and led to a radicalization of Tamil nationalist dema nds in the 1970s and the emergence of militant Tamil nationalism from below in the 1980s. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved .