Hill Country Life

2023-2026 Who are Malaiyaha Tamils ? The first generation of Malaiyaha Tamils were brought to Sri Lanka (Then Ceylon) from South India by the British colonisers in the first half of the 19th century to work on the plantations. The famine and landlessness in South India at the time forced them to seek for another life in Sri Lanka. They were transported by boats from India to the north shores of Mannar , and they took a long journey through jungles to the island’s central highlands. Throughout the journey many lives lost to the sea, wild animals and diseases. Local leaders stripped out their citizenship in Ceylon right after the country was granted independence in 1948. India and Sri Lanka signed several pacts in order to resolve the community’s citizenship issue resulting families being split and forcefully deported, never to see each other again. The community was fully granted Sri Lankan citizenship only in 2003. It is with the excessive state revenue generated by the Malaiyaha Tamils working in the plantation estates, mass social welfare services such as free education were established. However, Malaiyaha Tamil community still have a limited access to these services. Unlike the rest of the country this community is governed by the estates despite having franchise. Despite being bounded to the land they work on and its owner and cut off from the rest of the world, Malaiyaha Tamils have initiated struggles against lower wages and living conditions throughout the history. Malaiyaha Tamil have demanded to be identified as ‘Malaiyaha Tamils, instead of ‘Indian Tamil’, ‘Plantation Tamils’, ‘Upcountry Tamils’ etc. Right to land has been a long and core demand of the community. However, they are still denied proper land rights and confined to live in slave-like conditions. In recent years, they have been victims of climate-change as most of them are living in the mountains, facing disasters like cyclone-Ditwa hit the island late 2025. In the present day, Malaiyaha Tamils are living as one of the most marginalized and ignored community in Sri Lanka while being backbone of the country’s economy.