Understanding The Demographic Decline Of Tamils In Sri Lanka

By Krishna Kalaichelvan – July 29, 2014 

Dr. Krishna Kalaichelvan

“A virtuous wife should never do anything displeasing to the husband who took her hand in marriage, when he is alive or dead…When her husband is dead she may fast as much as she likes, (living) on auspicious flowers, roots, and fruits but she should not even mention the name of another man. She should be long-suffering until death, self-restrained, and chaste, striving (to fulfil) the unsurpassed duty of women who have one husband” – The Laws of Manu, verse 156-158.

Since the destruction of the LTTE in May 2009, the Eelam Tamil polity’s constant solicitude is all about its lost collective power projection.  The crisis was exacerbated by Mahinda regime’s deliberate policy of instilling insecurity in the post-war Tamil regions by continuing military occupation. Also the Tamil public space has been inundated with the troublesome prospect that the Tamil population is on the decline in Sri Lanka, especially in the North and East. In the backdrop of Tamil nationalists’ claim of ‘Structural Genocide’, they view the shrinking of Tamil population as politically ominous to their project.

It is in this context, the Jaffna Science Association organized “popular talk” titled “Future of Tamils: A demographic perspective” by Dr Murali Vallipuranathan was held at the University of Jaffna campus on 26/06/2014. Though the transcript of the speech was not available in the Internet, but few online Tamil media outlets reported that speech in detail. The UK based Global Tamil News (GTN) website originally reported Dr Vallipuranathan’s speech, and few other Tamil websites had reproduced that reportage. Dr Vallipuranathan, a distinguished public health professional attached to the Ministry of Health, has provided links to these websites favourably in his Facebook, therefore I presume that the GTN reportage on the speech as accurate, since he didn’t claim of any erroneous reporting by the GTN.

The purpose of this note is to highlight the salient points of Dr Vallipuranathan’s presentation, and intend to problematise some his claims and suggestions. The texts in italics are translation of the GTN reportage. Towards the end of this note I present my critique.

The primary objective of Dr Vallipuranathan’s presentation seems to be to ring alarm bells on the declining trend of ‘Sri Lankan Tamils’ (here after Tamils) population size and the risk of ‘Sri Lankan Tamils’ being pushed down to third place by the continuously growing ‘Sri Lanka Moor’ (here after Muslims) population. He provides us with population trajectories for each ethnic group based on current growth rate by utilizing the historically available census data.

According to this projection, by 2031, the Tamils population will be 10.3% and the Muslim population will be 10.8% of the total population. In other words Tamils are facing the prospect of being pushed down to third place in Sri Lanka’s demographic ranking. Obviously this has many political implications, and likely to complicate the balance of power in the North and East. However, I cease the discussion on the political ramifications of this demographic shift, and continue to focus on Dr Vallipuranathan’s presentation.

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