According to the Economist, there are 1.6 million Indian migrants in Sri Lanka, making us the third destination behind the US and Malaysia. I’m pretty sure this is wrong. I think they’re referring to historical migrants but even then, Indian Tamils make up less than a million people (860,000, or 4.6%). That’s 2001 data, but I don’t think they’ve, like, doubled since then, nor do I think there has been more recent migration.
Am I missing something here? 1.6 million India migrants in SL would be about 8% of the population. And I also feel like I would have noticed. Who or what are they counting? I checked the sources and they’re paid. What am I missing here?
they may have considered upcountry tamils working in the plantations as indian.
If a paid source was used then they would have transposed the Sri Lankan Tamil revised figure of 1.6M and incorrectly classified them with the Indian rather than using the current Upcountry Tamil speaking estate sector.
None of this matters to those who are now living here, as a few generations later the place of origin seems to be irrelevant, except to those who wish to impose hegemony.
Post a comment and ask them how they arrived at the number.
The Indian Tamils and some small communities, Parsi’s, Borah’s, Memon’s, Afghan’s Gujarati’s, Sindhi’s could be counted as such, possibly the rest of the Tamils, even the Sinhalese.
Sri Lanka seems to be the only South Asian country included, but as Sri Lankan’s and Indians are similar in appearance its a bit difficult to distinguish. Properly speaking most people in South Asia are of ‘Indian’ origin, but politically its a bit contentious to say out loud, which is why Pakistan and Bangladesh are not included.
Perhaps the definition used by India when conferring the status of OCI (overseas Citizen of India) could be used?
http://www.hcicolombo.org/index.php?option=com_pages&id=42
Again Pakistan and Bangladesh are specifically excluded.
Look at the anguish! *ANGUISH!*
Its got to be old incorrect data, just ironic. We fixed that disgusting Citizenship Act fuckery a while ago. But that’s it: we still have a defacto slave workforce working on Tea Plantations.