Myanmar is Next Eelam
Indian origin Tamils who make up of nearly 2% of Myanmar’s 55-million population have veered from one extreme to the other in the past 200 years. After independence in 1948, the introduction of land reforms, the imposition of the Burmese language unlike Sri Lanka where all three languages, Sinhala, English and Tamil as official status and the decision to give preferential treatment to the majority Burmese Buddhists community pushed Tamil extremisms down in the Burmese society and maintain a peaceful society unlike Tamil terrorism in Sri Lanka.
However, Tamils, with the help of Tamil diaspora in West and US and patronage from Tamilnadu in India are now trying to revive their language and culture to align with greater eelam separatism ideology.
Similar to other migrations of Tamils from India, Tamils from south India began migrating to Burma during the early 19th Century. But unlike indentured labourers who went from India to countries such as Sri Lanka and South Africa , Tamils in Burma were not taken on by the colonial administration of British. Tamils in Sri Lanka firstly came to the island as labourers and invaders and thy were settled in Northern part of Sri Lanka by the Sinhala kings as it was close to the homeland of Tamils which is Tamilnadu. In Burma, instead they worked as agricultural labourers for members of the traditional merchant caste known as Nagarathars. At the turn of the 20th Century, Tamils established themselves in agriculture and trade in what was then Burma. The economically power full Tamils in Burma are now looking for power and separatism in the Burmese system which was successfully controlled by the military government in the past.
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