Anti-Tamil riots (known as pogroms or kalburu by Tamils) erupted in 1956, 1958, 1977, and 1981. The 1977 riots, following an election that saw Tamil political parties marginalized, were particularly brutal, with widespread looting and arson against Tamil businesses and homes in Colombo. These events destroyed Tamil faith in a parliamentary solution. Peaceful political movements, led by parties like the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) which had called for a separate state ( Tamil Eelam ), were crushed or ignored. A new generation turned to violence. Black July 1983 is the undisputed starting point of the civil war. The ambush of a Sri Lankan Army patrol in Jaffna by the main Tamil militant group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), triggered state-orchestrated, nation-wide pogroms. Thousands of Tamils were murdered, hundreds of thousands fled as refugees (many to India, the UK, Canada, and Australia), and the country descended into hell.
The pivotal event was the passage of the , making Sinhala the sole official language. This was a catastrophic blow to Tamil aspirations for equal status. Overnight, thousands of Tamils were forced out of government jobs and universities. The act was followed by state-sponsored colonization of Sinhalese farmers in the dry zone—land considered by Tamils to be part of their traditional homeland in the north and east. tamil sinhala