1956 anti-Tamil pogrom
The 1956 anti-Tamil pogrom, also known as the Gal Oya riots, was the first organised pogrom against Sri Lankan Tamils in the Dominion of Ceylon. It began with anti-Tamil rioting in Colombo, followed by anti-Sinhalese rioting in Batticaloa. The worst of the violence took place in the Gal Oya valley, where local majority Sinhalese colonists and employees of the Gal Oya Development Board commandeered government vehicles, dynamite and weapons and massacred minority Tamils. It is estimated that over 150 people, mostly Tamils, had died during the violence. The police and army were eventually able to bring the situation under control. Background information By 1956, 50% of clerical jobs were held by Tamils, although they were a minority of the country's population. This was partly due to the availability of Western style education built by American missionaries in the Tamil dominant Jaffna peninsula during the colonial era. The overrepresentation of Tamils was used by populist Sinhalese politicians to come to political power by promising to elevate the Sinhalese people. The pro-Sinhalese nationalist Freedom Party came to power in 1956 promising to make Sinhala, the language of the majority Sinhalese people, the sole official language. Gal Oya settlement scheme Gal Oya settlement