The Anti-Development Machine
by People for Equality and Relief in Lanka, January 2026
Examining Sri Lanka’s State-Led Land Dispossession and Anti-Development Policies Targeting Eelam Tamils
Full report: PEARL_Sinhalization-as-an-anti-development-machine_report
Case Study: Tamil Dairy Farmers’ Protest in Mayilaththamadu-Madhavanai,
Batticaloa PEARL_Sinhalization-as-an-anti-development-machine_CASE-STUDY
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This report is part of the Sinhalization series and builds on the themes of PEARL’s 2022 report,
State-Sponsored Sinhalization in the North-East.1 Sinhalization is understood as the use of state
power to facilitate Sinhala-Buddhist control and domination of the North-East of Sri Lanka in
order to erase the Tamil-speaking character of the North-East. The processes of Sinhalization
begin with asserting control over land but extend to coercive processes of economic and
cultural usurpation. It involves dispossessing Tamil populations of their ownership and access
to land, so that the land, its resources, and its potential economic value can be brought under
Sinhala-Buddhist control. It also involves dispossessing Tamils of their cultural and religious
sites, so that these sites can be re-inscribed as Sinhala-Buddhist cultural and historical
property. Sinhalization is a form of ethno-national conquest that often involves ethnic
cleansing and is perpetrated coercively with state power. Since the early 1980s, powerful state
elites have also used Sinhalization as a means of obstructing Tamil demands for autonomy and
self-rule. They have used state power to coercively establish the Sinhala-Buddhist character of
the North-East and thereby effectively foreclose the possibility of Tamil self-rule.
Section 1 sets out the long history of Sinhalization. It shows that since the 1930s,
Sinhala-Buddhist state elites have used state resources and power to exert Sinhala-Buddhist
control and dominance over the Tamil-speaking areas. From the 1980s onwards, the Buddhist
clergy as well as private commercial interests have also worked alongside state agencies to
dispossess Tamil peoples in the North-East of their lands, access to lands, and cultural and
religious sites. These ongoing processes of resource and cultural dispossession, along with the
associated acts of ethnic cleansing, have often been legitimized under the guise of
development. However, the consequences of Sinhalization have been the opposite of
development. It has produced dispossession, displacement, ethnic cleansing, impoverishment,
and ethnic antagonism.
Section 2 shows how Sinhalization works as the antithesis of development, or more bluntly, as
an anti-development machine. The impact of Sinhalization on Tamil-speaking communities is
clearly anti-developmental. Sinhalization processes seek the economic and cultural
dispossession of the Tamil-speaking communities they target, actively degrading their
prospects for economic security and prosperity. The economic dispossession works by
appropriating or destroying existing economic resources and processes whilst prohibiting the
emergence of new ones. The processes of Sinhalization have contributed to the relative
impoverishment and poverty of the Tamil-speaking regions in the decades since
independence.
Beyond these obvious effects, however, Sinhalization also drains state resources. There is clear
evidence that the resources invested in the most capital-intensive form of Sinhalization,
namely irrigation and settlement schemes, have failed to produce a return on investment and
are effectively wasted. There is also an opportunity cost associated with Sinhalization. The
1PEARL, State-sponsored Sinhalization of the North-East (Mar. 2022),
https://pearlaction.org/sinhalization-of-the-North-East/. PEARL’s ‘Sinhalization of the North-East’ series can
also be found at this link.
8
opportunities and improved economic outcomes that may have come with alternative and
wiser investment of the same resources have also been lost. Despite these considerable costs,
Sinhalization has been a consistent and resilient state project since the 1930s and it continues
into the present day. This leads to yet another intangible but significant cost. The centrality of
Sinhalization to state policy and politics has effectively crowded out alternative, more
productive ways of using resources and thinking about development. This has not only
harmed Tamil people, but it has also harmed Sinhalese and Muslim people.
Section 3 presents the implications and recommendations of the analysis provided in this
report…
RECOMMENDATIONS
To the Sri Lankan Government
● Publicly commit to a time-bound process for releasing all private and public lands in
the Tamil-speaking areas that are currently occupied by the military, and take concrete
steps to fulfil that commitment.
● Publicly commit to a time-bound process for ending the military’s presence in the
Northern and Eastern provinces and take concrete steps to fulfil that commitment.
● End the use of government institutions such as the Department of Archaeology, Forest
Department and Department of Wildlife Conservation and other state bodies as tools
to appropriate and reclassify Tamil lands in the North-East under cultural or
administrative pretexts. Publicly remand officials from these departments when they
work to appropriate and reclassify Tamil lands in defiance of government policy.
● Ensure pledges on land return are time-bound, transparent, adequately reviewed and
recorded, and publicly available.
To Other States
● Recognize the distinction between Sinhalization and land disputes. Recognize
Sinhalization as a state-backed coercive process intended to change ethnic
demography that is distinct in its reliance on state power and political intentions from
land disputes, which involve competing claims over land and land rights that are
pursued by all claimants for purposes other than changing ethnic demography.
● Publicly rebuke instances of Sinhalization as a violation of rights and the rule of law
and an impediment to development and to resolving the ethnic conflict. Publicly
rebuke government agencies and officials engaged in Sinhalization.
● Prohibit government agencies and officials engaged in Sinhalization from accessing
development aid, other forms of official financial assistance, and forms of official
diplomatic recognition and support.
● Publicly demand that the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) release all private and
public lands in the Tamil-speaking areas that are currently occupied by the military.
● Publicly demand that the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) reduce the military’s
presence in the Northern province to one that is comparable in scale (in terms of per
capita military personnel, land footprint, etc.) to the mean levels across the other
provinces of the island.
International & Local Civil Society
● Recognize the distinction between Sinhalization and land disputes. Recognize
Sinhalization as a state-backed coercive process intended to change ethnic
demography that is distinct in its reliance on state power and political intentions from
36
land disputes, which involve competing claims over land and land rights that are
pursued by all claimants for purposes other than changing ethnic demography.
● Publicly rebuke instances of Sinhalization as a violation of rights and the rule of law
and an impediment to development and to resolving the ethnic conflict. Publicly
rebuke government agencies and officials engaged in Sinhalization.
● Publicly demand that the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) release all private and
public lands in the Tamil-speaking areas that are currently occupied by the military
● Publicly demand that the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) reduce the military’s
presence in the Northern province to one that is comparable in scale (in terms of per
capita military personnel, land footprint, etc.) to the mean levels across the other
provinces of the island.
● Engage the Sinhala public on the importance of a meaningful political solution for
lasting peace in the country, including by challenging the dominant narrative of the
war and the roots of the conflict.
● Engage the Sinhala public on the anti-developmental consequences of the
Sinhalization project.
State-Sponsored Sinhalization of the North-East – March 2022