SRI LANKAN TAMILS AND INDIAN TAMILS

Indians (including Tamils) often do this mistake of assuming that there is only one type of Tamils in Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka has two types of Tamils:

1. Eelam Tamils (ஈழத் தமிழர்)[1] : Native to the island and has unique history which dates back to many centuries. Though officially known as Sri Lankan Tamils most of these people prefers to identify themselves as Eelam Tamils.
2. Indian Tamils (மலையகத் தமிழர்) [2] : Tamils of Indian origin(Tamil Nadu) who were taken to Sri Lanka by British to work in the tea estates. Along with these Tamil workers many workers from present day Andhra Pradesh and Kerala were taken to Sri Lanka. As the numbers of non-Tamil Indian plantation workers were less these people eventually merged with Indian Tamils and started to identify themselves as Tamils.

Indian Tamils(of Sri Lanka) are also known as Hill country Tamils or Upcountry Tamils. These people mostly live in and around central Sri Lanka..

Eelam Tamils have traditionally lived in the Northern and Eastern Provinces which were the main theaters of the Civil War.

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Coming back to the main question:

1. Sri Lankan Tamils aka Eelam Tamils are actually Tamils with unique history of their own.
2. If you dig deep there is a chance that you can meet an Indian Tamil/Upcountry Tamil in Sri Lanka whose family came from present day Kerala.Tracing back their ancestry is hard.

Conclusion:

1. The Civil War(1983–2009) took place between the two native ethnicity of Sri Lanka: Eelam Tamils Vs Sinhalese.
2. Sri Lankan Tamils/Eelam Tamils are not Malayalis.
3. There can be a small % of Malayalis in the population of Upcountry Tamil/Indian Tamils in Sri Lanka.

The most popular Upcountry Tamil of Malayali origin was the former CM of Tamil Nadu. M.G.R.

Image: Upcountry Tamil(MGR) with Eelam Tamil (Prabhakaran)

It won’t be an exaggeration to say that then Tamil Nadu CM MGR was the guardian angel of Prabhakaran, ( LTTE chief) in India. LTTE chief had himself confessed that it was MGR who saved his life and the Eelam movement in the early and mid-1980s.

They say even in his death bed MGR was making inquiries about the situation of the War between LTTE and IPKF.

Let me remind the readers again that there are two types of Tamils in Sri Lanka: Native Tamils aka Eelam Tamils and Indian Tamils aka upcountry Tamils.