Tamil politicians found it very difficult to accept that they would become a minority. The eminent Peradeniya historian, Prof. K. M.de Silva attributes this to the collapse of the Ceylon National Congress. According to Dr. Jane Russell, Tamils also found it very irksome that the Sinhalese possessed a written history known as the Mahavamsa extending back to some 25 centuries , whereas the Tamils were seen as later migrants or invading settlers. This, as well as other factors led to a development of Tamil nationalism and communal feeling, displacing casteism to a secondary place in the nation's politics. Communal politics, which involved attacks on the Mahavamsa, suspicious examination of appointments to public office, opening of colonisation schemes etc., for communal bias became common place. G. G. Ponnambalam wrested control of Tamil politics from the Arunachalam-family elitist Colombo Tamil group and followed a stridently communal political program. This was matched by similar nationalist politics, led by S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike, the Sinhalese counterpart of Ponnambalam. Balance representation scheme The Tamil Congress, led by Ponnambalam, had evolved the policy of 50-50, i.e., allocation of an equal number of seats in the legislature to the Tamils and the Sinhalese, over-riding the natural Universal Franchise representation where the 15% Tamils, 75% Sinhalese , would lead to only about 15 seats in a chamber with 100 representatives,( p308). Ponnambalam, an English-educated Hindu lawyer who was elitist and abrasive by temperament justified this by pointing out that there were roughly equal numbers of English educated (i.e., upper caste) Sinhalese and Tamils, and that this would also guarantee a place of political parity for the Tamils. Thus Ponnambalam proposed that the legislature should be: "based on the balanced scheme of representation that would avoid the danger of concentration of power in one community, but would ensure its equitable distribution among all communities and the people as a whole"(, p. 92). Ponnambalam also proposed further constitutional mechanisms to "safeguard minority rights". Ponnambalam's very artificial and unusual schemes for securing the continued parity of status of Tamils, completely contrary to the "one man-one vote" concept thoroughly accepted in European liberalism, met with severe disapprobation by the commissioners. They stated that "any attempt by artificial means to convert a majority into a minority is not only inequitable, but doomed to failure". Ponnambalam's proposals were considered to be a means of conferring a minority supremacy amounting to virtual majority rule,