Senator Nadesan in the Sri Lanka Senate, 27 November 1947 "With regard to the franchise rights of the Indian labour, the consistent endeavour of the present Prime Minister, despite the fact that the presence of these Indian labourers is of the greatest use to us, and far from their being a hindrance to us they are helping us to earn whatever surplus revenue could possibly be earned, has always been to reduce the number of voters who can possibly come from among them. Even if the entirety of the 700,000 of them exercise the vote they can at the most send 8 Members out of 101 to the House of Representatives. That is an aspect of the matter that has always struck me as rather curious - that today anybody who calls himself a statesman should take upon himself to say that we will get these persons to do all this work but so far as franchise rights are concerned, despite the fact that we will not be dominated, we will not give them any thing even though they are willing to declare themselves citizens of Ceylon. I should have thought that any Indian labourer who at the end of a period of 5 years residence in Ceylon is willing to renounce his Indian nationality and adopt Ceylonese nationality, should have no difficulty in acquiring citizenship rights. Then the whole problem of Indian labour in Ceylon will be satisfactorily solves for all time..."
1823: South Indian Tamil labourers recruited from districts of Chenkelpettai, Coimbatore, Madurai, Thanjavoor, Thiruchirapalli and others arrive to work in plantations.
1920: Mr.Natesa Iyer becomes first Indian representative to legislative council.
1924: Two Indians nominated to legislative council. Franchise was limited to elite. Indian Tamils represented 12900 out of 205,000 electoral college votes.
1931: Universal adult franchise was introduced in Sri Lanka under the Donoughmore constitution plantation workers were granted franchise.
1931-36: Registered voters of Indian origin rose from 100,000 to 145,000.
1939: Resolution introduced in the State Council to deport 15000 Indians. A second resolution moved by D. S Senanayake (independent Ceylon's first Prime Minister) to deport all Indians appointed to government service after 1934 and to discontinue the service of all those with less than ten years experience.
1939: Arrival of Jawaharlal Nehru on the advice of Mahatma Gandhi to unite all the groups. Emergence of the Ceylon Indian Congress.
1947: Elections bring political strength to the Indian Tamil community with the election of seven out of the 95 member Parliament. This was equal to the seven Tamil members elected from the North East.
1948: The Ceylon Citizenship Act, though providing the qualifications to be a citizen, was designed to disqualify persons of Indian origin. The provision said that "only a person born in Ceylon prior to the date of the Act coming into force, of a father born in Ceylon could be recognised as a citizen". This decitizenized all persons of Indian origin since proof of birth of two generations was necessary.
1949: Enactment of Indian and Pakistani (Residents) Citizenship Bill. It laid down qualifications for citizenship as registered citizens (sic). The qualifications inherent in the bill were designed to deny citizenship.
1951: 237,034 applications requesting citizenship for 825,000 (90%) persons of Indian origin were made. Majority of applications were rejected as many were unable to produce evidence of birth in Sri Lanka, to provide proof of uninterrupted residency or to provide proof of an assured income.
1956: Elections too proved negative to the Indian origin people since they had no strength to field candidates.
1960: The government of Mrs. Bandaranaike created a nominated representation for the people of Indian origin and appointed Savumiamoorthy Thondaman to Parliament.
1964: Mrs. Bandaranaike moved to solve the citizenship problem in keeping with the Sinhala thinking that persons of Indian origin should return to India. India, then led by Lal Bahadur Shastri agreed to this move by agreeing to accept 525, 000 back to India. Sri Lanka had agreed to grant citizenship to 300,000 persons leaving the future of 150,000 people to be settled later.
1974: A further bartering was done under the Sirima (Sic) Indira Gandhi agreement, dividing the balance people between the two countries.
1965: The UNP government too nominated Savumiamoorthy Thondaman to Parliament in return for his support to defeat the government of Mrs.
1977: Savumiamoorthy Thondaman contested the Nuwara Eliya – Maskeliya multi member seat and was elected to Parliament as the third member. After thirty years since 1947 a member was elected to parliament by the people of Indian origin.
1978 to 1988: Thondaman made several representations for the expeditious grant of citizenship under the two Indo Ceylon Agreements. He also urged that persons who were left out of the two agreements be granted Sri Lankan citizenship. Only 506, 000 persons applied for Indian citizenship out of the 600,000 envisaged under the agreements.
1988: Grant of Citizenship to Stateless Persons (Special Provisions) Act No. 39 of 1988 was presented to Parliament by Premadasa and passed. This was opposed by the SLFP who voted against it. The people of Indian origin who were until then deprived of the rights flowing from citizenship were overwhelmed by their achieving their long dreamed goal.
2003: A bill to grant citizenship to 168,141 stateless Tamils in Sri Lanka descended from people who settled in the hill districts of the island in the 19th century was passed Tuesday without opposition in Sri Lanka's Parliament. All 172 MPs who were present in the 225 seat Parliament voted for the bill to amend the citizenship act.