evidence: Formed in 1975, the group has vowed to carve out a separate Tamil state in Sri Lanka. [...] Since Sri Lanka’s independence from Britain in 1948, the Tamil minority has felt increasingly marginalised and politically disenfranchised. In that very year, Solomon Bandaranayake, the country’s first prime minister, made Sinhala, which is spoken by the majority of Sri Lankans, the official language. [...] Formed in 1975 with its base in the northern and eastern parts of Sri Lanka, the group vowed to form a separate state called Tamil Eelam.