Introduction

In 1988 the UNP – which in 1948 had taken away the civic rights of the Tamils of Indian origin – somewhat ironically pronounced that the remaining 94,000 stateless persons would be granted unconditional rights to citizenship and franchise. Therefore, although citizenship is used as an inclusive and exclusive organizing principle in societies, Sri Lanka's experience illustrates the point that citizenship can also be a dynamic concept that with the appropriate action and given a suitable climate can include those whom it had excluded. Or in Lister's (1997, 5–6) conceptualization, the idea of human agency comes into the understanding of citizenship. Citizenship is not only an evolutionary process, as maintained by Marshall, in which the circle of those who received rights expanded historically, but also is a process that involves the struggle to gain new rights and to add meaning to existing ones. On November 9, 1988, when the Grant of Citizenship to the Stateless Bill was debated in parliament, the government proposed granting Sri Lankan citizenship to the shortfall of 94,000 persons who had not applied for Indian citizenship when the agreement had expired in 1981 (Hansard, November 9, 1988, 2114).

However, there is considerable lack of clarity in published sources on the actual number who would have been categorized as “stateless” and become eligible for Sri Lankan citizenship under this proposed bill, which was later made into an act of parliament (Sahadevan 1995, 229; Nadesan, 1993, 329).