British Sri Lankans

Since the times of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, Sri Lanka historically had contact with Western Europe by being a stop on the highly profitable trade routes between the West and the East, whether through Arabic traders, or directly through Western European traders. The term "serendipity" comes from the Latin word used by Romans for the island.[1]

The first Western Europeans to make substantial contact with Sri Lanka were the Portuguese, followed by the Dutch and then finally the British. Sri Lankans have since been migrating to Britain for several centuries, up from the time of British ruled Ceylon.[2]

Between the 1950s to the 1980s, the United Kingdom served as the major immigration destination for highly-educated Sri Lankans, due to the relaxed immigration rules given to Sri Lankan citizens due the politics surrounding post-Empire connections such as the Commonwealth of Nations.

This initial group of immigrants consisted of a very settled group of people who followed a migration model of a single journey with a settled home at the end of it. Many of these people who came are well-educated and very well off economically and have become established in British society.

During the 1960s, understaffing in the UK’s National Health Service opened up the opportunity for many Sri Lankans to become doctors and consultants; others managed to secure other white-collar jobs.

Before 1983, when the Civil War started, social spaces for a Sri Lankan elite existed, there were hardly any ethnic boundaries and all ethnicities attended Sri Lankan High Commission receptions and the frequent intra-school sports competitions organized by Sri Lankan schools alumnae. During that time the public perceived the Sri Lankan community as one of the most successful immigrant communities in the UK. Especially during the 1970s, political organization increased among both Tamils and Sinhalese.[3]

The onset of the Sri Lankan Civil War in the 1980s and 1990s caused a large scale exodus of Tamils to countries in the West. The Sri Lankan Tamils who emigrated to the UK often came on student visas (or family reunion visas for the family of said people) due to the well-educated in Sri Lanka being literate in English. This resulted in the first generation diaspora falling into highly professional jobs such as medicine and law after studying at British educational facilities.[4][5]

In 1991, Sri Lankans were the sixth biggest Asian community, with over 39,000 residents of Britain having been born in Sri Lanka.[6]

The children of first generation immigrants are a third grouping that have predominantly come-of-age in the late 2000s and 2010s. These children often grew up without siblings due to the low birth rates in the community, with one child for two parents being the norm,[7] but often fared better economic and cultural prospects than other similar refugee groups due to the strong education ethic imposed by Hindu culture.[8]

This grouping has been widely praised as hard-working, with little problems relating to criminality and anti-social behaviour, and high levels of educational achievement. A number of reports and articles has praised the community as "middle class" and "progressive".[9]

Sri Lankans in the United Kingdom predominantly come from Tamil heritage, which has led to a situation where Hinduism is more statistically prevalent among the community than Buddhism, but the unique manner in how Tamils kept traditional Hindu Sri Lankan Tamil culture and simply imposed the laws of the hindu scriptures has meant that religious divisions between Hindus and Buddhists are not stark.

Hinduism nevertheless continues to be a cultural rallying point for most Sri Lankan Tamils. A number of temples have been built throughout the UK in order to service the needs of Sri Lankan Tamils, including the Sivan Kovil and Murugan Kovil in West London, though these temples do not necessarily serve as community building organisations due to Hinduism's lack of requirement for temple visits. The community mainly follow the Saivite sect.[12]

The smaller Sinhalese community has also been well served by a large network of Buddhist temples, including a major Sinhalese one at Kingsbury in London called Vihara, and six other prominent Sinhalese temples that have been ethnically linked to the community.[13] "Though present London Buddhist Vihāra traces its birth to 1926, until the arrival of three Sri Lankan monks as residents in 1928, the premises in Ealing seems to have functioned as Headquarters of British Maha Bodhi Society."

The UK has always had a strong, albeit small, population of Sri Lankan Tamils deriving from colonial era immigration between Sri Lanka and the UK, but a surge in emigration from Sri Lanka took place after 1983, as the civil war caused living conditions deteriorate and placed many inhabitants in danger. It is now estimated that the current population of British Sri Lankan Tamils numbers around 100,000 to 200,000.[20]

The largest population of British Sri Lankan Tamils can be found in London, chiefly in Harrow (West London) and Tooting (South London).[21] The community generally has far lower birth rates in comparison to other South Asian ethnic groups, with one child for two parents being the norm.[7]

Unlike immigrants to countries in Continental Europe, the majority of Sri Lankan Tamils that went to live in Anglosaxon countries achieved entry through non-refugee methods such as educational visas and family reunion visas, owing to the highly educated in Sri Lanka being literate in English as well as Tamil. This resulted in the first generation diaspora falling into highly professional jobs such as medicine and law after studying at British educational facilities.[4][5]

The result was that the community was perceived as being similar to the rest of the Indian community (see:Ugandan Indian Refugees) and therefore also gave them a more middle class image.[22][8]

The main and oldest organisation representing the Sinhalese community in the UK are the UK Sinhala association.[23] The newspaper Lanka Viththi was created in 1997 to provide a Sinhala newspaper for the Sinhalese community.[24] In 2006, a Sinhala TV channel called Kesara TV was set up in London to provide the Sinhala speaking people of the UK a TV channel in Sinhala.[25]

• UK Sinhala association
• Festival Of Cricket (FOC) – Organized by Sri Lankan OBA's in the UK

• Lanka Viththi
• NewsLanka
• CeylonUK