Tamil Nadu Timeline

DiplomacyMadras State (Congress era)

Exodus of Tamils and other Indians from Burma

· Yangon

Exodus of Tamils and other Indians from Burma
Xianzi Tan, CC BY-SA 2.5 · Wikimedia Commons

More than 300,000 Indians, most of them Tamils, left Burma after General Ne Win's expulsions and the 1964 nationalisation of private business.

Under British rule most of Burma's Indians had migrated from the Madras and Bengal presidencies, with Tamils the biggest single group. General Ne Win took power through a military coup in 1962 and then ordered Indians to be expelled on a large scale. Combined with the sweeping nationalisation of private enterprise in 1964, these measures caused over 300,000 ethnic Indians to emigrate from Burma.

Related events

  1. 1926

    1. 1926 to 1972Chennai PortDiplomacy

      SS Rajula begins the Madras to Penang and Singapore service

      The steamer SS Rajula ran a fortnightly Straits Service from Madras to Penang, Port Klang and Singapore from 1926 to 1972.

  2. 1948

    1. 15 Nov 1948ColomboDiplomacy

      Ceylon Citizenship Act leaves Indian Tamils stateless

      Passed soon after Ceylon became independent, a citizenship law shut out most Indian Tamil plantation workers, descendants of migrants from the Madras Presidency.

  3. 1964

    1. 30 Oct 1964New DelhiDiplomacy

      Sirima-Shastri Pact on people of Indian origin in Ceylon

      India and Ceylon agreed that 525,000 stateless people of Indian origin, mostly Tamil plantation workers, would be repatriated to India.

  4. 1974

    1. 1974New DelhiDiplomacy

      Sirima-Gandhi Pact on stateless persons of Indian origin

      India and Sri Lanka agreed on the future of the 150,000 persons of Indian origin whose status had been left open by the 1964 Sirima-Shastri Pact.

  5. 1983

    1. 24 Jul 1983 to 29 Jul 1987RameswaramConflict

      Black July and the arrival of Sri Lankan Tamil refugees

      Anti-Tamil pogroms in Sri Lanka in July 1983 sent the first large wave of Sri Lankan Tamil refugees to Tamil Nadu.

  6. 2009

    1. 18 May 2009MullaitivuConflict

      End of the Sri Lankan civil war

      The Sri Lankan army defeated the LTTE, ending a 26-year war that had deeply affected Tamil Nadu's politics.

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