Tamil Nadu Timeline

DiplomacyMadras State (Congress era)

Sirima-Shastri Pact on people of Indian origin in Ceylon

· New Delhi

Sirima-Shastri Pact on people of Indian origin in Ceylon
Indiragandhifan, CC0 · Wikimedia Commons

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

The Agreement on Persons of Indian Origin in Ceylon was signed by Prime Ministers Sirimavo Bandaranaike and Lal Bahadur Shastri on 30 October 1964. Ceylon's citizenship laws of 1948 and 1949 had left hundreds of thousands of Indian Tamil plantation workers stateless. Under the pact, 300,000 would receive Ceylonese citizenship and 525,000 would be repatriated to India, with the status of 150,000 more left for later talks. Many repatriates were resettled in Tamil Nadu in the following years.

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