ABSTRACT
The conferment of universal adult franchise under the Donoughmore Constitution in 1931 caused a shift in the allocation of political power between the Tamils of Colombo and Jaffna. The Tamil Congress has always been mindful of the Colombo Tamils and the Ceylon Tamils in the seven Sinhala provinces. In 1967, the then Minister of State, J. R. Jayewardene informed S. J. V. Chelvanayakam that the United National Party was willing to establish a university in Jaffna within twenty four hours. The unity of "the Jaffna man" and the "Batticaloa man" in its wider meaning is a fact of Ceylon Tamil political life. The Federal Party is compelled to liaise with the principal organisation of the Hill Country Tamils, the Ceylon Workers' Congress of S. Thondaman and to a lesser extent with the Democratic Workers' Congress, a splinter group of Hill Country Tamils, led by Abdul Aziz until his death in 1990.
