දෙමළ ප්රශ්නය හා වියළි කලාපීය ගොවි ජනපද ව්යාපාර
Following his column on the homeland concept, Ivan examines the Tamil leaders’ charge that dry-zone colonisation schemes were designed to change the ethnic make-up of the North-East. He traces the real causes: malaria’s depopulation of the ancient heartland; the Crown Lands Encroachment Ordinance of 1840, which let the state sell 1.8 million acres to planters; the import of South Indian labour, which changed the composition of the hill country; and the resulting land hunger among wet-zone Sinhala peasants — 44% landless in the districts Das Gupta surveyed — as well as in Jaffna. The 1927 Land Commission and the 1935 Land Development Ordinance made the state a trustee of land for the landless, and DDT opened the dry zone after 1946. Colonisation, he concludes, served a national purpose and gave priority to local landless people.