.During the pre and post-Independenee era, the Muslims gradually lost their hold on business. The passage of the Citizenship Act ... disfranchising the Indians, gave a severe blow to the business activities of the Indian Muslims. These Citizenship Acts were in part aimed at the Indian Muslim business community as well. There were also other causes for the downward trend in the activities of the Muslim businessmen, e.g. the relative backwardness in education and business methods in a changing society, non-adaptation to the modern pattern of trade, lack of facilities for capital formation or credit, non-provision of reserves by way of sound investments or savings and wasteful expenditure. The Muslims (were unable to meet) cut-throat competition (from aliens).

Even in the plantation sector the Muslims were losing ground. In 1952, the Muslims owned about 60,000 acres out of a total of 1.5 million acres and in 1966, they owned about 38,000 acres out of a total of nearly 900,000 acres in both cases they never exceeded more than 4 per cent of the total acreage ... The Muslim ownership in agricultural lands in the Eastern Province received a severe blow by the colonization policy of the successive Governments after Independence. Muslim agricultural lands were taken over for colonization by the Sinhalese ... Acquisition of the agricultural lands belonging to the Muslims in the Sammanturai area for sugarcane cultivation and for the 'Digawapi Vihara, greatly reduced the Muslim ownership ..

But the greatest blow to Muslim ownership of land (was) the takeover of lands by the Government in1972. The United Front Government which came to power in 1970, under Mrs. Bandaranaike, adopted a series of radical economic and social changes, the most far reaching were the Land Reform Act of 1972 and the Nationalisation of Plantations in 1975 and the state control in trade and industry ... Measures, such as the ceiling on the ownership of house and property, the takeover of the export-import trade and the extension of the cooperative system in the sphere of local trade broke the backbone of the Muslim bourgeoisie which had been playing a dominant role in the political and economic activities of the community.

The overthrow of the nationalist bourgeois class in the post-Independence era, began with the MEP Government of 1956, which was dominated by radical elements in the Sinhalese community. A series of legislations were passed by this Government which resulted in the nationalisation of iransport anu the port of Colombo, the establishment of the Cooperative Wholesale Establishment, the Sinhala - Only Act, undermined the economic and political power of this 'Mudalali' class as it was called in local jargon.

These measures marked the beginning of a process of state control over the economy which came to be accelerated under the aegis of the S.L.F.P. in 1960 and after. Under Bandaranaike, the principle of planned economic development came to be accepted ...

The S.L.F.P. Government of 1960, with Mrs. Bandaranaike as. Prime Minister, wooed the Muslim community mainly through its educational policies. Badi- ud-din Mahmud a teacher by profession ... was appointed as the Education Minister. This government in its attempt to break the power of the national capitalist class which comprised the UNP, its arch rival, also broke the influence and power of the Muslim business community which hadbeen supporting the UNP throughout. Badi-ud-din Mahmud as the Education Minister was ... responsible for the development of Muslim education. Muslim schools were opened in every Muslim village, and elementary Muslim schools were upgraded to the status of senior secondary schools and a large number of Muslims was recruited to the teaching profession. He also opened the way for Muslim women to enter the teaching profession. The Muslim teacher now began to exert his influence on the Muslim community ...

Badi-ud-din Mahmud. in short, institutionalised the ideal of the teacher. He also created an Islanic sensibility among the Muslims. ... modern, future-oriented and nationalistic. (In the late) 1960s he organised the Muslims into a national political organisation as an important component of the political movement that finally overthrew the then government at the General Elections of 1970, and helped to form the United Front Government. The UF and in particular the SLFP had good reasons for elation for detaching a substantial section of the Muslims. from their traditional links with the UNP into supporting the SLFP and the UF. This was masterminded by Mahmud ... He was again given the crucial post of Minister of Education in the UF Government of 1970. In his hands this Cabinet post became at once a political base and a fountain of patronage, to be used to strengthen the ties, between his community and the party to which he belonged the SLFP. His success ... was by its very nature transient ... His educational policy was one of the major points of divergence between the government and the Tamils. More significantly, by 1973 anti-Muslim sentiment was kindled among the Sinhalese hy charges of favoured treatment of Muslims in the sphere of education. In 1974-75, there were sporadic Sinhalese-Muslim clashes in various parts of the Island, with a dangerous confrontation at Gampola in the last week of 1975 ... The clash in early 1976 at Puttalam, a Muslim stronghold in the north-west of the Island, was ... the worst episode of communal violence since the Sinhalese-Tamil riots of the