Few celebrated the birth of the University of Jaffna in 1974, when it came into existence as a campus affiliated to the University of Sri Lanka. The demand for a Tamil university had been put forward by the Federal Party as far back as 1953, at a time when Tamils were beginning to feel nervous about the growing communal polarisation. Thereafter emerged the Tamil University Movement, which purchased land in Trincomalee for the proposed university – land that till today remains unused and under constant threat of encroachment. Yet from the very beginning, the Tamil political left had deep reservations about such moves, which came from a nationalist mindset that further isolated the Tamils, precluding alliances with progressive sections of the Sinhalese.
Though not evident during the 1950s and 1960s, events of the 1970s precipitated an explosion in Tamil nationalist feeling while also exposing the weak underbelly of an isolationist Tamil nationalism. Partly owing to discrimination in government employment, Tamil students, particularly in Jaffna, had to work extra hard at gaining entry to universities. The preponderance of Tamil admissions to prestigious degree courses in 1970 had led the newly elected left-backed government of Sirimavo Bandaranaike to introduce a policy of 'standardisation' of marks on a linguistic basis. This was aimed at bringing down the number of Tamils, with subsequent schemes likewise enacted to bring down the Tamil entrants drastically.
The result was the radicalisation of Tamil students, giving fillip to separatist demands and militant mobilisation. In introducing the first republican constitution, Sirimavo Bandaranaike's government – with the backing of the parliamentary left, which during the 1950s had supported equal rights for Tamils – ignored the concerns of elected Tamils regarding constitutional safeguards of their rights. The Tamils were thus left out in the cold. Earlier, the two dominant Tamil parties – the All Ceylon Tamil Congress (ACTC) and the Federal Party (FP) – had jousted for Tamil votes, each asserting that it would better use its bargaining power to negotiate with the Sinhalese-dominated major parties, which usually formed the government, in order to get a share of power. During the late 1960s, there was also a contest between these two parties about the character of a university in the Tamil-dominated areas. The Tamil Congress demanded a Hindu university in Jaffna, while and the Federal Party pushed for a secular university in Trincomalee. The central government used the disagreement as an excuse to avoid a decision.
On the political front, both Tamil parties would from time to time form alliances with whichever Sinhalese party was forming the government. With both major parties focused on putting each other down, competing frequently on who would better keep the minorities in their place, the Tamil electorate began to lose hopes of getting its share of meaningful power. Yet the possibility of Tamil parties being able to play a role at least in the formation of the government kept them in hope. The 1970 elections, in which the United Front – a coalition consisting of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, the Trotskyite Lanka Sama Samaja Party and the Communist Party of Sri Lanka – government was elected with an overwhelming majority of parliamentary seats, shattered further hope of a 'kingmaker' role for the Tamil parties.