The main problem that the Hill Country Tamils have faced for the past five decades is statelessness. More than a million Plantation Tamils were deprived of citizenship by the Citizenship Act, introduced soon after independence in 1948. Several laws and agreements between Sri Lanka and India since then have not solved the question of statelessness. Hill Country organisations say that the children and grandchildren of those who applied for Indian citizenship under the Indo-Ceylon Agreement of 1964 (Sirimavo-Shastri Pact) do not wish to go to India. These people and those whose applications to the Indian High Commission had not been considered, effectively remain stateless. According to these organisations, the stateless persons could be any number between 300,000 and 500,000. The situation of children born in wedlock between citizens and stateless persons or citizens of other countries complicates the issue further.
The Sri Lankan Constitution, while saying that no distinction shall be made between citizens by descent and citizens by registration, perpetuates the distinction, by granting constitutional status to discriminatory provisions of the Citizenship Act. Under these provisions, citizens by registration have certain disabilities. For example, a citizen by registration will lose citizenship if she/he resides outside Sri Lanka for a consecutive period of five years. This provision does not apply to citizens by descent.
Since replacement of the present constitution is contemplated as an outcome of the peace talks to accommodate a federal solution, observers say that statelessness and other issues affecting the Hill Country Tamils must be discussed before any constitutional change. For this purpose, they stress that representatives of the Plantation Tamils must take part in the peace talks.