 The SLFP tried to blame the high unemployment Sinhalese youth faced on the Tamils and in effect promised not to correct injustices but to openly discriminate against Tamils via a policy of official unilingualism.The hard feelings from this campaign contributed towards the eruption, nearly three decades later, of the path to civil war.However, it also changed the character of politics in the country from the elitism that had characterised it hitherto.