You can literally use Wikipedia to learn about politics. I can hear the downvotes already but to all skeptics, don't act like the Mahavansa or Rupavahini or state taught history will give you the correct (or as near to correct) info as possible
Note I'm left-leaning, any judgements I give are what I believe to be fact regardless of my political standing
Independence is probably a good start but this article doesn't really address more of the modern post-independence politics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Lankan_independence_movement
1958 Anti Tamil pogrom is key to understanding SL politics and the roots of our present day issues, regardless of where you stand on politics these events are a must know
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_anti-Tamil_pogrom
First JVP insurrection:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1971_JVP_insurrection
Sirimavo is a must-know because she encapsulates the leftist side of SL politics and is part of the reason why any hint of leftism in SL is seen as bad to this day, their economic policies were mostly seen as failures as they tried nationalizing everything
despite not being able to actually make everything and to make matter worse their social policies were being Sinhala nationalists
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirimavo_Bandaranaike
1977 - second anti-Tamil pogrom
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_anti-Tamil_pogrom
J.R is a must-know as his impact on politics was huge and controversial, his economic policies opened up Lanka's markets for the better (if you're left you can argue against neoliberalism but at the time you can't argue against the fact that opening up the economy did help Lanka) but his other policies are some of the worst and are directly responsible for most of the bullshit we're dealing with today, from normalizing nepotism (Ranil is his nephew) to introducing executive presidency to normalizing state corruption and state sponsored violence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._R._Jayewardene
Second JVP insurrection, as a leftist myself I see this as a dumb attempt at an insurgency and an event which further ruined the perception of anything left/liberal leaning, however its a must to know that the govt (Sajith's dad) killed FAR MORE people in this insurrection than the JVP:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1987–1989_JVP_insurrection
Black July aka the start of the civil war, tl ; dr the LTTE killed a few soldiers so Colombo's response was to kill thousands of random Tamil civilians:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_July
Research paper on the govt's involvement in Black July (its heavily implied that the govt was prepared, had addresses of Tamil residents and was waiting for any event to give them an excuse to cause a genocide)
Page 4 of this is also a good breakdown of the leadup
And of course, the beast that is the civil war (you can go down many rabbit holes through the links)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Lankan_Civil_War
Prabhakaran (the leader of the LTTE), the civil war article does mention more about LTTE activities than his personal article but its important to note two things 1) Prabhakaran had reached a point where the govt was willing to make a deal with the LTTE, he had rejected this and thus sought out a violent war, this was a crucial split between non-violent Tamil politics and war-based ones 2) he recruited child soldiers and abducted/harassed Veddas:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velupillai_Prabhakaran
The Central Bank bombing by the LTTE (their deadliest attack and one of the most well known):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colombo_Central_Bank_bombing
Part 4 of the war after the LTTE broke the ceasefire:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eelam_War_IV
The No-fire-zone massacre by the govt at the end of the war, this is put here because its a fact that it happened and is a huge key in understanding modern SL politics:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mullivaikkal_massacre
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2009/5/2/sri-lanka-admits-bombing-safe-zone (Lankan govt admitting they did it)
Post-war politics:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_anti-Muslim_riots_in_Sri_Lanka
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Sri_Lanka_Easter_bombings
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_anti-Muslim_riots_in_Sri_Lanka
