National Co-existence Dialogue and Official Languages Minister Mano Ganesan has told Tamil consumers to boycott Anchor butter until the Tamila language is added to the product.

In a post on Facebook the Minister pointed out that the company was a private one, but said he would ask the government to intervene to have the Tamil language also added to the product packaging.

In the meanwhile, he also suggested Tamil consumers begin a ‘share campaign’ while boycotting the product.

Anchor has used English, Sinhalese and Chinese languages to describe its product, omitting the use of national language Tamil.

According to the statistics released by the Chinese Embassy, there are over 6000 Chinese workers in Colombo, working for various Chinese-funded projects. 

According to the 2012 census there were 2,270,924 Sri Lankan Tamils in Sri Lanka, 11.21% of the population. Many expressed surprise that Anchor, a product owned by the Fonterra group, has omitted Tamil and decided to include Chinese.