[1] TAFII originated from "Operations Monty" named after then Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of External Affairs and Defense, Major Montague Jayawickrama in 1952 to stop illegal immigration of Indian Tamils repatriated to India after they were refused citizenship by the government of Ceylon following the Ceylon Citizenship Act and subsequent legislation.
This military aid to the civil powers operation started in support of the police which lacked the numbers to cover the large area.
The protests soon spread to other parts of the Northern and Eastern Provinces and Bandaranaike accused the Federal Party of trying to establish a separate state.
On Bandaranaike request the Governor General of Ceylon declared a state of emergency under the provisions of the Public Security Ordinance in the Northern Province and dispatched the 1st Battalion, Ceylon Light Infantry under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Richard Udugama, who was soon appointed Garrison Commander, Troops Jaffna.
Dias, a Sinhalese Buddhist nationalist who had assisted the formation of the Mahajana Eksath Peramuna and its landslide victory in the 1956 general election which led to S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike's appointment as prime minister, exerted powerful influence over the government of Prime Minister Bandaranaike and played a significant role in the adoption of Sinhala as the official language of administration and courts.
Dias used the issues of illegal immigration from South India and smuggling as pretexts to establish permanent military camps in the Northern Province.
[7] Describing his assigned task, Jayaweera recounted:As for my role as the GA of Jaffna, Dias said that while facilitating the construction of the proposed military camps girdling the Northern Province, I should be “unrelenting” towards Tamil demands, and wherever possible, “force confrontations” with them and establish the government's “undisputed ascendancy”.