It is not much different from what happened to India around the mid-1940s, resulting in what became India, Pakistan and a lot of unpleasantness. British occupation and subsequent withdrawal of Ceylon (now back to the old name of Sri Lanka) caused a major rift between the Sinhalese majority and Tamil minority because the former believed (rightly, or wrongly) that the British favoured the latter. The British forces didn't help much by playing one side against the other just like they did with Hindu and Muslim communities in the Indian subcontinent
