In 1956 Prime Minister S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike passed the "Sinhala Only Act", which replaced English with Sinhala as the only official language of the country. This was seen as a deliberate attempt to discourage the Sri Lankan Tamils from working in the Ceylon Civil Service and other public services. The Tamil-speaking minorities of Ceylon (Sri Lankan Tamils, Indian Tamils and Sri Lankan Moors) viewed the Act as linguistic, cultural and economic discrimination against them. Many Tamil-speaking civil servants/public servants were forced to resign because they weren't fluent in Sinhala. This was a prelude to the 1956 Gal Oya riots and the 1958 widespread riots in which hundreds of Tamil civilians perished. Sinhalese civilians too were affected in these outbreaks. The civil war was a direct result of the escalation of the confrontational politics that followed.