High Commission of Sri Lanka in India

Good morning.

Namaskar.

And as they say in my country – Ayubowan! (which means May You Live Long!)  

International Women’s Day often becomes a moment for celebration. But it is also something else. 

To me, International Women’s Day is a reminder of the distance between where women are today and where they have always had the right to be. 

I am deeply honoured to have been invited to speak here today.

Until late last evening, the presence of our Foreign Minister in Delhi for the Raisina Dialogue kept me on my feet. It was during the early hours of this morning that I finally began thinking about what I would say here today. 

As I read the letter addressed to me by Professor Raj Kumar, I was struck by the theme “Give to Gain.” Because it has a great deal of relevance to my own country, Sri Lanka, not as a slogan, but as a structural truth.

And I believe our story holds something genuinely useful for this conversation.Something a little unexpected, perhaps. And also, honest. 

In 1960, sixty-six years ago, a woman stood before the people of Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) elected by the people as the first female Prime Minister in the history of the world: Sirimavo Bandaranaike. Interestingly, she served for more than eighteen years across three terms. 

In 1994, the people of Sri Lanka elected her daughter, Chandrika Kumaratunga, first as Prime Minister and then as Executive President – Sri Lanka’s first and, to date, only female Executive President. 

And for a period, mother and daughter held the two highest offices in the country simultaneously: Prime Minister and President. Both women.
Fast forward to the present. 

In November 2024, the people of Sri Lanka voted for Dr. Harini Amarasuriya. She received the highest preferential votes ever recorded in the Colombo District. 

An interesting fact about her is that she is not from a dynasty. Not from a political family. She is an academic. A sociologist. A trade unionist. A woman who spent her career fighting for the rights of the marginalised. 

Following the Parliamentary Election in November 2024, she was appointed as Prime Minister by President Anura Kumara Disanayaka under our executive presidential system. 
Many of you may know that she completed her undergraduate degree right here in India – at Hindu College, at the University of Delhi. 

By any measure, Sri Lanka should be a model for women’s political leadership. However, we rank 122nd out of 146 countries on the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report. 

Sri Lanka scores highly in education and health but faces challenges in women’s economic participation and political representation. Universal Adult Franchise was introduced in Sri Lanka in 1931, way before Independence in 1948, making Sri Lanka Asia’s oldest democracy.  

Women outperform men in many areas of education. Yet barely 31 percent are in the labour force.  

Bridging this gap is not only a question of equality. It is also a question of unlocking the full economic potential of our societies. 

Until 2024, only five percent of our parliamentarians were women. And this is in the country that gave the world its first female Prime Minister.

How does one reconcile that? 

The answer, I believe, lies in something deeper than politics. 

Across South Asia (and this means in Sri Lanka and in India) we have always known how to honour the feminine. In the divine. We pray to Durga, the warrior goddess – fierce and invincible. We invoke Saraswati for wisdom, Lakshmi for prosperity. 

In Sri Lanka, the goddess Pattini – the embodiment of chastity, healing and justice – has been venerated for more than two thousand years across Buddhist, Hindu and folk traditions alike. She is offered the deepest reverence. She is asked to protect the nation, the harvest, the family. We build temples. We compose devotional poetry. We dress the goddess in silk and gold and place her at the very centre of our spiritual lives. 

But we do not always treat real women with the same reverence. This is not a comfortable observation. But it is an honest one. 

There is a critique, articulated powerfully by feminist thinkers in this country and mine, that deification itself can be a trap. That placing women on a divine pedestal – as goddess, as mother, as the embodiment of honour and purity – is not the same as granting them dignity. It can, in fact, be used to control them. Because when women are idealized, they are also expected to remain within the narrow roles that idealisation creates. The woman on a pedestal has very far to fall. And the moment she steps outside the role assigned to her, the reverence can curdle into something else entirely. 

We see this in our politics too. 

Sirimavo Bandaranaike was called a “weeping widow” by her opponents – as though grief were her only credential. 

The moment a woman is powerful, the culture reaches for ways to diminish her: attributing her success to dynasty, to sympathy, or to the men behind her. 

The goddess is worshipped. The woman is questioned. And that contradiction is not abstract. It plays out very clearly in our politics. 

Sirimavo Bandaranaike came to power in the wake of her husband’s assassination. Her party asked her, somewhat reluctantly, to lead. Many said she rode a wave of sympathy. Her opponents joked that she was the only man in her cabinet. Yet, she served across three terms, made Sri Lanka a republic, led the Non-Aligned Movement, and navigated a coup attempt. As Prime Minister she also held the portfolios of Defence and Foreign Affairs.  

It was under her watch that the Indo-Lanka Maritime Boundary Agreement was finalised in 1974, and the Sirimavo-Shastri Pact was reached, addressing the long-standing issue of stateless plantation workers of Indian origin in Sri Lanka. She played an important role in resolving key bilateral issues and strengthening India-Sri Lanka relations. 

Whatever one thinks of her policies, and politics, no honest reading of the record can say she lacked the capacity to govern. 

On a personal note, I am reminded every single day of the foresight of Madam Sirimavo Bandaranaike when I look around our Chancery and Residence on Kautilya Marg here in Chanakyapuri, in the heart of New Delhi’s diplomatic enclave. 

During her first visit to India as Prime Minister in 1960, she laid the foundation stone for the premises we still use today. 

More than six decades later, we continue to benefit from the facilities she created in Delhi – spaces that remain functional, beautiful and dignified, enabling us to carry out our diplomatic work in what is arguably Sri Lanka’s most important bilateral relationship.

India today is Sri Lanka’s largest trading partner, the largest source of tourists to our country, and a significant investor – in addition, of course, to the deep civilisational and cultural ties that bind our peoples. 

The enduring utility and elegance of our premises, to me, remain a quiet testament to Sirimavo Bandaranaike’s foresight and to her appreciation of the importance of Sri Lanka’s relationship with India. 

Chandrika Kumaratunga did not inherit the presidency – she won it, with a historic and overwhelming majority. She governed through an assassination attempt. She ended her presidency under the provisions of a constitution that required it – not because she was removed. 

And Harini Amarasuriya? No dynasty. No sympathy vote. Appointed by the President of the Republic on merit under an executive system that places that choice entirely with the head of state, following the September 2024 Presidential Election, and then returned to Parliament by the voters of Colombo with more preferential votes than any candidate had ever received from that district. 

She did not get there through preferential treatment. She got there because she earned the trust – of a president, and of the public.

In November 2024, Sri Lanka elected 21 women directly to parliament, the highest number in our history – more than double the previous figure. Not because of a quota. Because voters, faced with a broken system, chose differently. 

What Sri Lanka’s women have asked for – and what I believe women everywhere are asking for – is not preferential treatment. It is the removal of the barriers that make the playing field unequal in the first place. Equal access to education. Safety in public spaces. Affordable childcare. Labour laws that do not exclude women under the guise of protecting them. The freedom to compete on merit without a handicap imposed by circumstance of birth. 

Opportunity. Not charity. Not a lower bar. A level playing field. 

“Give to Gain.” I want to return to this theme one last time. Yes – when societies invest in women’s education, safety and agency, they gain. 

Sri Lanka cannot service its debt, rebuild its public services, or honour its social contract without the full economic participation of its women.  

When more than sixty percent of our university graduates are women and fewer than a third are in the formal economy, that is not a social problem. It is an economic emergency. 

But for far too long, the bargain has run in only one direction. Women have been the ones doing the giving. Giving up careers. Giving up mobility. Giving up ambition. And the world has called this sacrifice, or tradition, or simply the way things are. 

What Sri Lanka’s women have shown – through Sirimavo Bandaranaike’s three terms, through Chandrika Kumaratunga’s presidency, through Harini Amarasuriya’s quiet revolution from the university lecture hall to the Prime Minister’s office – is that when the door is genuinely open, women do not merely participate. They lead. They rebuild. They change the terms of the conversation. 

The goddess Pattini, in our tradition, does not ask permission to heal. She does not wait to be invited. She simply does what she came to do. 

I suspect this is not unique to Sri Lanka. Across South Asia – including here in India – women have carried economies, communities and families through moments of crisis. From conflict to climate disasters, from economic hardship to migration, women have often been the quiet stabilising force holding societies together. 

Yet, when the moment comes to design policy, allocate resources, or sit at the decision-making table, their presence is still far too limited. 

To the students in this room: You are the most educated, most connected generation in the history of both our countries. You are not asking for permission. And you are right not to. The work ahead of you is to build institutions worthy of the talent that is already there – waiting, ready, able.

Worship goddesses. But do not do so while neglecting real women, while ignoring the women standing beside you. 

Start trusting the women who are right in front of you. 

Thank you.