Chandrika Kumaratunga: Courage and Reconciliation
Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga’s ascent to the presidency of Sri Lanka in 1994 was steeped in symbolism. She was the nation’s first female president, the daughter of not one but two former prime ministers, and she won the office in one of the largest electoral landslides in Sri Lankan history. The people handed Kumaratunga a mandate to end a long era of bloodshed and turmoil. She set out to do just that, with a bold vision she called “capitalism with a human face”. In a country torn by a civil war between the government and Tamil Tiger insurgents, she immediately extended an olive branch. Her administration entered peace negotiations with the rebels, seeking a political solution to the conflict that had ravaged the nation for over a decade.
But when the ceasefires collapsed, and the Tigers returned to violence, Kumaratunga did not shrink from her duty to protect her people. She launched a difficult “War for Peace,” a dual strategy of military pressure and political outreach. Internationally, she achieved a major breakthrough, persuading many countries to label the Tamil Tigers as a terrorist organization, cutting off their overseas funding and arms supply. Domestically, even as battles raged, she worked on an unprecedented constitutional reform package to devolve power to Tamil-majority regions and abolish the all-powerful executive presidency. It was an attempt to address minority grievances and heal the nation’s divisions. Though that ambitious reform fell short in parliament, it showed her willingness to make personal sacrifices for peace (the changes would have curtailed her own presidential powers). In 1999, on the eve of her re-election, the war struck at her directly, when a suicide bomber’s blast cost Kumaratunga her right eye and nearly her life. Incredibly, within hours, she was back on the campaign trail, urging Sri Lankans not to give in to fear or hatred. She won a second term, her resolve only strengthened by surviving the attack.
Kumaratunga’s 11 years in office were a time of tumult and transformation. She helped restore stability after the authoritarian drift of the late 1980s, reviving democratic institutions and reining in state abuses. Under her watch, Sri Lanka’s economy modernized and opened to the world, even as social welfare programs expanded for those in need. Years later, Sri Lanka would finally find an end to the war and take up many reforms she had championed, proving that her leadership planted seeds of change that blossomed in their own time.
What happens when women lead?
In Sri Lanka, peace is pursued against all odds, reforms are imagined for the excluded, and a wounded nation finds the courage to heal.
