Her elder sister Sunethra Bandaranaike became a socialite and her younger brother Anura Bandaranaike joined active politics, going on to become a cabinet minister and Speaker of the Parliament of Sri Lanka.Ĭhandrika was educated at the St Bridget's Convent, Colombo, and enrolled at the Roman Catholic Aquinas University College, Colombo to study for a law degree. Therefore, Chandrika was involved in politics from a young age along with her siblings as she was the second of three children in the family. Following the assassination, Bandaranaike's grieving widow took over the leadership of the SLFP and led it to an election victory making her the first female prime minister in the world, in 1960. As prime minister, he initiated several controversial legislation that struct racial discords on the island and he was assassinated in 1959 when Chandrika was fourteen. Contesting the elections that followed and strengthening the SLFP in the periods between elections Bandaranaike became the Leader of the Opposition in 1952 and Prime Minister in 1956.
Her early years saw her father's rising political career as he became the first Cabinet Minister of Health and Local Government when Ceylon gained its independence in 1948 and his dramatic departure from the governing party to form his own party, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) with his follows of the Sinhala Maha Sabha in 1951. Young Chandrika grew up in the comfort of the wealthy Bandaranaike family at their mansion at Rosmead Place in Colombo and at their family seat of Horagolla Walauwa, which was her father's constituency. Her mother Sirima Ratwatte Dias Bandaranaike, was the daughter of Barnes Ratwatte Dissawa, Rate Mahatmaya of Balangoda during British colonial rule, who was descended from Ratwatte Dissawa, Dissawa of Matale, a signatory on behalf of the Sinhalese to the Kandyan Convention of 1815. He was the only son of Sir Solomon Dias Bandaranike, the Maha Mudaliyar, the chief Ceylonese representative and advisor to the Governor of Ceylon. A nationalist and left-wing politician, who had by the time built up a strong following known as the Sinhala Maha Sabha. Bandaranaike was an Oxford educated barrister who was the Minister of Local Administration at the time of her birth. The family moved the year later to a mansion at Rosmead Place, Colombo purchased by her paternal grandfather.
Chandrika with Sri Lankan diplomat Tissa Wijeyeratne in Paris, early 1970sĬhandrika Bandaranaike was born on 29 June 1945, at Wentworth in Guildford Crescent, Colombo to Solomon West Ridgeway Dias Bandaranaike and Sirima Ratwatte Dias Bandaranaike.
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