The world's first woman premier
Witness History
BBC
4.5 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 17 November 2020
⏱️ 11 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Sirimavo Bandaranaike was elected the modern world's first female head of government in 1960 when she became Prime Minister of Sri Lanka or Ceylon as it was known then. She entered politics after the assassination of her husband Solomon Bandrainaike in 1959. Farhana Haider has been speaking to her daughter Sunethra Bandaranaike about her mother's remarkable political achievement.
Photo Sirimavo Bandaranaike the Prime Minister of Ceylon (later Sri Lanka), 1960. Credit Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know. |
| 0:04.7 | My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds. |
| 0:08.5 | As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices. |
| 0:18.0 | What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars, |
| 0:24.6 | poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples. |
| 0:29.7 | If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds. |
| 0:37.0 | Hello and thank you for downloading the Witness History podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm |
| 0:46.0 | Frahana Hiva. Today we're going back to 1960, Tisrelanca or Ceylon as it was known then, when Serama Bandranika was elected the world's first female prime minister. |
| 0:58.3 | She entered politics after the assassination of her husband, Solomon Bandranika. I've been speaking to her daughter |
| 1:04.7 | Sinatra about her mother's remarkable political achievement. |
| 1:08.3 | You are the first woman prime minister in the world. Does this have any effect? Do you think it |
| 1:13.9 | makes your influence less strong or more strong? I should say more strong. Do you |
| 1:20.0 | hope to see more women in politics? Yes I hope to do. Do you think they would be more |
| 1:25.0 | more capable of solving the problems of the world than men are so far? |
| 1:28.0 | That's left to be seen. |
| 1:31.0 | My mother was incredible. She shed her reticence, her shyness, she came forward and on every political platform she spoke |
| 1:45.0 | Serima Bandranaika was born into a prominent Sinhales family. |
| 1:49.0 | Her husband was a politically ambitious Oxford educated politician who was already a government minister |
| 1:54.8 | when they married in 1940. They had three children. Sinatra was their eldest daughter. |
| 2:00.1 | Until her husband's death, Serima was involved in social welfare work. |
| 2:09.0 | Solomon Bandranika was elected Prime Minister in 1955 with his nationalist Sri Lanka Freedom Party, |
| 2:16.4 | eight years after the island's independence from 150 years of British colonial rule. He was shot by a Buddhist monk in September 1959. |
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