Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, Dr Harini Amarasuriya, delivered the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies (OGSA) Annual Lecture at St. Antony’s College on 19th May.
The lecture, titled “The politics of development: Sri Lanka and beyond”, covered topics ranging from gender equality and women’s participation in politics, the Sri Lankan garment industry, and political reform. Amarasuriya, who was appointed Prime Minister on 24th September 2024, is the third woman in Sri Lanka to hold the title. She received her PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Edinburgh and previously worked as a social anthropologist studying political dissent movements in Sri Lanka in the 20th century.
An OGSA spokesperson told Cherwell: “[Dr Amarasuriya] is an academic who entered into politics and could offer an interesting reflection on that transition … her government constituted a break with the past in Sri Lanka and had to contend with the difficulties of promoting social and political change.”
Professor Diego Sanchez-Ancochea, Head of Department at OGSA, said in the press release that Dr Amasuriya’s lecture “offered an important and timely reflection on the relationship between politics and development, drawing on both scholarly insight and direct political experience”.
Last February, the Oxford Union cancelled a talk by Sri Lankan MP Namal Rajapaksa, the eldest son of the former President and former Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa. The move followed dissent from Tamil student activists, referencing the Sri Lankan civil war, which ended in 2009. Mahinda Rajapaksa faced accusations of war crimes and crimes against humanity from human rights organisations and the United Nations.
Popular demonstrations (the ‘Aragalaya’) in 2022 “denounced the corruption and the incompetence … of the Rajapaksa clan which had dominated since 2006.” Amasuriya, a member of Sri Lanka’s popular socialist National People’s Power (NPP) party, is considered a more progressive successor to Rajapaksa.
However, Amarasuriya’s government has continued a longstanding Sri Lankan policy of rejecting international investigations into war crimes committed against Tamils. An October 2025 article from the Tamil Guardian noted that her administration would instead pursue, what she described as, a “homegrown process” to address human rights concerns.
Amasuriya’s lecture was part of a wider visit to the United Kingdom, during which she held policy discussions with UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper on the Sri Lankan government’s “commitment to human rights, reconciliation, and the country’s positive growth trajectory”. She also met with the Secretary of State for Education, Bridget Phillipson, and the Secretary General of the Commonwealth of Nations, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey.
 Annual Lecture at St. Antony’s College on 19th May.){kind=link}