Politics was a family business for Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga. Her father, Prime Minister of Sri Lanka from 1956, was assassinated when she was only 14. Her mother then won the sympathy and the vote of the Sri Lankan people and was elected in his place. Ten months after her husband's death, Sirimavo Bandaranaike became the first woman Prime Minister in the world. Chandrika was sent abroad to continue her education and studied politics, economics, law and leadership at the Sorbonne. She was very active in student politics and said she was proud to be on the barricades during the student protests in Paris in 1968.

Although politics was in her blood, early on she decided that she would prefer to help people in other ways...

 I have seen politics from the day I was born, from the day I could understand, and I was always attracted from a young age to the part that was involved with serving the people - my father was very much like that my mother was like that. I always was interested in what was going on in the world, but I had decided I will not go into active politics because I saw how much my mother and father had to give and how much they suffered - but it didn't work... I wanted to be a doctor first, if I was born in some other family I don't know what I would have done."