The NPP Illusion, Harini Amarasuriya’s Role and the Politics of Convenient Feminism

Photo courtesy of Sri Lanka Mirror

The NPP was marketed as a rupture, a moral and political break from the past. It was presented as a vehicle for reform, inclusivity and a new feminist consciousness in Sri Lankan politics. In reality, it was a carefully managed illusion. At the center of that illusion stood Harini Amarasuriya, not as a power holder but as a political instrument, carefully positioned to lend credibility and polish to a party with deeply entrenched hierarchical structures.

Harini was not incidental to the NPP’s rise; she was essential. The JVP’s decision to bring her into parliament through the National List was not about reform, representation or genuine progress for women. It was a calculated move to manufacture legitimacy. A party long distrusted by large segments of society required a credible, educated and respectable face to signal transformation. Harini supplied it. She became the human emblem of change, a visible proof that the NPP was not merely the JVP in a new costume.

Through her, continuity was sold as change.

Her elite background, polished language and progressive outlook allowed the JVP to launder its image under a new banner. The NPP appeared plural not because power was shared or genuinely reformed but because optics were carefully managed. Decision making remains centralized and the NPP steering committee is largely ornamental, a façade for public consumption. The core political structures have not shifted. The party remains firmly rooted in hierarchical control with loyalty to leadership prioritized above ideological or feminist principles. This is the paradox: outwardly, the NPP looks modern, progressive and feminist; inwardly, it remains tightly controlled by the same centralist logic that has historically characterized the JVP.

And Harini Amarasuriya knew this. This is not a story of a well-meaning reformer trapped by circumstances. It is a story of consent. Harini accepted symbolic authority in exchange for proximity to power while real control remained firmly elsewhere. The National List seat insulated her from accountability and ensured alignment. Her reward was elevation; the cost was silence.

Today, that silence is being defended under the banner of feminism.

Supporters and friends from academia have rushed to condemn misogynistic attacks on Harini’s sexuality. Such attacks deserve condemnation, without question. But the hypocrisy is glaring. A majority of these voices remain conspicuously mute on far more serious issues: the deception surrounding the NPP, the sheer incompetence in delivering on their own promises and the betrayal of the people’s mandate through the absence of democratic accountability under her government.

Outrage, it seems, is reserved for insults, not for abuse of power.

This selective moral urgency exposes a critical contradiction. What we are witnessing is not feminist politics but class solidarity disguised as moral principle. Misogyny becomes intolerable only when directed at someone who belongs to the same social and cultural bubble. Meanwhile, the daily structural violence faced by millions of Sri Lankan women elicits little more than rhetorical concern.

Harini’s own rise exposes this paradox. She was elevated not by challenging patriarchy but by being acceptable to it. Her privilege – social, educational and cultural – made her useful to a male-dominated party structure. That privilege was then marketed as progress for all women, creating a narrative of feminist advancement while leaving actual power dynamics unchanged. Her presence as a woman in a visible leadership role became a performative shield, signaling reform while shielding existing hierarchies from scrutiny. The optics of reform are powerful in media narratives; for the public, seeing a woman in leadership can feel like progress even when nothing substantive has shifted. Harini’s visibility became a tool, a lens through which the NPP projected change, regardless of what was happening behind the scenes.

This is feminism without confrontation, representation without redistribution and language without power.

The NPP’s island-wide women’s mobilization, including the Gehanu Api Eka Mitata campaign led by Harini, signaled an ambition to challenge entrenched patriarchy, reshape power structures and elevate women’s political and social standing, not merely their public image. These messages were crafted to resonate with the lived experiences of women across rural and urban Sri Lanka, who continue to face systemic discrimination in education, employment, healthcare and political participation. Yet, what followed was not confrontation but compliance: submission to male leadership, rigid loyalty to party hierarchy and a brand of feminism reduced to empty slogans and self-preservation. The gap between promise and performance is stark and the consequences are real. Millions of women continue to navigate structural inequalities without meaningful support from the political movement that claimed to champion their rights. The rhetoric of liberation was used to elevate a few, leaving the broader constituency untouched, if not further disillusioned.

When a leader allows her credibility to be used to mislead the public, she becomes responsible for the deception. When feminism is deployed to shield a government from scrutiny rather than to challenge power, it becomes a tool of convenience.  And when elite defenders cry misogyny while making little or barely audible demands for accountability, they reveal exactly whose dignity they are truly interested in protecting. The combination of media attention on symbolic attacks and silence on structural failures amplifies the illusion; the public sees outrage where it is safe to express and inaction where real accountability is required.

The NPP illusion is now fraying. The language still sounds radical but the structures remain intact. The symbols are defended aggressively because without them, the project collapses. The carefully curated optics of reform can no longer conceal the reality; continuity, not rupture, remains the operative principle of the JVP masked as the NPP.

Illusions can win elections. They cannot govern indefinitely.

Sri Lanka does not need more carefully curated faces of change. It needs leaders willing to confront power even when that power sits inside their own party. Until then, feminism will remain a performance, reform a slogan and the NPP exactly what it was from the beginning: continuity disguised as transformation.

Political change cannot rest on symbols alone. It requires sustained engagement with structures, accountability and a willingness to challenge entrenched hierarchies. Representation without power is meaningless; rhetoric without action is a betrayal. If the NPP truly intends to claim a legacy of reform and feminist progress, it must confront the contradictions it has helped create. Until that moment, the narrative of rupture will remain exactly what it was from the start: an illusion.

Shyama Basnayake is a feminist researcher and former member of Progressive Women’s Collective (NPP Women’s Wing) with four years of experience within the NPP (2020–2024).