Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi said on Friday she felt like she was "coming home" during an emotional visit to her old New Delhi college where she studied five decades ago. Students and faculty at the prestigious Lady Shri Ram college rose to their feet and cheered Suu Kyi, who is on a six-day visit to India where she studied while her mother was Burma's ambassador to the country.
Lady Shri Ram principal Meenakshi Gopinath paid tribute to "Suu", as the Nobel laureate was known at the school from which she graduated with a political science degree in 1964. "This is a deeply emotional moment for us," Gopinath said in the school auditorium where Suu Kyi had performed plays as a student. "We have prayed for your safety. We have felt your pain."
Suu Kyi, who was released from military house arrest in 2010, told the audience that when she walked into the hall she was "very touched" by the welcome and felt she was "coming home". "I always knew I would come back here," said Suu Kyi, now a member of parliament following a series of reforms by Myanmar's quasi-civilian leadership. Suu Kyi reminded her audience that democracy had not yet been fully achieved in Myanmar and that the rights enjoyed by Indians should be cherished.
"Democratic rights are very precious," something people only realise "when you do not have them," she said. During her first visit to India for 25 years, Suu Kyi has expressed disappointment with New Delhi's engagement with Myanmar's junta in the mid-1990s. India had strongly supported her battle against the country's dictatorship in the 1980s and early 1990s but later began a dialogue with Myanmar at a time when it was still a pariah in the West. Suu Kyi is set to travel to southern India to see rural development projects before winding up her trip on Sunday.