Burma 's Aung San Suu Kyi Returns to India, Renewing Frayed Ties

In many ways, the visit was a kind of reconciliation between the celebrated Nobel Laureate and the country that helped to shape her into the icon she is today. India vocally supported Suu Kyi's pro-democracy movement in Burma in the 1990s, but later engaged with Burma's military rulers, a move that some thought undermined the country's opposition groups. On Wednesday, however, the past was buried and both Suu Kyi and New Delhi seemed keen to rebuild the relationship.  "…Our good wishes are with you as indeed with your struggle for democracy," prime minister Manmohan Singh told Suu Kyi on Wednesday when they met. "We admire you for the indomitable courage you have shown."

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The last time Suu Kyi was in India was in 1987, when she traveled to Shimla to visit her husband Michael Aris, who was studying there. Suu Kyi's father, Aung San, a Burmese independence hero, was Nehru's close friend, and her mother, Khin Kyi, was Burma's ambassador to India from 1960 to 1967. Suu Kyi attended the Convent of Jesus and Mary School and later graduated in politics from Lady Shriram College. During that time, she lived with her mother on 24 Akbar Road, in Delhi, the address that now belongs to the Congress party office. When Burma's military junta robbed Suu Kyi of her election victory in 1990, her struggle found resonance in the world's largest democracy, which at the time sheltered many of Burma's political dissidents.

(PHOTOS: Aung San Suu Kyi Travels Abroad for the First Time in 24 Years)

For Suu Kyi, the India visit may also be a welcome diversion from growing international criticism of her lack of action on behalf of the Rohingya, a minority group facing ongoing violence in Burma's Rakhine state. In Burma, the Rohingya, whom the United Nations has called the world's most persecuted group, have for decades been denied citizenship and most basic rights. Experts speculate that Suu Kyi has avoided speaking out on the matter so as not to alienate Burmese citizens, whose vote she'll need to win the 2015 general elections. Many Burmese distrust the Muslim Rohingya, unfairly casting them as outsiders, infiltrators, or even terrorists. "Politically, Aung San Suu Kyi has absolutely nothing to gain from opening her mouth on [the Rohingyas]," Burmese commentator Maung Zarni recently told the Daily Beast. "She's a politician, and her eyes are fixed on the prize, which is the 2015 majority Buddhist vote."

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In India, many have drawn parallels between Suu Kyi's silence on the Rohingyas and India's abandonment of her cause in the 1990s. "As she prepares to give her Nehru Memorial Lecture today, perhaps Suu Kyi will have reason to reflect on the arc of her own history and public perceptions of her have evolved in just the space of a few months," Venky Vembuwrote on firstpost.com on Wednesday. "Perhaps it will induce a greater empathetic understanding of India's diplomacy vis-à-vis Myanmar, which was framed in a specific geopolitical context to advance its strategic interest, without abandoning the moral support for the cause of democracy in Myanmar." 

PHOTOS: In Burma, Another Round of Ethnic Unrest Threatens Fragile Reforms

Source: http://www.news.myanmaronlinecentre.com/2012/11/16/burma-s-aung-san-suu-kyi-returns-to-india-renewing-frayed-ties/