Aung San Suu Kyi comes to India after 40 years

New Delhi, Nov 14: Mynamar's democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi returned to India after a gap of 40 years. She is being treated as a state guest by the government. The democracy leader laid wreaths at the samadhi of Mahatma Gandhi at Rajghat this morning and was scheduled to meet the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh. Suu Kyi arrived on Tuesday afternoon and savoured the festivities of Diwali in Delhi. Suu Kyi, who is visiting India at the invitation of UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, will deliver the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Lecture today. She was received at the airport by Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai. A spokesman in the Ministry of External Affairs said: "The visit of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi would be part of our ongoing engagement with the democratic and multi-party polity in Myanmar. "It would provide opportunity to exchange views on all matters of mutual interest with a view to building upon the positive momentum in India-Myanmar relations. In a newspaper interview, Suu Kyi has urged India not to be over-optimistic about political changes in Myanmar. Suu Kyi, who was a student in a Delhi college, where her mother served as an ambassador, spoke of her sadness over the Indian government's ties with Myanmar's former junta, which kept her under house arrest for 15 out of 22 years before her release in 2010. Suu Kyi said she had been saddened by India's decision to engage with the Junta, which was treated as a pariah by the West, although not surprised. "I think rather than disappointment, sad is the word I would use because I have a personal attachment to India... because of the closeness that existed between the countries," she said. Suu Kyi said India should not get carried away by recent developments in Myanmar, which is now run by a quasi-civilian regime and where elections are due in 2015. "It's (got) to be able to take a good hard look at what is really happening," she said. "Not to be over-optimistic, at the same time to be encouraging of what needs to be encouraged; because I think too much optimism doesn't help because then you ignore what is going wrong, and if you ignore what is not right, then from not right it becomes wrong." Suu Kyi acknowledged that businesses were keen to tap the opportunities across India's eastern border in competition with Chinese counterparts but added that "investment has to be done in the right way". "And also we have to keep in mind that we are just at the beginning of the road to democracy, and as I keep saying, it's a road we have to build for ourselves. It's not there ready and waiting," she said. Suu Kyi said, she would like to "see my old friends again, just to talk with them, just to be with them". Suu Kyi studied at the Convent of Jesus and Mary School and graduated in political science from Lady Shri Ram College. Suu Kyi is also scheduled to meet vice-president Hamid Ansari, Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid. She will visit The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in Gurgaon, before flying to Bangalore and Andhra Pradesh. On Friday, Suu Kyi will meet members of the Myanmar community at west Delhi's Prospect Burma School, which she helps fund. Most people from Myanmar in Delhi (15,000) live in Vikaspuri, where the school is located. They are refugees, with the majority belonging to Chin state which borders India. Suu Kyi last visited India in 1987 when she travelled to Simla to join her husband Michael Aris, who was pursuing Himalayan studies at the Institute of Advanced Studies.