Suu Kyi Inspired By "Indian Freedom Struggle"

During her speech, the Nobel laureate linked Nehru’s experiences to her own and reflected on the part of their lives that were spent as political prisoners.

She also narrated the story of how her father Aung San had stayed with Nehru as his personal guest while on his way to London to negotiate Burmese independence. She said “To my infant mind he was the kindly old man who provided my father two sets of uniforms, the smartest that he had,” as reported by The Hindu. She said that Nehru had arranged for some warm clothes for Suu Kyi's khaki-clad father when he was in Delhi on his way to icy London in January 1947.

Further, Congress president Sonia Gandhi described Suu Kyi as a mixture of the best of East and West, but rooted in her own country and its culture, just like Nehru. Gandhi was quoted saying “She exemplifies all qualities he [Nehru] most admired — fearlessness, integrity, moral and intellectual courage, perseverance, freedom from anger and bitterness and unqualified devotion to betterment of the life of her people through the path of dialogue and national reconciliation.”

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