Gandhi, Nehru are two Indian leaders I feel closest: Suu Kyi
said, adding that Nehru too has been a source of some inspiration for the pro-democracy leader.
Suu Kyi said Mahatma Gandhi's influence on her political thinking is widely recognised but the influence of Nehru on her life in politics is less well known.
Suu Kyi's visit is an emotional one because she spent several years in India as a student in the early 1960s while her mother was Ambassador to India.
The democracy leader, who was freed by the military junta in 2010, is also due to visit the Lady Shri Ram college in New Delhi, where she graduated with a degree in politics.
"You have been the keeper of Mahatma Gandhi's flame in your own country." Sonia told Suu Kyi. "To stand alone against power, whatever the cost, even to the point of defying the pointed rifle, requires extraordinary inner strength and resolve. To do so, not in order to acquire power or high office, but to empower a whole people, is even more heroic," she added.
Suu Kyi recalled that the year of Nehru's birth centenary--1989--was the year she was placed under house arrest for the first time and that could be said to have been the year of her political coming of age.
She said the thoughts and actions of the leaders of the Indian Independence movement provided her with ideas and inspiration.
Talking of her house arrest, the pro-democracy leader said among the 'maps' that used to see her through the years that headed into the unknown
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