Interviewer: Hello and Welcome.
You are watching the Republic media network on your screens now.
You have known him as a yogi, a mystic and today joining me is Sadhguru, he is on a mission.
Today you are seeing him in a biker’s gear because he has one message.
He is joining us after driving for over three thousand kilometers on a motorbike over the
last two weeks and he has a message.
Today Sadhguru is telling all of us “Cauvery is calling, do you have the heart to hear?”
Thank you Sadhguru for joining us on the Republic media network.
First of all…
Sadhguru: Thank you, Namaskaram.
Interviewer: Your enthusiasm and your positive energy and the mission that you’re going
ahead with when it comes to saving our rivers.
Tell our viewers about it.
Sadhguru: We need to understand this, the most fundamental mistake that most people
have in their perception is that most people think river is a source of water or a lake
or a well is a source of water.
No, rivers, lakes, ponds and wells are not sources of water, they are only destinations
for water.
The only source of water we have is monsoon rain, we must understand this.
So the volume of rain that is being showered upon this subcontinent in the last hundred
years has not changed much.
The patterns have changed but the volume has not really changed.
So our ability to hold water in the land is what is being lost.
This loss has happened mainly because of the removal of vegetation, largely tree cover
that’s been taken away, for example in Ca… in Cauvery basin eighty-seven percent of the
tree cover has been removed in the last fifty years.
So our ability to sequester and augment the water resource, in the ground water and in
the rivers and the aquifers has been lost completely, so putting this back, how is it
possible?
Because right now the only real land owner, who has large amount of land which is nearly
eighty percent of the land, is the farmer.
So unless the farmer grows trees, it is not going to work.
Why would he grow trees when he is in a despress (desperate?) condition where a whole lot of
them are committing suicide, thousands of them.
When this is the condition, you can’t tell him, “Save the river, save the country,
save the world,” this kind of preaching.
So “Cauvery Calling” is an economic plan – for the last eighteen years we converted
nearly seventy thousand farmers in to agro-forestry and we have seen that within five to seven
years their incomes go up three-hundred to eight-hundred percent.
I am repeating this three-hundred to eight-hundred percent, three to eight times over but we
are right now in the process of converting three to five thousand farmers per year.
If we go like this it would take eighty to hundred years – as I am not planning to
live that long, I decided we will crush, crush this hundred years into twelve years and that
is Cauvery Calling.
To make sure that at least one-third of the land is under shade and under cultivation
because if we want to… if we want to enrich the soil there are only two sources for us
– the leaves from the trees and the animal waste.
Trees are gone long time ago (Laughs) and as you know animals are all migrating or rather
being transported to other countries.
So there is no animal waste, there is no tree leaf, there is no way to enrich the soil.
We are trying to largely grow crops with salts or fertilizers and that is the biggest damage
that’s happened to the land.
We have to put back green cover to enrich our soil.
This is about the soil – if we enrich the soil, if it is organically rich, then water
sequestering will naturally happen and rivers will flow once again.
Interviewer: Yes
Sadhguru: This… this is not some rocket science.
This is something that we always knew and lost it in the last fifty years.
Interviewer: Sadhguru you spoke about the first stakeholder who is a part of this entire
campaign.
You’ve spoken about the farmers.
We know that the entire Cauvery Calling campaign, there is no doubt in the fact of the benefits
that will have for our environment and for our future generations, but when we talk about
farmers and you also spoke about the economics of it.
Did it take any kind of convincing, especially when you are out on a bike rally through the
Cauvery basin, speaking to a lot of people?
What did it take for you to bring farmers to join your movement?
Sadhguru: See, one thing is in Southern India, particularly in Tamil Nadu, there is an enormous
trust in the farm community with me and I know what I sa… and they know very wellwhat
I say is for their well-being.
There is no politics behind it or some other motive.
So that trust has translated into action.
As I said, over seventy thousand farmers have benefitted in the last eighteen years of this
project but the pace at which we are going is not good enough.
And one reason why the farmer does not want to grow a tree is, even in his own land if
he grows a tree and cuts it (Laughs), most probably he will be arrested for that.
And there is a whole lot of activism in the country, which if he cuts a tree in his land,
people will come and protest, lodge complaints against him – these kind of things have
been happening.
I am asking, “Why would a poor farmer grow something that he cannot make use of?”
So, we have been working with the governments both with the central government and the two
state governments to change these laws.
We are in the process of setting up a tim… timber board where timber must be treated
as an agricultural produce, not as a forest produce.
India’s forest are an absolute no, no for commercial exploitation.
Commercial exploitation of our forest is… is history.
We cannot do that anymore.
If we want timber, we have to grow it in the farmland and this is very, very lucrative
for the farmer.
And also it works for the government because in many ways it solves various problems that
the government has with the farm distress.
And it will work for the larger public and for the nation because it will enrich the
soil and sequester water.
To what extent means, for example right now we are talking about two-hundred-and-forty-two
crore trees to be planted…
Interviewer: Yes
Sadhguru: …in Cauvery basin.
If we plant this many trees, when they are eight to twelve years old, they can sequester
something like nine to twelve trillion liters of water.
To give you a perspective of what is twelve trillion liters of water, right now the present
flow of Cauvery throughout the year is 21.2 trillion liters.
So more than sixty percent of the water that is flowing in the river can be sequestered.
Now Cauvery is not just one river.
It is a river system of over hundred-and-twenty tributaries coming in.
These tributaries have dried up in a massive way and Cauvery itself is not touching the
ocean for more than five months.
What was a perineal river for millions of years has become a seasonal river in the last
fifteen years!
Interviewer: Yes, Sadhguru as you talk about this I see the counter right in front of me.
You’ve spoke about how two-hundred-and-forty-two crore trees, that’s your mission and I see
that counter going up by every minute now.
You… there are over three-crore-eighty-three-lakh-ninety-two thousand and as we speak it’s touched eight-hundred-and-fifty-two
trees that have been contributed.
Sadhguru, a lot is spoken about the youth today especially who are known as the millennials.
They have been in the debate recently as well.
Today when you take out a bike, when you go out to spread a message that will do good
for future generations.
What is the kind of response you get from the younger generation?
How does it feel when you lead a bike rally and (Sadhguru Laughs) with you there are thousands
and thousands of youngsters who follow you as you take this mission ahead?
Sadhguru: One reason why we chose to get back on the motorcycle, it’s been more than thirty
years since I got off the motorcycle.
There was a time when I crisscrossed India on the motorcycles but it’s been over thirty
years now.
So why I got back on the motorcycle now is mainly to touch the youth because you know,
the youth of India, need to get involved in this, otherwise this is not going to happen.
Right now, the farmer is very enthusiastic.
Both the governments are willing to do what is needed.
Both of them have promised that they will give the necessary subsidy and make the changes
in the laws which will allow a farmer to grow, fell, transport and sell his timber product,
wherever he wants, whichever way he wants.
So once this happens agro-forestry will grow, not just in Cauvery basin, it will grow everywhere
in the country and in the tropical world.
In the last two, I mean in ninth and tenth of this month I was at the COP14 (Referring
to UN Convention to Combat Desertification), and I find enormous enthusiasm at United Nations
about Cauvery Calling and they all think it’s the most fantastic thing to be done and they
are looking forward that this works.
So there is support from United Nations, all the organizations in UN, and only thing now
missing is we need to raise two-hundred-and-fifty… two-hundred-and-forty-two crore saplings.
Interviewer: Right
Sadhguru: Growing quality saplings is a challenge.
We have ourselves set up thirty-five you know, nurseries, which have been operating for over
a decade now.
Now we are planning to set up another three-hundred-and-fifty nurseries.
Apart from this we want to train over ten thousand farmers to raise nurseries because
nursery raising itself can become a very lucrative business for the farmer.
Interviewer: Right
Sadhguru: But when the farmer raises these saplings, we must have the economic power
to buy back these saplings and re-distribute for agro-forestry.
That is why this fund-raising.
I don’t know you said number of three crore something, the last time I saw the counter
it was four-crore-twenty-seven lakhs something.
I don’t know what counter they provided you, but anyway it is around that much and
the best thing is the contributions are coming.
Till now, they have come from about one-hundred-and-twelve countries...
Interviewer: Okay
Sadhguru: …from across the world.
Interviewer: You, you spoke about, like you were telling us the growing of saplings.
We know that the government you have immense support, there is support from the government
when it comes to this movement.
But like you said, the biggest challenge is of the growing of saplings.
What kind of support… are you seeking any support from the government when it comes
to this aspect of the campaign or is there any support that’s also coming in from the
government?
Sadhguru: The Karnataka government said that they have little over two crore…
2.3 crore saplings in their nurseries and they dedicated two crore saplings for Cauvery
Calling.
Tamil Nadu government had some 1.5 or something, they dedicated one crore.
Those numbers I think the Tamil Nadu numbers, which just came today evening, have not been
added to the counter, so it is well over five crores right now.
Interviewer: Right
Sadhguru: Plus, a group of people who werewith us for an event in Erode, in a town in Tamil
Nadu, these people because they are all big landholders, when I appealed to them, they
said, they will grow five crore saplings in the next five years.
Every day…
every year they will offer one crore saplings to the Cauvery Calling and they’ve promised
they will do it.
Just now an MP from Tamil Nadu, he said they are big landowners themselves…
Interviewer: Right.
Sadhguru: …he said he will dedicate one crore saplings.
So these promises are coming, we need to translate this with the right kind of action because
our teams are finding out right now.
We have… we have organized forty-five vans, which have been going around.
They have covered over seven thousand villages right now in Cauvery basin.
These vans are fitted with LED screens as to how to grow agro-forestry, what are the
mechanics of it, what is the economics of it…
Interviewer: Yes.
Sadhguru: …how they can benefit, what are the different formats in which they can do
this.
This education is happening.
Till now we have covered seven thousand villages and it will continue, because even for sapling
raising, raising a healthy sapling is something that needs to happen.
Interviewer: Yes.
Sadhguru: Because commercial farms we cannot buy because they are putting lot of urea and
growing it.
Their survival rate will be very, very poor.
So we are growing them organically, that makes a big difference.
Interviewer: Sadhguru I’d like to ask you a larger question.
Today there is energy of positivity in our country, be it our Chandrayaan mission, the
way our scientists are always striving or be it this campaign that you’re leading
today, when, you’ve taken out a bike rally where you’re travelling the length and breadth
of two states to spread the message.
When it comes to the kind of narrative that is built about the country, there is, there
are some who always try to paint this negative picture about the country.
To them what is your message?
Especially coming at a time when there are people in this country who just want to strive
for the betterment of the country, be it our scientists or be it someone like you, whose
is doing it for the farmers and also for the future generations of this country.
Sadhguru: See (Laughs), unfortunately, this is there but I think we should not pay too
much attention to them.
They… such people are there.
Now the choice is just this.
Do you want to find solutions for the problems that we have or do you want to find problems
in the solutions that we have (Laughs)?
This is the choice we have.
Some people unfortunately think it is very intelligent to invest in finding problems.
Thanks to them that we know what the problems are but I think our problems are very clear.
It is in finding solutions that we need to invest our energies and intelligence.
I hope more and more people will work for solutions in the local areas wherever they
are.
Interviewer: Right
Sadhguru: And that is how a country can move forward.
Interviewer: Absolutely, on that note Sadhguru your last message, especially to a larger,
you know, to a larger audience who’s today watching us, how do you think they can come
and step in to join you in this campaign – The Cauvery Calling campaign?
Sadhguru: See, when I say two-hundred-and-forty-two crore saplings, people… eyeballs roll (Laughs)
because they think it’s too big a number but what I am saying is our population is
about hundred-and-thirty crores.
Interviewer: Right
Sadhguru: That means if all of us plant two… if we raise two saplings the job is done.
Two saplings in three, four years’ time is not even a challenge for anybody but as
you mentioned, certain people, there are a whole lot of people who won’t do anything,
so we have to plant for them.
So I openly told everybody, everybody who gives a negative commentary, I will plant
ten trees for each one of them (Laughs).
Interviewer: Thank you so much.
Sadhguru: So what else to do?
Interviewer: And that’s a very, very…
Sadhguru: There are people who won’t do anything, we need to plant for them.
I would like to say this to you, in Chennai, they told me that there are some beggars who
are earning three and a half to four lakhs per year.
That is their income.
It looks like an attractive profession (Laughs).
So our volunteers are going about enrolling them now that they must contribute because
people’s contribution is making their life.
Interviewer: Right.
Sadhguru: They must contribute one sapling per week.
So all the Chennai beggars if they do one sapling per week, everybody else all the Republic
TV watchers, must decide how much they should do.
This is not about me.
This is not about a particular organization.
This is a generational work.
Interviewer: Absolutely.
Sadhguru: It is time that we as a generation prove that we are a responsible generation.
Interviewer: Yes, thank you so much Sadhguru for speaking to us and we know this has been
a very, very long journey for you…
Sadhguru: Thank you _____(Unclear).
Thank you very much.
Interviewer: …when it comes to the campaign and also riding three thousand kilometers,
above three thousand kilometers across two states, not an easy thing.
Thank you so much.
I am going to take back that one message that you leave us with is – for every person
who spreads negativity I am going to plant ten saplings on their behalf.
Thank you Sadhguru for speaking to Republic TV.
Sadhguru: (Laughs) Thank you, Namaskaram.