Election Day holiday means me and my family go on a picnic, not for the voting.
Other people are going to vote - so what is there if I don’t go?
We are still in a monarchy mindset, we think elected person is a king or an emperor.
Questioner: How do we get the population interested in politics and governance
in view of the fact that I mean in most elections there are less than fifty percent turnouts?
Sadhguru: See, this is not about politics.
There is not enough concern about the nation and the people.
That concern has not come to a whole lot of people.
Still we are in that mode, our attachments to our family,
our identities with our family and community is so strong,
if me and my family are doing well I don't care a damn what’s happening to the country.
Election Day holiday means me and my family go on a picnic, not for the voting.
Who will go and stand in the queue?
We will go on a picnic or we will go to the cinema, we will do something else.
Because the identification with the family is way bigger than the national identity.
And because of that they think, “Ah other people will vote.”
This is their idea.
“Other people are going to vote, so what is there if I don’t go?”
There’s a beautiful story that Mark Twain used to love to say,
there was a time when people believed there are people on the moon.
Tch…
Before Apollo, I’m saying in America people believed there are people living on the moon.
So they got a bright idea,
they thought on one particular given moment
all of us go stand on our rooftops
and shout one word together in one voice,
the word that we shout is ‘who’ at them,
let’s see what they say.”
Shall we try this here?
Can all of you, I will say one, two, three,
can you just say “who” as loudly as you can
so that the whole Hyderabad hears?
One, two, three.
Participants: Who!
Sadhguru: See you have become wonderful like this
but...
that day came everybody, stood on the rooftop
that time I got a very
what to say
a very artistic idea, tch.
I thought “This is such a rare moment,
all these people are going to say one word
and me you know I have a small voice.
What is there if I don’t say it,
and I just wanted to hear this extraordinary moment everybody saying ‘Who’.”
And that moment came and it passed in total silence (Laughter).
A day may come on Election Day nobody turns up
except those who are herded by political parties with money and whatever goading they are doing.
This is an irresponsible way to exist.
See the word for democracy in Tamil language is Jananayakam.
What this means is people are the leaders,
still our people have not understood
that we are the leaders of this nation.
We are still in a monarchy mindset
we think elected person is a king or an emperor.
So this is lack of education,
lack of information,
lack of identity with the nation,
a strong sense of “we build this nation” is not there.
Somebody is going to run this nation - this is still a British hangover.
We think somebody else is running the nation, we don’t understand this is our nation,
we have to make it what we want.
Right now we have a nation where if Donald Trump opens up visas for all Indians,
sixty percent of the population will swim across the oceans and get to America (Few laugh).
This is not right!
When everybody wants to go away,
we have not created a nation that people wants to live in, isn’t it?
When everybody wants to come here, that means we’ve built a great nation (Applause).
For this participating in the fundamental…
participating in the fundamental democratic process is a must for everybody
but if you make it mandatory it becomes ugly.
So I’m saying even such simple things we are debating,
we can’t get a nation to get together and even vote
even when nation is in a crisis.
When fifty percent of the people not eating properly is a crisis for me,
it is not a normal situation for me.
It’s a crisis.
When such a crisis is there,
whether I should vote or not…?
Okay, we will say “nobody is acceptable to me”.
Well, it all sounds very intellectual but believe me you don’t build a nation like this.
You have to make choices about whatever lousy choice you have,
in that you must make a little better lousy choice.
If you want to improve this nation long term
you cannot abstain and say “oh nobody is fit enough”.
Well, you stand up, if you see…
See, this is a debate going on everywhere in every teashop, every college this is going on,
“oh all politicians are rubbish, they are thieves they are this.”
If we have handed over this nation to the hands of the thieves and we are sitting back here
and we don’t even have the responsibility of voting,
we are the… more bigger thieves than them, isn’t it?
Hello?
This responsibility has to come, we have not understood our basic democratic responsibility.
When we do not understand that, we will become unfit for democracy, then something else will take us over.
It is very, very important, not just voting,
there are many other instruments through which you can participate in the democratic process.
It is very important the student community participates not on the street, not protest, not burning a bus
but participating in the instruments of democracy.
All of you are law students -
you must take a certain part of your life to educate the country and the youth,
what are the ways in which they can participate in the democratic process.
This is very, very important to make this nation (Applause).