Kiran Bedi: Let’s come to the opportunities.
We’ve addressed strengths,
we’ve addressed weaknesses.
What are the opportunities the nation has today in nation building with 1.2 billion people?
Sadhguru: See, India is a
this …this nation is a tremendous opportunity,
a possibility.
This is something that anybody who looks at this nation with… closely enough can clearly see here,
rest of the world clearly sees that,
that this is a nation of tremendous possibility.
But what we need to understand is
between a possibility and a reality there is a distance.
Do you have the courage, the commitment and the conviction to walk the distance?
That’s always the question.
Definitely it's a great possibility.
We are sitting on the threshold
but do not underestimate our ability to goof things up”
I am not being pessimistic,
I am the last person to be pessimistic about anything
but I know our ability to goof things.
I see it every day.
The way they drive on the street,
the way they do things,
the way everything is made
we have a phenomenal ability to goof up things because
we are too much genius with very little organization.”
Yes, everybody thinks he is a genius.
If you go, sit in a teashop in a street-side,
in a …rural India –
no, no, no I am not talking politics –
if you sit in a teashop in somewhere rural India street-side
because I’ve driven across the country. I’ve sat in dhabas and teashops so much,
I’ve ridden …I’ve crisscrossed India on my motorcycle
so I lived in dhabas and teashops all the time
So you will see the guy who is making the tea there
he will be telling how Tendulkar should have made the right shot
you know how he tch,
you know how his technique is not good,
he is doing a wrong approach.
Kiran Bedi: Or Bishan Bedi is sitting here, how he could have bowled.
Sadhguru: (Laughs) Whatever, this kind of things.
He will be talking about how the Prime Minister should have run the country differently.
Only problem with him is he does not know how to make good tea
So this is the problem, we are …we are too exuberant.
A society like this is generally considered a high context society
with too much context, not enough content.
It's a very beautiful way to exist on one level
but if we do not organize
if do not focus this natural exuberance of the people
a certain intelligence which is free-willing intelligence,
you will have a very …a chaotic situation
which seems to be going somewhere but not going anywhere.
It's like whirlwind making its own rounds.
So it needs a little forceful engagement of pushing it in a certain direction,
a little authority to push it.
People don’t understand what powers India.
It’s powered by itself, it's just like a whirlwind
but you must be able to direct it in the direction that you want it to go.
That needs a little bit of authority
but we picked up all kinds of fancy ideas,
we don’t like authority, you know
we don’t like any kind of authority.
We would like to go all over the place.
Just see …just the driving on the street is a clear demo.
I am not talking about authoritarianism
but a certain authority which organizes this whirlwind of chaos
is needed for this country to push it in one direction,
otherwise we will keep going round and round.
We come… see, we’ve been sitting on a threshold.
For me the economic development that everybody is talking about,
I am not thinking about how you can transform your life from Maruti to Mercedes
that doesn’t matter to me. I am not against cars, I like them (Laughs)
but that is not the thing.
There are over six hundred million people.
Today night, after this is over when we go wherever we go,
the table at which we sit
there will be a choice of dinner that you and me can choose.
There are six hundred million people who have no such choice tonight.
The child who has to go to school tomorrow,
he is not eating what is necessary for him to go and remember who is Mahatma Gandhi’s wife,
he doesn’t care a damn because he has not eaten right.
The woman who carries a child in her womb doesn’t have the necessary nourishment
to bring out something that’s worthwhile.
Now this can change in next five to eight years’ time,
if we handle things right and it matters that we handle this right.
Kiran Bedi: See, you really combined the opportunity with the threat
because the same population,
the same energy is goofed up as you said.
Sadhguru: Yes.
Kiran Bedi: Could be a threat?
Is there any threat other than this?
Sadhguru: See, this is the biggest threat for India.
This also happened in the Economic Forum
our people particularly the corporate and also the ministers were,
you know everywhere you hear this – I think everybody is repeating this chant
“We are the youngest nation in the world, we are the youngest nation in the world.”
I sat through this and I was amazed
why everybody is gloating about we are the youngest nation.
So I asked them “What happened to the old people?”
They said, “What? No, no we are the youngest nation.”
I said, “That’s okay but what happened to the old people?”
I want you to know India
in India nobody gets old, people die young.
That’s why we are the youngest nation in the world
Yes.
It is a tragedy that we don’t have old people
but this tragedy can be turned into a tremendous possibility right now
because compared to the rest of the world we are a youthful nation.
We have the opportunity to power ourselves into well-being.
But we must understand why we are the youngest nation.
Suppose we are saying right now sixty percent of the population is below thirty and we are very proud,
tomorrow you find sixty percent of the population is below fifteen,
something wrong has happened or no?
Why are we not looking at it?
We’ve not run it properly.
Why don’t we see people are not growing old,
people are not living,
my great grandmother lived to be hundred and thirteen.
Nobody is living like that.
Everybody is dying in their fifties and sixties or even less.
So we are
we have the synergy of youth right now
though our poets are eulogizing many things about the country,
I want you to understand, for 1.25 billion people,
you neither have the land
nor mountains
nor forests
nor rivers
nor even a piece of sky for 1.25 billion people.
If all of them have to live in decent housing, almost literally,
you know huge occupation will happen,
there’ll be nothing left.
Only reason why we seem to be managing is
because they’re living like cattle packed up - in one room twelve people are sleeping.
We’re managing.
If every one of them has to have a decent bedroom you won’t have place.
So, only thing that you have is people.
If you have this population educated, focused, balanced and inspired we are a miracle.
If you leave them uneducated, unfocused, uninspired, unskilled,
we are the biggest disaster waiting.
Kiran Bedi: Do we need money for this?
Sadhguru: We have the money.
We have the money.
We’ve not had a determined leadership.
What has been lacking is leadership.
Because… I’m not somebody who takes any political stance
but I’m just looking back,
I’m seeing
leave the first twenty-five years after independence,
they did whatever best they could do with little that they had and it’s a heady times, okay?
But after the passing of Jawaharlal Nehru, we’ve not really had a Prime Minister.
In the sense, somebody always becomes
except that Lal Bahadur Shastri for a short period
and maybe Narsimha Rao for a little period which was
government was tottering all the time –
rest of the time somebody becomes a Prime Minister only because somebody dies
and Indian emotion, like a cinema it overtakes everybody,
and somebody’s daughter,
somebody’s son,
somebody’s somebody becomes the Prime Minister.
We’ve never really had someone who has roots in the nation,
who knows what this country is
and who is burning with aspiration to make this nation something,
we’ve never had that.
It’s only by default that people have become Prime Ministers in this country.
Kiran Bedi: But don’t the leaders come from within the community,
within the people?
Sadhguru: No, no tch, I’m saying
Prime Ministers happened only because somebody died.
Kiran Bedi: But you also have certain states.
We’re talking about… even state governance,
we’re not only talking about central governance.
Sadhguru: Yes, but
Kiran Bedi: India has twenty-nine states today.
State governance.
Look what’s happening with Uttar Pradesh today.
Uttar Pradesh what is happening
it’s a leadership which was elected two and a half years ago with overwhelming acceptance.
What happened?
It comes from within.
What is the present state?
I’m not saying it’s gone wrong or right.
So aren’t people responsible for it?
Sadhguru: We are a democracy in paper.
But our mindset is essentially feudalistic.
Because even... I’m saying even among the elite and educated,
suppose you do well tomorrow,
suppose our present prime minister does really well tomorrow,
people will cry “I wish we had a son.” (Laughter)
You understand?
People will cry “We wish he had a son because when he goes,
his son could become the Prime Minister.”
I’m saying in our mindset we are still feudalistic.
So when you are feudalistic, things are run in a certain way.
What essentially it means is,
being feudalistic or democratic is,
feudalistic means who your father was matters;
democracy means I don’t care a damn who your father was.
I don’t want to know.
This is why I said Mahatma Gandhi’s wife, I don’t want to know who she is,
I don’t want to know who Mahatma Gandhi’s father is.
We bow down to him for who he is and that’s all that matters to us.
And that’s how it should be in a democratic nation. We care who you are,
we don’t care who your father was.
You may care who your father was,
I don’t care who your father was.
I only care who you are.