Anupam Kher seeks Sadhguru's answer on what role a Prime Minister should play in creating growth and change in India. Sadhguru looks at the unique nature of the largest, most diverse democracy in the world, and emphasizes why it is uniquely placed for an important role in a global context. It is upto the leaders and people of the nation to make this possibility a reality.

Full Transcript:

Anupam Kher: Let me… Let me ask you a hypothetical question. Suppose – hypothetical question, I must announce that before – suppose you were made the prime minister of this country for one month, how will you change things?

Sadhguru: See, there are enough instruments in the democratic process. Making me or anybody a prime minister for one month is a cruel thing. (Laughter)

Anupam Kher: Okay, for five years.

Sadhguru: Yes. (Laughter)

Anupam Kher: So you admit that one month is not sufficient? I understand.

Sadhguru: No, because one month is a very cruel joke. It doesn’t matter who… who comes to power for one month, he can’t do anything in a nation as diverse as India. To get this nation moving… you need to understand this – you cannot move this nation with policy, with rules. You can only move this nation when anything that you want to achieve in this country you make it a movement. If you do not make it a movement, if people do not emotionally connect to that, no rules, no policy is going to work in this country. It is only people who have been implanted from somewhere, who have not grown up with Indian people, who do not understand this. They think if you make a rule everything is going to work. This is not Switzerland – if you announce on the notice board everybody will follow. (Laughs) Here you have to make a movement out of it; you have to make emotionally… people connect emotionally to what needs to be achieved. If you’re not able to do that, nothing is ever going to happen. So whoever becomes the prime minister, I don’t want to imagine myself there…

Anupam Kher: Okay. What do you think should be done?

Sadhguru: It can be very easily done. There are examples of states which are going leaps and bounds ahead. If you saw Bihar just ten years ago, it was just… I have driven through Bihar just wanting to see what Bihar is – it was… it just looked like Afghanistan, large parts of it. Today things are happening, wonderful things are happening, just one man. Things are happening in Gujarat, just one man. So can’t we produce twenty five men or women like that in this country for every state? (Applause) Are we so impotent that we cannot produce twenty five human beings with some integrity who will do something straight for this nation? And today you don’t have to do much. India is sitting on a boom time, you just have to just manage a few things and let it happen, that’s all. You just have to see that economic process do (does?) not go out of control, you just have to manage that, you don’t have to do anything, it’s boom time, the whole world is looking towards you.

The only two economies everybody is banking on is right now China and India. India is better equipped because it’s a democracy, because all the numbers are scrutinized, but what is in China cannot be scrutinized, so many people are very suspicious and fearful, because it’s supported by the government. India has a proper corporate structure, India has a reliable stock market, which is a reading. Indian market is open, you can study what you want, you know where you’re putting your money, so definitely India would be a natural destination for every investor in the world, only thing is they’re afraid of our…

Anupam Kher: System…

Sadhguru: Corruption, not the system. They like our system. Our corruption…

Anupam Kher: Corrupt system.

Sadhguru: System is not corrupt.

Anupam Kher: Corruption.

Sadhguru: Corruption. (Laughter) The reason… (Laughs) it’s the people who are manning it…

Anupam Kher: He has a way of making me say things that he wants me to say. (Laughter)

Sadhguru: No, no, the people who are manning it… people who are manning it are the problem.

Anupam Kher: But how do we find them? You mentioned two states – you mentioned Gujarat and you mentioned Bihar and strangely they are not the states which we have in the center. So how do we… are we politically corrupt… politically completely bankrupt? How do we do that? Means it’s a…

Sadhguru: No, no, no, it is… it is only because common people are not participating in the democratic process. Participating in the democratic process does not just mean once in five years you cast your vote – most people don’t even do that – but I’m saying even if you do that, that is not enough. Democracy is an active sport; it’s not a spectator’s sport. You can’t sit back and say ‘Let somebody do democracy.’ Democracy means you are the boss, you can’t sleep on it, you have to be active to everything around you. If you do not bring that consciousness in people, that awareness and activism in people, it’ll not work. At the same time, for everything you protest, for everything you call a bandh, for everything, you know, it’s our culture. People have understood the technology of how to stop the nation – bandh, hartaal – but how to run the nation, it’s a different technology. (Applause)

If you want to become a neta (leader) tomorrow you don’t have to create anything, do you understand? All you have to do is – I’m sure you have enough fans in Mumbai – take thousand people and block the Sea Link. It’s a new road, just block it, you will become a neta. You don’t have to build the Sea Link to become a neta. If you build you will be in lots of trouble. If you block it, you are there. (Laughter)

Anupam Kher: I personally feel that I think we are to be blamed for getting the kind of leaders that we get. So you have millions of followers, or whatever you want to call them – you’ll suddenly say that ‘They're not my followers.’ You have millions of friends here, okay? (Laughter)

Sadhguru: You're treating me like trouble.

Anupam Kher: You have millions of people who like you, okay. (Laughter) Let’s take a promise from them, that in the coming elections all of them will vote.

Sadhguru: It is not that they have to make a promise – they already are doing it, nobody misses it. (Applause) I myself go stand in the line and vote always.

Anupam Kher: I'm not going to make it so easy for all of you. I on behalf of Sadhguru…

Sadhguru: This crowd is largely your followers. (Laughter)

Anupam Kher: No, no, no, no, no, no! This crowd… I have no followers. I have followers on Twitter and they're four lakhs of people, which is very good. I have no followers; I don’t claim to have followers. I want this and all those millions of people who are watching this in various parts of the world to make one promise on my behalf to Sadhguru, that next coming elections they will all vote. Is that a promise?

Participants: Yes!

Anupam Kher: So we have achieved…

Sadhguru: No, no, I'm not happy with that.

Anupam Kher: I am happy with that.
Sadhguru: I am saying… I am saying, at least once a month in your street, in your region, whatever is the sticking points in your area, in your street, just make a list of that, get a few people together, whoever the councilor, the MLA, call him for a meeting, talk to him what needs to happen. Casting vote once in five years is not good enough, because you employ somebody and you don’t see that he works – that is not… doesn’t make sense, isn't it? (Applause)