Transcription
Do you think he can make America great again?
You see, his MAGA is not only about finance and economics. His making America great again is partly racial and partly financial.
And in 1935, Jawaharlal Nehru himself said in his uh uh Glimpses of World History that Swami Vivekananda's Hindu nationalism is not against anybody.
In fact, I told them Islam will reach you. And it will hit you. Islam hurts modernity more than it hates Hinduism.
Nehru kept on committing blunders after blunders. He could neither befriend China nor befriend America. Pacifism damaged Japan. Secularism damaged India.
So if you're watching this today, I want to start by saying that it is my intention, uh, beyond what I do as my daily news show, to have conversations with people that are not just meaningful, but in which we can deep dive into issues. And the person I have with me today is a person who is, I can describe in three ways.
One, he is the fighter. He has fought all his life, and I can tell you today, he has the same energy as he did 50 years back. Secondly, I consider him my mentor in the profession of journalism. When people ask me who do you look up to, I don't look up to anybody from my television industry. But there's one person I look up to ideologically and for the person that he is, that is Mr. Gurumurthy.
And the third reason way in which I'll introduce Mr. Gurumurthy, I think he's a national treasure. He's a reservoir of knowledge that the younger generation needs to know about. And so it's a great pleasure to introduce you. You are a nationalist. You're an ideologue. You're a thinker. Some people think you're very rigid in your views also. People feel that Mr. Gurumurthy has rigid views and they try to push you from left and right, but you remain centered on your beliefs.
In this conversation with you, Mr. Murthy, I want to talk about the country because on podcast, you know, a lot of people watch younger demographies. Younger people will be watching this today. So I want to make the subject and the theme of the conversation, uh, the rise of Bharat. And this is, uh, in all our minds today. And I want to address a number of issues in the course of this conversation.
Where are we in today's multipolar world will be one issue which I will address. What is the role of the RSS, to which Mr. Gurumurthy is strongly attached? What is the role of the RSS? What are the misconceptions about the RSS?
The third and very important theme, and this is going to be the broad theme of this conversation today, is Indian civilization. When we talk about our civilizational history, have we been defensive about it? Is it because we have been trained to be defensive about our Hindu civilizational history? So we deliberately underplay Hinduism and anything to do with Hinduism and try to place it in a sort of secular historical context. So a reading of history and our civilizational history will be one theme.
Then I want you to tell me your views because I consider you one of the best minds on geopolitics today. So I want your understanding of India post Operation Synindur. India with a GDP surpassing Japan. India going forward into the future geopolitically, where you see India. And then I will conclude today by asking you for to talk to a 20-year-old today watching this broadcast, not even a 30-year-old, what your message for them is because I want this podcast to be a living memory in the minds of people watching it today. So hopefully, if you're watching this decades from now, which I hope you do, this conversation has relevance even then.
So Mr. Gurumurthy, first of all, thank you. We are honored that you are here with us. And my first question to you is, where are we placed today? A broad question. We are in a multipolar world. There isn't one pole anymore. First of all, do you agree with this theme that there isn't one pole anymore, or do you believe that we are sort of, you know, we are misleading ourselves by saying there isn't one pole? Is it a multipolar world? If it is, what is the role and where is the place of Bharat in it as of today?
Sir, >> if I say we are in a multipolar world, yes, it will be my view. I will go to two persons. One, Henry Kissinger, who was the architect of the post-Cold War in which America was the hegemonic power. >> Yes. >> And it emerged as a hegemonic power through globalization. He said in 2020, after uh COVID struck, that the world order would change forever. In fact, he he made a very cryptic remark. He didn't even explain how because COVID had proved that the world can never have one single order. This is the first point. In 2022, after the Ukraine war broke broke out, in the World Economic Conference, World Economic Forum, Kissinger said, this war must end soon, otherwise the world order would stand restructured forever.
Then we see how things began unfolding. George Soros spoke in that meeting. He said, unless Russia is comprehensively defeated, the western civilization will be destroyed. The connection between western civilization and world order was very much part of uh the western thinking. So you have to take it from there as to where the world order is today. It is not that that the world order which they had instituted is shaking today. It has been shaking over a period. It started in 2008.
Now, if you look at the western discourse, the Center for Foresight of the European Commission website said in 2021 that by 2030, the world will become multipolar. In 2021, and there will be no hegemonic power. So this is the western perception itself that the world is multipolar today. And Trump is giving finishing touches to it. So it is not that Trump is doing something which he wants to do. It is inevitable.
The kind of responsibility. >> Are you saying that Trump as a historical figure has emerged out of circumstances where America finds itself on uncertain ground and Trump is playing on that sense of uncertainty when he talks about making America great again? By saying making America great again, isn't he acknowledging that America is not great anymore? So it's an acceptance of multipolarity in a view, in a way.
You see, I will go to the root of this problem. When communism collapsed and capitalism, or the market capitalism and uh free market and uh um liberal democracy emerged as the victor. Francis Fukuyama wrote that the West has finally won against the rest, and the rest has to follow the West, otherwise the West will not grow. This was the theory he expounded in his book, The End of History and the Last Man. The West believed it in a euphoria. The West began to consider that it had become the victor, and West meant America.
And I don't want to go deep into how it altered the American way of looking at finance, but in 1997, Alan Greenspan delivered a lecture, not in US Federal Reserve Board, but in Stanford, saying that we cannot measure the extent of dollar which is in circulation outside America. 66% of the printed dollar currency, particularly the $100 notes, is outside. And so the America cannot control the supply of dollar and control the inflation. And so the best way of controlling the inflation is to allow cheaper imports into America and export dollars because dollar became such an inevitable currency. And that became the representative of the financial domination. And financial domination meant political domination, geopolitical domination, unchallenged military, diplomatic, geopolitical, financial power. So all this evolved because one pole collapsed, the other pole became a reality. This is what now the European Union Commission says is collapsing and a multipolarity is emerging.
So we are in a multipolar world. And what Trump is doing is to understand that in euphoria, America had taken decisions which is killing America. $15 trillion is the extent of imports over exports. Current account deficit America had incurred. This an unsustainable thing. Their debt is $36 trillion. >> $36, $37 trillion. You think he can make America great again? You think Trump can make America great again, or is it a lost cause?
>> You see, his MAGA is not only about finance and economics. >> Yeah. >> His MAGA is because America, which had 87.5% non-Hispanic white population in 1960, has just 58% non-Hispanic white population. It is ceasing to be a white nation. That is why his thrust against immigration, immigrants. And so he's making America great again is partly racial and partly financial. But that's a long-term project. But he has to deliver something in four years. And that is why he has caught on to the economic aspect of it. There also he has huge problems. For example, he says he asked the European Union, you leave 100% tariff on. Now, after you leave it, I will levy it because he's not >> That's also an acknowledgement of defeat. He's saying that I can't do it on my own. I can't do it alone. I'm not having enough impact on my own. So that's that itself is acknowledging even you can't do it. >> Even you can't do. So he's he's he's pushing, he's at the margins where he realized I can go this far and no further.
Now, my question was, we accept the broad thesis that we are living in a multipolar world and multipolarity is a region. In your view, who are the poles in a multipolar world? A. And what is Bharat's position in a multipolar world? Who are the other poles we'll have to deal with? One would be China. Would China and Russia be separate? What would be the place of the European Union? What would be the place of Africa? Would it be able to operate as a unit? Is there a concept in reality, not just as a theme, as a global south, or is it more a romantic concept? Question is, where are we in a multipolar world in 2025?
>> You see, actually, the multipolar world will not be just geopolitical. It'll be civilizational. There is a civilizational underpinning to the contemporary developments in geopolitics. For example, take China, which fought to destroy its ancient civilization in 1965, Cultural Revolution, and uh, it wanted to, it it destroyed the demolished the statues of Confucius. Now it is celebrating Confucius and it has established over 470 new Confucian centers all over the world and made Confucius its brand ambassador. And in 2021, 100th anniversary of the Communist Party, Xi Jinping declared that 5,000-year-old communist civilization will guide us now and forever in future. Civilizational China has emerged out of a communist China.
>> Why is that? Has has Xi Jinping realized that you have to motivate the nation? You have to unite the nation, and you have to give them an idea of a shared history. And has pride become a major factor? Similarly, has is Putin doing the same thing when it's the I do not believe this uh annexation of parts of Ukraine is only territorial. I think it is about bringing back the ethos of Peter the Great, bringing back the idea of a Russian empire that had been beaten down. It is his own anger at the disintegration of the USSR. So both countries are in a way trying to reclaim a lost history and put it there in focus. Are they preparing for a bigger battle, Russia and China?
>> In that, I would first say that the ideologies which dominated the world post World War has failed. And that is the announcement of China that communist ideology has failed. So what is the alternative? You got to go back to the Chinese past, its literature, its heroes, its lifestyle, its value systems.
>> You really believe so, sir, that Xi Jinping is acknowledging that communist China has failed? The CCP is the dominant party. Are you feel, are you saying that their approach to history has changed? Uh >> The what part of communism they have accepted is autocracy. The economic part of communism they have discarded.
>> So this is not the same China which Henry Kissinger visited many years back when he was a diplomat. He was one of those who opened the doors to China. >> Yes. >> Are you saying this China and that China are completely different? >> Yes. Except in one respect. >> Which is what? >> In fact, you must read the conversation between Mao and and Kissinger. Yes. >> Kissinger says, we like power. Most of things, we also like power. So it is power that the revolution gave to them in the form of a state without opposition. Here it is a power which money gave and physical isolation gave to America. If America had a 500-kilometer border with China or Afghanistan or Pakistan >> or India, or India, of course, learn to invade them. They will not be talking in the language in which they have been speaking for the last 70 years. They don't have the experience. They of course, they don't have the philosophy to govern the world. They don't have the experience to govern the world. They don't know the pains of different countries. I have discussed this with American diplomats that you are a laboratory. You have not experienced the world. You have no empirical understanding of the world. So the historical advantage they have and the inability of the enemies to reach them. In fact, I told them Islam will reach you and it will hit you in 1995 when the when the Kenyan uh embassy was bombed in America. >> Which was which was a moment when Americans were shaken up like never before. >> No, no, no. They said only five Americans did. Rest of the locals. There was one Silverstein whom I was talking in America. I said, this is a borderless enemy. It will reach you. It'll hit you because Islam hurts modernity more than it hates Hinduism. You will be the target. Of course, after the 9/11 attack, he contacted me also and said, now what you said seemed to be real. Fact is, as you globalize the world, world ideas also get globalized. Adversarial ideas also get globalized. So my feeling is that America and China both are lovers of power. So they decided that the enemy to be eliminated in Russia. So they wanted to share power. That's where America committed a historical mistake of promoting China. They never expected an illiterate China to grow as a highly literate techno power. That is where America really felt that it has not only lost, it has created an enemy.
>> Why did they do that? Did they underestimate China? This entire boom that happened through the late '80s after, you know, the mutual visits, Kissinger before, but much later Deng Xiaoping and the others, the opening up, the visits of the Chinese leaders to American factories, understanding of their processes, reverse engineering, everything. But it was followed by 20 years of capital dumping when the American investment banks put hundreds of billions of dollars towards building China. Did they feel that China will be their service center, will be a manufacturing base? Surely they did not expect political loyalty from the Chinese, or did they underestimate the power of Chinese civilization? Because it is also a view, isn't it, Mr. Gurumurthy, that a civilization will always eventually uh stand up on its own feet and show its own prowess. So China was an ancient civilization. The Cultural Revolution had pushed the history of the Chinese away. The Americans put in capital, and at the end of this entire process, when their economy began to start matching about half or more the American economy, they showed a level of geostrategic interest or clout, or what you call the search for power, that the Americans had not anticipated. So the Americans, even today, I believe, don't know how to manage China. But why did the Americans make that mistake? Did they not have an awareness of history? Did they look at the world in historical terms, uh, in financial terms alone? Has that been the mistake of the Americans that they have not really understood that they are dealing with ancient civilizations, whether Russia, not as ancient, but still a civilization, uh, China, and India?
>> When did America develop a civilizational consciousness? It didn't have a civilization. >> I don't think it has done so even now. >> It didn't have a civilizational consciousness of its own. No. >> It is only Huntington who probed civilization and rooted it in a racial and religious concept, which is very natural to Europe. So America did not have an idea about civilization, did not have an idea about diversity. In fact, you know, the American, and of course, communist-directed United Nations, did not have the word diversity in its dictionary. The first time it introduced was in 2001, cultural diversity convention. Diversity is the way of the world, and India is the very representative of diversity. If you will put India on the one side and the rest of the world on the other, you will see more diversity here than the rest of the world put together. So America, a laboratory, did not know the idea of civilization. And in fact, uh, the United Nations measures for the development of underdeveloped nations, which America conceptualized and wrote, said ancient philosophies have to be scrapped. Old social institutions have to disintegrate if you have to progress. This became the model for the world. It is anti-civilizational because the West had a civilizational disconnect. The West regarded its past as dark. Its history began only with enlightenment. So it regarded enlightenment as the source of uh modernity, and it began telling the whole world that we are the source of modernity. Follow us. That is why the rest of the world, colonized through territorial acquisition and later through economic and uh military uh thrust, accepted this. So the civilizational consciousness went underground, whether it is in India or in China, or even Japan.
>> Now, let's cut to the present. Now, because the civilizational consciousness is rooted in the people, whereas the states run on short-termist policies. Now, the short-termist policies have failed in the West. One of the reasons for the failure of America is short-termism. One of the reasons for the success of China is long-termism. So India is somewhere in between. So my feeling is that what is happening today, civilizational uh consciousness manifesting is the natural state of the world. And which are the major civilizations who you see as part of a multipolar world? I take you back to the previous question. In a multipolar world, who are the poles in your view?
You see, my feeling is civilization sans religion will coexist. That is how the world coexisted, except Alexander's invasion. There has been no massive invasion of the world by anybody, except during the colonization period when the church did issue encyclicals to go and conquer and convert the whole world. It is the religious thrust which gave the political thrust and which gave the economic power to the West. In fact, you encyclopedia Britannica writes that Columbus set out to sail to India to remove the last obstacle for the return of Christ in the form of Hinduism, and he landed in America and began butchering people there. So this is how the world was sought to be turned into their way, and it is not civilizational. In fact, they destroyed all the civilizations, but they could not destroy, despite their dominance in India for 300 years, because civilization in India is bottom upwards. Whereas their nations are top-down nations. For example, take America. When it was declared as a republic, it had just 7.8, 8 million population and with the three times the size of India, and they began learning how to govern and things like that. And the huge uh land and resources gave them. And this in the Second World War, which was the period of America's rise, they exchanged steel for gold, and they built uh gold reserves of 18,000 tons, which became the basis of uh the Britain's model of dollar being backed by gold. Dollar was equivalent to gold, and then gold was withdrawn, and dollar was backed by oil. Then it became petrodollars. In 1990, the dollar was backed by the very idea of market economy. So this is how they have been sustaining this power. But the fact is, all this standing question, where will America go back? It is only Huntington again who wrote that book in 1998, if I remember right, that you are a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant nation, but they can't say it openly because this will go against all that they have been telling the rest of the world. And Europe is almost a lost cause. European Union, name itself means that they are a collection of nations, and they have no common idea. There is no common feeling. There is no common thrust. And my feeling is liberalism has killed both America and Europe. And wokeism is finishing the uh whole idea of what they stand for because they they they stand for nothing. But it is not so in the case of Egypt, in the case of uh any of the even the Middle Eastern countries, then Asia as a whole, in which Japan, Russia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, all of us have a civilizational approach which connects the people to the land.
>> So there are a couple of questions which emerge from here. One has always been a thought in my mind that I've always been suspicious of the Congress party and its role. I believe that it was very closely attached to the British. It was a British construct. It uh it it was fundamentally against the Hindu civilizational ethos, at least the Nehruvian form of Hinduism of the Congress, which took prominence in the late '30s onwards. And it was it it described Hinduism in terms of ritualism. In fact, I find that this uh discomfort that Nehru had with the Sengol, which you had an important role in placing in Parliament, was reflecting that whole view that Hinduism is against rationalism. It created a sense of discomfort within uh large sections of so-called Indian intellectuals with Hinduism per se. Now, cut to the present, where we are seeing the RSS become more vocal, become more prominent. Uh, and the RSS's emphasis is on shared civilizational values through practices like the Shaka system, through the promotion of Sanskrit, through our Hindu traditions, our Hindu festivals, and talking constantly about the role of Hinduism in uniting Bharat. So we started by talking about multipolarity. U I want you to cut to the present and just give me a response or how you think India has changed from say the 1950s and '60s when we were trying to industrialize. We had some concepts of Fabian socialism which were pushing us. We made a number of strategic errors, Nehru with China, with the rest of the world. He ended up being a frustrated man upon the time of his death. Cut to the present now, when we are seeing a revival. Um, I still, I still, you know, remember what Mohan Bhagwat said, Winston Churchill's prediction was that India will collapse after independence. And Mohan Bhagwat said that we proved him wrong. India stayed united, and today England itself is facing divisions. You may have seen recently the far-right protests that have happened following uh, you know, a lot of violence. And therefore, I want, I want your sense of the history of the last 50 to 60 years and where we are placed. What is the role of the RSS? What is the role of Hinduism, since you have used the word civilization so many times in your description so far, sir?
>> I'll go back a little. >> Please. >> And how the independence movement developed. >> All people, whether it's Jawaharlal Nehru or Sardar Patel or Mahatma Gandhi or anybody, they conceded that the seeds of uh the philosophy for independence came from Swami Vivekananda. >> There is there is no doubt of that. >> He was the origin of the idea of India in the sense in which >> our our rishis and saints saw it. He didn't see >> You think he gave it a political expression? >> He did not ignore the political expression of Hinduism. I would put it that way. Yes. >> So everybody said it is Swami Aurobindo endorsed it. >> Yes. >> That the Hindu nationalism and Sanatana Dharma. Uh, if so long as they rise, India will rise. So long as they live, India will rise. If they are capable of perishing, India will perish. This is how Aurobindo defined our idea of India. >> Yes. Then Mahatma Gandhi said in his uh Hind Swaraj that what unites India is only this charism, the reverence for rivers. This is what brings us together in the sense in which to true no two Englishmen are. And he did not change this idea even in 1940, in spite of all the opposition to what he had written in Hind Swaraj. >> Yes. So he also defined India in Hindu civilizational terms. >> Correct. >> And in 1935, Jawaharlal himself said in his uh uh Glimpses of World History that Swami Vivekananda's Hindu nationalism is not against anybody, and he preached it very extensively. So he had no differences with that. Even Rajani Palme Dutt, the communist who established the communist movement in England, he wrote in India Today, which was the title of the book, he said that the British say that they taught us English and gave us the spirit of freedom. But even if the British had not taught us, we would have got the values and slogans for freedom from the Vedas and Upanishads. This was the discourse in India, cutting across all ideologies. But everything changed when Jinnah asked for Pakistan. The entire national movement gave up the idea of Hindus. Began discarding the word Hindu because that would mean justifying partition in the process they could not avoid.
>> You really think Jinnah asked for Pakistan? So can I stop you there? Or do you think that Jinnah was made to ask for Pakistan? Because there was a period >> when Jinnah was disgruntled and angry, and I don't know the exact period, but he went away to UK to practice, and when he came back, he became a transformed man.
>> Actually, in 1935, >> attempts were made to bring back Jinnah. >> Yes. >> Jinnah said he will not come back unless the British works with him. >> The British. >> So he became a British agent. >> Absolutely. And the British also found him a very loyal agent. The first thing he insisted is to divide the Indian society into Muslims and Christians, which had never happened except in an abstract manner. He gave a concrete proposal. >> Muslims and Hindus. >> Muslims and Hindus. He said he wants an All India Sharia Act. The long title to the act says, this act is being passed on the demand made by the All India Muslim League leader, Mohammad Ali Jinnah. It said that the Muslims will henceforth be governed only by Sharia law. 15 in in 15 states and regions of India, the Muslims were governed by Hindu law, except in respect of marriage. And from then on, the idea that we are Muslims, the government has recognized us as Muslims, the government stands by us. Unfortunately, the Congress could not take a stand against it. That seeded party with result the British and Muslims working together. Mahatma Gandhi's tough task became so difficult. You know, I'm I'm one of the admirers of Mahatma Gandhi. He was the only man struggling with the British, with the English educated Indians, Jawaharlal Nehru. You don't know the kind of letter Jawaharlal Nehru wrote in 1978 to Mahatma Gandhi. You are much taller than your petty ideas. I don't want your Ram Rajya back, nor do I consider it was great in the past. This is the kind of letter Jawaharlal wrote to uh Gandhi. The man was taking all the pains and stress, his BP never came down to less than 190. That is recorded. >> Is it? >> Yes. One must study Mahatma Gandhi very deeply to understand this country. >> Why did he not, why did he compromise? >> What will he do? He was alone. In 1942, when he wanted to launch the Quit India movement, including Patel, everybody opposed it. >> You feel Nehru blackmailed Gandhi? >> No, the British, the British had made inroads into the Congress, and the socialist movement helped it. The socialist communist movement played a treacherous role so far as normalizing colonial ideas in India in the name of modernity. In fact, Karl Marx wrote in 1853 in New York Herald Tribune, the British are doing the painful, of course, the pleasurable job of destroying the Indian economy and the society. That is the only way to prepare India for revolution, otherwise India will be changeless forever. So there was an alignment between communist ideology and British destruction of India, British role in India. So all this promoted an intellectual outlook in India. What Karl Marx wrote in 1853, Hinduism is backward, that it is semi-barbaric, people worship cows and uh monkeys. This shaped the intellectual discourse in India, added by by >> NUS >> No, uh Max Weber, who said any society will develop, two societies cannot develop, India and China, because they believe in karma and rebirth, which works against entrepreneurship, which is the foundation for capitalist development. He could not have said this if Angus Maddison's research had come earlier to him, or Paul Bairoch's research had come earlier to him, because India and China were the most successful economies till the 18th century. Because history also conspired in such a way that all intellectual development that took place after the 18th century, which were in favor of India, did not get recorded in the British understanding of India, colonial understanding of India. Like F. Max Müller, Sanskrit, it was discovered in 1870. Thomas Macaulay wrote that everywhere the colonizers went, they find an inferior language, a dialect, no grammar, no history. They understood India only in that sense. But in 1870, when they discovered Sanskrit, the British were shocked. Thomas Macaulay writes in his book, The Shape of Ancient Thought, in which he says the Greek civilization was built by India, and Socrates and Plato got their ideas from the laboratories in India. He said that when they found the Sanskrit, they found the language of the slave was the language of the master, after all. But by that time, British had concluded India was a barbaric civilization.
>> And then we had a downfall. I think this period, 1935, the return of Jinnah, the exit of Netaji from the Congress, then the period of the '40s, Quit India movement, and the whole period when Nehru became center stage, 1947, and then the period from 1947 right up to 1962, the failed experiment with China, where we were making strategic blunders with China while trying to woo the. There was a period when neither was the West with us, but Nehru, I believe, had an inferiority complex with the West. He wanted to be desperately accepted in Western and European capitalists because of his own cultural bias. He made mistakes. We recognized Tibet. We tried to do a swap between Aksai Chin and then NEFA. Uh, then we got into a clash with the Chinese, and then we messed up our entire foreign policy. We refused a UN Security Council seat. So, in a way, if you look at this whole period, I find that we were not a confident country. We didn't have a confident leader. We were not sure of our civilization. We were underplaying ourselves. And I think there was a denialism about our Hindu history. And had we been more aware of our Hindu roots, Hindu history, been more assertive of it, or at least not tried to be fake secular post 1947, we would be living in a very different country today.
I agree with you. This happened for three reasons. One, the colonial rule did not permit the Indian civilization to acquire legitimacy in the mind of the Indians. So the entire education system was devised in such a way. First of all, I'll tell you, sir, first, when they found Sanskrit, they began saying it is the civilized or enlightened Aryans who came and civilized India. >> Yes. >> Immediately after this, Harappan discoveries took place. The Aryans turned into nomadic people who came and invaded India and destroyed the rich Dravidian culture. See, they always found a way to tell us that you are no great civilization, and you are always invaded, that you are not one people, that you didn't have anything called oneness. This is what Mahatma Gandhi was fighting. The watershed was Mahatma Gandhi's assassination, by which Jawaharlal took over the Congress. He turned anti-Hindu completely, discounted Sardar Patel, who was identified with the Hindu thought and with the RSS. There began the intense struggle of Hindu civilization to survive. And the only force which could which could work to save Hindu civilization was RSS. After 1948, the word Hindu had become so dirty, so rotten, so unacceptable. RSS. It was left to the RSS to hold the ideals of Swami Vivekananda, Aurobindo, Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru himself. In 1925, '35, the word Hindu became a rotten word. That is how the Hindu civilizational consciousness hit the rock bottom. It is not because of socialism. It is because of Pandit Nehru's antipathy to people within the Congress, whether it is Sardar Patel or Balraj Madhok. These are the people.
>> But Nehru died in 1964. Am I right? 1964. Why has it taken so long for for Hindus to be assertive or aware? What was the RSS's role between 1964 and say 2014, which is a vast period of our history of 50 years? Was the RSS playing itself down? Was it because there were misconceptions about the RSS's role, or did was the RSS always says when I speak to RSS leaders, they say we are working on the ground, we don't need to be visible. >> See, >> what was happening then? >> Actually, Nehru himself changed in his last years. He called the RSS for Republic Day parade in 1963. And in 1962, uh, in the National Integration Council, he first spoke of assimilation of minorities into mainstream culture. >> What did he refer to as mainstream culture? >> Hindu culture. >> Hindu culture. >> In fact, in fact, >> Are you saying Nehru in his last years accepted that mainstream culture is Hindu? Lord Mahatma Gandhi said in Hind Swaraj that the advent of alien uh religions do not alter the character of a country, and they must be assimilated into the mainline Hindu community. This is what Mahatma Gandhi said in Hind Swaraj. Jawaharlal Nehru repeated it before the National Integration Council, and uh RSS chief Golwalkar wrote a letter congratulating him for that. But that was too late for Nehru.
>> And you know, you must remember, you can recall the letter which Nehru wrote to Kennedy after the when the war was going on, please save us. We, you can, if you send us your aircrafts, we cannot operate it. Please send your pilots also, virtually asking the Americans to fight. >> But the Americans were too busy with the Cuban missile crisis, the aftermath, to care, or was that an excuse that was being >> Easy. After all, with all my dislike for China, China invaded India to teach a lesson to us, and teach a lesson to Nehru, and they withdrew. I don't think anyone else did it. They would. In fact, Jawaharlal Nehru says in that letter to Kennedy, I, we will lose the whole of East India. We will lose Tripura. We will lose Assam. We will lose everything. Please save us. China did not want to conquer and rule those places. Of course, they had a political mission because Nehru was called the Star of Asia, and they couldn't accept it. So, Nehru kept on committing blunders after blunders. He could neither befriend China nor befriend America. And so he's having a series of mistakes. But coming to RSS, the RSS was discounted so much. Only the twilight zone was when Lal Bahadur Shastri was in power. But when Mrs. Gandhi came, I know the deeper history. I don't want to tell how it happened. But in 1969, when the Congress broke, and the communists entered into the Congress, it was at that time Jawaharlal Nehru University was established, and Nurul Hassan was made the education minister in charge, and it is he who created this anti-Hindu uh, the secular viewpoint against the entire Indian Hindu civilization and RSS in particular. And RSS was banned, you know. All that happened. It is the Ram Janmabhoomi movement which revived the civilizational consciousness of India. The struggles it had to undergo. A temple here and a temple in Japan are comparable. The two temples, Japan's civilizational consciousness became uh manifest and it became legitimate because of the Yasukuni temple, which was banned, which was proscribed, which was discounted. Koizumi went and worshipped there in 2002. That was the starting point. The whole world abused him afterwards. Now the temple has become regularized. At around the same time, Ram Janmabhoomi movement was here. These are all the civilizational symbols of a nation's rise. So now India is civilizationally a legitimate country. But do we have the pride? I I find this, I find what you said very important that post World War II, both communism and capitalism converged, and that their convergence was over the fact that the past needs to be destroyed for a progressive revolution. That was the agreement in your view between Marx and Weber, and the UN took this outlook that all old civilizations have to be scrapped and removed. The idea of destroying the past, that was the norm for Westernization. But now, Mr. Gurumurthy, the past is coming back. And I I I saw your tweet recently, very fascinating. You said that Schrodinger and other Nobel scientists have referenced the Vedas and the Upanishads. Uh, in this country, my generation has been brought up in schools believing that the past must be undermined, and you can go as far back as the Mughals, but no further. You don't find much about Chandragupta Maurya, Samudragupta, and anything in our history books, but for paragraph references. Now, my question to you is this. Whenever we talk about this, we are told you're going back to outdated ideas. Youngsters, Gen Z says, you need to look at the future. You need to look at AI. You don't need to look at the Upanishads. You need to look at algorithms. You don't need to look back at the Vedas. Can you give me a broad construct for young people watching this podcast today? Why should we look back at the past? What is the knowledge? Everybody's a knowledge seeker today. What is the knowledge we will get? What is the, and is it really true? Or is S. Gurumurthy a Hindu right-wing ideologue who is trying to tell youngsters that Vedic concepts are accepted by modern scientists? Can you prove that we have an intellectual and cultural confidence in the past, and how will it help a 20-year-old today?
>> I'll give you two examples. It is not that uh Schrodinger says that uh the Vedas and contain the ideas about the creation and one universal consciousness that is there in the Vedas, and that has inspired me. But the more important thing is, after Schrodinger, uh, um, researchers were done by, uh, people who were searching for the origin of the universe. And Stephen Hawking came up with this Big Bang theory. 1 millionth of an atom developed such heat, and it expanded as the universe. And where did that 1 millionth of an atom come is still a question. And Roger Penrose, who worked with him for 35 years, he got the Nobel Prize in 2020. He said, one universal consciousness pre-existed, and that is what created this 1 millionth of an atom. So it is not the past. This is going to be the search for the future. If you have to search for the future of the orig, future science, which will go into the origin of what the universe is, you have to look into the Vedas. Vedas is not a text, it is a sound. Through sound, you connect with the universe. And we Vedas survived only because they were oral, and it was a sound. All written texts have disappeared. The sound has survived for 5,000 years. Now you have to look into, hear the sound of the Vedas to find out how it connects with the with the universal forces. So it is not a matter of the past. This is one thing. So we are not looking into Vedas for the past. We are looking into Vedas to understand the secrets of the universe. This is point one. Take for instance, our idea of Yugas. When we said Kali Yuga, and 4.3239 billion, 32 billion years, people laughed at us. But now Big Bang theory is established that this world was created 4.39 billion years ago, which approximates to 4.32 billion years. 50 years back, 100 years back, everybody discounted our sense of uh uh uh time. So to say that our Rishis were poets or as Romila Thapar would call the blabberings of enemies is a matter of the past. That we have ideas which have to be probed by science. This is what Roger Penrose says, Nobel says. But when I addressed the IIT people in Bombay, they were not aware of it. In fact, we are trying to create, uh, Kamakoti IIT Director in Chennai is trying to create a whole exhibition of how the West is looking into the Vedas and Upanishads for future researches, not for the past. So we are suffering from such utter ignorance. And our history books still contain the reference of Romila Thapar's Vedas. So how will the Indians develop that inquiring mind?
>> How do we change that? We, I mean, the moment we talk about it, phrases like Hindu revivalism are used. I said in my program, I think Hindu revivalism is a good thing because if Hinduism is revived in the hearts and minds of the people of the country, we will go through a cultural resurgence, which is necessary for the future of this country. How do we deal with it? I mean, where do we change? As I said to you, sir, between 1964 to 2014 has been a period where I believe, as you said, Hinduism has been described as a form of animism by some people like Romila Thapar or others. We need to do something fast. Every country, no country can be great, Mr. Gurumurthy, unless there is a great and strong awareness of the past. How do we make our Gen Z come to terms with it and not look upon it as a Modi agenda or a BJP cultural agenda, you know, or or religious hegemony? How do we do this?
>> First, we we must >> First of all, do we need to do it? Do we need to do it? Accelerate it. You see, this is the phenomenon that is actually the foundation of India. The Hindu civilization is the foundation of India. >> How do you explain this to a non-Hindu? >> I'll tell you. For example, America is going through a turmoil. It is the most advanced nation, democracy, most efficient, best market, everything. You know, they built up this whole thing. America has got into a crisis. When Trump won, a huge question arose in America whether America will be able to manage the political polarization, deep political polarization, with 60% of Democrats not marrying into uh Republicans. >> Tremendous divide. Tremendous divide. >> So the divide is in every family, between father and son, husband and wife, >> in society. You saw the, you saw the killing recently of the 31-year-old Charlie Kirk. >> And they have the country of 33 crore people has 39 crore guns. You can understand. No, the important point is, in 2020, Pew Research >> went into it and said, political polarization is common in all democracies. But in America, the polarization is so deep to manage, which there is no commonality among Americans. What is the commonality they were talking about? My mind immediately went into what is the commonality that had built the nations in Europe. The only commonality is the church and the faith. For example, in Italy, there are 30,000 canonized saints. This is what an article in the cover page of Times said. In America, just three. 1774, one lady was declared. In 2002, two ladies were declared. There is no sacred person. There is no sacred mountain. There is no sacred river. There is no sacred person. America is a real estate. I was in Kumbh. America was built from the top. 7.8 million people was the total population of America. When America declared itself as a republic, with three and a half times the size of India, with all resources, my mind went, I was in Kumbh. 65, 67 crore people gathered without any invitation. There is a consciousness, shared consciousness, and it has gone on despite whatever the disturbances at the top were. And this is a bottom-up nation. That is civilization. That is top-down, anti-civilizational, that is in turmoil. In 2022, September, five Chiefs of Staff, retired Chiefs of Staff, and six Defense Secretaries wrote a letter to in the Pentagon that if a Trump or Trump-like figure contests the 2024 election and loses, there will be civil war in America, and America will not maintain neutrality. >> Tell me, is that a strong, stable nation, or India, which 65 crore people gather without any invitation? It is only the shared consciousness of thousands of years that is India. There is a disconnect between that India and the contemporary Indian discourse. This gap will be bridged. It's only a matter of time. And for that, the West must cease to be the model, for which there is a seed thought developing in the West. Professor uh Sebastian Conrad, who a German scholar and historian, has written a beautiful book, What is Global History? You must read that book. He said the entire history written by the West is wrong. Globalization has proved that every country has its own history, its own model, and West as the single source of modernity is no more acceptable. There are multiple modernities, and each civilization modernizes according to its own model. Japan through uh Nihan Jidra, China now through Confucius, India now through Hindutva is inevitable. So this is a this is a global level battle between civilizational forces and the so-called, quote unquote, modern uh structures erected by the elites who dominated and ruled the world and different countries, including America. I am
Very confident that this top-down model will become weaker and weaker and weaker. And ultimately, it is the civilization forces which will. For example, civilizationally, there is no conflict between us and China. The conflict is political, economic to some extent. No, if you work out the civilizational underpinning, a lot of problems can be solved. But the Chinese state is still not civilizational. It is autocratic.
I will tell you my experience with Japan. If you permit, two, three minutes. In 1997, Kishi Moto, who was in the opposite, he was then number two in, uh, in MITI, he met me and Govinda Chaya. And he wanted to have a dialogue. He said that, uh, Japan today is not the Japan of our conception. When the post-war generation comes to power, it will be a different Japan. And it will be a nationalist Japan. Now, we see BJP rising to power, it will be a nationalist India. So I want to share some of my thoughts with you. What he told me completely shook me. He said, "Mr. Gurumurthy, we are an important nation. We spend $58 billion for our defense. Issue a check to America. We don't want a platoon of army. We have to rise as a nation. And we don't find any other civilization worth cooperating and aligning except India because we have an ancient connection. India is the only country which will not dominate other countries. If you go near China, China will absorb. Absorbers. So we want to work with India." He said, "What do you know about India?" He said, "We have invested $2.5 billion on Indology in the Tokyo University. We know more about India than all the universities of India put together." This is the interest of, >> incredible, incredible. >> And he, I asked him, have you, you turned from the Datua movement? He was surprised when I knew about the Datua movement. That movement commenced, Meiji Restoration, when Asahi Shumban wrote an editorial, "Leave dirty Asia, failed Asia, and join Europe." And that is how they are, you are going to reverse that? He said, "When the post-war generation comes to power, it will be reversed." When Kisumi came, he went to the Yasukuni temple. And in the first, uh, term, Abe did not go. In the second term, he went. And by the time all the objections of the world about China, Japan legitimizing temple had abated, so, uh, Abe went there. He was asked, "What do you feel?" "I feel sorry I didn't come in my first term." Every country has its soul in its own civilization, its faith in its history, in its forefathers. What is Yasukuni temple? 2.8 million Japanese who died for Japan. Their names are written there. That is the Atma of Japan. And America delegitimized it. They banned it. So they worked against civilization everywhere. But in India, they worked through education, through public discourse, through our leaders, through our government, through our media. Despite all that, our civilization is coming up.
>> Is it, is it coming up because of political reasons, because BJP is in power?
>> No.
>> What if, what if BJP is not in power?
>> Still, Kumbh will take place. It took place when Muslims.
>> Saying that, but you are saying that the Japanese lost their cultural confidence.
>> Yes.
>> And that is why they declined.
>> Pacifism. Pacifism damaged Japan. Secularism damaged India. Pacifism in Japan, secularism in India undid the Indian civilization. In Japanese.
>> Do we need to be more confident and remove the word secular from our constitution?
>> You see, secular, see the word secular.
>> Because we have to take a dramatic turn. We have to make a, have to come to a decisive moment in our history.
>> You see, for example, secularism, socialism is there in the constitution. Has it any meaning?
>> No meaning today. Absolutely.
>> Reduce the, secularism to that extent. My feeling is, it is, it is not that. What is secularism after all? It is an arrangement between the Christian state and the Christian church that we will have peace. It was an intralligious affair. It is not an interreligious platform. We transformed an intralligious agreement into an interreligious platform. There is only one interreligious platform in the world, that is Hinduism. So Hindutva. That is Supreme Court ruled in the Hindutva judgment that Hindutva is not communal. It is the ethos. It is the culture. It is the way of life of India. What other legitimization you need? And the judgment was delivered in 1995. Three govern, the entire three attempts were made by the UPA to get the government of the.
>> In an era of over-federalization, over-federalism, where thoughts such as the one you've been fighting, you know, this idea of a Dravidian identity as opposed to a Hindu identity are taking form, there's a North versus South debate which is being stoked deliberately. My question to you is, isn't going to be, isn't going back to our cultural roots, our Hindu roots, our Hindu civilizational history, cementing the idea of a united India held together by a proud and confident Hindutva, going to be more difficult in a country with so many languages, so many states, and so many union territories that we have divided our country politically up to a point where it becomes difficult, where, you know, ultra-regional identities are sometimes held to be more important than religious unification or or religious revival is seen to be a threat to political, religious, political regional identities, you know. So there is going to be that clash in India, which is, I also in my newsroom put nation first. But I, I worry sometimes that that these multiple identities of language and region and, you know, regional unity will be at the expense of our cultural revival.
>> No, I have a different view.
>> You, you think differently, sir.
>> For example, I lived through the worst days of the Dravidian separatism in Tamil Nadu. We fought it. I have been beaten on the road.
>> I am aware of it. That's why I.
>> I was in the Congress party. The Congress party did not fight theism. In fact, the Dravidian ideology is a fake ideology. It is a racial ideology. It is not cultural. It is like white, black, that has no quality. It's only color. Likewise, Dravidians and Aryans, they said we are dark and they are white. This is how they began saying that we are four southern states. They abused Tamil. They said Tamil literature is Sanatana Dharma. E.V. Ramasamy was the only honest thinker I came across. He said that Tamil literature is full of Sanatana Dharma, Varna Dharma. Thirukkural is a human waste kept on a golden plate. This was the policy of the DMK, which was formed in 1948-49 only because C.N. Annadurai married a woman and they separated. We have no other agree disagreement with him that he has got married is only only thing and we are keeping the president post vacant whenever he can come he can occupy and Annadurai became the general secretary until 1963 they did not deviate from this position. They never uttered one word of pride about Tamil. It is the anti-Hindi agitation which gave them opportunity to go and embrace Tamil. Another wrote 220 books. He never wrote one book on Tamil literature or Karunanidhi wrote his first book on Thirukkural in 1996. They stole Tamil. The entire Tamil literature, the modern Tamil literature was built by nationalists and Congress people. The Congress just handed over the Tamil platform to the DMK. Dravidianism is a bankrupt ideology.
>> But they came to power.
>> They came because of the Congress inadequacy. The Congress handed over Tamil Nadu to DMK.
>> But they came to power.
>> That's how the reason is. And their politics now has become totally anti-Hindu.
>> No, you see, I, I will tell you, there was a time when politics and the society were one and the same. Anti-Hindu society, anti-Hindu politics.
>> Correct?
>> Now the entire society is Hindu. You see, the only place where people gather in millions are the temples. And the politicians, the DMK leaders put their, uh, posters along with God's photographs because they are not able to get, uh, crowds without paying money. This is the only place where people gather. And the temples are under their control. Dravidian anti-Hinduism is dead. It is only who is going to ensure that the division between the society and politics, despite which the anti-Hindu politics is surviving.
>> Yeah. How are we going to align politics to the society which is pro-Hindu is the test before the.
>> So my question, which I want to wrap up this conversation with, that do you believe there is over-federalization, too many divisions? And since we believe that Hindu unity is important for national unity, does over-regionalization, over-federalization come in the way of that?
>> I don't think so.
>> What would be the primary identity of a, of an individual in any state, whether be Bengal, Paul, or Karnataka, Assam or Tamil Nadu? Would it be that of being a Hindu? Beyond, of course, the primary identity would be that you're an Indian citizen. After that, would the primary identity be by religion or by language?
>> You see, for that, we have to understand the role of the state in the society. The state in India never dominated the society ever. Whether in the times of Chandragupta or Rajendra, Raja Raja Chola or later Muslims, even the Mughals, nobody could, it couldn't. The society is what kept the country one. Now, the state had a quarrel with the society always. State was in conflict with the society. And that conflict was at its peak in the last century. That conflict has abated. Ed now, even the Supreme Court has recognized Hindutva as the legitimate, uh, philosophy of India. This never happened. For example, I, who fought for Hindutva, never felt that such a legitimization would take place in India. So far as federalism is concerned, federalism gives local people an opportunity to participate in politics, which is very necessary. For example, today, nearly 3 million people are representatives in different, from Panchayat onwards up to Lok Sabha. So many people have developed a stake in the state. So I am not worried about the political federalism. So long as the society is broadly Hindu civilizational, this federalism is not going to affect us because the politicians can never remain united. People will remain united.
>> And will a Hindu civilizational state or a Hindu civilizational country or a Hindu civilizational Rashtra weaken or threaten non-Hindus in India?
>> It cannot because Hinduism is the only philosophy. It is philosophy. It's not an ideology. It doesn't say only it is right, the other person is wrong. So it is not in clash with any other system of thinking. For example, Hinduism itself has, there are six Dashas of Hinduism in which three of them do not recognize God. They recognize only self. So they are called Nirishwara. They are godless philosophies. So we have all kinds of, uh, approach to life. And we have people who, uh, who go and give goat as a sacrifice in the temple. Others who cannot even see it. But they go and worship in the same temple. For example, I, I am from a village in the border, Kali temple. We will go and offer nariyal and banana. That night, that same God will turn into taking booze and, uh, this diversity is inclusive.
>> I understand.
>> So this cannot conflict. If others conflict, then we have to tell them that I have no conflict with you. You may have conflict with us.
>> That's so amazing.
>> So my feeling is, this is going to be the future direction of the world. If the world is to have multi-multiple modernities and it is to have, uh, multi-polar global order, the only way is the Hindu way to accept differences as natural diversities as the way of life. And you can, in fact, I, I remember, uh, one Swiss scholar, he came and addressed Vedanta, the International Foundation also. He wrote an article in the Globalist magazine on the 30th of March 2006, where he said, "Hinduism has taught how to worship many gods. That you could live with the different gods is a wonder which Hinduism taught." That is why it is going to be the only way for a globalized world.
Well, I think that's a wonderful note to end on when you're saying the only way is the Hindu way. And viewers, when, when Dr. Gurumurthy says the only way is the Hindu way, he's talking about a cultural direction. He's not talking only about a pure ritualistic or Hindu identity. See, he's saying the only way is a Hindu way in the sense that Hinduism has been through so many movements, so many reforms, so many periods, and today it is at the core of our heritage. I think this has been a very interesting conversation because I think what we've covered is a broad theme. I think what we've covered, Mr. Gurumurthy, is why we need to feel a civilizational confidence. And as a nation, if we feel a civilizational confidence is there in our heart, I think every aspect of our society, our politics, our entrepreneurship, our industry, our media, everything will change. So I'm going to try my best to make sure this message reaches as many people. And I also call upon you to spread your knowledge among Gen Z. So we'll do a series with you where you talk about civilizational confidence for young Indians. And I look forward to starting that project with you. It has been a total honor to speak to you, sir. And I think we've covered a lot of ground. I would have covered a lot more ground, but we'll have to close it here. Thank you so much, sir. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.