#AskAbhijit 238: Trump, Tariffs, Hinduism, Yunus, Poland, Nilekani, Japan, Nitpicking, Khan, Non-Veg

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Hello, good evening, good day everybody, and welcome back to the Ask Abijit show. I hope everybody is doing great. Everyone's doing fantastic. Let us see who all is there on the live stream. Before we get into the questions, before we dive in, I can see Rishi Patel, Mr. haters, Shagun Chopra, Arian Rocking Gaming, Baratia Edits, Tanay Chandra, Illuminati Creek, Anand Chandak, Ankit Vashish, Real Eyes, Meit Bat, Surange, Kapil, Rashmi Ratour, Vidi Manyar, Abhishek Paleria, Ashish Singh, Shri Ramachandra Namaha, Surendra Gupta, Alvin Rodriguez, Shravani, Pranay Paul from Kolkata, Shilaja Vami, Vamshi Kalem, Akshit, Lavish Sharma, Lavish Sharma, Om Gupta, Hirkumar Patel, Nishal Ry, Feminist Hunter, Abhishek Hila, Pratam Agarwal, Red Rangers Wolf, Rashmi Ratur, Geopolitical Dubai, Anant Chandak, Laksh Deep, Bhak Krishna Govinda, Alfred Gunat, Bulvay Savia, Set uh Ka Red uh, who else do we have? We have Gulu. We have unique pixels. We have Samarati Somi, Jane Ram Krishna Param Hans uh, Diddi Dudu, Baller Attitude, Shre Shreas Mishra, Xenom Morphosis, Hirk Kumar Patel, Pakar Gupta, D Dib, Tanu Sarcar, Geopolitical Dubai from Indore, Meit Bat, Surenda Gupta, Fate Anand Sutram, Re Skywalker, Viral Viral Viral Patel, Rajat Duhan, and so many other people. Abhijit supreme lord is there. Abhishek pande is there. Dyam Chawan who wants to talk about tariffs and so much more.

All right. All right. Good to see you all, and thank you so much for being on this live chat. Now let's get into the questions. We have questions. Lots of questions. A lot happening in the world. The whole world is being shaken up by things. Yeah. Lots of stuff. So let's discuss what's happening. Let's take questions from a variety of uh themes. Yeah. So let's see what do we have. Uh, let's begin with this question. What is this question is from Argentina. Paro. I have heard that Hinduism isn't a religion. It is beyond religion. It's a philosophy of life. So what is religion? What's the deal? It's a good question, and yeah, people say that Hinduism isn't a religion. It's a way of life. So what's the real real deal? What's what is Hinduism? What it is? What is it actually? So clearly Hinduism isn't—see, when when we talk about a religion, the word or term religion, we look at it or define it mentally, subconsciously, unconsciously from an Abrahamic perspective. Let me tell you a story. So more than 20 years ago, more than 20 years ago, long time ago, I was in a casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey. That Trump—that casino was called the Trump Taj Mahal. It no longer exists. I believe it—it closed down. And don't ask me how I ended up there. It's because of uh the people I was with, you know, young Indian cyber coolies who wanted to get a taste of America. So I also was with them, and that's how I ended up in a casino in Atlantic City. So I'm in this uh in in this casino, the Trump Taj Mahal, at and at some point in time I end up I I find myself next to a guy who seems to be of Mexican origin. He seems to be a descendant of the Aztecs, the Trip Triple Alliance. Uh, and uh he's very drunk, and he he's trying to be to be friendly. He's trying to make friends with me. So he's asking me what what what's your religion? What what god do you worship? What what book do you read? So I said I I read lots of books. He said, "No no, what is the book? Is it is it the Bible? Is it is it Quran?" I said, "I have I have lots of books. I I couldn't really answer his question." So then he's asking me, okay, forget about books. What what god do you worship? So I said, have you heard of Shiva? He says, what is Shiva? I said, have you heard of Krishna? He says, no no no. I I said I have lots of gods. He said, no no, one god. One god. Do you worship Jesus? Do you worship Buddha? Uh, do do you worship what Allah? So I said, have you heard of Buddha? He says, yes, I've heard of Buddha. Oh yeah yeah yeah, I now get it. I I get it now. So according to these people, so so I could not give any name of Hindu gods because the guy didn't understand it. But if I said Buddha, he got it. He kind of got it. He kind of got it. Yeah. So from these people's perspective, religion is about one book, one God, and one prophet. And Hinduism is not a religion from this perspective, from this definition. Hinduism is not uh ideological. It's not dogmatic. It is not um it is not a militaristic, top-down structure, politically organized uh religion as such. Hinduism is more philosophical than ideological or dogmatic. I mean, there's no ideology or dogma in in Hinduism. And it's got a whole bunch of lots of different philosophical schools of thought. And these schools of thought can be divided into the Astic and the Nastic schools of thought. Okay. The astic schools of thought are the other schools of thought that uh accept the authority of the Vedas, and the Nastik schools of thought do not accept the authority of the Vedas. And today nobody really follows any of this, but historically that's how it was. So you know the Astic schools of thought were called vimmansa, virant, sananka, yoga, nyaya, and vehashik. These are the schools of thought. Some of these believe in the existence of the soul and and the existence of God. And some of these don't believe in the existence of God, but they believe in the existence of the soul. And then you have the gnostic schools of thought which do not recognize the authority of the Vedas, like Charvaka, which is pure materialism, completely atheistic. Then you have bodha, and then you have ja. So these are various schools of thought within the dharmic umbrella. Um, and this includes jarvaka, which is pure atheism, pure materialism. So you can see how diverse Hinduism is. Uh, Hindu Dharma is. So it's it's not monolithic at all. It's extraordinarily diverse. You can have wildly differing interpretations of the world. All these schools of thought are essentially models of the universe. These are essentially philosophical models of the universe which have an inherent inbuilt logic within them and so on. So it's it's very different from uh the various uh Abrahamic religions, extremely different from those, and you will find that despite having such incredible wide-ranging variety in in the worldview in these schools of thought, they all have the same moral values uh and the same ethics. So the the both the ethics, the Janna ethics, the Charvaka ethics, the sananka ethics, the vidanta ethics, they essentially the same. There's no difference in those things. But the interpretations of whether there is God or not, whether the soul exists or not, and various other things, that's wildly different. So it's a very diverse thing. Everything is allowed in Hinduism. You can be an atheist and you can be a Hindu. You can believe in 78 million gods if you if you wish to, and you can be a Hindu. You can worship your ancestors and their spirits if you want to be a Hindu. You can worship the spirits of the of the forests and the trees if you want to be, and you can still be a Hindu, or you can just worship one god if you like, and that is also part of Hinduism. So it's extremely plural, it's extremely diverse, it's uh it's a philosophy of life you could say. There's no real definition of Hinduism, but it's way broader than the uh much narrower definition that you uh see within the Abrahamic uh religions. So Hinduism is way way way broader than that. It's very inclusive, extraordinarily inclusive. And if you see the history of India, you'll say that everyone was welcome welcomed. Uh, yeah, extremely inclusive, extremely welcoming, extremely respectful, not just merely tolerant and so on. So yeah, that in brief is what you call Hinduism.

Okay. Aayush says, and Aayush has been asking this for a very long time. So I thought let me take this up. So let let's see the question is, can you show some historical evidences, recipes, etc., that people in India used to have a non-vegetarian diet in the past? My friends and relatives don't believe me; maybe they'll believe after watching you. Okay, so uh let me show you a plethora of of of different pieces of evidence. Yeah, let's do that. Uh, let's uh for a change we'll not go to the map; we'll go to our friend Google. So Google, and let's uh Google something. Okay, let's say Ganga Valley [Music] harpoons. Harpoons. So copper horde culture, second millennium BC, and so on. You get all these harpoons, you know, that that that were used for fishing and and spearing various fish and all that. So, and you can also use this for warfare, but you can see from the way it is constructed, it's it's uh designed for, you know, trapping fish, for for ensuring that uh the fish don't escape once you they are speared with this. You can also use this in warfare. So that's one piece of circumstantial evidence that I'm offering you. But maybe you will say, "No no no, it was used for warfare. It was not used for killing fish or animals." Yeah. Okay. So let us then Google something else. Okay. Let's go back to our friend Google, and let me Google this. I'm going to Google a very specific term here. It is called manasolasa. So what was manasolasa? Let's go to Wikipedia briefly, and please remember Wikipedia is not a reliable source of information. I'm just doing it, taking a look for the sake of brevity. So manas, also known as this, is an early 12th-century Sanskrit text composed by the kalyani chaluka king sowara III, who ruled in present-day Karnataka. So he ruled in Karnataka in the 12th century, you know, 1100s, you know, around that time, and he wrote this uh text in Sanskrit uh while he was ruling. It's an encyclopedic work covering topics such as polity, governance, ethics, economics, astronomy, astrology, rhetoric, veterinary medicine, horiculture, perfumes, food, agriculture, games, dancing, poetry, and music. It also includes food by the way and so on so forth. And what do we get in it? It's got a whole structure to it, governance and all. And what kind of food do we get? So it contains recipes of vegetarian and non-vegetarian cuisines. Among the meat dishes, the text does not include the meat of cow, horse, elephant, parrot, peacock, or eggs. It describes cuisines based on pork, venison, which is deer meat, and goat meat and fish among others. Now, like I said, you can't really trust Wikipedia. Wikipedia is known to be super biased against us, especially when it comes to India. So now let's go and actually open one of these. Let's let's go for one of PDF, and let's open one of these. For example, this one. Let's open this one. Yeah. And let's try and take a look at what the actual translation. So this is uh okay, Maharaja Gakar of Boda, he uh commissioned this translation back in the day, 1939. So this should be a little more significantly more uh reliable. So let's go around somewhere around page 20. What do we have? Anabog uh vegetarian meal etc., and so on. Hingu water means hing. That's fine. All right. That's all right. If doas at least while describing non-vegetarian preparations, the method of removing the hair of a pig is given. Haha. And yeah, it tells you how the hair of a pig should be should be removed. And uh in the opinion of the author, dishes prepared in earn vessels taste well. Peculiar mice living in the fields near rivers are also included in the non in the non-vegetarian food. So I think here we have significantly more reliable, actually unquestionable evidence of uh meat being eaten in ancient India. I don't think I don't understand why people are so skeptical when you tell them that Indians used to eat meat. Indians always ate meat. It's not like you know you can't project today's lifestyle back into the old days. Back in the day, some people ate meat. Today, some people eat meat, and back in the day, thousands of years ago, some people did not eat meat, and same the same applies today, right? For example, you have more over here, for instance, describing two methods of attracting forest deer. Um, one second uh this is what what is this about? User deer, right? Deer hunting, kind of hunting in which the deer are killed when they come into the forest and so on so yeah, there's deer hunting over here. Right. And when at the appointed place the hunters bring the decoying deer along with the forest deer, the latter are killed by the king with arrows. There you have it. So listen, let's not be let's not be naive. Let's not be childish, okay? We we are the the inheritors of a very ancient, very pluralistic uh heritage, and we have had all kinds of lifestyles within India. Some people ate meat, some people hunted, some people were pure vegetarian. Everything was allowed. So let's not try and superimpose some monolithic idealistic worldview on on the past. So I I hope what I showed is clear evidence of the fact that Indians used to eat non-veg meat in the past, especially warriors, especially kings for sure. And there was no controversy back in the day like we have today. All kinds of people fighting each other constantly over tiny little minor matters. What language should be spoken and what what food should be eaten and so on. Come on, everything's okay. Some things aren't allowed, like you know, never in in Indian history you will find in any text the uh certain animals being eaten, for example, you know what I mean, and so on.

Okay. Amisha says, where did India's people come from? Who who are Indians genetically closest to? How did humans survive the ice age? I'm glad someone asked these questions. It reminds me of something I wrote a long time ago. So let's once again go to our friend Google. And let's see Arian invasion myth. And when I search for that, what do I get? I get this article from Medium that I wrote. Let's open this article. This is an article I wrote. It's in Medium, and I don't need this right now. And you can see I wrote this on May 14th, 2017. That's a long time ago now. And this is the article from which everybody gets their knowledge, initial knowledge of the RN invasion theory. Today you have so many scholars who are all fighting the good good fight that the RN invasion theory is false. But this is the article that started everything. This is the one article in which all the evidence is presented in one place. This is what started everything. This is the article, and today everybody has taken this forward. Now anyhow, uh let's uh let's look at this in in the concluding par concluding section, conclusion before the references here. We have this this paragraph that I wrote in 2017. Who were the first Indians? When did they first arrive in India? Where from? What were their lives like? What was their society like? What did how did ancient Indian civilization evolve? What knowledge did they possess? What kind of science did they have? What discoveries did they make? What technologies did they develop? How did they build the largest ancient urban civilization the world has ever seen? What did they call their great cities? What language did they speak? Did they really develop a protodemocracy thousands of years before the Greeks? What kind of future did they envisage for India? What lessons can we learn from them? These are the questions our eminent historians have not dained to ask for the past seven decades, and these are the questions we must seek in order to rediscover our roots and understand who we really are. So yeah, so that's what I wrote a long time ago, and I'm glad people are asking this. I'm glad asked this. So the question is, where did the people of India come from? Great question, and for that we have to go back about 70,000, 80, 75,000, maybe 80,000 years before today, and it all starts. Okay, now we go to the map. Okay, we haven't cracked down the map; we'll crack it out now. Where is the map? Well, here is the map, and let's let's go into the mystery, the question of the origins of the Indian people. So to the best of our knowledge, the best information that we have says that about 75, 70, maybe 80,000 years ago, there was a migration of human beings, a small group of humans out of Africa into Asia, the out of Africa migration. This happened between 70 and 80,000 years before today, maybe 65,000. We don't quite know what the date was, but it it was about around this time. Let's say roughly tentatively 70,000 years before today, and this migration is believed to have happened around here, the straight of Bab al-mand, the straight of tears essentially it's called, and it's a pretty narrow straight. There are islands here, and it's believed that this is where the crossing happened, a small bunch of people, small small group of people, maybe a few hundreds, maybe 200, 300, less than a thousand people, they crossed over from Africa into Asia, and at that time these coastal regions of Yemen—see, if you look at the satellite image today, it's all yellow, it's all brown, it's all ghastly uh desertified region. Right. But back in the day when this migration happened, the the the coastal part of the Arabian Peninsula, the southern part, southeast part of the Arabian Peninsula was green. So it had sufficient vegetation to to sustain the lives of of a small number of humans. So these humans, they crossed over into Asia. They traveled eastwards. They traveled eastwards into Oman. They went northwards, and again at some point they crossed maybe the straight of Hormuz, and they reached the Balojasthan region, and even there the coastal regions were green, and then they went eastwards, and then they reached the Indian subcontinent. So the first place where the out of Africa migrants permanently settled down was India, because India had this huge lush gigantic uh geography. It had plenty of forest. It had plenty of fertile land. It had all the resources needed to sustain a gigantic population, not just a few hundreds. And it's a huge subcontinent. So this is where the out of Africa migration, the the people, they first settled. India was the first founders zone of the out of Africa migration, and from India these migrants eventually went in all directions, all across the world. Now, how do we know the story? Am I not am I just making up uh a wonderful nice story? Is it is it is it that is that what I'm doing? I'm just making up a nice nice story. How do we know it happened in this way? How do we know that the the migration happened in a certain direction from a certain place, and it followed a certain route uh geographically? How do we know this? We know it because of various factors, including genetics, and there are various genetic lineages that we are aware of uh and um you know there are so many haplo groups today. HLO groups are ancient lineages uh a haplo group is is essentially uh a group of people who live today who are all descended from a single person who was the originator of a specific genetic mutation. So that's hlo groups. Now there are two kinds of haplo groups, patrineal hapll groupoups and matrineal hapll groupoups. Patrineal hapll groupoups are yna y chromosome hypoglo groups uh hlo groupoups, and matrinal hapll groupoups are mitochondrial DNA hloss. The the mutation happens in the mitochondrial DNA. So there are various such families that exist in the world, and the oldest non-African u haplo groups are all haplo groups that originated in India. Let me demonstrate this. We go back to Google. Where is Google? Our friends? Yes. Okay. Let's go to Google. Um, so there is haplo group F, for instance. It's a patrineal haplo group uh haplo haplo group F, haplo group F. Now guess where this originated. It originated about 57 to 62,000 years ago, somewhat after the migration, and it originated in India. It's a male uh haplo group, patrineal haplo group. About 95% of non-African patrineal lineages are descended from Haplo group F, which originated in India. Well, that that's a gigantic clue here, right? Now HLO groups. Now let's look at a couple of female haplo groups, M and N hlo groupoups. Okay, first let's look at HLO group M. It's a human mitochondrial DNA hlo which once again originates in India. How old is it? Let's find out how old it is. Uh, about about 55 to 65,000 years ago. Most likely South Asia, obviously you put in some other things as well. But it is an Indian origin mitochondrial DNA Hoglo group. Now let's look at HLO group N. Uh, HLO group N. One second. Mitochondrial DNA. Mitochondrial DNA. Sorry, bro. Okay, here we are. H group N. Once again, you will find that it originates in India, and even this is so super ancient, 55 to 70,000 years before today uh and so on. So these are the oldest genetic lineages, not these are the oldest non-African genetic lineages in the world. These all originated in India. So India is the well you could say the original founders zone of the out of Africa migrants, and from India people migrated all over the world. Now, if you look at today's Indians, who are we closest genetically closest to? So once again let's go to Z map. Yes, where is map? We bring map. So look, today we have these artificially created nations: India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Maldives, and so on. But overall this region is called the Indian subcontinent. And look, we Indians who live in the present-day nation of India, we are genetically closest to the people of the subcontinent. Okay. All the way from uh Bangladesh to Afghanistan, Pakistan to Sri Lanka, Maldives, Nepal, and so on. Outside of the subcontinent, who are the people that we are genetically the closest to? Well, out of outside of the subcontinent, we are closest to the people of Iran, Tajakistan, I would say uh to some extent the people of Yemen, who are very closely related to Indians because of historical reasons. I'll not go into those right now. And we will also find that there's significant Indian origin DNA in nations like Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar, um and obviously the Indonesia region. Obviously it's Indonesia, and and so much more. And otherwise, there is genetic uh affinity with the people of Europe as well, because of the various Hapl groups that we share. R1 A1A or RM17 is one of the major HLO groups. It's the most successful extended family in human history, and its origin is most likely India. Okay. Uh, it's it's a huge controversy right now. Uh, if if I if I Google that, if I Google the distribution of uh that HLO group, it it's going to be very surprising. Okay, let's go to that R1 A1A distribution. If we R1A1, whatever you want to call it. Here we go. If you look at the distribution of this HLO group, well, R1A1A conquers the world, where you can see you can see it's a huge concentration in India and another huge concentration in Eastern Europe, uh you know, Russia, Ukraine region, Eastern Europe, some parts of Germany etc., and also uh the Houthan and Tibet region for some strange reason and so on. So uh yeah, so genetically, even though these people, some of these well, Europeans look kind of different from us, but yet genetically there is a significant affinity that we have, linguistically as well, and once upon a time culturally and civilizationally as well. That's a long long story. Uh, so that's the second part of the question. How did we survive the ice age? We survived because we are super resilient. I'll leave it at that. All right, next questions.

Now let's get into geopolitics. Yes, here we go. Lots of questions about Trump and the tariffs. Ronak Mandal, Geopolitical Dubai, Rishab Tar, and Arush Mahajan. How is it possible to counter Trump's tariffs? Should Bat be concerned about the tariff war? What's your opinion on the recent 26% tariffs imposed by imposed by Trump on India? What geopolitical implications will it have? And what do we do? What should we do in such a situation? And recently Trump announced reciprocal tariffs on every other nation and non-nations and the planet Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and everything uh including India. But he also stated that India and PM Modi are good friends of his, and he will impose discounted tariffs on India. What do you think he will really do, and will he impose discounted tariffs? Uh, the words don't matter in geopolitics. Right. So that's the big news this week, isn't it? The tariff war. Trump has imposed tariffs on everybody, absolutely everybody, left nobody out except Russia, because there's nothing left to do with Russia. They have imposed so many sanctions on Russia that there is zero trade between the US and Russia. So there's no point imposing tariffs. Same with Belarus and some other nations. So Trump has announced reciprocal tariffs on various nations, and this includes 26% on goods imported from India. So let's say an Indian thing, okay, an Indian item costs $100. So he's imposed 26% duty on that. So it's now going to cost $126 in the US. So it's going to be more expensive for for Americans to buy that. So it's it's it's a problem for us, right? Because it'll be hard for harder for us—

To sell stuff in the US. So, uh, this obviously is going to place pressure on India, and it's going to place pressure on the… So there are right now these trade negotiations going on between the US and India. It's an ongoing bilateral thing—ongoing bilateral trade negotiations between India and the US—and it's going to play… it's going to place pressure on that. But, um, our economy is going to actually experience limited, relatively limited impact compared to other nations because, first of all, uh, because see, first of all, the the the tariffs that we impose on the on the US and its goods are actually very low. More than 75% of the items we import from the US, we are imposing less than 5%, 5% or less tariffs, and there's a 25% left which we can negotiate and all, you know. So it's it's not going to be a huge thing. So there's going to be a moderate economic impact on India because of the lower tariff rates that we already have going on compared to various other major trading partners, okay, of the US. And we have a significant domestic demand, so even if we are not… if we are facing export pressures, we have import… domestic demand. So it's it's not going to be a huge impact for us, but it's going to cast a shadow on these negotiations that are going on because the… we are… we are uh holding talks on a regular basis for a bilateral trade agreement between us and the US. Uh, so it's going to impact that for some for sure.

So now what happens? So Trump, obviously, he's open to discussions with India. He knows that Mr. Modi has made it very clear that we should talk, we should negotiate, and we should find the best way forward. We're not adversaries, we're not enemies. We need to sit down, talk, work it out. And Trump is fine with that. So he's open to discussions with with India, and uh, so that's that's what will happen. So the US is engaged in these discussions with India, and uh, I think this coming week, okay, there's going to be intensified diplomatic engagement between India and the US, and there's going to be intensified uh trade level engagement between India and the US, and the aim is to find a common ground. So it's it's a process, okay. And India will definitely consider certain… what do you call… concessions uh on giving access to the Indian market to the US, and the US in exchange might offer some flexibility on the tariffs that they'll impose and all that. So the objective is to avert a significant trade dispute. We don't want that. And both sides will have to do some give and take. India probably will have to go do some more give because we have less leverage against a gigantic power like the US. So we should not be super concerned about the tariff war. It is not really possible to counter the tariffs. If you impose 26% on me, I'm going to impose 26% on you. It's not… doesn't work like that. We already impose tariffs on… on various US goods. Most of these tariffs are like 5% or less. But some tariffs are more, okay. Uh, so we we we have to find a negotiated solution. Uh, there's no point doing a trade war. There's no point being confrontational. The US is way too powerful… us… powerful for us to engage in a confrontation with. So I think among of all the countries that Trump is imposing tariffs on, the friendliest is India, and the the best uh potential outcome also uh I think we are the ones that will get it. So I think it's going to all hinge on the negotiations, the talks that we have this coming week and and further, and I think overall we'll find some kind of good mutually uh acceptable resolution and and solution to this entire issue. So we want to have a proper trade agreement with the US, you know, a bilateral trade agreement. So this actually may… may hasten the arrival or the or the signing uh of such a bilateral trade agreement. So I think it's nothing we should be tremendously concerned about. Uh, it's not like he has only imposed these tariffs on India. He's imposed tariffs on everybody, including what nations you would call American allies—The EU nations, NATO nations, Bangladesh, Pakistan—Pakistan, I'm sure he's imposed something on Pakistan as well—and so on. So uh it's it's… he's not singled out India, and uh we're going to work… we're going to find a way through uh consultations, negotiations, and talks.

Pray Paul says, with Trump announcing a reciprocal tariff policy this week signaling a dramatic shift in US trade strategy, could this trigger a new wave of global protectionism or even realign existing trade blocks? How might countries like India recalibrate their trade and export positioning in this emerging scenario? Uh, and more importantly, will this have a lasting impact on US economic imperialism and its global leverage? Um, yeah, so this is going to be definitely interesting… what's… what's happening. So look, the economy we've had for a very long time is a globalized economy, more or less, isn't it? All nations are integrated together into a single trading system. We all do exports, imports, and we have various good duties and stuff, but it's all under control, and it's it's like uh open markets, free markets, right? A free free market economy. That's essentially what the western rules-based world or rules-based global order has been—the effort to impose a, you know, free market kind of system on the whole world where everybody trades with everybody. So I don't have to manufacture everything; I can just import it from wherever it's manufactured, and I'll, you know… so if I don't have some things, it doesn't matter because I can import those things, and whatever other nations need, I can export that to them. So it's it's a very open system. It's been a very open system, a very globalized system. Now Trump has has imposed tariffs on everybody. This is essentially the end of the global system, the globalization system. It's no longer a free market. It's now a mercantilist market. Everybody's going to fight everybody else through uh, you know, mercantilist mercantilist uh strategies and tactics. Mercantilism is essentially an economic means of essentially beggaring your neighbor—turn your neighbor into a beggar by, you know, by having these predatory policies and all that. So that's what it is. So what is happening right now? What is Trump doing? I mean, people are saying he's gone mad. He's gone mad, is he? No. This is a complete… This is the beginning of a restructuring of the global order. So we are now witnessing the beginnings of a bipolar or tripolar world. The multipolarity will not last too long. From my perspective, multipolarity… real multipolarity means 20 nations with nuclear weapons, which will never happen. If it happens, it's it's going to be chaos. Um, so we're going to have bipolarity or tripolarity. What's… what… what do… what do I mean by bipolarity? It's the US empire and its minions and the Russia-China uh axis, and in the Russia-China axis you will have nations like North Korea, like like uh uh Iran, and various other nations who might want to be in that grouping, and then there may be a third grouping which is the so-called global south led by nations like India—nations that want to be neither here nor there, who want to be friends with… There may be a place for such a grouping in this emerging world order, but right now we are witnessing a rapid shift, global shift, and what the US is doing. So we are witnessing the beginning of a new cold war; the cold war hasn't really started yet; it's it's beginning now. So in a cold war, what you do… let's say you have two major players in a cold war, two major adversaries, two superpowerless superpowers, let's say… what they do… what each does is that they try to bring all the supply chains, all the production facilities, all the trade networks, everything under their complete control. So you'll have two systems like this, two sets of supply chains, two sets of integrated supply chains integrated with with production facilities and integrated with trade networks and all that. So China and Russia will do one of those things, and the US and its minions will do the the other one. So u… the US is right now uh forcing nations to make a choice, okay. Uh, Canada, Mexico, all the EU nations, all the NATO nations, they are being bullied right now, but they're going to have to make a choice. So in the old order, you know, in the old order you you could do whatever you wanted. You you could have… you could buy oil and gas from one one part of the world. You could access markets wherever you wanted—American markets, Indian markets, Chinese markets. And you and the European nations could at the same time… while doing all this… while enjoying Saudi and Russian oil and gas and enjoying access to American and Chinese and Indian markets, they could still benefit from the US security umbrella. And the Americans paid everything for the security umbrella. Now that's gone. Now they can no longer enjoy all those benefits, the European nations. They can no longer enjoy cheap Russian energy, cheap Russian gas or oil. They can no longer enjoy access to the Chinese market if they want the benefit of the American security umbrella. And if they want the American security umbrella, they'll have to pay top dollar for it. They'll have to ramp up their spending on GDP to 5%—spending on military on on the military to 5% of GDP. So they are all being made to make a choice, okay. Now nations like India may have a third option, and we could be strategically autonomous. We could be friends with everybody if we play the game right. So that is what's happening right now. So the Americans are are forcing… So Trump essentially is is setting… has set this thing in motion through the tariffs and through so much more. So we are now once again entering a cold war era. Um, and Russia and China are on one side; Iran is with them; North Korea is with them. Uh, Japan is trapped in a very strange geographic neighborhood uh being an ally of the US. Of course, it's across the Pacific, so it's kind of fine. And Hawaii is nearby; Guam is nearby. They have reasonable protection. But yeah, you have Russia and China right next door, from Japan's perspective. So uh for India, what we need to do is uh make sure the Americans aren't too displeased. Uh, you know, have trade talks with them, hammer out an agreement, find places… find areas of of uh of convergence and work it out… work out the best possible arrangement when it come… when it comes to trade and tariffs. Obviously, the Americans will demand access to this and access to that and more… whatever they want. So we may have to give into some of these things, but that's how it works in the world, okay. Uh, it doesn't mean we're giving up our sovereignty. It's it's just that we are, you know, changing some parameters here and there. Um, so from India's perspective, it may still be a good scenario because even the Chinese want access to the Indian market, and that's why they have changed their game the past year or so. So it's it's a wait-and-watch thing, but let's be very clear: a new cold war era is upon us. The European nations are becoming very rapidly irrelevant, okay. Uh, they will no longer be able to uh have these socialistic policies while being super liberal, um, you know, welfare state policies. It's not going to work anymore for them. And if if they really want to be sovereign, if they want to stand up to the US, they're going to have to become military powers again, which is very difficult. And the Americans might not even… may not even allow that. So that's where we are. So it's a it's a it's a time of very rapid geopolitical change. A very rapid geopolitical realignment is happening right in front of our eyes. And Trump is actually moving the pieces of the chessboard in front of us right as we speak. And we're seeing it happen in real time. We're seeing geopolitical realities change in real time. Usually it takes decades for this to happen. Nobody notices what's happening. Right now we're seeing it on a daily basis. Very interesting times to live in.

Brahar Gupta asks this question: Let's talk about a hypothetical question. Let's assume a Russia-Ukraine-like situation with India and China. If China wages a war on India, it starts capturing territories of India with its big military strength. What will be the stand of… of Trump in the situation? Will he act in a similar way and make some peace deal with with China like Putin and force India to sign some deal like the minerals deal with with Ukraine? Will he force China to return the captured land back to India, or will he take a completely different stand from this? I think he will make sure that we take help from the US instead of our friend Russia. What lesson can India learn from today's situation to safeguard… secure and safeguard itself from China in the future so we don't become prey of these powerful countries… Um… foul play of geopolitics. There's no foul play in geopolitics. Listen, if if you're powerful, you're going to do certain things. And I can't blame you for that. There's no foul play. There's no right or wrong. There's no good or bad in geopolitics. There's no right or wrong in geopolitics. Geopolitics is amoral. Power is just a number. It's just a numbers game. So there's no right or wrong and and foul play. The greatest sin in geopolitics is what? It's weakness. So um to answer your question, let me uh bring your attention… Okay, let's let's let's put my own YouTube channel on the screen. And uh let's let's search for something. Uh, the question is… yeah, this question right: Will America help India? If you search for this question, you get this video… Will… it's it's from about a year ago. I'll not play it over here. Will America help India in a war with China? It's a geopolitical analysis video. Now let's just uh copy the… let's copy the transcript of this video and place it into our friend ChatGPT and let's see what ChatGPT has to say about this… chatgpt.com. One second, let me put ChatGPT on the screen, and we will ask ChatGPT to give an overview of the transcript. Please give an overview of the… of the below transcript in bullet… Transcript in bullet points… Not that… Okay. One second. This one… Bullet points… Bang. Okay. Okay, let's see what ChatGPT has to say about what I said a year ago. Okay, so here's an overview: Hypothetical India-China war. The scenario starts with a potential future war initiated by China where India might need US help if its sovereignty and territory are at risk, and China would likely seek to capture Indian territories like Arunachal Pradesh and Tawang. US help with conditions. The US would agree to help but would impose strict conditions, essentially compromising India's sovereignty. Key US demands would include US military bases along India's northern border with Tibet; permanent US military presence in India after the war; access to Indian military and naval bases, air strips, and control over key military installations. Economic and political demands: India must support US sanctions against Russia; stop purchasing Russian oil and weapons and allow US inspections of Indian weapons; India would have to freeze its nuclear and missile programs and allow US nuclear weapons on it… on Indian soil; India would need to become a formal US military ally and open its markets to US companies; trade barriers with the US would be removed, and US companies could operate freely in India. India would be required to normalize relations with Pakistan, potentially reimposing article 370 in Kashmir. Social and diplomatic influence: the… the US would demand roll back of Indian restrictions on foreign-funded NGOs and allow US diplomats to engage with local politicians; US experts would be allowed to reform India's education system, promoting American values and ideologies. Sovereignty loss. These demands would effectively strip India of its sovereignty, aligning it more… it more with the US influence, similar to NATO members, Japan and South Korea, which are not sovereign at all. Historical context: this situation is compared to historical instances of British imperialism, like their intervention in Manipur in the 19th century, which led to the downfall of both Manipur and Burma. India's sovereignty: India is described as a truly sovereign nation because it is not subjected to external demands like other nations. India must continue strengthening its own defense and deterrence systems to avoid such a scenario with China. Conclusion: the speaker stresses that India in its current state does not have military allies and is alone in its defense, which is a part of its sovereignty, and it emphasizes the importance of maintaining sovereignty and avoiding dependence on external powers like the US in the event of a conflict with China. That's what ChatGPT has to tell you as a summary of that video that I made about a year or so ago. So that's the answer to your question. I took the transcript of my own video, put it in… and that's the overview it gave me… the summary it gave me. So the answer to your question is that if such a thing happens and if India is so weak that China takes over our territories, then the Americans will be very happy to help… will first wait for India to become substantially weakened, and they will wait until China takes big chunks of territory. Then they will come and offer help. Yes, of course, we can help, and then they will extract immense concessions which effectively reduces India to a state… to the state of a nation like Japan, which is under US military occupation, or South Korea, or the NATO states… less than NATO actually… less sovereignty than NATO. That's what they would do. It would be the end of Indian sovereignty. The Americans would take over. It will be like British occupation all over again. So so what should India do to ensure this doesn't happen? Build up our strength. That's what we need to do. We need to build up our strength across all domains—economic domain, military domain… within the military domain. We need to build up various kinds of abilities, capabilities. We need to have a stockpile of… let's say a few… maybe 10, 20, 30,000 missiles. A few hundred missiles will do nothing. Oh, we have placed an order for 200 new missiles. What the hell will 200 missiles do? What does 200 missiles do? What does 300 missiles do? You need a stockpile of tens of thousands of missiles… learn from the Ukraine war… how many missiles are being spent on a daily basis or or historically the past three years or how many missiles have been fired per day… you need a stockpile of tens of thousands of missiles to be relatively safe… so that's one thing you need… you need to invest in drone technology, the latest cutting-edge drone technology; you need to invest in AI-enabled, you know, battle space awareness capabilities; you need the best fighter planes… at least good fighter planes… large numbers… not like the tiny numbers we have today. We need to have a much larger naval uh footprint and much better uh distributed lethality than we have right now… so much more. So we need to build up the economic and military muscle to ensure that nobody dares to look in our direction with uh nefarious intentions. That's what we need to do. You know, the privilege that comes with being a sovereign nation is that you are alone, okay. And that's the way to be.

Right. Next question. Mr. Atus says: "What do you make of Muhammad Yunus's statement about India's far east states being landlocked and inviting China to extend their interests through Bangladesh? Is there any action that we can take against the… against them aside from doing karinda?" So Muhammad Yunus was in… um… was in China recently. He's the puppet figurehead leader of Bangladesh… US-installed puppet leader. Uh, I don't know what his title is. He's not the prime minister. He's just a figurehead. He's just a talking head installed by the Americans. But he's a great man because he's got a Nobel Prize or whatever. So Yunus goes to China and he offers Bangladesh's mercenary services to China. He says that you know India's far eastern… he calls it northeast… Northeastern states are a landlocked country… Sorry… region. That's what he said. He said he first said country, then he said region, and he says that Bangladesh guards the the ocean and India can't reach the ocean from that region because of us. So China should invest in Bangladesh. So he's essentially trying to position China against India. He's trying to offer his mercenary services, his nation's mercenary services uh against India in in in containing India to China. Uh, that shows his mindset. See, essentially people like him, they don't produce any value for society. They don't create anything good for the country. All they do is pedal their country to the highest bidder. That's what they do, okay. So he is an US-appointed puppet, but right now he is… he was trying to pedal his country for a few… for a few pieces of silver to China, and he is positioning India as the enemy, right? So he tells you about his mindset. So what action can we take against him… against this apart from doing karininda? First of all, we should not do karininda, which is, you know, um condemnation… just ignore his statement, which is what India's government has done. I I don't think we have put out any statements again about about this. Secondly, you don't understand that his words are also just words, right? His words are also words, and they have exposed his mindset and they have exposed the nature of his government. So uh first thing we have to remember, he is a figurehead with zero power. All he… all his job is to stay in the limelight, draw all the media attention to himself so that the people who are really in power, they can stay hidden. That's his job. And who's really in power in Bangladesh? It's the military. It's always the military. So the military… Bangladesh is in the military role. And the military is aligned with the US, and Muhammad is trying to sell his country to China. What should India do? India should not do karininda. India should also not take any… take any drastic action. Be aware that this is a very hostile Bangladeshi regime… be aware that this is East Pakistan again and take the you know required measures along the border regions… uh be aware that you may have uh anti-India elements being propped up again in these regions… maybe terrorists from Pakistan, you know, Pakistani people brought into Bangladesh to u… you know… to introduce terrorism into India… Indian parts across the border or something else. So always be aware of these things and take adequate measures to ensure that none of this spills over into India. And when the time is right, we can we can perhaps uh uh encourage Bangladesh to to revert to a better form of governance, a more democratic form of governance. We can do it eventually, at some point in time. So that's what we should do. But we should know that by now it should be clear: Muhammad is an enemy, okay.

Tidik 73 says: "You stay away from Poland. Do not talk rubbish that Poland might get involved in Ukraine." Why are people getting upset? I said… I talked rubbish that Poland might get involved in Ukraine. Okay, let's… let's… Poland prepares for war with Russia. Okay, let's see. Let's let's put this on the screen. So I'm talking rubbish that Poland is u… might get involved in Ukraine. Okay, look at this. This is from the Jamestown Foundation, which is a very very highly regarded think tank or organization. And the title of this document, this article, is "Poland prepares for for direct war with Russia" by Yanush Bugashki. The date is April 4, 2025, which is yesterday, 23 hours ago. He wrote this executive summary: "Poland is accelerating its military buildup for a projected war with Russia as Ukraine faces a potentially unfavorable outcome in the peace talks brokered by the Donald Trump administration." Wow. Everything I've been saying for the past 3 years is coming true, right? So Warsaw plans to introduce voluntary military training for all adult males and bolster Poland's armed forces to half a million… half a million military personnel and reservists, in addition to increasing military spending and urging NATO allies to raise their defense budgets and so on. So you can see Poland is preparing for a direct war with Russia. This is all happening in the context of the Ukraine war. So there you have it. Am I talking rubbish? I look… you make projections based on the situation, and these projections are are made based on just calculations and historical facts. There's no emotion involved in this. I'm sure you were from Poland, sir. That's why you got upset. But there you have it. What I just showed you is that Poland is preparing for direct war with Russia. I think just a day or so after you you made this comment, we get the situation. So I apologize if I upset you, but facts are facts, and facts don't care about anyone's feelings. And that's what's actually happening. And it's it's silly… it's stupid of Poland to provoke Russia… if it's trying to provoke Russia. Of course, Poland should be…

Prepared for all eventualities. Poland has, uh, seen a lot of bad situations in the past, past 70, 75, 80 years. We know what happened. So Poland should be prepared, and when you have a gigantic, more powerful neighbor next door, kind of next door, almost next door, you should be prepared. So yeah, you should prepare for war. If, if you should have all the preparations, uh, ready, I would say, uh, and Poland is in some way or the other already involved in Ukraine as well. So it's just a fact. Sorry. Okay.

Abishek Ja says a very, uh, thank you so much. I really appreciate that, sir. Uh, the question is, has the Indian government made the Indian economy sanction-proof from the US? Uh, it is said that we purchased Iranian oil and made payments for it, not in US dollars, but through various humanitarian aids. Also, it's said that many rupee-ruble-yuan trades have and are taking place, completely ignoring the need for the dollar. Is this true, and so on? Okay, the, the, the core question is, is India sanction-proof? And when we talk about sanctions, we're talking about US sanctions. So let me put something on the screen which happened just a few months ago, less than six months ago. Here's this article: India response to US sanctions against 19 companies over support for Russia. So in November, the Biden regime imposed sanctions against nearly 400 individuals and entities, including 21 from India, for supporting Russian military efforts amid the war in Ukraine. So the Americans impose sanctions on India and various Indian entities, 21 Indian, 19, 21, whatever it is, in November. So the Americans can impose sanctions at will, whenever they feel like, uh, they, they, they imposed sanctions on India in what, 1998, after we, uh, tested nuclear weapons. And I can assure you, we are not sanction-proof. The, if they, if the Americans hypothetically, in, in an alternate universe, decide to impose on India the kind of sanctions they have currently imposed on Russia, it'll destroy the Indian economy, completely destroy the Indian economy. So India is not sanction-proof; please be aware of that.

Ronach says, "Do you think with the current bureaucracy that India has, can we seriously grow as a civilization and a country to a great extent?" Uh, the answer to your question is no. With the kind of bureaucracy that we have, and with the kind of system that we have, we cannot grow as a civilization. We are not a civilization today, the way it is defined in the, in, in, in the context of the current governance system and all that. It doesn't define India as a civilization; it just, it just defines India as a, as a nation-state. Okay. And, uh, even as a nation-state, you can't progress much with the kind of system we have and the kind of bureaucracy we have. So the answer to your question is no; we can't progress; we can't, we can't seriously grow as a nation, as a country, with the kind of bureaucracy and the kind of system that we have. Today, it's impossible.

Sayan syanthan bis says, "Why does India lack a manufacturing base like China? Is it true that manufacturing power provides better employment than service sectors? If so, why?" Uh, manufacturing provides, look, uh, manufacturing, why, why does India lack the kind of manufacturing base that China has? Okay, imagine that you want to manufacture something. Let's say you want to manufacture pencils. There's a huge demand for pencils, let's say in the US, in Europe. So you want to manufacture pencils. So you say, "Okay, great idea, great opportunity. There's this opportunity for this big demand. So let's, let's, uh, fulfill the demand. Let's set up a manufacturing plant for pencils in whatever state you are in." So first question: you will need money, right? To set up a manufacturing plant. Second, you'll need land. How easy is it to get money? Let's say you are just a guy with an idea. Okay, but you've got a viable business plan. So you should be able to go to a bank. You've got a great business plan, and the bank should look at your business plan, look at your credentials, and determine whether you are a person who can make it this work. And if they think they can, you can make it work, they should give you a loan for the amount of money that you, that you need, right? Is this process easy in India? No, it's super difficult. It's very hard for anyone to raise money. You can go to venture capital and all, but those people, many of them allegedly are like sharks, predators. Uh, the government should help, like, like the Chinese government helps. In China, if you have a great business plan, if you, if you want to do something good, uh, you'll get the money, you'll get the funds, you'll also get the land. They will give you the best possible land for your venture. In India, getting land is a miserable experience. And then there's all the regulatory mess. You get, you need permissions and approvals and certificates and rubber stamps, and you have to deal with the entire bureaucratic maze. So many different levels of approvals. You need so many officials. You have to go to personally. Nothing is online. You go and meet people in person. When you meet people in person, you have to do other things as well, offer, allegedly offer bribes, allegedly, and so on. So before you start anything, if you have to start offering, allegedly bribes, allegedly, then what profit will you ever make? And if it takes so long, if it is so difficult, so tedious, so painful to just start a business, why would anybody start a business? And in a place like China, you can get it done like that. So that's why India lacks a manufacturing base unlike China. That's why in India, everybody, if you want to have a startup, it should be all online where you don't need any approvals; should be an app or something that you can just click, just, you know, tap on the app and do whatever: Swiggy or Zomato or Flipkart or whatever, right? Or whatever those apps are, you know, you know what, what is it, uh, Blinkit, Zepto, Dunzo, order, order whatever you want at home, and you'll get it in 10, 15 minutes. That, that sort of stuff works in India. But manufacturing, for that you need real-world stuff. You need real money. You need real land. And doing all that is super, super difficult in India. So it's because of the system that India is not a manufacturing power. It's because of the system. The system is designed to prevent India from being, imagine this, the system is designed to prevent India from being a great manufacturing power. The system is designed to keep India mediocre. My question is, why isn't the system being reformed? It's because the people, you know, I'm not talking about the highest levels, but overall, the people who are part of the system, they benefit from the system. Overall, the people who are part of the system, who are in power, allegedly politicians, allegedly bureaucrats, allegedly whoever else, people who are part of the system, they allegedly benefit from the system. And it is in their interest to keep the system the same way it is and don't allow it to change. If it becomes transparent, if it becomes a system that serves the nation and the people, then how will it serve them? Vested interests, right? So that's why it doesn't change. And when a system, it behaves in a way that it is not supposed to behave; its stated purpose is X, but its actual, the way it actually behaves is not X but Y. It's called corruption, right? That's a definition of corruption. Um, so yeah, that's why India is not progressing. That's why India isn't doing great. India has the, the, the potential to become the, the next manufacturing superpower. If you just reform the system, if you just make all these things easy, if somebody has a great idea and has the business acumen behind it, then give the person the funding, give the, take a risk on the person, give the person funding, give the person land, give them one chance, and let's see how it goes. And as long as your vetting process is good, you'll find the good people, the right people; you'll give money to the right people. Now obviously everybody has ideas; it doesn't mean everybody should be given money. The right people should be given money, and there, there's plenty of the right people in this country, but yeah, because of the way the system is, India lacks the manufacturing base because the system is designed to prevent India from becoming a great nation, imagine that. So why isn't it being reformed? Because allegedly the people within the system benefit from the system, and because it's benefiting them, they don't care if it is hampering, if it is hurting the country. That's the story of India, 70 years, 75 years, whatever it is.

Uber says, "Ancient civilizations like China, India, Rome, present-day Italy, continue to live on." Rome doesn't live on as a civilization. Rome died a long time ago, and I'll come to that, why. Okay, let's continue. China considers itself as a civilization even today. India, as at least per the constitution, is a nation-state. As per the constitution of India, India is not a civilization. India is a mere nation-state, as per our constitution. Okay, the constitution that has been imposed on India undemocratically. So is this one of the problems? The way we are perceived and the way we project ourselves, which becomes an impediment in our growth, right? So, so that's the question. Um, so if you look at the constitution of India, you will see that, u, it, it is, it, uh, the constitution of India defines India as India that is bat and something or the other, okay, and it does not define India as a civilization. It defines India as a nation-state. Now Rome no longer exists. Rome is Italy. Italy is a Christian nation. Italy is a non-sovereign nation, part of NATO, part of EU; it's not neither a civilization today because, okay, so then the question to understand why Rome is not a civilization today, we have to understand what is a civilization. So take notes: a civilization is an advanced society which has a certain set of characteristics. First characteristic: it has a highly evolved and institutionalized indigenous culture. Institutionalized indigenous culture. Italy is a Christian nation. Christianity is not indigenous to Europe, to, to Italy, but it's institutionalized into Italy. So that's number one. So, um, for example, in the Arabic nations, their culture/religion is Islam, and that's part of the institutions; that's part of their legal system; it's part of their education system; it's part of their governance system; it's part of everything. So it's institutionalized. Now ask yourself this about India: India's indigenous culture, the Dharmic culture, is it institutionalized anywhere? Is it institutionalized in the, in the judiciary? No. The judiciary is based on the European system, the western system, the western constitution, and the western legal system. You can give it some Indian name, bhat sahita or whatever, but it's still a western code of law, right? So it's not institutionalized in the judiciary. Is the Indian, uh, cultural civilizational system, Dharmic system, instit-institutionalized in the education system? It's not. Our education is completely secular, completely western. So there we have it; even we are not a civilization today. Okay, now you need to have laws, constitution, institutions that are grounded in, bas, in the indigenous culture and indigenous values, indigenous ethics, indigenous morality. We don't have any of that. We need, had, for a civilization, for you to be a civilization, you need to have an indigenous system of governance. We have copied, copypasted the Westminster model from the United Kingdom, the parliamentary system, which is not suited for, for a country like India, for a, for a gigantic subcontinent-sized entity as India. We don't have an indigenous system of governance; we've lost it, so we don't even have that. Then you need a strong civilization, a single civilizational language. We used to have it; it was called Sanskrit. We have ditched it. Right. Then you need to have a big geographical area. You need to have a powerful economy, a large military, high levels of prosperity. We have some of these. We don't have high levels of prosperity. We have a reasonably powerful military. We have a cumulatively large economy, but it has problems. And for you to be a civilization, you need to have a large sphere of economic, military, and cultural influence that extends significantly beyond your borders. We don't have that. A civilization has, has its own language. It has its own script. And a civilization has its own calendar system of timekeeping. We use a foreign calendar today. We use everything foreign. And a civilization is a net exporter of culture. India today is a net absorber of culture. We export nothing culturally. So you see that, you see what's happening here, from, from a, when you define something properly, you will say that India is no longer a civilization today. India is culturally and civilizationally vassalized today. And the root cause, multiple root causes, the constitution is, is, is a big issue. The constitution defines everything that comes under it, the judiciary and whatever else and laws and all that. So yeah, so many issues we have today. So China is, China a civilization in its own right? China also has a legal system that's somewhat based on the western system. They, they have copied their education system from, from the west. They have chosen to be, technically, a socialist country, which is again a non-Chinese thing. But overall, it is still very, uh, it, it is more indigenously civilizational than India is. China, Rome, no question, it is not a civilization. It's not even a sovereign nation. India is a sovereign nation, but India has chosen to no longer define itself as a civilization. It has chosen to throw away all the aspects of civilization it had, and it's actively deracinating its population through the education system, through the media, through the, through the entertainment industry, through everything else, to completely forget what a culture is. So no, India is on the way to becoming a non-civilizational entity.

Okay, Nillehani. Okay, let's talk about Nilani. So Mohit Chri says, "What's your take on the recent idea of tokenization of land by Nandan Nilakhani?" And Prren Paul says, "Nandanda Nilakani's push to tokenize land assets raises serious questions given his past remarks against India building core LLMs and Morti's take on nationalism. Is this another step to shift control of a civilizational asset like land into centralized or foreign hands? Also, since land is a state subject, could this tempt regional parties to rush adoption without debate? Is this a digital trap, masters progress?" So Mr. Nille Khani, uh, recently spoke about, he proposed the idea of, uh, tokenization of land. So the, the his proposal for the tokenization of land, it, it aims to digitize India's land ownership rights, land ownership rights. It wants to digitize them by converting them into blockchain-based tokens. Now I'll not go and explain what blockchain is and how it works, but there's something called blockchain-based tokens, and he wants to digitize land ownership rights by converting it into blockchain-based tokens. So by doing this, he seeks to, uh, unlock, see, land is about half of India's wealth, is approx, is, is estimated to be in the form of land, okay, but this wealth is not a liquid asset; it's not like, like cash, right? You can spend, if you got a, let's say if you go, if you have a one lakh rupees in a bank account, you can spend 10 rupees today or 200 rupees or whatever, whatever you wish to, but if you have a, a block of land, you can't just, uh, you know, sell it off piece by piece, or any of that doesn't work like that; it's not a liquid asset, okay. So about half of India's wealth is in the form of land, and it's not a liquid asset. There are legal restrictions on it; that sometimes you have situations where the, where the title isn't unclear and so on so forth. So says that this enormous economic potential of India's land assets is frozen because of all these issues, so let's tokenize it. So if you tokenize land, it will make these assets tradable. So if you're an owner who has a certain amount of land, you will be able to trade, sell parts of the land. You'll be able to fractionalize ownership of the land. You can, you'll be able to lo, use that land as collateral for a loan. So you know, this can give, this can bolster entrepreneurship. It can, it can bolster economic growth, especially in rural areas where you have lots of problems. So one of the good things this can, uh, um, one of the good effects it can have is that it can unlock all this, all this frozen wealth, this dormant wealth. It can transform this idle land assets into active financial resources. So if you're a land owner, you can access capital for business ventures or investments or whatever, right? So by making it tradable, your land becomes a liquid, uh, asset, and, uh, that's good for you. You can have fractional ownership. So you can have multiple, multiple investors to own shares in a property. So that's good. So it, it, you know, real estate is, is something that very few people have access to. So it can democratize access to real estate investment. It can reduce barriers for small investors. And blockchain technology is, is secure; it, it, uh, the record keeping is secure, and it reduces fraud and all that. So that's another, uh, plus point. But there are issues with this, uh, proposal. H, what are the issues? Look, imagine you have a person who lives in a small village, h, and that person, u, has a gambling problem, the person has a drug problem, or the person has an alcohol problem, is an alcoholic, and you know how, how people with these issues are, they need cash; they, they, they always need cash; they're always looking for cash to get the next high or get the next whatever, right? So if your land becomes a liquid asset, then such people could just impulsively sell off their assets, which would make their financial situation much worse. It could make their financial instability even more unstable, right? So there are many people in rural, rural areas who have these addiction problems and all that. So they could be very easily exploited by making their land tradable and, and, and converting land into a liquid asset, and you know, so that's one issue. Then the, the liquification, financialization of land, it could very rapidly result in the, in the concentration of even that wealth, um, in the hands of large entities, large corporations, and it would, it can very rapidly marginalize small land owners. For a few rupees, they'll, they'll sell off their land to a big corporation. So eventually you may end up with just like five or six corporations who land, who, who own 80% of the land in India. You may end up in a situation like that. Do you want that? And, and so on. And there are security concerns with, uh, with cy, with, with blockchain, you know, cyber attacks, the theft, all that. There are some, uh, concerns about that also. So there are various issues like this. Okay. The main issue is that, uh, it could lead to the exploitation of small land owners in rural areas who may very quickly be induced to, to divest, to, to sell off their land, and then they're left with nothing, you know, um, there was a time in, in, in India, maybe about a thousand years ago, before the Turkish invasions, where everybody had land. India's population would have been about 300, 400 million, and everybody had land, land that was, uh, in the possession of their, uh, family and ancestors for, for generations, dozens of generations. Everybody had their own land. Then what happens is that the, the Turks slowly took over India. They got, they, they, they, they stole all the land. They, uh, divested Indians of their land ownership. They instituted the Zagindari system, which took away the land of the, of the indigenous people. Then you had the British who came in, who imposed the riatwari act and so on so forth. And as a, as a consequence of this, most Indians today don't have any land of their own. And if you still have some land, some ancestral land somewhere, consider it to be a privilege. And when people like Mr. Nilleani come up with these ideas, they essentially want to induce people to sell off that land to, they want to convert it into a liquid asset that can be, you know, traded like, like shares on the stock market. Today somebody is the owner; next day somebody else is the owner. That's not how land ownership works. Maybe he's framing it as a good idea that, you know, it will, uh, bolster entrepreneurship and, and so on so forth in, in rural areas. But I think we have to be very careful about these proposals. So from my perspective, it's not a very good idea. I'm very skeptical about this. Uh, and land as a state subject. Look, I will not speculate about whether regional parties would want to rush into adoption without a debate. I'm not sure about that. But this is what I have to say, say about this matter.

Uh, Lipton Barua says, "I am one of the descendants from Arakhan Chittagong region, currently living in Dargiling. Our king from Chittagong wrote a letter to India about joining India. Mr. Patel was interested, but Mr. Neu and Mr. Gandhi betrayed us." Well, well, well, well, well, well, I would like to, I, I, I'll do some, I'll have to do some research about this. Uh, I haven't heard of this matter before. We know of many, uh, kings who signed the, uh, instrument of accession; that, for example, the Khan of Kalat in Baljasthan, he signed the instrument of accession, but Mr. Neu rejected it and did not allow Baljasthan to become part of India. So now, when there are many other examples of this, Mr. Neu repeatedly rebuffed the Maharaja of Kashmir's, uh, offer to join India multiple times, at least three times, before finally, uh, asking Mount Batan to agree to accept it. So Mr. Neu has done lots of things that don't make sense to small, less intelligent people like us. Um, but now we hear this now. So the king from Chetakong wanted to join India. Mr. Patel was interested, but Mr. Nehu and Mr. Gandhi both apparently betrayed the people of Chetakong. I'll have to look into this, but wow. Okay, one more such instance comes in. When someone wants to join your nation, why do you say no? I don't get it. Well, uh, I, I will certainly do my own due diligence, my own research on this, but, uh, I would like to thank Lipton Bara for bringing this to our notice. Very interesting. Very interesting indeed.

Okay, I don't know how to read this. I, there was a time when I could read Arabic, but I've lost the practice. I, I learned the Arabic script over one afternoon when I was a teenager. I had a dictionary. That was the Arabic script, and, uh, yeah, I learned how to write, write and read in Arabic over one afternoon's time. So the question is, uh, can you let us know if Iraqi Arabs in Iraq are native Mesopotamians, because I've heard that they are Arabized Iraqi Arabs who were forced into Arab culture and Islam. I have seen Iraqi Arabs DNA showing they have more Mesopotamian, Mesopotamian DNA than Arab, but I don't know of its real results. Well, that's a very interesting question. I personally haven't done research into this matter, but let's take a look at the map and talk about and see, uh, what's, what is the region that we are referring to over here: Mesopotamia, Iraq, right? Okay, let's go to the map. We go to Iraq. What is Mesopotamia? First of all, for those who don't know, Mesopotamia is this region between two rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates. Okay, that's what Mesopotamia is. It's a very fertile region. If you look at the, the city of Baghdad, the river that flows through it is called the Tigris. And if you go to a different part of Iraq, you will have a different river called the Euphrates. Okay, this is the Euphrates. So if you look at a satellite image of Iraq, it's pretty dry, right? Isn't it? But you have this greenish region, which is the region between the, the two great rivers, and that region is called Mesopotamia. The region between two great, two, two rivers, uh, the Tigris and the Euphrates. So now the people, so now this place is called Iraq, and, uh, and the question is, what's the origin of the people of Iraq? Essentially, if you look at the, if you look at Iraq today, everyone speaks Arabic. Everybody essentially, mostly, most people are Muslims. You al, you do have Kurdish people. You do have, uh, people and so on. Those are small minorities, reasonably small minorities, but most people are, are, uh, they are Muslims. Apart from the, even the Kar Muslims, uh, most people speak Arabic, and, uh, most people identify as Arabs. But are the Iraqis really Arabs? Because, um, even the Egyptians are considered to be Arabs today. They're part of the Arabic Arab world, right? But if you look at the map, Arabia is this peninsula here, which is now called Saudi Arabia. So Saudi Arabia, and you have Yemen, Oman, and the UAE; that's also part of it. Uh, so that's the region where the Arabs historically lived, and Mesopotamia was different. Mesopotamia was west of the subcontinent, west of…

Iran, west of Persia, essentially. And we in India used to pray, trade with Mesopotamia. And Mesopotamia gave rise to multiple great civilizations: The Sumerians, the Acadians, Assyrians, and so on. These were non-Arabic cultures.

Now, I haven't really studied the DNA or, uh, you know, uh, studies, researches about this matter, but I am pretty sure that the descendants of the Sumerians, the Assyrians, the Acadians, uh, and so on, they still exist; they still live, and they probably have been assimilated into Arabic culture. That is probably most likely what happened. They had to accept the culture and the religion that the Arabs brought into the region. The same thing happened to the Persians. If you look at Persia, Iran today, about half of Iran is ethnically Persian, and they have obviously, they today practice, many of them practice the religion and the culture that was brought by the Arabs. They don't speak the Arabic language. That's one thing they have preserved. But in nations, in parts of the world like Iran, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, everyone speaks Arabic. Even in the northern African nations like Libya, Algeria, Morocco, etc. So it's it's part of the spread of Arabic conquests in this part of the world.

I am pretty sure that if you study, if these studies have been done, then you will find that the people of Iraq, many of them have the original ancestry still in them, Mesopotamian ancestry. I'm pretty sure about that. I haven't done the research myself. Now is not the time to do it live, or because I have so many questions to answer, but I am pretty sure, and it's a very interesting question that someone from this region is asking. I'm pretty sure that if you actually look at the genetics, the DNA, then the ethnicities will be different from the Arabic ethnicity in the Mesopotamia and Iraq region. Even Jordan, even Syria, even Egypt—for sure, the people of Egypt, most of them will still be descendants of the ancient Egyptians, even though they today speak the Arabic language and practice the Arabic religion, Islam, right.

Okay. Next question is by Abanu Abimmanu Sharma: Why was the Mongol invasion of Japan a failure? How was Kubla Khan's leadership in contrast to Chinggis Khan? Okay, the Mongol invasion of Japan, it was a failure. Now, lots of people imagine that Chinggis Khan tried to invade Japan and he failed. It's not the case. Chinggis Khan died in 1227 AD, I believe, 1227 AD. And the Mongol invasions of Japan happened in the 1270s and 1280s. I think it was 1274 and 1281. Okay. So there were two, two invasions done by the Mongols, invasions of Japan, attempted invasions of Japan, and both failed. And if you, if you, if you look at the, the prevalent mythology, let's say the mythology is that there was this divine wind that came and saved Japan both times, wind brought on by the gods. The kami, the Japanese traditional gods are called the kami. In the Shinto religion, the gods are called kami. So this divine wind is called kami kaze. So it was divine wind, kami kaze, that saved Japan both times and destroyed the invasion fleet. That's, that's one version, then there is some truth to it, for sure.

So here's what happened. It was the grandson of Shri Chinggis Khan, Kubla Khan, Shri Kubla Khan, who ordered the invasions of Japan. So Shri Kubla Khan ruled China. He was the emperor of China. He, he was the successor of Agodai Khan, I think. So he was the emperor of China, and he wanted to expand his possessions. So, so he ordered this first invasion of Japan in 1274 AD. And you'll find that the first invasion, 1274, was probably nothing but a reconnaissance mission, a probing raid. It was not aimed at total conquest. Okay. And it did not really succeed very well. Uh, there is a place called Hakata Bay, Hakata Bay in Kyushu, in, let, let's, let's go to the map, and that's where the landing attempt was attempted, and it was a failure after warfare and all that. So, uh, if you go here, I think it is this region, where is Hakata Bay, uh, sorry, it's down here; it's in the Fukuoka region. Yeah. So I think this is, this place is called Hakata Bay, and it is in this region that the, the, the landing was attempted by the Mongol ships. So I think the first time the Mongols invaded, they sent in close to a thousand ships. Okay. And it was a failure, uh, and then in the, um, and there, the, when they tried to retreat from Hakata Bay, that's when, uh, a storm happened, a storm set upon the fleet and destroyed a large portion of the fleet. So it's when they had already been defeated and they were withdrawing. And after this invasion and what they did, okay, what, what the Mongols did is that, uh, first of all, they had tried to use diplomacy; they had sent emissaries to Japan and demanded that Japan acknowledges the supremacy of Kubla Khan, that Kubla Khan is our overlord and we are his vassals, and Japan refused that. So after the diplomacy failed, the invasion was attempted in 1274. And during the invasion, the soldiers sent by Kubla Khan, they massacred civilians and they massacred monks. They massacred Buddhist monks. And when you do such things, it's going to enrage the samurai, right. So now the samurai were enraged, and they saw these, these soldiers of Kubla Khan as absolute barbarians, and they said, "We'll fight you to the death." And then what they did is that they built a very large coastal wall in the Hakata Bay region to prevent future landings, and the samurai organized themselves very well, and they bolstered their numbers, and then, uh, there was a second invasion in 1271, in 1281, and in the 1281 invasion, I think the Mongols had about 4,000 ships and more than 100,000, more than a lakh men, according to their records, I believe, and, uh, so they were trying to coordinate this force from, from across the East China Sea, and it was not a very successful thing. Uh, they had to cross through as well, and so on. So once again, uh, that invasion did not work very. And there was another storm that, that, that came in the way and destroyed a large portion of the ship. Uh, many of the ships were dashed against rocks and they were destroyed. So, uh, there's a combination of lots of factors. So there is the bad weather, that the, the, the storms, uh, the Japanese were very well prepared, especially after the first invasion happened. Uh, the Mongols overreached themselves logistically. You can't go so far and be so out overstretched. Um, the Japanese tactics would have been good. The strategies would have been good because the Japanese knew their own home conditions. It's like playing a cricket match on your home ground versus playing your match on the, on the opponent's ground, right. So it was home conditions. They knew what to expect. The Mongols probably did not have that much naval expertise; that, that also could be a factor, uh, and so on. So it's a, it's a combination of lots of factors that caused the failure of both the attempted invasions, 1274 and 1281. I think, um, ultimately it was about the Mongols, about, about Kubla Khan. Kubla Khan being over ambitious. He was over ambitious. He tried to project his power into a completely unfamiliar territory. The Mongols were, well, traditionally they were, they were nomads. They were horse archers. They were unbeatable in that form of warfare. Now, if you take these people and you put them on ships and ask them to invade an island nation, it's not going to work. It's a super unfamiliar, super hostile environment. And who's defending Japan? The samurai. Come on. It's not, not going to work, right. So it's, it's a combination of these factors that caused the failure of the attempted invasion by Kubla Khan.

How was Kubla Khan's leadership in contrast to Chinggis Khan? Chinggis Khan and Kubla Khan were very different personalities. Uh, Chinggis Khan was, well, a military genius, probably the greatest military genius of all time. He conquered the greatest empire ever conquered by one man. He conquered more territory in, in, in 10 years than Roman emperors conquered in 200 years. So there's that. He was a ruthless organizer, superb organizer. Um, he, he, he believed in merit, meritocracy. He promoted the best, most merito, most, uh, the ones who performed the best. He, as a consequence, he had the best generals. Uh, Jebe Subodai, uh, so many more. Subodai was probably the greatest general of all time, Subodai Bahadar, and so on. Um, and as a ruler, he was a good ruler. He was tolerant. He tolerated almost every religion and everything except maybe one or two, which I will not mention here. Okay. And so on. So he was, he was very, very open. Uh, he was very good to the people he conquered after they were conquered. But, uh, if you did something bad to him, he would not let that go, and so on. That's how Chinggis Khan was.

Um, in contrast to Chinggis Khan, Kubla Khan did not—Oopsie! What happened? Just a second there. Seems to be… okay. So yeah, in, in contrast with Chinggis Khan, Chinggis Khan ruled from the horse, didn't he? Kubla Khan ruled from the throne, and Kubla Khan had, he became a very sinicized emperor. He ruled over, over China. His focus was not on conquest. It was mainly on administration. It was on ruling. He invested in a postal service. He invested in the bureaucracy. He invested in dams. He invested in architecture. That's the kind of stuff Kubla Khan invested in, and he, and Chinggis Khan invested in other things. So Chinggis Khan, whatever he achieved, Kubla Khan wanted to consolidate that, consolidate all of that by civil, by, by being a civilizing force, but he also at some point in life would have had that itch that I too should conquer, right, at some point in time, something, and that's why he tried, probably Japan, but it did not work. So yeah, there you have it; that's the difference between the two men, very different styles of leadership.

Shivam Johan says, "I am currently doing my master's degree in history and plan to do a PhD or pursue a PhD later." Okay, good, good, good, good. My dream is to become a great historian and archaeologist, making meaningful contributions to our understanding of India's past. I want to focus on underrated and unexplored areas that still hold the potential for new discoveries. What are some lesser-studied topics, regions, or periods in Indian history that I should start reading about now or, and later explore in depth? Look, everything is unexplored. Even if you talk about, let's say, talk about the period in India a thousand years ago, just before the Turk invasions began, ask yourself this question: What was a typical day in the life of an ordinary man or woman in Bharat in the year 1000 AD? What is a typical day like? Okay, let's say you're talking about somebody who lives, one person who lives in the region of Delhi, present-day Delhi, one person who lives in the region of present-day maybe Bangalore or maybe Chennai, one person who lives in present-day Gujarat, one person who lives in present-day Assam. Okay, four people, north, east, west, and one person who lives in central India. Five people, and we go back a thousand years. What was a typical day in the life of a person who lived in these five parts of India? We don't even have those answers. What language did they speak? What was the language spoken in the Dilli region 1,000 years ago? What language was spoken in the Assam region a thousand years ago? In the Bangalore region a thousand years ago? What language was spoken in, let's say, Gujarat a thousand years ago? Do we even know that clearly? What was the lifestyle like? What was the dress code like? What dress did they wear? What language did they speak? What was a typical day like? What kind of education did they—We know next to nothing about these things. There is so much we don't know. A thousand years before today, we don't know a lot. 2,000 years before today, we know even, even, even less, and so on. So there is so much you can learn. But if you want to, if you talk about talking about archaeology, I can talk about, I can give you a lot of archaeological sites that are, like you say, underrated or, or neglected. For example, in the, we know we have this gigantic dried-up river, right? The Saraswati. She left us because we're not worthy of her, perhaps. So we have this huge dry riverbed that ranges from the Himalayan region all the way to the run of Kachchh, and it used to empty into the Indian Ocean, the sea of Sabarashtra. So along this dry riverbed, the majority of which is in present-day India, not in Pakistan, along this dry riverbed, you have more than 2,000 unexplored archaeological sites from the Saraswati-Sindhu time period of our history, more than 2,000 unexplored sites. Can you imagine how much, how much archaeological treasures left, uh, they are just waiting for us to explore them, to discover them, right? So there is that. You can explore that. Once you are an archaeologist, there are obviously sites like Rakhigarhi, which is well known now. There is, there are the coastal sites like Dholavira, and yeah, Lothal is a great one in present-day Gujarat. Okay. In the run of Kachchh region, there is Kalibangan in Rajasthan. The probably the largest site, that, no, not the largest site, one of, one of the largest sites we have. Rakhigarhi is the largest one. So Kalibangan is, is about, I don't know how many, maybe 3,000, 5,000 BC, something like that time. Then you have places like Ganeshwar in Rajasthan. Then Surkotada these days is well known, Surkotada in Uttar Pradesh, where that's a Bronze Age chariot burial site. Right. There is, uh, Daimabad in Maharashtra. There is a site in Kashmir called Burzahom, which is a very ancient village kind of site, 3,000 BC or something, and it, it has, it has layers from different time periods, and they also discovered a carving of, of, of a sky chart, a star chart in the Burzahom region where you have two suns in the sky, and that's the first ever, the oldest ever depiction of a supernova event, right. Um, then if you go to eastern India, Orissa, there is Sisupalgarh, which is a fortress-like site, okay, very interesting site, um, maybe around 500 BC or something around that time, Mauryan era. There is, uh, if you go to West Bengal, there is Chandraketugarh, a fascinating site where so many fascinating discoveries have already been made, but it is still like mostly unexplored. There is Kosambi in Uttar Pradesh, wonderful place. Then there is Ahichhatra in Uttar Pradesh, the capital of Panchala Mahajanapada. So if you look for Ahichhatra, let me, I mean, the kind of architecture you have there, let's go to Google. Okay, there is a gigantic pyramidal temple in Ahichhatra. Uh, sorry, not this. Let's go, I, I want to do a Google search for Ahichhatra. All right. Here we are. Okay, Ahichhatra. Ai means serpent, Chhatra means umbrella kind of thing. So Ahichhatra, northern Panchala capital. It made it back to the Mahabharata times. And look at this structure. This is an ancient temple or stupa or whatever. Look at that. It's, it's a pyramidal structure. There's a person there. I mean, if you look at this [Music] um, one second, let me put this on the screen. Here we have it. I mean, look at this. This is an incredible structure. What is the internal structure of this? Like, what chambers do we have inside? Do we have any hidden chambers inside? Do we have hidden secrets inside? There seems to be shivalinga kind of structure on the top. Is there something below, beneath the ground? I mean, there's so much to explore right here in Ahichhatra. An incredible site. It potentially is a Mahabharata era site. Then there is Vaishali in Bihar. There is Indraprastha in Delhi. These days it's called Purana Qila. Uh, that could be the site of ancient Indraprastha of the Mahabharata era. In the southern part of India, we have Adi Channur, Adi Channur in Tamil Nadu. Um, then we have places like Dwaraka, I mean, Dwarka, Krishna's Dwarka, off the coast of Gujarat. Then you have, uh, Poompuhar, which is a submerged city, possibly 10,000 years old, but possibly older, uh, near Pondicherry, off the coast of the eastern coast of India, not far from Pondicherry. And there is Mahabalipuram. There is, uh, there is the ancient site of Vikramsila, and then once again, if you go south, there is, uh, Gangaikonda Cholapuram, the ancient imperial capital of the Chola Empire, and that is not well excavated, well, well explored. So I, I can give you so many examples, you know, there's so much potential for archaeological studies in India, so much. So yeah, go ahead, so study some of these sites, read up about them, then once you're an archaeologist, you can go and explore them. All the best.

Okay. Mr. 88 says, "Why did so many Britishers decide to stay in South Africa after its independence, and why couldn't they repeat the same in India? We know that British interests are still present in Africa and India through a variety of means, by how the white population remained there, not in India or Pakistan," okay, the subcontinent. So, uh, to answer that question, first of all, I will take a look at the map. I mean, the map is a great tool to understand a lot of… Um, so here's the map. Now, as we know, India is near the equator. India is a pretty hot place, at least large parts of India, hot. If you go to northern India, it's pretty pleasant climate and all. If you go to Ladakh, it's frighteningly cold and so on. The Himalayan region is very extreme, very, very cold. Uh, and northern parts of India, you know, Punjab, Haryana, Kashmir, etc., even the Nepal region, even the Arunachal region, etc., the, uh, Kaibar Pakhtunkhwa region, all that, pretty good weather, good climate, but most of India is hot, really, really hot. One of the reasons why the British left India is that they had plundered everything they could plunder; there's nothing much left, and the climate was too hot for them; they didn't enjoy it. That's why they left. South Africa, on the other hand, okay, it's in the southern part of Africa, very, very nice, pleasant weather, pretty cool weather. If I click at the southern part of Africa, the latitude is -34.79, -34.79. It's, it's comparable to, let's say, if I go to Sicily, it's -34 something. So it's, it's the same kind of weather you have at Sicily, and Sicily has good weather, good climate. Tasmania has super cold. Uh, if you go to the northern hemisphere to give you an example, it is like, for example, what if I click here? What's the latitude? 34. So Hiroshima. So Hiroshima, Kobe, Kyoto, that's around the 34-degree latitude, you know, it's pretty cold there, right. So yeah, that's the kind of weather you have in South Africa, pretty cool, pretty pleasant weather. So that's one reason why the Britishers, like you say, were happy to stay on in South Africa because of the climate. Climate was nice; it was conducing, conducive for them to stay on. The second thing is that if you look at the demographics of South Africa, the religious demographics of South Africa, South Africa is about 85% Christian today. And that must have been the case even, you know, in the 1930s, 1940s. They, the first thing Europeans do is they, they convert. They, they destroy the local culture. They eradicate the local religion, and they impose their religion on the natives. That's what they've done consistently wherever they go. Failed in India. They tried their best. They still, they're still trying. The Spanish did that in the Americas. The Portuguese did that elsewhere, in Goa and so on, and the Europeans did, they're all over Africa. So in South Africa, the native South African culture, religion, whatever is it, whatever it is, barely exists. About 85% of the population is Christian. The rest is whatever else, right. So because of this, it was culturally also nice for the British to stay there. People all believed in the British imposed religion. In India, it's very alien, right? India, India is full of Hindus, Hindus. So the British would not have been very comfortable because of that as well. So a multitude of factors, multiple factors would have contributed to this. The first is the climate. Second is the religion, and so on. So that's why probably, and, and, and India was horrifically impoverished by the 1940s. The life expectancy was what, 30, 31, something like that. It's, it's like, it's like being in Ethiopia of the 1970s and 80s, that, that sort of thing. Horrible. India was like, like a death trap. So they had destroyed India completely, and they didn't want to stay in such a hellhole. They had reduced India to a hellhole, essentially. So that's why they left. South Africa was a very different place. Much more pleasant for them. So okay.

Pandit says, "Abhijith Chakaravarthy, you recommended ‘Virtue, Success, Pleasure, and Liberation’ by Alijah Danilou. I read this book. There were certain passages that referenced the Aryan invasion theory, referring to Keralites as a Pan-Dravidian and termed intercaste marriages unacceptable." So you're complaining; I referred a book, and you're complaining. This is why I don't refer, that's why I don't give any book recommendations anymore. I have said this so many times that there is no book that's written by anyone about India that doesn't have any distortions. Now, Alijah Danilou lived 100 years ago. At that time, everyone believed in the Aryan invasion theory. So that's why I wrote about it. Even today, there are books that are superb, but they still have distortions. I have said this so many times. There is no book written about India in which no distortion exists. But there are good aspects of the book, which is why I recommend them. But then we get people like this who will complain, who will start nitpicking and complaining and pointing fingers: "You recommended a bad book." So that's why I've stopped recommending books. I mean, Indians, a lot of Indians have this habit. It's not their fault. The education system has done it to them. The education system, it, it puts this habit in your head of looking for tiny, minute mistakes and faults because, you know, in the Indian education system, your teacher, in when you write an exam paper, even if you make the smallest of mistakes, they'll cut one mark, two marks, whatever, even if overall you're right, but because you missed a full stop or a comma somewhere, they'll cut two marks. So Indians, because of this, they are conditioned to look for tiny, minute mistakes in everything, and Indians are a nation today of nitpickers who will simply miss the big picture because they're all squabbling among each other over tiny, minute things which are completely unimportant. So here's an example of that. I recommended a nice book because there are some things that are nice about the book, but the person finds problems. So that's, and I have seen this, I have had this happen to me over and over and over again, which is why I don't recommend books anymore. What do you expect anymore?

Uh, Phoenix says, "Why is it so hard for people in India to realize the Indian system desperately needs a system reboot?" Because Indians don't get the big picture. Because Indians are nitpickers. Indians look for tiny, minute flaws here and there, and they squabble among each other about these tiny little things, and they completely miss the big picture, and it is not the fault of Indians. The education system has destroyed their ability to think. Those who still can think are, are doing it superheroically despite the education system, despite the trauma imposed by the education system. But most Indians, they simply can't think. They are mentally lobotomized. They can't think. The education system has destroyed their ability and will to think. Thinking is painful. So that's why Indians just don't realize what's, what's going on. And if you say something that goes against a prevailing narrative, prevailing narrative, then they will call you a conspiracy theorist or something, or you are a conspiracy theorist, or this book said this and that, or that great person of authority said that. So how can you go against them? You have no idea what you're talking about. So that's why most Indians, they will, they simply engage in pulling each other down. When someone tries to think against the established narrative, they'll try and pull the person down, and at the best of times, they'll, Indians will be squabbling among each other about, about tiny, minute issues: "Oh, Hinduism and Buddhism are different cultures. Oh, because this, this 2%, something is different in Buddhism from Hinduism. So it's different." Keep fighting over small things, and they will completely miss the big picture. So that's the issue in India. The root cause of the is the education system.

Freddy Joe HS says, "The largest volunteer army in the world was the British Indian Army, where 2.5 million Indians volunteered. They saw it as much as an Indian war as a British war. That's why it's called the Second World War." And I…

I am British, and I put this thesis forth towards you, silly, unwashed Indians. The largest volunteer army in the world. This is what people in the UK still apparently believe. H volunteers. See, in India during the British occupation of India, during the British, during the brutal, genocidal, barbaric British occupation of India, Indians were impoverished to the nth degree. There was no means of sustaining yourself and of sustaining a family unless you worked for the oppressor. Without a government job, there was no stability, no future, no security in life. They had, they had stolen all the land. So nobody owned land. In the past, when people owned land, they could farm; they could do whatever they want. And the British had also destroyed all, all of India's indigenous industries. India was the first ever fully industrialized civilization. The British completely de-industrialized India. So all the people who had all these incredible skills, which ran in the family from generation to generation, everything was wiped out; their entire livelihoods were uprooted, destroyed. The livelihood that their family had had been part of for dozens, maybe hundreds of generations, was destroyed. So there is no industry anymore. There is no agriculture anymore. So if you want to have food on the table for your, for you and your family, you had to work for the government. So then they would employ Indians as clerks or as soldiers. So just to stay alive, just to provide for the family, lots of Indians had to become soldiers in the British army. They didn't volunteer; they had no choice. You see, this was not an Indian war. This was a European war. It was a useless, needless war perpetrated on the world by the Europeans for their own petty squabbles. You and your Hitler and whatnot, and you made us fight, fight, fight on your behalf. So that's what it was. Nobody volunteered for this. The Indians who fought had no choice. They were fighting for their families; they were fighting to put, put food on the table. They didn't give a damn about your, your cause. It was not our war. And it's sad that these people who still have these feelings of superiority, they come up and put these comments over here in front of us. I mean, just take a look at the state of the UK today. You people who live in the UK should be ashamed of yourselves. Absolutely. You should be ashamed of yourselves, of what you have allowed to happen to your country. Your women aren't safe in your country today, and you people aren't even able to, to, to ensure their security. We know what, what the Pakistanis have been doing to your women, and you people just sat and let this happen. You should be ashamed of yourselves, you British people, and you have the, the, the gumption to come here and talk, talk all this and, and, and say all this over here, please. Okay. Really now.

Says Japan and South Korea are seem similar but are different in many ways. Can you shed some light on the ways they are different politically, economically, in the society? I feel it feels like the South Koreans emulated the West and the old Chinese culture, while Japan is a more distinct culture despite the westernization. Also, Japan has a much larger economy. Is it because they weren't colonized but colonizers? Why isn't Japanese entertainment and music as popular but has a higher and has a higher fertility rate? Which, in your opinion, is more advanced? Okay. To answer this, I have to do a two-over episode essentially. Okay, it's a very complex, uh, topic that, that you have brought forth. Very interesting as well. And is South Korea overhyped in front of Japan? See, one thing they have in common: they are both US vassals. They're both under US occupation, permanent US military occupation. Okay, so that, that's one thing they have in common. Now, if you look at the geography, as you can see, Japan is, is offshore. It's an island nation. It's an archipelago, and it's always had a separate existence as a separate entity. South Korea has always been under the shadow of China for the most part, to some, and also under the shadow of Japan. And Japan has always been very independent. They, of course, did absorb Chinese culture. They absorbed all of Buddhism and Indian influence via China, which is why, uh, they, they have a very Chinese influence, uh, on their Buddhism and on the Indian culture they've absorbed, but they are still very different, very independent, very different from South Korea and very different from China; that's Japan. Japan has a very old history, uh, goes back at least two and a half thousand years, maybe more. South Korea also has an ancient history going back 2,000 or maybe more years, but they have always been very, very strongly sinicized, under Chinese influence, which means they have been under Chinese influence. Uh, Japan is, uh, a larger nation, a larger economy, and they've always been, especially since the, uh, major restoration of the 19th century, mid-19th, mid- to late 19th century, they have been very, very, uh, industrialized. They have been very, uh, westernized; they've tried, they've sought to emulate the west, which eventually led to their disastrous downfall in the Second World War. Um, so you could say that the major restoration of the 19th century was the beginning of the end of Japan because they, they threw away their old lifestyle, way of life, the supremacy of the Dharmic system that the, the sham samurai and shogunet system had established and so on, um, and so on. So very different cultures, very, there are similarities as well; there are, they have issues, they have their own issues, which we'll not go into, uh, at the point. Politically different systems, uh, economically, Japan is a much bigger economy; society, the South Korean society is, is, is well, again, different. They have taken different trajectories. South Korea has, is mostly atheistic now, and the rest are Christians; very few Buddhists, I, I hear, still remain in South Korea. They've completely lost their indigenous culture. When it comes to Japan, they still retain the Shinto Buddhist culture. Um, they also are facing Christianization and all those problems because of foreign occupation, but they still have, have resisted much better than South Korea. Um, fertility rate: both nations are suffering very badly. South Korea's fertility rate is catastrophically low; Japan's is marginally better. I don't remember the exact figures right now; I'll not go and research it, but it's marginally better than South Korea. Um, so which is more advanced? Look, as a nation, as a, as a, as a culture, as a civilization, Japan is more advanced, has always been more advanced. Uh, what is overhyped, what is not? It depends on the overlord. The US today, both are vassals, both are under occupation. So whoever the, the overlord will favor will be hyped. So they have both been given some rewards for, for being US vassals. South Korea was allowed to industrialize and become a major industrial power in service of the west, in service of the, of the US, and it has suffered catastrophic demographic decline as a consequence. But they, they are given a certain amount of prestige, and people are fans of K-pop, even though nobody understands the Korean language, but people, for some reason, like K-pop. So that's the reward they've been given; what are the rewards they've been given? And when it comes to Japan, they are influential in the world through anime and, and other stuff, uh, video games, all of that and so on. Overall, I would say Japan is, u, from my perspective at least, is a, is, is a more significant culture and civilization, uh, than Korea; that's the way I see it. Right, let's take a couple more questions, and I'll take questions from the live chat. Maybe there's not enough time; I'll just go for the live chat now. How about that? We'll do live chat for about 10, 15 minutes.

Um, Matthew Perez says, "UK is warped. Glad I live in Texas. We got Texas justice." Okay, Texas justice. I think it's, it's not a bad idea, Texas justice. What else? The, okay, let's see the some of the, uh, questions from the live chat. My views on the movie Animal? I haven't watched the movie Animal, so I can't say. Vak board? Yeah, yeah. Something has happened. Look, I don't comment on internal politics, internal matters mostly. And I haven't even studied what's happened. Okay, I know the Vak Act has been passed, but I have not studied it. I look at geopolitics; I look at the big picture. There are other, picture, who look, other people who look at the internal picture. We all are on the same team, but we, we, we, we serve different functions. So I, I, I have not really looked into the VA, waka board matter. Um, which IPL team do I support? I don't watch IPL. I watched the first season of the IPL, which, which was what, 2007, 2008? The Pakistanis were still playing at the time. The first season the Pakistanis played, and the first match, Brendan McCullum hit 158 or something. The last match was Shane Warne's last professional match, I believe, and he was on the non-striker's end when Sahel Talir hit the winning runs for Rajasthan Royals, for, yeah, that one. So I watched the first season; after that, I lost interest. I think it's very artificial; I think it's very made up. Every two, three years the teams are re, reshuffled. So there's no continuity. Sometimes one team disappears, like CSK disappears for two, three years. Then there is some super giant team that comes and disappears again. There's no continuity, and I mean, these are all six-hitting fests. The bowler has no role in this to a very large extent. I like to see balance between bat and ball; I like to see the batsman being made to respect the bowler, but in the IPL result, it's all just hit sixes, hit everything for six. I just don't find it interesting. I, I like sports; I, I enjoy all sports. I've played some sports as well. Uh, when it comes to cricket, I like Test match cricket; I even like T20, one-day. It should be international, not this. This is just a merry-go-round. So I, I don't watch IPL; I don't enjoy it. I, I don't mean to offend any of you who watch IPL. Please enjoy IPL. Please, please watch whatever you like. It's entirely your choice. This is merely my perspective. But I, I've seen cricket for a very long time, and it's no longer the same these days.

Um, Shri Ramachandra says, "What's your favorite food?" These days I eat one meal a day; I'm trying to get a little fitter, meaner, leaner. Um, so I eat one source of protein and a large quantity of vegetables. Then I eat, and I eat a large bunch, a large quantity of watermelon as well. It's the simple foods that are fun. So that's what I look, I like food; I like all kinds of food. I like foods, foods. I like every cuisine; I like most cuisines: Japanese, uh, Mexican, uh, French cuisine, Thai cuisine, Indian cuisine, obviously we like it, Chinese, Mongolian, um, Eastern African cuisine is very interesting. It's similar to Indian cuisine. Arabic cuisine, it's nice. You know, the, if you, if you look at Arabic cuisine, there's so many good vegetarian dishes you get over there. You know, the mezze platters, the, the, the stuffed vine leaves, vine is grape, wine leaves stuffed with rice and whatnot. There is muhammara. It's a very nice thing. There's so many nice cuisines in the world. Croatian cuisine is nice. You may even say a few good things about British cuisine. Russian cuisine is nice; Hungarian cuisine, I, I like all foods. Look, I don't have one favorite food. Anything that's cooked well, you know, with, with passion and love, it's going to taste good. So yeah, my, my approach to cuisine is like my approach to music; I like it all; I enjoy it all. Okay, I was looking at something else, and this comes up. Okay, Ritik says, if a young individual between the age of 20, 25 with no political background aspires to be a leader of this country one day, what paths are available to them: only democratic or coup or through AI? The current system will not allow any coups; you will have to go do it through the democratic way. You'll have to enter some political party, show that you are capable of being a leader, which means, you know, what is the measure of a leader at the grassroots level? To prove yourself, you have to show how many people you can thing on the street on demand. That's the value of your leadership. So a, so that's why lots of leaders in India, in Indian politics, emerge from, from colleges and universities, student politics, because they have a ready-made pool of students at their, at their disposal, and if you, if they have the leadership qualities, the political leadership qualities, they'll be able to mobilize students and bring them on the streets on demand. So then when you can do that over and over again, the political party will see this guy has potential. So then you will be fast-tracked based on your performance, and then you'll have to perform in other ways and you to become part of the system and see all the good and bad parts of it and so on. That's how it goes. AI won't work in India at this point in time. At this point in time, no chance for AI to work. Coup? Haha. I mean, come on. Are you kidding yourself? How old are you? I think you still have a little bit of growing up to do. If you want to learn how to do a coup, read the book *Coup: A Practical Handbook* by Edward Lutwak, who has appeared on my podcast. It's a very interesting book. And it is said that after a failed coup attempt in Africa, I don't remember which country it was, but the person who attempted the coup, his body was found with gunshot wounds. And inside his jacket was that book by Edward Lutwak, *Coup: A Practical Handbook*. It's actually a pretty good book if you want to learn how the mechanics and dynamics of a coup are. Uh, yeah, but I would not recommend trying a coup in India. It is, of course, illegal. It is not in the country's interests. I'm just being a little light-hearted here. If you want to look at a coup from a theoretical perspective, but the only path available to you in the current system is to do it the hard way, bottom up. Or you could be a very rich person and buy your way into a political party. There, there's multiple ways. But if you are a young kid, 20, 25 years old, the only way is to, uh, do it through student politics. Show that you are a great student leader who can mobilize people, students on the streets on demand. On demand, essentially, then you will have a great future. That's how it goes. That's how it goes.

Abijit Chow Light says, any update about aliens and UFOs? I have not been paying attention to aliens and UFOs. Right now they are not, they're not anymore the flavor of the season. Aliens and UFOs. A few months ago they were, UFOs were all over the place in New Jersey and in the US. I mean, there was an invasion of UFOs on live TV. They were showing UFOs flying over the sky. Now they've all disappeared. And then after Trump comes to power, his, uh, spokesperson, that lady, I forget her name, whatever it is, the press secretary, she said that those UFOs or whatever were drones, and, and they were being, they, they were being deployed by the Biden, Biden administration. So they were not really alien artifacts; they were drones, advanced drones belonging to the United States government. Now, if you look at those videos, which is very interesting, some of those drones, they morph, they, they change from aircraft or drone-like structures to, to orbs, which is very strange, very interesting. But yeah. Navin Kumar says, Goa or Bangkok? I've never been to Goa, so I can't say. I've been to Bangkok once; hardly saw the place. I went for the World Hindu Congress in the end of 2023. I found Bangkok fascinating. Very beautiful place, a very nice people. What I loved about Bangkok is that nobody bothers to speak English. They all speak Thai. But you can somehow communicate, you know, and they are more Indian than us. They are more Dharmic than us. Okay, they, and it is their culture. It's not our culture anymore; it's their culture they are practicing, and they value their culture. If you go, if you go to those airports, Bangkok, so nabi, you will see manifestations of, of Dharmic, um, Dharmic manifestations everywhere, whether it is Hanuman, whether it is the Samudra Manthan, whatever, all Indian cultural elements portrayed there as Thai elements, and they're proud of it; they're not ashamed of it, so different from India. So I would, so I have never been to Goa, so I can't say anything about Goa, but I really like Bangkok, the brief time I was there, like 3 days or something. It was fun; I don't mind going again. Wonderful place, and I would like to explore more of Thailand and more of Southeast Asia. Um, Rajil Kh, thank you so much for becoming a member. I never ask anybody to become a member, but some of you still do that. So I really appreciate that. Thank you so much to everybody who has purchased memberships despite me never asking anyone to do that. Thank you so much, and thank you so much, Rajil. I really appreciate it. Thank you for your support; it means a lot. Okay, let's, um, I have spoken about, okay, let's see this. Uh, Rajil says, "Can you please explain about private data security and theft?" Sun alien private data security and theft. That's a very technical subject. It's a very corporate subject, isn't it? So look, every corporation, every entity, every individual has some private data, right? We all have it, uh, you may have a laptop in which you have your own private data, whatever word documents or, uh, whatever it is that you keep, PDFs or videos or whatever, that's your private data. Okay. Um, and that needs to be secure, and it can be stolen as well. So maybe you have credit card information, or maybe you have some financial statements, or maybe you have passwords or something. If it is stolen, then it becomes a huge problem for you. People can steal your money; people can steal your identity or whatever. So you need to keep it secure, and there are multiple ways of doing it. You can encrypt your data so that nobody can, you know, crack it, crack the code. That's one way of doing it, private security, private data security. Another way is to disconnect your laptop, your, your, your machine, whatever it is, from the internet, is called air gapping. An air-gapped system, which is secure because no internet can penetrate there. If you want to be really air-gapped, then you can have a room with, um, what's called a Faraday cage. In case you don't know what a Faraday cage is, look at a microwave oven. If you look at the front window of the microwave oven, you can see a grill structure over it, grill. That's a Faraday cage, which keeps the microwaves inside and prevents them from leaking out of the microwave oven. So you can have a room with a Faraday cage, situ paradise, kind of a, kind of a setup, which will genuinely ensure that no outside signal comes in or no inside signal goes out. So there are various ways of achieving proper data security. Most of us, we have systems that are connected to the internet. So you have to, u, ensure that you don't keep any sensitive information, first of all, on, um, your internet-connected system. Um, and if you have such information, you need to keep it secure in a variety of ways. Yeah. And theft, there's, there are lots of ways of, of, of stealing, uh, private data. You know, hackers, this, they specialize in this, and some hackers are really good. There are various ways of doing it. The Chinese are good at it. Apparently, India is not, not bad in, in cyber security. One hears, one hears whispers. Okay. So yeah, there are people who are professionals and who can do that. So you've got to, uh, you got to employ basic common sense, essentially. So that's what I can say. It's a very, very big topic, very complex topic. You can do like one single, two-hour live stream only about this, but that's what I'll say in brief about this. All right. Um, um, um, Mr. Adus says, do I listen to electronic or Indian music? Electronic music, some of it used to be good. There was this, this band called Astral Projection. They had this song called Mahadeva. There was nice electronic music. Some of it is good. Some of it is good. Um, I don't really keep up with electronic music these days. Ambient music used to be good. Ambient music should be something that allows you to focus on the work that you're doing, but it should create a nice ambiance, nice atmosphere. Ambient music is, is something I'm still into sometimes. So yeah, I do, I do listen to it sometimes. And, um, okay. Um, what shall I do? What shall I do? What shall I, shall I take one more? Who's my favorite sports person says Mayori? I don't know; I don't have any one favorite sports person. I, I've admired lots of sports people from different sports. Uh, for example, in tennis, I, what, uh, Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, I used to like Agassi, uh, Pete Sampras, uh, among women, Steffi Graf, Monica Seles. These days I have no idea who, maybe the, the Williams, Serena Williams, probably, who else? In cricket, there are so many: Viv Richards, uh, Jeff Thomson, if anyone remembers him, and so on. So any, I mean, there's no one person that's my favorite. Okay, with that, we will end today's live stream. We are way past 2 hours. So thank you so much for all the questions. I enjoyed this very much. Enjoyed the questions I took from the comments, enjoyed the questions I took from the live chat, and we shall keep doing this, and the next episode will be next week, same time, same channel, same day. So until then, take care. Thank you so much for everything. Thank you so much for your viewership. Please keep asking questions. Please keep raising your standards. Please keep learning. Take care. I'll see you soon. Bye-bye.