Indian Universities in Challenging Times Vice-Chancellors Interact with Sadhguru 25 Apr 1 pm IST
Speaker: Pranam Sadhguru.
Sadhguru: Namaskaram ma, Namaskaram Dr.Shiv. Sorry, we could not come and meet you personally.
Here we are (Laughs). Speaker: Yes, we were thinking that to have
you at our conference and you can see face to face every vice-chancellor, but
because of corona it could not happen. So thank you Sadhguru. We are grateful for you
to agree to our request, first for coming to the vice-chancellors’ conference and
now for interacting… with them online. We have a very eminent panel with us who will
be seeking your guidance on various issues. The first question I would like to place before
you and then our panel will be asking you the questions.
My question Sadhguru is that
now people are dividing the time into two parts BC and AC. BC is Before Corona and AC
are After Corona (Sadhguru Laughs). It is felt that after corona the world will set to see
a new normal in all spheres of life, including the higher education space. We are now moving
towards online education, but without having face-to-face interaction in core learning
spaces with teachers, peers, and others on university campuses, how do we ensure the holistic
development of the students? And how do we ensure the physical, mental, intellectual, and
spiritual development of our students? We seek your guidance on this. Sadhguru: Namaskaram to every one of you.
Well, I would not want to accord that kind of significance to the virus that it will
determine BC and AC (Laughs), and anyway, we have not seen the AC yet.
And right now, all
we have about the virus is a lot of confusion. We don’t know anything about it really, in
its entirety. We know bits and pieces of what it can do, but every day we are coming up
with new observations or… of what it is capable of doing. Initially, it just started
as a respiratory ailment, and then it’s multiplying into many things, neurological things are
being affected, genetic material is being affected — every day scientists are coming
up with new observations. And none of it is absolutely clear. So that
is one thing. So we have done absolutely nothing about the virus yet. We’ve only
managed to contain it by controlling human behavior. But once we relax that, how it will
behave, what way it will go is anybody’s guess. So one thing is before we congregate in numbers
for a conference like this, that we can come together, we don’t know if it’s one year or
two years later, because people are talking about second, third waves in most parts of
the world’s geography.
Having said all these things which seemed
negative, well I don’t wish to paint a negative picture. The reality is we don’t know. So
we just have to be observant and watch, till then disciplined enough to keep distances
so that virus doesn’t, you know, have a clear sweep over the human population. When coming
to education, it is possible education could change from the way it was to how it will
be tomorrow in a completely dimensional way. Because I have been talking about this for
the last few years, with the advent of artificial intelligence, the value of the scholarship is
going away. When I say scholarship, scholarship is just by memory, in the sense that memory I
can carry in my head, my phone carries ten times that memory. As these gadgets, you know,
enhance themselves and artificial intelligence comes – what I mean by artificial… artificial
intelligence in my understanding is data, analysis, permutations and combinations of
how many ways we can present it — this is all, most human beings are doing if they
are intellectual. Intellectually this is all you can do. You gather data, you analyze and
you see how you can make many varieties of the same thing in terms of application, in
terms of understanding, and terms of expression.
In how many different ways can we do this?
This – a machine will do way better than any one of us, a hundred percent. It can remember
better than us, it can analyze better than us and it can produce permutations and combinations
better than us. Right now, we may not be yet there, but I feel in the next five years, or
a maximum of ten years, we’ll be there.
Once this happens, as we have known education till now that you go to a school or a college
to pick up information, try to store it properly, and learn to analyze and learn to use it,
that form of education will become redundant. Maybe the virus will kind of hasten
this process and move us in this direction because now I don’t think in the month of
June, children can go back to school.
That’s not how it’s looking. So if things are still out, and there are
still infections going on, I don’t think parents will send back their children to school or
even to college for that matter. So, because of this, a dramatic change could happen in
the way education is delivered. Will it happen to every other activity? I have my doubts,
but education definitely could go a sea change because anyway it was overdue.
It was heading
in that way, because we are not able to create new mechanisms as rapidly as technology
changes as our needs change, we are not able to create whole education machinery in the
world, because of that we’ve been going a little slow, but the virus… virus may definitely
hasten that process. As far as education is concerned, as far as
schools and universities are concerned, it’s very much possible that it becomes BC and
AC eras (Laughs).
Speaker: (Laughs) Thank you Sadhguruji. Thank
you, thanks a lot. We do need creative thinking in our universities and colleges and they
should not become the information storehouse as you say. Sadhguruji now we have a very eminent
person, Chairman AICTE with us. He is looking after all the technical universities and colleges
of the country, Professor Anil Sahasrabudhe. May I request he please pose a question
to Sadhguru? Prof. Anil Sahasrabudhe: Sadhguruji. Namaskaram.
Sadhguru: Namaskaram. Prof. Anil Sahasrabudhe: Pranam, Vanakkam.
I have visited the Isha foundation too last year. Sadhguru: Oh, is that so? Prof. Anil Sahasrabudhe: Yes. And your thoughts,
I’ve been reading them and viewing them on WhatsApp and various media — they are all
inspiring and thoughtful. So, in this period of lockdown, I would like to ask a question,
which is there in the minds of many people. Our learning is going on despite the lockdown
because we always say that learning is lifelong learning and that learning should never stop.
There
are several online classes, workshops, and seminars albeit probably more in number than during
normal times. So education and learning have been continuing. But many people feel
that they are isolated, feel lonely. What is the mantra that you suggest to keep people
energetic, and live and enjoy this lockdown while learning (Sadhguru Laughs)? Sadhguru: Well, if one is in a mode of learning
or whenever you want to learn something, when you want to focus on something, being alone
is a great blessing (Laughter). Friends and family are a big distraction. When you
want to learn something you wish to be alone, that’s very normal. So if they are
learners, it is fine. But for a whole lot of them going to school and college is a social
process, not necessarily an academic or an educational process (Laughs), you know. And
about conf… you know, conferences or online education happening, yes, it’s wonderful on
one level, but unfortunately, we are not living in one world.
Different segments of the population
live in different worlds by themselves. So right now out of nearly 1.6 billion people
that we can consider as what to say as students, officially students enrolled in some institution.
Out of this, nearly 860 million people don’t have access to the internet and computers. So
what do you do with them? How do you make them learn? This is a big challenge. So leveling
this field is going to be the main challenge. How do make technology and broadband and reach
possible for every student in the world? Somehow, in the last century, in every village, in
every tribal hamlet, we’ve built school rooms. However minimal and rudimentary they
are, school rooms have come up in the remotest parts of Africa, in India, wherever you go,
largely they have come up. They may be very rudimentary, people may not agree this is
just a… this tin shed is a school, but something was happening.
But now, if they cannot assemble in one place, they don’t have online connections
and computers and things.
So we need to be really bothered about that segment of the
population and otherwise, we must re… recraft the idea of education for all those people
who don’t have such access. And education need not necessarily be academic, education
can be in so many practical levels that, you know, in this country, over sixty percent
of the population is still in agriculture. Education can happen on various
levels. But that kind of overhaul cannot happen in a short period, not in these forced
times of coronavirus, that in three months or six months we can achieve something like
that, but that will be a very impractical idea. But it needs to happen because in terms of
what I’ve spoken to a few experts they say to get broadband and computers into the
hands of every person in the world or to make sure that everybody has online access,
may take another eight to ten years.
That’s what they’re saying.
But with the lowered sense of economy, in this… (Laughs), I will use the terminology
that you have all coined in this AC period (Laughs). I’m sorry, is that AC? After, okay.
So in this AC period with lowered economies, these eight years may multiply into fifteen
years, we don’t know, I’m just guessing. So we need to think up different ways
of doing this and whatever inner genius we have, whatever innovativeness we have, whatever
the intelligence we have, whatever ideas we have, I think this is the time to pull out all those
things out of our bags, and see if they work or don’t work, because I don’t see a magic
wand solution for all geographies, all economic, you know, disparities that are there, some
magic wand solution that will work for everybody.
I don’t believe that. But if in some way,
if education at least, the basic education is shipped from a computer screen to a television
screen, I think the reach will increase. The number of people left out will be far less
than the number of people who will be left, left out with the need for broad… broadband.
So somewhere if it becomes necessary the governments should mandate that set… our government
can start channels which will have like… let’s say like India, in India, there is Doordarshan,
almost in every village, they have Doordarshan.
So evenings, at least maybe four hours a day
education should happen on Doordarshan, or even other commercial channels can be brought
into this purpose. We need to do something so that the reach is enhanced. If we just
stick to the computers and online facilities, I think enhancing that with these difficult
economic times could become a big impediment. … evolved minds more you know, fitter bodies, and more spiritually evolved people. Well, unfortunately, largely we have never focused
on this in the last seventy-five years in this country, it is anyway time to do that,
that education should not just mean you know, a heap of information in our heads, but
overall development of the human being.
Certain institutions may be focusing, but large scale
that’s not happening, a maximum number of people are not getting that. Above all, you know,
once enhancement as a human being, widening our horizons, this I think is not happening,
largely it is becoming information gathering, passing examinations, getting a job. Well,
that is been the economic status of the country. So getting a job was the primary thing of
education. But as economic prosperity comes, that idea must change. Education is not just
about acquiring a job, but about enhancing a human being that has to come in.
I think
for that we need a more, what to say, a more prosperous economic base, only then we can
even talk about it to people. Speaker: Thank you. Thank you Professor Sahasrabudhe.
Thank you Sadhguru. (Audio Cut) who can mute too(?) that you can also ask a question from
Sadhguru through chat, use the hashtag #AskSadhguru, and please ask the question.
Sir, now we have with us Professor M.M. Salunkhe, who is the president of AIU. The President of AIU
happens to be the senior Vice-Chancellor of the country. He’s presently the Vice-Chancellor
of Bharati Vidyapeeth but in past, he has been the Vice-Chancellor of the Central University
of Rajasthan, Yashwanth Rao Open University, and Shivaji University. Sir, may I ask you
to ask a question from Professor Salunkhe? Salunkhe Sir.
Sadhguru: Namaskaram. Professor M.M. Salunkhe: Namaskaram Sadhguruji,
Pranam.
I have a question. India has rich traditions and traditional knowledge which
made India a world leader in the past. In my opinion, higher education institutions
should adapt and integrate these rich traditions and traditional knowledge, which through
innovation can lead to the betterment of society. How best this can be done? This is my first
question. And the second question is, what are your thoughts, please? Sadhguru: Well, one thing is, science is neither
old nor new.
Because science means essentially something that’s always relevant, something
connected, something that we observed or realized by seeing the natural phenomenon, so it’s
always true. Instead of classifying sciences as ancient and modern, it’s very important
what is relevant for today must be brought forth. It doesn’t matter where it comes from.
The moment we label science as Indian or Chinese or American or whatever, the moment you label
it, there will be a certain amount of resistance, there’ll be a certain amount of unnecessary
controversy about everything, the real thing has been lost. So I feel it’s very important
that whatever realizations and knowledge we had in this country, a variety of things, which
would be of immense value, because, in my opinion, this is not because of my nationalistic
fervor or something, I’ve looked at this very carefully, nowhere else on this planet, has
any culture, looked at the human machine with as much detail and profoundness as we
have in this culture.
So having said that, whatever we do in this world, whatever is
our thing, essentially it is towards human wellbeing.
Now we are doing so many things, we want to go to the moon, we want to go to Mars all this
is fine with me. But human beings should be well first, that well-being is not happening.
And we are doing so many things which only end up in destruction. If you look
at it, unfortunately, our knowledge, our education, our science, and our technology are the basis of
all destruction. Uneducated people and illiterate people are not destroying the world. It is
all university-educated people who will destroy the world, unfortunately, how can this happen?
This is only happening because we have made education into simply a heap of information,
without any inner experience, without understanding the nature of the human being itself. Because
everything that you observe even as science, even for something as simple as an Isaac
Newton’s to observe a fool… a fruit will fall, for this also is happening only
with the instruments of our perception.
We do not know how a bird is seeing it, a bird
may be seeing the fruit falls away from a tree, not down, maybe it is going up in its
perception. I’m just joking. It doesn’t matter what, but I am saying our perception is the
basis of all sciences, it is the way we perceive, the way we observe. This itself may be faulty,
we do not know, this may not be absolute reality, this is a human reality. Largely
our sciences are a human reality, not an absolute reality. It is from our context it is true. So, what is true from the context of who we
are, is only relevant to our well-being, but unfortunately, it is not crafted like
that. So definitely the ethos of this culture and this nation is very important, but we
must have wisdom.
We claim that we are a very wise nation. If we are a very wise
nation, we must have the wisdom of not labeling it as Indian. Because the moment you label
it as an Indian, if I’m a Chinese person — Oh, this is a wrong nationality to take. Let’s
say, I am an American person, why will I want to do Indian stuff? I don’t want to do that. I
won’t even listen to what you’re saying, I will simply resist because I am not Indian
and I don’t want to be Indian. So we must have wisdom.
Always our culture has talked about the universality of who we are.
So we should label
science as science, knowledge as for what it is, and our knowledge and wisdom for what it
is rather than always trying to brand it as “Bharat Mata Ki Jai” all the time. That
is okay, it must beat in our hearts, but we should not throw it everywhere because it
will get rejected and unnecessary resistance. What is of immense value gets lost in petty
politics. Speaker: Thank you Sadhguru. Very well said.
Sadhguru, now we have with us, Professor. Bhushan Patwardhan is Vice-Chairman of the University
Grants Commission, and he’s also the chairman of the task force constituted by the Government
of India to monitor R&D activities on COVID-19 from the Ayurveda side.
So, may I request
Professor Patwardhan to please ask a question from Sadhguru.
Prof. Patwardhan: Namaste Sadhguru. Sadhguru: Namaskaram.
Prof. Patwardhan: I must confess that you have answered most of the questions which I
had in mind. And I promise you that I will spend some more quality time with you later.
But taking this further when we started discussing re-imagining Indian University, this
is a theme for this session, you know, and I had a discussion with Dr. Pankaj Mittal that
time, and we said that “Look, we have a very good tradition, we talk about Nalanda,
Takshashila, but how they are related today?” you know, what point exactly you have made
it. So, how we can relate it today, and how we can reinvent that in today’s context? And
I want to ask you a question regarding the purpose of education for new India, the new
education for new India, because our current education, we are still carrying the British
legacy, you know, of creating some kind of an employment structure which is… which is
necessary for the rural, you know, ____ (Unclear) is the same thing.
So, what kind of information
even today we are giving is meant for that, and that is why a farmer’s son or daughter also
wants to become a graduate, whether that value will add something to that or not. And
once they become graduates, they don’t feel like going into agricultural fields also. So,
what the question I have in mind is teachers and I am a teacher, so I’m putting myself first
in that box. Teachers have monopolized education today. You know, we think that what
we teach in the classroom is only teaching, whereas teaching happens all over. Nature
is a great teacher, family is a great teacher, the mother is a great teacher you know, the community
is a great teacher and we completely undermine this component of teaching in our own so-called
academic environment. So, sending students out as a part of academic
activity at least for a semester you know, wherein urban students can go to a rural area,
rural schools can come to an urban area, this kind of exchange, student, I can tell they
can learn so much from farmers, what is that around.
Today the situation is students may
not even know from where mangoes are coming. They will say that “Reliance Mall.” This
is the kind of situation we have brought in and students are not considered at all. We
are saying that “this is the syllabus, you have to complete it at this time and you
have no choice.” So student-centric system where we rebuilt our ethos, on our
own experience which is very, very relevant to India. Just one point I will make and I
will request you to answer. We have decided that there will be some kind of a national
mechanism, what we have called as National Academic Credit Bank, and we are saying that
let students decide when they want to graduate, why do you want to insist that a particular student
has to get graduated in three years? He or she may take five years or may be able to
do it in one year, you know. Let their creativity, let their intelligence, let their interest
drive and not you dictate, you know. So this National Academic Credit Bank will allow them
to earn credits not from one university, but from anywhere in the world.
And as long as
they comply with their university’s requirement of several credit hours, they should be
able to get that degree. So and this semester’s outreach program in which students can go
out, these are the two points at the backdrop I want to before I request you to answer my
question. Thank you, Sadhguru, it was so nice to talk to you. Sadhguru: Well, if you ask me, this may (Laughs)
not go down very well with everybody. But let me tell you what’s in my heart. See, why
are we trying to control education in so many ways? Whether you want to liberate the education
process or you want to control it, this is a decision nation must take.
Right now, education
is largely kind of determined — you said teachers, I don’t think so. It is largely
the parents who determine what kind of education. They are from another generation. Most parents
are out of touch with today’s world (Laughs). If you will, you ask any young person they
will say, they are not in touch with today’s world, or they are not in touch with what
is going to happen in this future or what you are calling AC.
So why are parents
deciding? Now, till a certain age, yes, parents will decide. But right now, not only parents,
the government is deciding what you must study and what you must not study. I’m saying it
cannot be done overnight, but in a phased manner in the next eight to ten years, just
release the education completely. You just set some standards that if you want
to get to this place, you must know this much language, this much mathematics, this much
science, this much whatever, just set the basic standard. I’m saying not for the first standard,
the second standard, not like this. For the tenth standard, you set something. For the twelfth standard,
you set something. For graduation you set something. In between, do not put any structure,
let every private institution teach whichever way they want, whatever they want. As long
as the students are happy and parents are happy, it is nobody’s business.
When I was talking to somebody very prominent, who makes education policies in the country,
this is what I said. I said, “What makes you think that you are more concerned about
the children than their parents? Where did you get this idea? If parents are happy
and children are happy, and they’re meeting whatever standards we have set, set international
standards.
If you want to get out of high school, you must know this much science, this
much mathematics, this much language, whatever proficiency, but everybody need not go through
the same thing.” So now I may start an agricultural school where it’s all practical and a little
bit of science and whatever, but this should be allowed.
Right now we are driving, for example, I’m saying there are many, many things which are
being destroyed like this. One thing is the textile industry, the handloom industry is completely
going away, simply because of compulsory school education. Well, the biggest danger right
now is that today nearly ninety-five percent of the children from the farming community
are going to school.
Come and see in Tamil Nadu, I’m sure this is true everywhere, there
are… there are nearly a quarter million to 400,000 children who have reached the tenth
standard which is fifteen to sixteen years of age. But because they have free, you know,
promotions up to the ninth standard because they didn’t want them to drop out, this is misplaced
compassion, they just passed out. All they know is that they have the attitude of the
educated, but they can’t add two plus two. That’s where they are. They can’t go back
to the farm and work because physically they are not fit enough to go back nor do I (they?)
have the attitude to go back.
They can’t go and do the carpentry or whatever his father
was doing. So, all skills have been lost, agriculture has been lost. And now they just
have the attitude of the educated. Oh, there are millions of children like this in the
country right now, what will they become? This is a hotbed for crime, terror, extremism,
and all kinds of things because youth are just hanging around on the street without any skills. Now, we are trying to do skill development,
well seventeen-year-old boy or an eighteen-year-old boy, is not easy to suddenly take him into
some discipline and you know, make him into some kind of skill. So we must set this
up, that it is a structure like this, by the time you are eighteen you must have, either
must be going to a university or you must have some livelihood skills.
If you don’t
have both, you must be forcefully conscripted into either military or paramilitary or a
skill development institution, which is one year residential. They must go through the
discipline of becoming physically fit, mentally fit, and disciplined enough to learn a skill and
execute it. I am saying… Why I’m saying this is, right now (Laughs), I’m just saying
this is true almost all over the country. Let’s say if your carpenter comes and fixes
the door, if you open it, you can’t close it, if you close it, you can’t open it. Again
you need another carpenter to come and fix it another way. So, all these things are happening
simply because there was a traditional training process for all these skills.
Now that we
have broken, but we are not able to replace it with high technology training process or
a high level of international level of the training process, we are not able to deliver, in between
we are stuck. Unless you make education into a lucrative process for private institutions,
that they can charge what they want, teach what they want, as long as the students and
the parents are happy, I don’t see why the government should bother. You will… you will develop
an enormous amount of skills in the world in a country like this. Academics are not made for
every human being. It is not necessary for everybody must go to the university and learn the same
things. Some people are by attitude into academic kind of mindset. They must
go into academics, rest of the people should learn other kinds of skills, innovations,
business, variety of things. This is the land of entrepreneurs, you are mentioning that
we were a very successful nation some time ago. Yes, that is because there was enterprise, and enterprise happened because the only institution through which you could learn was family.
The family was the way that we delivered, you know, family and the caste, which was there
which delivered skills from generation to generation.
Well, we have broken that.
That is fine. We can’t rebuild that now. But it is best if the
new family is a private enterprise because the industry needs skills, let them get out and
train their people. Why are they going to IIM’s and IITs and trying to pick the best,
why don’t they make their investment a little more long-term? Go to tenth standard children
and from there train them for whatever requirements they have in their industry and business.
If you let them lose, they will do this.
A certain amount of disruption will be there, but we
must be willing for that, only then we will unleash the potential of this youthful population.
Because in my opinion, whatever the demographic dividend we have right now, the advantage
we have over every other country in the world, this advantage will stay with us only for
a maximum of fifteen to twenty years. If we just let it pass like this in endless
debate, then once that advantage is gone, we have millions of people without any
skills, without any inspiration, without any discipline. This is going to be a massive
problem to handle. Speaker: Thank you Sadhguru. Everybody should indeed be having at least some basic skills even if they have an intellectual
or high level of education, but basic skills are very, very necessary.
Sadhguru, we have
with us Professor Tej Pratap, he is Vice-President of AIU and presently Vice-Chancellor of Govind
Ballabh Pant University of Agriculture and Technology in Pantnagar, and he has earlier
been the Vice-Chancellor of APG Shimla University, Sher-e-Kashmir University, and Himachal Pradesh
Agricultural University, Palam. May I request Professor Tej Pratap to ask a question from
Sadhguru Ji? Sadhguru: Namaskaram.
Professor TejPratap: (Audio disturbance). Sadhguru: There’s no audio, you must do something
about this. (General conversation – not transcribed). I think he’s on mute, probably,
please. Speaker: We can listen to Tej Pratapji.
Sadhguru: Oh, it is not coming here.
I can hear you ma’am, but I’m not able to hear
him. Speaker: (Speaks in Hindi – not transcribed).
Sir, please unmute your microphone, or maybe Isha Foundation, please unmute the microphone.
Sadhguru: I can hear you ma’am but we are not able to hear him.
Speaker: Sir, we are not able to hear you, are not able to hear you. Sadhguru, what
I will do it, he has sent me the question in advance. So, I will ask the question that
he is wanting to ask. Sadhguru? Sadhguru: Yes please Ma’am, do that.
Speaker: Professor Tej Pratap gave me the question for asking.
He says that in
agriculture sector where we are all headed, appreciable production of food and other crops,
but it has not helped improve the lives of a large section of small farmers, they remain unhappy.
On the other hand, consumers are unhappy because of unsafe food available to them. With production…
with production, only happiness is there. Any strategic mistake in our agricultural policy
designing and our research and education strategy? What is the way forward to reforms
in the agricultural sector? How to improve so that farmers, as well as consumers, are
happy? Sadhguru: Namaskaram professor, I’m sorry,
we couldn’t hear you. What I would say is right now there’s a large-scale movement happening
called the farmer-producer organizations. Well, we are also running one of the best
farmer-producer organizations in the country. It is number one in Tamil Nadu and also among
the top companies in the country. This is an assembly of farmers. A similar
thing was done some time ago in the form of co-operatives, but unfortunately, they did
not fix the parameters well enough, too many political and other influences came in and
it got hijacked in a certain way.
But I cannot say it is not brought well-being to the farmers,
it has, but it got lost on the way. So now the FPO movement is done in a more you know,
more well-thought-out way. And here the participation of the farmers is. What is the problem of
our farmer? Why is an Indian farmer so poor? Is simply because there is no power of scale. Over generations, the land has become so small,
that the average land holding is one hectare, which is 2.25 acres. To earn a living from this
is a, is a heartbreaking process.
We were doing subsistence farming, that is, we were
growing whatever we need in our land for ourselves and our family, we ate out of it, somehow
we were managing. When this was happening, the rural population was very poor, but generally
well nourished, they ate well, and they were strong. Generally in our culture, we say a rural person
means a robust man or woman, you know, they were very strong. But please today walk in
our villages and see sixty percent of the population, their skeletal system has not
grown to full size. This is because this shift from subsistence farming to commercial farming
has happened in such a disorganized way that today there is more money, maybe they have
a motorcycle, they have a borewell, they have everybody has a cell phone, all this stuff,
but the nourishment has gone down dramatically, or in other words, we are silently creating
an underdeveloped population in this country.
Right now in most people’s minds, if you see
a village person who is shrunk like that, people will say that village people are like
that only. Village people were not like this thirty-five forty years ago. Forty years ago
a village person means a robust man. But today he’s shrunk like this because the staple
diet has become like this because cash is in the hand, but there are no food commodities
as such. The staple diet in the south has become rice, tamarind, and chili and salt you know,
with this we can make something tasty. And we’re eating this up. In the north, it’s become
you know, like how the whole country, at least the northern part of the country goes into
a tizzy if the onion price goes up. Why is onion such a big thing? I was in London and
this onion price had gone up and all the four television… English channels were only talking
about the onion.
I was with a family, they were asking, “What is this thing about onion,
Sadhguru in India?” I said, “That’s our staple diet.” That’s what everybody’s eating,
nothing else. Onion means they’ll go crazy because that’s the staple diet: onion, chilly,
and wheat have become the staple diet in North India. So, because of this, nourishment levels
have come down significantly, and the human body is not developing fully. Once you have an underdeveloped
population, you will have an underdeveloped nation, there is no question about it. So,
we need to change this means, we need to give the power of scale to the farmer, how to give
the power of scale? Well, you cannot do land aggregation, this and that, that will be too
revolutionary and it will lead to you know, in many ways disruptions in the country.
So what we are trying to do here is aggregate
input, aggregate irrigation, and aggregate marketing. Farming, everybody does on their land as they
were doing. See I will tell you the simple thing, the waste of resources in the country
and how it’s happening. The average land holding is 2.25 acres. Let us assume everybody has 2.25
acres, many people don’t have that, somebody has five acres, somebody has one acre like
this. Every two acres or two and a quarter acres you have to put a barbed wire fence
today, which was not the need some time ago.
A fence, every 2.25 acres you need a borewell,
you need an electric connection. And for 2.25 acres, a man has to go and sit, a man or woman
has to go and sit in that land every day just to prove “it’s my land.” It’s very simple
to change these dynamics. One thing is to digitize all our surveys in such a way that
somebody can’t move a stone here and there and change the land description. One thing
is to establish the property properly, digitally properly surveyed and put, so this will relax
one aspect of it. Another reason why the farmer every day goes to the land is, that he has to turn
on the pump, for that he goes, sits there, nothing else to do, he will sit and smoke,
he will drink, will hang around there doing nothing. Most men and women in rural India
most of the time, are doing nothing, except proving, “this is my land”
and turning on the pump and sitting there.
It is not that every day there’s some work.
If you relax these things, let us say we integrate 10,000 farmers in terms
of land, the land is still separate, it’s digitized and land ownership is separate. Farming is
separate, but if you integrate irrigation, if you hit a good water source, and let’s
say, irrigate this. We have been talking to various companies, drip irrigation companies, and others, they’re willing to do this on a rental basis. One reason why a farmer is continuously
in debt is, his investment in irrigation and his investment in fencing, investment
in these kinds of electrical implements, and things. If all these things are
integrated, let’s one… let us say one large company comes and takes up 10,000 farmers,
gives free irrigation, gives free advice on what should happen, and provides whatever. You know
that a company can be FPO, run by the farmers, but we can bring outside expertise.
That’s
what we are doing right now. In a matter of four years, the income has gone up by three-hundred
percent. One important thing we have done is integrate marketing and input. Just
because of this, this has happened. If it is done on a large scale, let’s say 50,000
farmers are brought together, I will tell you about the latitudinal spread that we have
and the climatic advantage we have, which means twelve years (months?) of the year we
can grow crops. We must understand not every nation in the world can grow crops twelve
years (months?) of the year. We can grow crops twelve years, I mean, I’m sorry, twelve months
of the year, and there is a latitudinal spread that anything anybody wants in this
world we can grow for them. If we integrate farming like this and investments like this in
terms of irrigation marketing, these two things if we integrate, we can become the breadbasket
of the world, especially this post-corona season.
We have tremendous opportunities to
do this. But this FPO moment has to take off in a big way. Today, I think there
are over 5000 FPO but the number of FPOs is not the important thing, it’s the size
of FPOs which is important. Right now, we have an FPO here with about 1200 farmers,
we are seeing how to make this into a 10,000 farmer FPO. If 10,000 farmers come together,
the kind of power of scale they have is such that very easily farmer’s income can be
doubled enormously. This is the best way to stop migration and agriculture should become
a very lucrative process. As a part of this, we have introduced what is called “agroforestry”
that there are long-term crops on everybody’s land. See, today it is estimated in the next
ten years, two-hundred-and-twenty million people will migrate from rural India to urban
India. You ask any farmer, not even two percent of the farmers in the country want their children
to go into agriculture. They don’t want, they want their children to move into the city
and do something, it doesn’t matter what, they don’t mind if their son stands in front
of a building as a chowkidar (Referring to the Hindi word – watchman), but they don’t want
him to be in farming because it’s heartbreaking and it’s so uncertain on a, you know, a yearly
basis.
It’s a… it’s gambling all the time because the holdings are so small. If we change this perspective, we bring long-term crops to the land in the form of trees, and there is an integration of irrigation
and marketing. With this, here for all the agro farmers in about seven to eight years, their incomes have gone up anywhere between three-hundred to eight-hundred percent.
There are over 70,000 farmers today who achieved this in Tamil Nadu, we need to make this happen
on a much larger scale. Because if there are no long-term crops, there is no incentive
for people to stay on the land. And also agriculture should not be in the universities. Agriculture
has to come into rural schools. Agricultural science cannot remain in the universities,
it has to come into the rural schools.
Speaker: Thank you Sadhguru. Sadhguru, we
have some questions from the audience, one from the student and one from Dr. P V Sharma.
After these two questions, which I’ll ask together, we have received a video from our
Honorable Minister for Education Dr. Ramesh Pokhriyalji, that video will be played where
he is giving the message about what all Government of India is doing to combat corona pandemic
and after that, we’ll request you for your closing remarks. So first these two questions
Sadhguru. From a student, he’s asking that due to the corona pandemic, the job scenario has
become grim. People are scared of losing jobs and students are worrying about their placements.
It is learned that many placement offers are being withdrawn by recruiters and economic
recession is on the anvil. How do cope with such a situation? And the second question
is that Dr. PV Sharma, he is the Vice-Chancellor of Amity university, “What should we
do in the education space to create well-being, peace, and happiness?” Sadhguruji. Sadhguru: Well, we have still not seen the
AC, After Corona, we have still not seen it.
It all depends on how long it lasts. There are general
estimates that in India its severity could last till September. That it may be till September
before our economic activity gets on the ground. So post that what we do will determine
a lot of things but short-term job losses, well, a whole lot of youth, without any direction
looks like an inevitable process. But we need to understand we are a developing nation.
A developing nation means still there are a lot of things to be done. So youth, especially
in the coming two years, should not just sit and wait for employment. That mentality should
go. Every one of them should see how they can find a solution for many, many, many problems
which exist in our society. By providing these solutions they must make a living. They must
thrive from this and they must grow, from this, they must innovate, they
must create tremendous possibilities for the nation. If everybody sits back and waits for
a job to be given, well, we must understand till 1990, I think if I’m correct, you people
should know the statistics better.
I think in 1990 or 1980, only about seven percent
of India had employment. The rest were all self-employed. So from there, I think the percentages have
changed today to a certain extent, but still, largely we are a sel… self-employed nation.
In the next two years, definitely self-employment is going to be very big, because of employment…
employers’ ability to give you employment is being considerably reduced with the GDP growth
falling hugely. How long will we suffer, how much foreign
investments will come into the country, how much of China’s (Laughs) you know, pie we
will be able to take — these are all subject to various realities, it’s not just going
to happen like that overnight. Many things have to be done right. The most important
thing is the… particularly the Japanese companies and the American companies, at least
partially they want to move out of China for their security and well-being. So this
is an opportunity. About over three hundred companies are wanting to do this right now.
We must throw out a big welcome for them.
Big absolute welcome.
Absolute welcome means when they land here, we must have land ready, electricity ready,
water ready, all permissions ready, environmental clearances ready, everything ready. When they
come, we must welcome them, distribute them across all the twenty-eight states in whatever
proportions we want and this will be the way forward in one and a half to two years, we
can bounce back in a big way and the advantages we had lost in the past. See, even among the
Asian countries, as a nation, we are at least twenty-five to thirty years behind other nations
in terms of our quality of life and things like that. So this is the best time in the
next five years to eight years we can catch up with that.
Never before we have
had an opportunity like this, but will we grab this opportunity? This is the important
thing. We as a generation, instead of thinking about
what will happen beyond (Laughs) in this so-called AC era — what will happen? — instead
of thinking and predicting and consulting astrologers, we must have a clear strategy
as to where will we be in the next five years. Because for the first time, there were many
status quo set up in the world, economic platforms, which are a status quo, you can’t easily change
that. Today, there is a whole disruption in this. If we are truly an enterprising nation,
this is the best opportunity we have, we must take that. Speaker: Thank you Sadhguru. We are grateful
to our Honorable Minister for Human Resource Development, Dr. Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishankji
for agreeing to give a video message through the channel of Sadhguru to all our students,
teachers, and vice-chancellor. May I request Isha Foundation to please play the video
after that, we will request Sadhguru to give his concluding remarks.
(Speaks in Hindi – not transcribed) Sadhguru: Our gratitude to the minister to
take his time to give this message and for all the higher education institutions, we
must as all of you know these platforms have been created. And many univati… universities
from across the world are throwing out free content all over the place. So, higher education
institutions in India must move from repositories of information to institutions of inspiration, to create a population that
is inspired, focused, and balanced, which should be the most important thing. No better
culture is equipped to create this than our culture here, because we have entire technologies,
for inner well-being. In whatever way we can assist you in this endeavor for all the higher
education institutions, we are willing to do that. And I don’t know if we can… we can probably
our teams can sit down and talk with you and see how to offer these tools for a maximum number
of people. Because right now, this is the greatest thing that needs to happen. As I
said earlier, really if you look at it, the only wealth we have in this country right
now is human resources.
And this human resource if it has to unlock and unleash its potential,
it needs people, human beings who are inspired, focused, balanced and disciplined towards
a certain purpose. If we have an uninspired, unfocused, indisciplined crowd, then we will
become the greatest disaster, but if we change that, we could be the greatest miracle of
the coming century. India has the potential, but between potential and reality there
is a distance; We must have the vision, courage, and commitment to walk this distance. In this…
in this journey, the higher education institutions of this country have a significant role. In
whichever way we can assist you in making this happen, we are always available for you.
Thank you very much for having me with all of you today.
Speaker: Thank you Sadhguru. Thank you for
being with us today. And thank you for a very, very fruitful interaction, we all feel blessed,
and also thanks to all the participants, all the panelists who have been here, panelists
as well as the participants who have joined us on YouTube and Facebook. Thank you Sadhguru, thank you. Hope to have many more opportunities of this kind. Thank you.
