Indian Universities in Challenging Times Vice-Chancellors Interact with Sadhguru 25 Apr 1 pm IST

00:03 - Sorry we could not come and meet you personally. Here we are (Laughs).

00:07 - Speaker: Yes, we were thinking that to have you in our conference and you can see face to face each and 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 them… with them online.

00:25 - We have a very eminent panel with us who will be seeking your guidance on various issues.

00:30 - 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 is 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 a face-to-face interaction in core learning spaces with teachers, peers and others on university campuses, how do we ensure holistic development of the students? And how do we ensure physical, mental, intellectual and spiritual development of our students? We seek your guidance on this.

01:19 - 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.

01:50 - 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.

02:17 - And none of it is absolutely clear. So that is one thing. So we have actually 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.

02:40 - 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 world’s geography.

02:55 - 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.

03:29 - Because I have been talking about this for the last few years, with the advent of artificial intelligence, the value of scholarship is going away. When I say scholarship, scholarship just by memory, in the sense what 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 artifi… 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 analyse and you see how you can make many varieties of the same thing in terms of application, in terms of understanding and in terms of expression.

04:26 - In how many different ways can we do this? This - a machine will do way better than any one of us, 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 maximum ten years’ time, we’ll definitely 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 totally 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.

05:21 - 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, but because we are not able to create new mechanisms as rapidly as technology changes as our needs change, we are not able to create a whole education machinery in the world, because of that we’ve been going little slow, but the virut… virus may definitely hasten that process.

06:05 - 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).

06:16 - 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 very eminent person, Chairman AICTE with us. He is looking after all the technical universities and colleges of the country, Professor Anil Sahasrabudhe.

06:39 - May I request him to please pose a question to Sadhguru? Prof. Anil Sahasrabudhe: Sadhguruji. Namaskaram. Sadhguru: Namaskaram.

06:47 - Prof. Anil Sahasrabudhe: Pranam, Vanakkam. I have visited Isha foundation too last year.

06:53 - 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 a people.

07:13 - Our learning is going on despite the lockdown, because we always say that learning is lifelong learning and learning should never stop. There are several online classes, workshops, seminars albeit probably more in number than during the normal times. So the education and learning has been continuing. But many people feel that they are isolated, feel lonely. What is the mantra that you suggest to keep people energetic, lively 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 really want to learn something you wish to be alone, that’s very normal. So if they are really 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 population lives in different worlds by themselves.

08:40 - So right now out of nearly 1. 6 billion people that we can consider as what to say as students, officially students enrolled into some institution. Out of this, nearly 860 million people don’t have access to internet and computers. So what do you do with them? How do you make them learn? This is a big challenge. So levelling this field is going to be the main challenge.

09:08 - How to 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 definitely 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.

10:15 - Education can happen on various different levels. But that kind of overhaul cannot happen in a short span of time, not in this forced times of corona virus, that in three months or six months we can achieve something like that, that will be a very impractical idea.

10:34 - But it needs to happen because in terms of what I’ve spoken to a few experts what 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, it 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, this eight years may multiply in to fifteen years, we don’t know, I’m just guessing. So we definitely need to think up different ways of doing this and whatever inner genius we have, whatever innovativeness we have, whatever 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.

11:50 - 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 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.

12:27 - 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 this difficult economic times could become a big impediment.

12:49 - … 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 a overall development of the human being. Certain institutions may be focusing, but large scale that’s not happening, 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.

13:38 - 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.

14:02 - 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, he is the president of AIU. President of AIU happens to be the senior most Vice-Chancellor of the country. He’s presently the Vice-Chancellor of Bharati Vidyapeeth but in past he has been the Vice-Chancellor of 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.

14:45 - 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 past.

15:04 - In my opinion, higher education institutions should adapt and integrate these rich traditions and traditional knowledge, which through the innovation can lead to betterment of the society.

15:19 - How best this can be done? This is my first question. And 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, 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 mechanism 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 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 really look at it, unfortunately, our knowledge, our education, our science, our technology is the basis of all destruction.

Uneducated people, 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 for an Isaac Newton’s to observe a fool… a fruit will fall down, 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 an 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 towards 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 the wisdom. We claim that we are a very wise nation. If we are a very wise nation, we must have the wisdom as not labelling 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. 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.

19:26 - So it is very important that we have the wisdom. Always our culture has talked about universality of who we are. So it’s best that we label science as science, knowledge as for what it is, our knowing 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, unnecessary resistance.

19:56 - What is of immense value gets lost in petty politics.

20:00 - Speaker: Thank you Sadhguru. Very well said. Sadhguru, now we have with us Professor. Bhushan Patwardhan, he is Vice-Chairman of 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.

20:26 - Sadhguru: Namaskaram. Prof. Patwardhan: I must confess that you have answered most of my 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 about re-imagining Indian University, this is a theme for this session, you know, and I had 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, 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 a employment structure which is… which is necessary for the rurals, 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 farmer’s son or daughter also wants to become a graduate, whether that value will add on something to that or not.

And once they become graduate, they don’t feel like going in agricultural fields also. So, what the question I have in mind is teachers and I am a teacher, so I’m putting me first in that box. Teachers have monopolized the 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, mother is a great teacher you know, community is a great teacher and we completely undermine this component of teaching in our own so-called academic environment.

22:11 - So, sending students out as a part of academic activity at least for a semester you know, wherein urban students can go to rural area, rural schools can come to 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 student 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 in this time and you have no choice. ” So student centric system where we rebuilt on our own 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 it as National Academic Credit Bank, and we are saying that let student decide when they want to graduate, why 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 number of credit hours, they should be able to get that degree. So and this semester 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.

23:55 - 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.

24:37 - They are from another generation. Most parents are out of touch with today’s world (Laughs).

24:45 - 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 as AC. So why are parents deciding? Now, till a certain age, yes, parents will decide. But right now, not only parents, government is deciding what you must study and what you must not study. I’m saying it cannot be done like overnight, but in a phased manner in the next eight to ten years, just release the education completely, absolutely.

25:23 - 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 first standard, second standard, not like this. For tenth standard you set something. For 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 own 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 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 definitely textile industry, handloom industry is completely going away, simply because 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 like quarter million to 400,000 children who have reached tenth standard that is fifteen to sixteen years of age. But because they have free, you know, promotions up to 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.

27:43 - 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 hot-bed for crime, terror, extremism, all kinds of things because youth are just hanging around on the street without any skills.

28:15 - Now, we are trying to do skill development, well seventeen-year-old boy or eighteen-year-old boy, is not easy to suddenly take him into some discipline and you know, make him into some kind of a 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, 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.

29:10 - 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 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 high level of international level of 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 government should bother. You will… you will develop enormous amount of skill in the world in the country like this. Academics is not made for every human being. It is not necessary everybody must go to the university and learn the same things. There are some people who are by attitude into academic kind of mind-set.

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. 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 the new family is private enterprise, because industry needs skills, let them get out and train their people. Why are they going to IIM’s and IIT’s and try to pick the best, why don’t they make their investment 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.

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.

31:37 - If we just let it pass like this in endless debate, then once that advantage is gone, then we have millions of people without any skills, without any inspiration, without any discipline. This is going to be a massive problem to handle.

31:51 - Speaker: Thank you Sadhguru. It is true that everybody should be having at least some basic skills even if they have the 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).

32:39 - Sadhguru: There’s no audio, you must do something about this. (General conversation – not transcribed). I think he’s on mute, probably, please.

32:53 - Speaker: We are able to 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.

33:07 - 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, we are not able to hear you. Sadhguru, what I will do is, he has sent me the question in advance. So, I will ask the question which he is wanting to ask? Sadhguru? Sadhguru: Yes please Ma’am, do that. Speaker: What professor Tej Pratap gave me the question in 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 lives of 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 in our research and education strategy? What is the way forward to reforms in the agricultural sector? How to improve so that farmer as well as the 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.

35:03 - Well, we are also running one of the best farmer-producer organizations in the country.

35:10 - It is number one in Tamil Nadu and also among the top companies in the country.

35:16 - 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 Indian farmer so poor? Is simply because there is no power of scale.

35:55 - Over generations, the land has become so small, the average land holding is one hectare, which is 2. 25 acres. To earn a living from this is a, is a heart-breaking 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, they were strong.

36:29 - 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.

37:11 - Right now in most people’s mind, if you see a village person who is shrunk like that, people will say a 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 that because cash is in the hand, but there is no food commodities as such. Staple diet in the south has become rice, tamarind and chilli 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 tele… English channels were only talking about 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, wheat has become the staple diet in North India. So, because of this, nourishment levels have come down significantly, 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.

38:51 - So what we are trying to do here is, aggregate input, aggregate irrigation, aggregate marketing.

38:58 - Farming, everybody does on their land as they were doing. See I will tell you the simple thing, the waste of resource in the country how it’s happening. 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.

39:25 - 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, 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 survey 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 everyday goes to the land is, 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, he will hang around there doing nothing. Most men and women in rural India for most part of the time, they are doing nothing, except proving, “this is my land” and turning on the pump and sitting there.

40:19 - It is not that every day there’s some work. If you relax these things, that let us say we integrate 10,000 farmers together in terms of land, 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 farmer is continuously in debt is, his investment in irrigation and his investment in fencing, his investment in these kind of electrical implements and all these 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 what should happen and provides whatever. You know that 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 integration of marketing and input. Just because of this, this has happened.

41:33 - If it is done in large scale, let’s say 50,000 farmers are brought together, I will tell you for 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 literally anything anybody wants in this world we can grow for them.

If we integrate farming like this, 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 really do this. But this FPO moment has to take off in a big way. Today, I think there are over 5000 FPO’s but the number of FPO’s is not the important thing, it’s the size of FPO’s which is important. Right now, we have an FPO here with about 1200 farmers, we are seeing how to make this into 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 that agriculture should become a very lucrative process. As a part of this we have introduced what is called as “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 chaukidar (Referring to Hindi word - watchman), but they don’t want him to be in farming because it’s heart-breaking and it’s so uncertain on a, you know, a yearly basis. It’s a… it’s a gambling all the time, because the holdings are so small.

43:46 - If we change this perspective, we bring long term crops on 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’ time, 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.

44:31 - 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 Honourable 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 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 to cope up with such a situation? And second question is that by Dr. PV Sharma, he is the Vice-Chancellor of Amity university, that “What should we do in the education space to create well-being, peace and happiness?” Sadhguruji.

45:41 - Sadhguru: Well, we have still not seen the AC, After Corona we have still not seen. It all depends 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 really 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 from this they must grow, from this they must innovate, from this 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. Rest were all self-employed.

47:25 - 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 employme… employers ability to give you employment is being considerably reduced with the GDP growth falling in a huge way.

47:50 - 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 own 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.

48:31 - 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 in 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’ time 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.

49:22 - 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.

49:43 - 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 our best opportunity we have, we must take that.

50:01 - 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 and after that we will request Sadhguru to give his concluding remarks.

50:38 - (Speaks in Hindi – not transcribed) Sadhguru: Our gratitude for 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 which is inspired, focused and balanced, should be the most important thing.

There is no better culture who 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 endeavour for all the higher education institutions, we are willing to do that.

57:04 - And I don’t know we can… we can probably our teams can sit down and talk with you and see how to offer these tools for 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 resource. 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 a 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 has 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.

58:21 - 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 panellists who have been here, panellists as well as the participants who have joined us on YouTube and Facebook.

58:43 - Thank you Sadhguru, thank you. Hope to have many more opportunities of this kind. Thank you. .