Valuetainment - Is India China’s Biggest Threat？ - Subramanian Swamy

00:00:00.000 If India wanted to overtake China and the United States, it can do so. 0.99

00:00:03.680 If India were to develop its educational system properly, 1.00

00:00:07.120 we could overtake China in the next 10, 15 years.

00:00:10.000 What?

00:00:10.880 That's a pretty bold statement to make.

00:00:12.320 Let's talk about coronavirus.

00:00:13.840 India needs 1.2 million doses of vaccine shots.

00:00:17.760 There's only one place you can go to to get 1.2 billion,

00:00:21.600 and you know who that is.

00:00:22.720 Doesn't that kind of validate the power of China has over the world, 0.79

00:00:26.800 or you disagree with that?

00:00:28.320 I disagree because we are the largest producer of vaccines.

00:00:31.680 U.S., China, or we can stand alone?

00:00:33.680 We need a solid alliance with the United States in the present juncture,

00:00:37.600 at least for 10 years.

00:00:39.040 India doesn't have the weapons system we need to deal with China. 0.72

00:00:43.120 In a way, they're eliminating enemies,

00:00:46.160 and it sounds like you're the last one they haven't eliminated.

00:00:48.960 What's U.S.'s biggest threat long term?

00:00:50.880 The United States doesn't have the staying power once they make a decision.

00:00:55.760 Now you're going to leave Afghanistan. 0.97

00:00:57.520 You went there, and suddenly you just say,

00:01:00.240 no, Taliban can take over.

00:01:01.920 I don't think that we have to worry about China.

00:01:04.240 In fact, China has to worry about us.

00:01:05.920 My guest today is Dr. Subramanian Swamy from India,

00:01:13.680 who is an author, politician, economist, statistician,

00:01:18.000 and the former union cabinet to Raja Sabah under the member of parliament.

00:01:25.120 And he's done a lot of different work with their government.

00:01:26.880 There are a lot of different work in the government there.

00:01:28.640 And you may not know him or his face in the U.S. or other places, but in India,

00:01:34.160 everybody knows who this man is.

00:01:36.480 Former professor also at IIT, which I had a chance to speak over there a couple of years ago,

00:01:41.440 and specifically in the topic of mathematical economics.

00:01:45.360 And he's got a PhD in economics from Harvard.

00:01:48.480 With that being said, sir, thank you so much for being a guest on Valuetainment.

00:01:53.040 Thank you.

00:01:53.520 So I got to tell you, I sit there, I watch one of your videos,

00:01:56.000 and I go to the second one, third one, fourth one, fifth one.

00:01:58.240 I'm addicted.

00:01:58.800 My algorithms right now think I'm your number one fan because I've been watching your stuff.

00:02:04.480 But if you don't mind taking a quick minute and giving an intro to the audience for them to

00:02:10.560 know what your background is before we get into the topics, I think that'd be great for the audience.

00:02:16.240 Well, I started as an academic, and I came back to India, which very few people do,

00:02:21.840 because I was also in the faculty at Harvard, and to leave all that, and being a student of

00:02:28.160 two famous or most famous economists, Samuelson and Kuznets, I left it all, came back,

00:02:35.120 I said I won't work in India. But I had, unfortunately, the ideology that India can 1.00

00:02:42.400 only progress through a market economy, and we were those days very pro-Soviet socialism,

00:02:51.040 and so the intellectuals all ganged up to see that I didn't teach at any university for a long time.

00:02:59.920 So by the time I did three years at IIT Delhi as a full professor, they sacked me.

00:03:08.720 And of course, I fought it in the court, and after 21 years, I won the case. But by then,

00:03:15.440 I'd become a cabinet minister. And so I said, I'm not going back to the place which didn't want me.

00:03:22.480 And I made them pay all my back salary at 8% interest, which was much more than I would have

00:03:28.400 got if I was getting my graduate and pension. So I entered politics in the parliament at a very

00:03:35.520 young age. I've been six times to parliament. And each time I chose not my native town,

00:03:45.600 but chose Bombay. I got elected twice from Bombay. I went twice from the central state of UP,

00:03:52.720 and then once from my hometown, Madurai in Tamil Nadu. And now I am actually a nominee of the

00:04:00.480 president, which is a prestigious appointment for my eminence in economics in the upper house of

00:04:06.720 parliament. That's how I am. I am, of course, very strong in economics, which is market-oriented.

00:04:15.600 And of course, I've got a tremendous reputation in the country, I think, for having opposed

00:04:23.280 dictatorship of Mrs. Gandhi and succeeding. And I've done now 50 years of politics in India.

00:04:32.480 So for the American folks, if you were to say, you would be dot, dot, dot of US, who would be the

00:04:40.720 comparable to who you are in the US? I know it's kind of a tough one to do because everybody has

00:04:45.360 their own individual identity, but who would be comparable to someone like you in the US?

00:04:51.520 Well, in terms of putting across ideas and then, you know, which are unpalatable, but

00:04:58.640 in an agreeable way, I would say I would compare myself mostly with John Ronald Reagan.

00:05:02.880 Got it. I figured that when I was reading some of the views, I figured that I would put you as a

00:05:09.360 Milton Friedman, Ronald Reagan type of a person, maybe those two, some of the views that you have.

00:05:14.960 So can you walk us through, I mean, if you look at the numbers today, India went from not being in

00:05:20.160 the top 10 of GDP, they were not a name that was being talked about, then they went into top 10,

00:05:25.360 then you moved into number five, then you dropped to number seven, then I think right now you're

00:05:29.280 number six GDP, but India has come up. Walk us through the history of what's happened to India,

00:05:35.520 specifically, say, the last 60 years. What changes has India gone through the last 60 years?

00:05:42.960 Well, first of all, the GDP calculation you are relying on is on the basis of the exchange rates

00:05:50.080 which prevailed in the market. But we economists don't use that. We use what is called the purchasing

00:05:56.560 power parity rate, which means if I'm going to evaluate tomatoes in my, or pizzas in my GDP,

00:06:06.240 either I will use the American price or the Indian price because the quality is the same.

00:06:11.920 So the valuation goes up and we are actually in absolute GDP, now the third largest in the world.

00:06:18.720 I saw that.

00:06:19.360 And not fifth or sixth, which is subject to the exchange rate, the exchange rate devalues,

00:06:26.240 GDP also goes down. So I think India has come a long way because we were really exploited and

00:06:33.040 completely drained of resources during the British period. Before that, we had the Islamic invasions, which 1.00

00:06:40.720 destroyed our country in many ways. And then after the independence, we began really the bottom of the

00:06:48.320 heat. And over the years, we would have gone much faster and much further had we not adopted the

00:06:56.240 Soviet socialism for the first 40 years. And now in the last six years, unfortunately, our prime minister

00:07:05.120 is innocent of economics. So he has been doing a lot of ad hoc things which have failed. And if you look at

00:07:12.560 our GDP graph, it's been, this growth rate has been declining consistently from 2016. And now it's in

00:07:21.120 minus because of the corona, but we were down to just 3% in the last quarter before the corona pandemic,

00:07:29.680 virus pandemic came. So we need, we can turn around and we can grow very fast. Because the amount of

00:07:38.720 potential we have is enormous, I could evaluate, I'll deliberate on that during the course of the

00:07:44.720 interview. But I would say that if India wanted to overtake China, it can do so. And if India wanted

00:07:50.960 to challenge the United States, which is the United States, the main strength is your ability to innovate

00:07:57.440 and bring in new innovations and raise the productivity of capital and labor. And we have shown,

00:08:04.640 our Indians in the United States have shown that we got as much brains as the Americans. So therefore,

00:08:10.400 if India were to develop its educational system properly, I think we could be a challenge to the 1.00

00:08:17.440 United States and overtake China in the next 10, 15 years. That's a pretty bold statement to make, 0.67

00:08:24.240 to say overtake China in the next 10 to 15 years, which we'll get into that here in a minute. But prior

00:08:29.920 to getting into that, you know, in the US, Gandhi is seen as a hero. Who is Gandhi to you?

00:08:35.920 Mahatma Gandhi is, was a man who actually converted the fight for freedom from just petitioners that we

00:08:46.720 had before, highly educated people who went to Cambridge and Oxford, and you know, qualified at the

00:08:53.040 bar of law. And, but he may convert, he himself was of course trained in the, I mean, educated in

00:09:00.080 England, he became a barrister, he went and practiced in South Africa for some time. But he has completely

00:09:07.840 transformed himself, he started wearing Indian clothes, and that too, of the poor farmer. And then 0.80

00:09:13.600 he converted this fight for independence into a mass movement. And he had the ideas which, you know,

00:09:21.440 we found it very difficult in a modern world to practice. But his, his direction was super. He wanted

00:09:29.600 India to stand on its own feet. And he thought that we had the resources to do that, which he was right. 1.00

00:09:35.520 But I think subsequently, his successor, or his nominated successor in, in the government, Mr. Nehru,

00:09:44.080 didn't follow anything of his ideology. And so he's just remains as a kind of an emotional figure, as

00:09:51.920 one who got his freedom, but not that his ideology has been given a go by.

00:09:57.040 Fair enough. So, so let's go back to what you were talking. The only reason I bring that up, because

00:10:02.240 60 years, you know, us Americans, we go to school, you read the books, you like quotes,

00:10:07.680 all over Instagram, you're thinking, wow, it's 100% all good. But maybe there's a different

00:10:11.600 perspective. I've had a chance to visit Mumbai, and I had a chance to go to one of his homes that

00:10:16.480 I believe is now a museum and get a chance to walk through and see what the place looked like.

00:10:20.640 It was very interesting to learn. There's a picture, I believe, of Obama there visiting his

00:10:26.480 place of living. They have a picture in the museum of Obama being there. But you speak very bluntly of

00:10:32.160 PM Modi. You've called him out. You've said he's a great politician, but a naive economist. There's

00:10:39.680 other words you use, but you haven't necessarily complimented him on the economy side. But it

00:10:44.400 sounds like you guys have known each other from the 70s. There's a relationship there between the

00:10:48.560 two of you. And you will also recommend it that you think you should be his finance minister.

00:10:55.440 If you were his finance minister today, with what they have going on in the economy, with your level

00:11:01.360 of confidence to say where India can overtake China in the next 10 or 15 years, you mentioned

00:11:07.840 education, but I kind of want you to go a little bit deeper. What are some recommendations you would

00:11:12.400 make for India to make adjustments in order to compete with China and potentially US?

00:11:16.960 In the first place, you see, it's well known to economists. I never said he's under the phrase

00:11:26.320 used about his knowledge of economics. I said he doesn't know any economics, which is much harsher.

00:11:32.320 It's much harsher than I, yes, I was trying to be a little bit more subtle.

00:11:35.840 So, you see, the question today, after this corona of one and a half years or whatever,

00:11:46.880 is that we have essentially what our finance ministry, which is also a lot of low IQ people

00:11:56.480 have been packed into it because they are obedient. This is one of the weakness of Modi. He is a friend

00:12:01.840 of mine. I've known him for a long time, but he just likes people to work for him and not become an

00:12:10.640 independent pole. So, I'm being kept out on that ground. I don't mind because I'm doing so many

00:12:16.480 other things. But the fact is that today we have what we call as a gross demand shortage.

00:12:26.320 And that demand shortage has come because the working class, the middle income groups,

00:12:35.440 they've all lost incomes. And the migrant workers are all out of employment. 0.99

00:12:45.440 And if you can see some of the manifestations, go to an automobile showroom, you'll find cars and

00:12:52.480 cars lined up. You'll be surprised. Why? Because there's no demand. So, the economic growth has to

00:13:00.880 be first positioned, how are you going to augment this demand? And there are two ways of doing it.

00:13:07.600 One is put like your Americans did, starting with Trump and then now with Biden. You're putting money

00:13:18.880 into the hands of the people. People are getting checks in their own bank accounts in the United

00:13:23.600 States. I mean, those who couldn't go to work. And that kept your demand up. And so, it's not such a bad

00:13:32.000 situation in the United States. But here, there was across the board, except of course, the very rich,

00:13:38.800 where there was a sharp fall in demand. So, our policy should have been to see how we can

00:13:46.640 put money into the hands of people. What other things we can do to increase demand? One of the

00:13:53.840 things I've suggested is that the income tax in our country is not paid in agriculture, because all

00:14:01.520 agriculture incomes are exempt from income tax. In the urban areas, there is a cutoff point. And above

00:14:10.000 that, only you pay income tax. And that, the total amount is not more than two to three percent of

00:14:16.560 our revenue. So, I'm saying that, and then these laws are so complicated that people have to hire

00:14:26.160 chartered accountants and so on to, you know, just to convince the income tax inspector that you are not,

00:14:33.680 you're not fudging your accounts. And there are cases, and our cases have been there. People are

00:14:39.760 harassed. And they spend an enormous amount of time preparing income tax returns. So, I've said when

00:14:45.360 you're getting such a small amount from income tax, abolish it. And it doesn't matter, the rich will be

00:14:51.520 benefited by that. But the middle class also, which does bulk of the savings, you know, in our country,

00:14:57.440 unlike the United States. The United States, if you will be surprised to know that the household 0.78

00:15:02.960 saving is negative, because most people are borrowing, and they don't save. In India, 80 percent

00:15:10.000 of our total savings comes from the households, because people are very, you know, they want to

00:15:17.360 provide for the future. And so, we, our people, save a lot. Now, you should encourage them. Then you find

00:15:24.800 that the interest rates in the United States, you can get a loan for 2 percent. But in India,

00:15:29.280 it's not less than 12 percent. And then with the amount of corruption and the banks and so on,

00:15:34.400 you end up paying 15 percent. Interesting.

00:15:38.400 If you put money in a term deposit, you get only 6 percent rent. You know, I mean, interest rate,

00:15:48.320 interest payments. So, you should raise that to 9 percent. And so that people, you know, find that

00:15:54.560 saving is worthwhile and not just, you know, buying gold and keeping it in stock. So, I would say that I

00:16:00.960 would begin by freeing the demand forces by either way. There's another third one. You build a road

00:16:08.320 and print notes and give them wages. That becomes demand too. And, you know, we are still living in

00:16:17.200 the past about the gold standard and all that. The money you print is owed to yourself. Hey, there's a

00:16:24.400 debt. Okay. It's a big debt, but you owe it to yourself. Nobody's going to come and liquidate you.

00:16:29.440 So, there's no harm when there's a demand shortage to print notes liberally so that you can pay people

00:16:35.440 for public works and so on. So, therefore, I would begin by focusing on generating employment

00:16:43.280 and putting money into the hands of people so it becomes a demand. Lower the interest rates

00:16:49.280 because the interest rates are too high and they have a negative thing, especially in the small and

00:16:55.920 medium industry, which is about 60% of our industry. They are finding very hard to get capital

00:17:02.800 and they are all closing down and that creates unemployment.

00:17:06.480 So, you said, so interest rates in US, if I want to go borrow something, rates right now are 2%,

00:17:12.800 let's just say, give or take. It's nothing. The money is free right now if you want to get it so cheap.

00:17:16.720 But in India, you said 12% to 15% because the bank is also gouging, adding additional 2% or 3%.

00:17:23.040 We said savings is 6%. So, a saving account in India right now pays 6% to...

00:17:29.280 Yes. It's a term deposit. That means you have to put it in for five years.

00:17:32.480 Five years. Okay. So, it's even a five-year 6%. That's a lot higher than US. US doesn't have

00:17:39.280 a fixed annuity or even a bond you get nowadays for five years. You're lucky if you're looking at a

00:17:44.560 percent to 2%. So, six is a bigger number. But you're saying lower the interest rates,

00:17:49.520 bring it down, make money a little bit easier, get rid of taxes. If India gets rid of taxes, 0.55

00:17:56.320 how does the government generate revenue or in order to be able to sustain military,

00:18:03.600 all the other things? How does India do that? Well, there are two ways. One is, of course, 0.98

00:18:08.320 the indirect taxes, sales tax, excise tax, tax on when you purchase, these will continue.

00:18:16.480 And they're, in fact, the bulk of the taxes we are getting today. I mean, income tax gets you

00:18:21.520 hardly anything except harassment. Second is that we, in our country, we need, if you lower the

00:18:34.480 interest rate in borrowing, people will get the money. They'll be happy to pay that kind of lower

00:18:40.480 interest rates. I'm not talking about the interest rates that you get on a fixed deposit. That I would

00:18:45.920 call as the rate of return. But in terms of interest rate on loans, that if you lower it, you will find

00:18:52.960 people will borrow money. And that's how you put money into the people's hands.

00:18:59.920 What gives you confidence to believe that India can compete with China and US in the next 10 or 15 years?

00:19:07.840 U.S. I'll answer second. First, let me answer China. What was the growth rate between India and China

00:19:17.680 between 1950 and 1980? About the same, 3.5% per year, which is dismally low. And then what the Chinese 1.00

00:19:30.080 did, especially because of Teng Xiaoping, he improved his relations with the United States.

00:19:37.200 And told the United States, you're buying so many consumer durables from Japan and South Korea and so

00:19:43.360 on. And in these countries, now they're getting prosperous and the wage rates are going up. And so

00:19:51.440 earlier on, you know, Motorola was more expensive than, say, Toyota. I mean, not one of these Panasonic,

00:19:59.760 et cetera. And now Motorola is out of the business completely. And these people's prices are going up.

00:20:09.840 And what they proposed was that let these nations, which can be influenced by you,

00:20:19.440 give us semi-processed goods. And we will add value to it and then export it to the United States

00:20:26.720 at the same cheap price as you were getting before. So now take Lenovo. Taiwan gives you the circuits and

00:20:34.400 the base. It comes to China and there they put in the keyboard and they put the glass and then the case

00:20:42.960 and then put Lenovo made in China. It's not really made in China. So this switch trade, if you look at

00:20:49.920 the Chinese statistics, they are always in a deficit of trade with the East Asian countries, but in a huge

00:20:57.520 surplus of trade payments, of course, payments out of trade with the Europeans and the Americans.

00:21:05.120 So this switch trade is now they're running out of steam on that because Chinese labor is also

00:21:10.560 becoming very expensive and their non-adherence to intellectual property rights and so on.

00:21:20.000 These East Asian countries are willing to look at an alternative and India can be that alternative,

00:21:25.120 but India needs to remove all the, what, this cobwebs that we have inherited from the British rule, 1.00

00:21:31.280 you know, regulation on this, regulation on that. This simplification of regulation, Mr. Modi didn't do,

00:21:36.800 he made it even more complicated in my opinion. And you simplify that and make it possible for

00:21:44.800 foreign investors from Japan and South Korea and the Philippines and, you know, Taiwan to come

00:21:52.080 with the minimum hassles. If you want to buy land today in India to build a factory, it takes you six

00:21:57.200 years to get the land. Why is that? So, yeah, because there'll be court case, somebody will file it.

00:22:03.120 Are you being serious? Are you being serious? Yes, yes, yes, yes. You try and buy land in India.

00:22:08.880 I mean, I'm talking about to build a factory, you see. So there's a lot of problems. Then the

00:22:15.680 left-wing trade unions will also come in. Most people, you talk to any foreign investment,

00:22:21.200 that's the problem they have. That's why they go to cities and do IT matters because in Bangalore,

00:22:28.400 you can get an apartment and the Indians have cheap labor. And, you know, we produce a lot of 0.99

00:22:35.600 good IT products, I mean, the information technology products. So I'm saying that

00:22:45.280 if you do this, simplify, people will come with the money and they'll get a very good rate of return.

00:22:54.160 But the hassles are the ones which are stopping them from coming. In many cases, many of these

00:23:01.200 developed countries have decided to go to other countries. Take, for example,

00:23:05.120 when I was Commerce Minister, I had gone to this Brussels for the conference on WTO, creation of a

00:23:12.640 WTO. And we got textile, which the Americans had the most, you know, most, you know, oppressive

00:23:21.120 tariff rates. We got the, I got in fact, in a bilateral meeting with the Americans,

00:23:26.640 that they would lower these rates for our garments and so on to come. But we didn't get the benefit of

00:23:33.280 it. China and Bangladesh got it. And we are still nowhere in this. So this because the textile

00:23:39.680 industries don't have the incentive to export. So I'm saying the potential, same thing with agriculture.

00:23:47.920 We have, you know, as much arable land as China, but we produce only one quarter of what China

00:23:56.000 produces on a plot of land. They were in fact produced three crops a year. We produce in only 25%

00:24:04.400 more than one crop. We can easily because India, at least we don't have snow. And we have 12 months

00:24:10.560 of the year, you can do agriculture. We have 150 million cows, and we give an average of 200 litres

00:24:17.920 per year. One Israeli cow gives you 11,000 litres per year. So I think the India's potential is tremendous.

00:24:25.680 And we need to do it. And electricity can be given cheap if you convert the thorium into uranium. And

00:24:34.800 nuclear reactors put all over the country, you will produce enough, not only for yourself to give it

00:24:39.680 away free, but you can give it to your neighbours too. So India is a land of potential and it's a question of tapping that.

00:24:46.880 So, so if I look at that, that's, that's interesting on what you're saying. I did not know about taking

00:24:52.880 six years to take buy land and build a, you know, plant on it. But, you know, if you look at population

00:24:58.960 wise, okay, you look at population wise, if we take and combine, I believe it's US, plus Canada, plus all of

00:25:08.560 Europe, plus Australia, plus all of New Zealand, plus all of South America, we have 1.432 billion people.

00:25:16.560 Okay, I'll say that one more time, US, Canada, all of Europe, all of South America, Australia, New Zealand, 1.432

00:25:23.280 billion people, China alone is 1.439 billion people, India is 1.366. Okay, so, so automatically, you have a lot more

00:25:34.080 enhanced inventory wise to be able to grow that. Now the fertility rate has slowed down tremendously in China over the

00:25:40.240 years, you know, they went from 6.11 and 55, I think they're at, I don't know, 1.69 today.

00:25:46.480 Obviously, some of the laws they came out with that you can't have, you know, all these other laws that

00:25:49.840 they had, they changed it. So it's grown, slowed down a little bit. And the median age has gone up from

00:25:55.200 being 21, 19 years old, it's like 38 now, which I think is what they wanted. But now it's kind of

00:26:00.400 scaring them a little bit long term about what could happen. But go back to the playbook of what

00:26:07.200 China did. From your perspective, you have 1.366. They have 1.439. US is at 330 million. The numbers

00:26:14.480 just came back from the Census Bureau. What was the playbook China used to compete in a marketplace? 0.97

00:26:21.600 In your eyes, what is the playbook US used to be the dominant force in a marketplace? What was both

00:26:27.760 of their playbooks? Because it's a different playbook. Well, of course. As I told you,

00:26:35.600 they don't produce anything in China. The semi-processed goods come from East Asia. They only

00:26:42.720 add value to it and export it to the United States. It's industrial development. I don't think any

00:26:52.640 country should be replicated the way. And today, China has a problem. They're calling it rebalancing.

00:26:58.560 They use all these fancy words. But the fact is that today, China is running into a saturation

00:27:03.760 because their labor has become very expensive. And it's going to be very difficult to bring in raw

00:27:10.240 materials or semi-processed goods from East Asia and convert it into exportable goods for the United

00:27:18.480 States and Europe. So I don't want to repeat the Chinese thing except in a marginal sort of way. 0.99

00:27:26.000 I mean, we are capable of producing in our country. We don't need semi-processed goods from East Asia. 1.00

00:27:32.480 But if East Asia wants to export, of course, it would be advantageous for us because we can use our 0.96

00:27:38.720 resources for something else. But India's potential is much more than China. China is, in fact,

00:27:46.640 its agricultural yield per acre is near saturation point. Its industrial thing is based on tomorrow,

00:27:56.480 the American companies pack up and leave and saying, no, we are no more interested in this processing.

00:28:02.480 China would have a very big problem in their country. What they have done is they have mastered 1.00

00:28:09.280 the art of selling abroad. They are great salesmen and they have brought in a lot of resources. They

00:28:16.880 have been able to sell some of their products more easily. Even today, India, we are importing 0.99

00:28:22.480 manufactured products from China and you just export iron ore and this kind of thing. So China's cleverness is 0.96

00:28:32.960 not in terms of using its own resources. In fact, most of China is, I think, barren. If you go to Gansu province

00:28:42.800 or Urumichi or Tibet, you can see. Whereas India is, you know, throughout the country, you have

00:28:52.240 greenery and ability to manufacture, but our yield per acre is one of the lowest in the world. Our

00:29:01.440 experimental plots in the Indian Agricultural Research Institute is six times what we get in the

00:29:09.280 farmers get. And we have neglected the farmers because we followed the Soviet pattern. And the Soviet 0.86

00:29:14.720 pattern was extract resources from agriculture and finance heavy industrialization. And in the sense that

00:29:21.840 the British also broke the back of the of the agricultures, but we also did for the first 40 years. 0.83

00:29:28.080 It's only barely now we are in a position where some parts of India are producing bumper crops like

00:29:34.960 Punjab, which is of course now in agitation, South India and the district of Punjab like that. So where is the

00:29:43.360 problem for India? We don't have the right policies. We don't lack anything else. If you want water,

00:29:50.160 desalination of seawater, you've got the longest coastline any big nation is having, you see.

00:29:58.720 Desalination of seawater, the Israelis have done a wonderful job on that. 1.00

00:30:05.040 And we have 60 percent of thorium in our country. If the uranium gets exhausted, which is expected in

00:30:11.040 another 20 years, it will be India, which will be dominating the nuclear fuel. So what is it that

00:30:17.280 India next? And our people have got brains. They've shown it in America. They've shown it in so many

00:30:21.840 European countries. They're not able to show it in India because we have got this bureaucratic

00:30:25.840 structure, which suffocates our people and doesn't give them due credit. If somebody does something,

00:30:33.120 then then his boss wants to take the credit. You know, you said if America was to leave China

00:30:38.880 tomorrow to China would be, in layman's terms, screwed if America was to leave China. But here's

00:30:44.960 a question for you. If you look at the world's manufacturing superpower, you know, China's here,

00:30:52.240 then you got US, then you got Japan, Germany, then it's India, right? Meaning they have manufacturing,

00:30:57.200 they're dominating the marketplace, whether it's chips, pharmacy, you know, people are trying,

00:31:01.920 80% of all the pharmacy being produced there. Don't you think America kind of empowered China 0.98

00:31:09.280 so much that it got the world to rely way too much on China, which is now harder to lean away 0.82

00:31:17.440 and get away from China? Because what you're saying is it makes sense when you say if America decides to 0.98

00:31:22.960 pack their lunch and leave tomorrow and just say, you know, we're out of here. That's true. But I don't

00:31:27.920 think America can do that because now they're too reliant on the Chinese economy and that's given 0.99

00:31:33.040 China the power. Well, see, first of all, one historical event, the Americans, Kunta Kosini, 0.82

00:31:42.240 and none of us would have. In fact, I had to pinch myself to believe it has happened. That is the

00:31:46.800 unraveling of the Soviet Union. China was a counter. It made sense. They had very bad relations with the

00:31:54.560 Soviet Union. So the United States saw this as a strategic advantage and therefore assisted that 0.90

00:32:01.600 the way the Americans assisted the Chinese for their development is unbelievable, particularly

00:32:06.720 because you gave them so much market access in your own country. And so they benefited by that.

00:32:14.240 And now they may talk tough and so on. But if some of the democratic countries got together,

00:32:24.160 they will be in real right soon. China would be. Yeah, China would. OK, so let's talk about

00:32:30.160 coronavirus. You know, the cases you're in India. We hear about the news. It's the seven day average

00:32:38.400 in February in cases was 11,145 a day. The seven day average right now as of May 9th is 389,000

00:32:47.840 cases a day. The seven day average on death is nearly 4,000, 39, 41. Right. And we're seeing the

00:32:54.480 story. I'm mentoring, helping out this one company in India. I sit on their board and I'm talking to

00:33:00.640 them and I said, what does it look like? He says, you don't even know how bad it is right now. They're in

00:33:03.680 the capital where most of the COVID is taking place. Workers going home. Nobody's buying. You know,

00:33:09.920 there's a lot of fear there. Right. OK. So then a number comes out saying, well, Modi wasn't

00:33:15.200 responsible. He said he's going to get more vaccines out. He didn't. Doesn't this validate?

00:33:20.960 Because the number that came out is China. India needs 1.2 million doses of vaccine shots. Right.

00:33:28.320 1.2 billion. That's a big number. 1.2 billion. And there's only one place you can go to to get 1.2

00:33:36.400 billion. And you know who that is. I mean, that's what a lot of people are talking about. It's

00:33:40.800 China. Doesn't that kind of validate the power of power China has over the world? Or you disagree

00:33:47.440 with that? I disagree because we are the largest producer of vaccines, not China. So if you're the

00:33:54.480 largest producer of vaccines. We became complacent because by end of December and January of this year,

00:34:03.840 2021, it looked as if the corona is gone. And the prime minister went and boasted that I have solved

00:34:10.960 the problem of corona. I've defeated them in the World Economic Survey, World Economic Conference or

00:34:16.080 whatever it's called in Switzerland. And he, of course, it was online, but his speech, he said,

00:34:23.520 I have solved this problem. I'm ready to assist any other country who wants to solve the problem.

00:34:28.000 And out of the blue, this second wave came. And we had forgotten. See, there is a lot of,

00:34:37.200 he said, we are a democracy. So we've got a lot of lobbies. And the British, Oxford,

00:34:45.280 at Saad Zenica or whatever it's called, they wanted it to be manufactured in India.

00:34:52.240 There was an Indian company, which was doing by a different route. They were producing these vaccines,

00:35:01.920 which are far safer, tested, and effective too. And I took that there. But originally,

00:35:12.000 when the prime minister announced that the contract is going, he only announced this AstraZeneca

00:35:17.920 vaccine produced in Pune. And now the owner has gone off to London and he's sitting there

00:35:26.320 because there have been so many, I mean, there must have been 200 deaths in that, whereas in this

00:35:32.080 other one, Covaxin produced entirely domestically, there has been hardly any. So we became complacent and

00:35:43.200 we are paying the price for that complacency. And this attempt to want to grab credit and then

00:35:50.960 project yourself in the world, this weakness of politicians, you know, it is partly responsible.

00:35:56.400 Because nobody wanted to, as I utter a word of caution, I was, of course, I was in, I'm the

00:36:01.440 parliamentary committee on health. So I was the one who fought and got the Covaxin to be cleared on the

00:36:08.880 same day. And now the government is putting all his faith in this Covaxin because the other one is,

00:36:14.480 you know, we don't know where it is. When the owner himself has gone away to Britain,

00:36:20.080 we don't know what's going to happen. So we, yes, we are behind, we are responsible for what happened.

00:36:26.320 In a matter like oxygen, I'm surprised a country like India, not being able to supply oxygen,

00:36:33.120 because we didn't make, make arrangements because oxygen requires a lot of, you know,

00:36:37.680 trucking and the transportation and cylinders and so on. And none of that was being thought of,

00:36:43.520 just having enough oxygen is not enough. So, so in, in what, so you're saying as far as the vaccine

00:36:49.520 goes, India doesn't at all rely on China for any of the vaccine, because you can produce, you're the

00:36:53.360 largest manufacturer. What, what does India rely on China with? Because if there's one thing India did 0.50

00:37:00.080 in the last 12 months, you guys banned TikTok, all these apps, I think on one week, it was 100 apps

00:37:06.480 that were fully banned of China and India, which I applaud for them to take that position because 1.00

00:37:12.160 nobody else is willing to take that position. A lot of people are scared. Trump almost did something

00:37:16.880 where he forced them to want to sell TikTok, but you know, it was kind of confusing how that ended up

00:37:21.280 taking place. What, what does India rely on China with? And if it's nothing, what, how does, how does

00:37:30.960 India view China? Does India view China as an ally or does it view as the, you know, number one enemy it faces?

00:37:39.680 Well, first of all, let me start with your last point. Chinese have crossed a mutually agreed

00:37:47.360 line of actual control. We drew a line in 1993 saying that there are disputes on whose land is whose land

00:37:59.360 and we will, you know, take the present situation, the status quo, and we'll draw a line where there's

00:38:05.680 no disputes. And in that the Chinese got a big chunk of Kashmir, the part of Kashmir, which is now

00:38:12.800 called a separate state called Ladakh. But over the period of the previous government, they had been

00:38:20.800 silently coming into our land. And this continued even after we came to power. Now, I do not know

00:38:29.120 whether the prime minister knew about it. I can't believe that he wouldn't have known. He had 18 meetings,

00:38:35.680 one to one Xi Jinping, one to one, while either in India or in China, turn by turn. And suddenly,

00:38:45.920 out of the blue, we come to learn that they have come and occupied our land. And it's about 2000

00:38:52.640 square kilometers. And now they are, you know, they are, they are increasing their forces. I think they

00:38:59.360 are, they are, they are thinking, I don't know whether they got a date, but they're certainly going to

00:39:03.200 have another attack. And the attack was actually by the Chinese aimed at eliminating India from the 0.93

00:39:11.520 global map, that we are number two. I mean, we are in the second category of nations, not in the first

00:39:17.680 category. The first category is only United States and China. And India is waffling because we are not

00:39:26.320 able to, we have been, you know, brainwashed earlier that we should be non-aligned, non-aligned with what,

00:39:33.440 with whom. And we should have a clear policy that today, the weapon systems are the best in the United

00:39:42.480 States. We don't want US troops in India, because our troops are sufficient to deal with China. But we

00:39:49.680 certainly need the weapon systems that the US is willing to give. Certainly, I would like to see,

00:39:58.160 like to see your F-35 being given to us. You gave it to Turkey, I think. But I don't know what is the

00:40:07.920 magnet. The Indians have decided to sign a contract and pay a hundred thousand crores 0.62

00:40:16.880 to the Russians for S-400. Now, S-400's electronics are entirely Chinese. Second, I don't know if the

00:40:26.080 world realizes the Russians, in effect, are a junior partner of China. They can't go against China.

00:40:34.160 They are bankrupt, and the Chinese have been financing them. And so, therefore, today we need 0.98

00:40:41.440 clarity. We can defeat the Chinese. We have the weapons. We have the wherewithal to engage in 1.00

00:40:50.880 warfare, because the logistics is in favor of India. The Chinese have to come from a long distance 1.00

00:40:56.240 and through Tibet, and then cross a mountain, then come down. So, we can defeat them. And in fact,

00:41:04.400 hand-to-hand combat, we have already defeated them. But the fact is, now it's going to be the weapon

00:41:10.640 system. And we need to, therefore, have a clear understanding of the United States. The main

00:41:17.280 problem with the Indian politicians is we are too emotional. If you praise them, they think, oh,

00:41:22.480 we are now arrived. They are the greatest in the world. Whereas the Americans are all practical people.

00:41:27.760 I've lived with them. I know everything is give and take. What's in it for me, or what I'll give you,

00:41:33.360 and what I want from you. Now, that kind of language, you should speak to the Americans.

00:41:38.560 And Americans, I know, want to give up some of their responsibilities in, say, the Indo-Pacific.

00:41:52.480 I think we are in a position to take it. Tomorrow, if India and Indonesia came together, the Chinese 1.00

00:41:57.360 won't be able to go through the Malacca Strait. They can't come from their eastern coast and go to

00:42:03.120 the West because we can stop them there. So we have that kind of thing. But the Chinese are 1.00

00:42:10.800 very hardworking people. They have got the Sri Lankans on their side. They've got the Bangladeshis 1.00

00:42:16.880 on their side. All our neighboring countries are today. If they are not pro-Chinese, they certainly 1.00

00:42:22.880 don't want to annoy them. We are in a terrible situation.

00:42:26.400 So do you think China sees you? So in a way, they're eliminating enemies, one by one by one.

00:42:36.240 And it sounds like you're the last one they haven't eliminated before they go after the big

00:42:40.000 guys. And you know what the big guys. So I think you are in the way of US. Because right now, India is, 1.00

00:42:46.640 they have three choices. They have three choices. Either, number one, India is going to side with 0.86

00:42:54.560 US. Either India is going to side with China. Or either India is going to say, we're not siding

00:43:00.400 with anybody. We can stand on our own two feet. It sounds like it's one of those three options.

00:43:06.320 Long term, what do you think is going to be happening? Because when the coronavirus started

00:43:11.280 spreading in India, you saw Chinese diplomats all the way at the top tweeting. Their tweet is Weibo.

00:43:17.200 I don't know if you saw what they said about India. It says, look what's going on in India, 0.99

00:43:20.480 and look what we're doing. We're shooting rockets up in the space, and we're going to Mars. We're

00:43:24.080 doing all this other stuff. Yeah, and we have burning bodies.

00:43:25.920 Yes, they're burning bodies. So what do you think, long term, is going to be India's position? Not just 0.83

00:43:33.040 the right thing to take, but what do you foresee taking place with India? US, China, or we can stand 0.98

00:43:37.920 alone. If India can get stacked together on the economic policy, we will be able to stand our own

00:43:48.800 in 10 years. But India doesn't have the weapon system we need to deal with China. And Americans 0.93

00:43:59.280 obviously can't send their troops here to fight the Chinese. So we need a solid alliance with the

00:44:07.840 United States in the present juncture, at least for 10 years. And we have got into something called

00:44:13.200 the Quad, but our government is dilly-dallying on how much to commit, how much not to commit.

00:44:21.200 And China is not an option. As long as the present leadership is there, there could be a change.

00:44:26.240 Mao Zedong changed and Deng Xiaoping came. Everything changed. And so if Xi Jinping goes and somebody else comes

00:44:34.480 who is not like Xi Jinping, then I think we can, we have a historically a very long relationship with

00:44:41.920 China. And at man to man, there is a lot of, you know, love and respect for each other. We admire the

00:44:50.560 Chinese for all the things that they admire our culture. In fact, in 1936, I put this in my book,

00:44:57.280 the president of Beijing University, who later was an ambassador for the Republic of China, the

00:45:04.720 Chiang Kai-shek for China. He came to Harvard invited to speak at the tricentennial function.

00:45:12.160 And they asked him to speak on any topic that is of great importance to China. And what was the topic?

00:45:17.680 The Indianization of China, a case of peaceful borrowing for 300 years. And I've given all the 0.94

00:45:26.320 references. You can access it through the Widener Library of Harvard. So this speech, he says that the

00:45:34.640 Indians were mesmerized us with their concepts of God and, you know, the various incidents that took

00:45:46.480 place and how the gods intervene, how they help the human being. He said they were snowed in by that.

00:45:51.920 And he was not happy about it. He said, we have to exercise it out. And of course, the communists came and

00:45:58.160 it all went. But even today, when there is no hostility, I've been to China many times. I really

00:46:07.280 like China. I know their culture. I like their food, even especially. But they have treated me with

00:46:15.440 great respect. But today, we have a political problem. After all, I am an Indian nationalist to

00:46:21.120 begin with. And friendship can't be something that they can say, no, no, no, we should continue to be

00:46:27.200 friends with China, even if they grab our territory, that we can't do. So we are going to have problems 0.98

00:46:33.040 for 10 years. We need the Americans, particularly in the weapon system. If we change our economic policy 0.84

00:46:41.840 and bring in what is, you know, which means what? Be clear about your objectives. Be clear about your

00:46:50.160 priorities. Be clear about your strategy. And you'll be clear about how you're going to mobilize your

00:46:55.200 resources. And you can grow at 10% per year for 10 years, and you will be already abreast of China.

00:47:03.120 And then on, you can overtake and then it becomes you and the Americans. So, and that will be a friendly

00:47:10.560 match. It won't be a hostile match because you are a democracy. And we have got so many Indians in the

00:47:16.000 United States. I can't see a situation where India and the United States will be ever in a hostile

00:47:21.680 position. We can have, you know, we can have exchange abuses and things like that. But the fact is

00:47:28.480 that we need to have clarity. We have a problem with the Chinese sitting on our territory. And we 1.00

00:47:36.160 can't go with the Russians because they are no more the Soviet Union. They are now a junior partner of 0.97

00:47:40.880 China. And therefore, where the squad is quite, of course, those other Australia and Japan, they're,

00:47:49.360 well, they're really allies of the Americans. So it's really India and the United States. So India,

00:47:54.480 with this huge population, huge military, is not the capacity to take on China, especially in that 0.54

00:48:04.160 terrain. And we don't, we have no interest in crossing the mountains and capturing Chinese 1.00

00:48:09.200 property, Chinese territory. And that is the way forward. But I don't know whether our prime minister

00:48:17.440 has got this kind of mindset. Because he has even today not said that the Chinese have aggressed and

00:48:24.640 come and occupied our territory. Not even once. You're a Reagan fan. So you know how Reagan said,

00:48:32.880 we're one generation away from losing our freedom. Do you think India is one generation away from being

00:48:37.920 owned by China? Of losing what? One generation away of being owned by China. Because you said 18 0.75

00:48:46.400 meetings with Xi, one-on-one Modi had, some in India, some in China, but it's one-on-one face-to-face.

00:48:53.280 And they're still buying land and gradually, you know, moving into India. Do you think because

00:49:00.160 China typically is a long-term thinker, they're patient for Modi to not win an election? So the

00:49:05.760 next guy comes and they can hopefully win that person over to allow them to start investing into

00:49:10.800 China? You know what I'm asking, right? I mean, I think you know what I'm asking.

00:49:14.640 I know that. I don't think that the case of Modi is out of love for China. That he is

00:49:22.080 that there's some other factors. Since I don't know, I mean, I've not been properly briefed on it,

00:49:29.440 so I can't say. But he has been consistently avoiding taking a confrontationist position with China.

00:49:37.360 He's been consistently denying. In fact, they use the media, our government use the media to make out

00:49:43.120 with Chinese are actually withdrawn and gone back till the satellite photos came and made a joke of it.

00:49:50.320 So I would say that the Indian psychology is such that we have a long history, by the way.

00:50:00.320 These Islamic forces ruled us for 600 years and the British ruled us for 200 years, all brutally, 1.00

00:50:07.280 but we survived them. As Iran was a Zoroastrian country, the Islamic forces took them over. In 15 1.00

00:50:16.400 years, they made them 100 percent Islamic. Same thing with Babylon and other parts which are now called 0.99

00:50:24.720 Iraq, Egypt. Even the Christians took 50 years for Europe. But in our case, 600 years and 200 years, 0.96

00:50:34.720 and you're still 82 percent of what you were, that is the Hindu population. So we may look passive, 0.89

00:50:44.800 but we are not passive. We have fought and overcome many, many, many reverses, and we have come out on top.

00:50:56.960 We had a case in 1965 when the Americans used to make fun of us that we are living from ship to mouth

00:51:04.000 because there was a failure of the agricultural crop. And so the Americans had to send under a scheme

00:51:09.840 called the PL 480 grain. They used to send grain by ship to India. And they said that India is living

00:51:17.680 from ship to mouth. If one ship doesn't come, there'll be starvation. And there were predictions that in 10 years,

00:51:24.320 India will have food riots and people will eat each other up, written by a State Department official

00:51:30.960 called World Famine. It's called World Famine. You can access it through Google. So that India has 1.00

00:51:39.360 then, in a short period of 10 years, got agriculture, what they call as green revolution. And today,

00:51:45.360 we are exporters of grain at the cheapest price in the world. If we get market access, we'll be selling

00:51:51.200 wheat to America, which of course the Americans won't allow. But if we could, we would be able to

00:51:57.440 sell you all the wheat you want. So I think the potential of India can be any time in both if you

00:52:04.880 have the perspective, you have the thinking and the self-confidence that we can do it ourselves.

00:52:12.320 And we can. I don't think that we have to worry about China. In fact, China has to worry about us.

00:52:19.600 You really believe that? Absolutely. Because if history goes, we are the ones who

00:52:27.280 went to China, all our religious leaders went, and you please read what Hushu says, Dr. Hushu.

00:52:34.240 He has said precisely this. They just came here and they gave us wonderful concepts and we just fell

00:52:41.760 for it. Never again we should. In fact, Hushu went to the other extreme and wanted China to become

00:52:48.880 Christian so that we never have another Hindu invasion. It seems like it's the game of who can 1.00

00:52:59.120 get the most people to think like them, right? Americans think in a certain way. Indians think 0.97

00:53:06.960 in a certain way. The Chinese think in a certain way. Then you have religions. You know, Christians 0.99

00:53:12.160 think in a certain way. You know, Sikhs think in a certain way. Buddhists think in a certain way. 0.98

00:53:17.440 Muslims think in a certain way. It's the imposing of the way of thinking to see who can win at the end. 1.00

00:53:24.480 So is it more philosophies or is it more religious beliefs to be imposed? This is a

00:53:30.960 complete different conversation because I think India is number two country in the world population

00:53:35.680 wise for Muslims. It's shy of 200 million. I want to say 195, 196 million, give or take. And I think

00:53:41.280 number one is Indonesia is like 216, 220 million people that they have there in regards to the Muslim

00:53:48.320 population. What concerns you more? Do certain religious ideologies being imposed on the Indian

00:53:56.960 population or does the, you know, more philosophy of Chinese trying to get folks in India to think

00:54:04.160 like them? What concerns you more long term? You know, in over the last, maybe I should say,

00:54:13.120 a thousand years, the Hindu religion has got compartmentalized into concepts which are not

00:54:23.760 there in our scriptures. For instance, this Brahmin, you know, the warrior class called the Kshatriya,

00:54:32.560 the commercial class called the Vaishya and the farmers called Shudra and this untouchables that 1.00

00:54:39.680 has grown. This is not there in our scriptures and it's not birth based. We today make it birth based.

00:54:49.120 I'm called a Brahmin because my parents were Brahmins. Okay. But Brahmin is a characteristic. If you are 1.00

00:54:57.120 given up all the material aspirations, except the minimal that you need, but concentrate on knowledge,

00:55:05.440 that is called a Brahmin. If you pick up the sword and defend the country, you are then called Kshatriya. 0.99

00:55:11.520 Your father may be a Brahmin, but you will not be a Brahmin. So that has got, you know, it has 1.00

00:55:19.200 degenerated into a birth concept and the country has got divided. So this Hindu movement, which about 0.98

00:55:26.480 everybody is getting a little panicky about, is not directed at the Muslims, is directed at ourselves,

00:55:34.480 unite. Yeah, there are crazy people in our country. There are crazy people in the United States. They 1.00

00:55:40.160 say all kinds of things about the blacks. I don't think that that's the mainstream American thinking.

00:55:45.840 So in India, we are, those of us in particular in the BJP, we are thinking in terms of bringing about a

00:55:54.640 renaissance where we become a one community without threatening anybody else because of our unity.

00:56:06.640 And the only religion in the world I know, and by the way, in our constitution, we include amongst Hindus,

00:56:14.560 we include Buddhists, Sikhs, and Jains, and none of the three object to it. So this Sikh separatism is 0.92

00:56:25.680 only some guys in San Jose, California. But in India, the Sikhs are 20% of our army. And the Hindus,

00:56:36.320 so-called Hindus, as differentiated from Sikhs, if the Sikh gurus had not lifted the sword, 0.54

00:56:42.240 we would have all been finished. So we owe, I mean, we have that kind of reverence for the Sikh,

00:56:48.880 Sikh, you know, of the people who led the Sikh movement with Singh. Sikh is a, you know, it doesn't 1.00

00:56:57.520 believe in any divisions at all. It's a very, very, if I may use or misuse the word Catholic,

00:57:03.840 it's a, they are very Catholic in the outlook. Now the war that was predicted by Professor Huntington

00:57:09.280 of Harvard, called the Clash of Civilizations, was that Christians and Hindus will combine against Muslims.

00:57:19.440 Because Muslims is an international religion. And, but that problem is not there, because the Indian 1.00

00:57:27.120 Muslims, I would say 95%, they look like us, they are us, because they are all converted people.

00:57:34.800 They have come from some, from Mars or something. And their social habits are very similar to us.

00:57:42.080 My own daughter is married to a Muslim, but I can tell him, I can tell the difference. 1.00

00:57:46.160 It's only when the, these mullahs and so on, financed by money from abroad, who want to create this 0.98

00:57:54.480 separateness. Yes, there are, there's a lot of prejudice. There's no question about it. It has to be

00:58:01.440 dealt with very strongly. But the blackening of this Hindu movement in the United States

00:58:08.720 is not based on solid facts. We are not aiming at anybody else. We are saying, we are crusted.

00:58:19.280 We have, for years, we have, we have become ossified. So, we want now to go back to our

00:58:26.000 scriptures in which all religions lead to God. We have committed to that in our constitution. So,

00:58:34.080 they, when you say Hindu, you are, you are automatically assuming that that Hindu will say,

00:58:40.160 all religions lead to God, my way, your way, and so on. That's what happened when, when a Jewish 1.00

00:58:46.320 delegation came, the chief rabbi came here. And I was there in the Indian delegation, when the, our, our,

00:58:54.560 our religious leaders decided to meet them, meet the religious leaders of, of Judaism. And

00:59:04.720 they had a problem with us saying that you are a multi polytheistic. We are, you know,

00:59:09.840 we are only one God. I said, we also have one God, but our manifestations are different.

00:59:15.520 They take different forms, but the God is only one. So, I mean, these are the things that need to be

00:59:23.760 told to our younger generation.

00:59:26.960 The only reason I'm bringing this up is because you did an interview with Showtime and you were

00:59:30.400 talking about, you said, wherever the Muslim population is large, there's trouble. And you 1.00

00:59:37.440 gave a percentage of 30%. If a country's Muslim population becomes over 30%, that country is in 1.00

00:59:43.280 danger. Why do you, why do you believe that? Because like you said, you said something very

00:59:47.120 interesting. You said 95% of the Muslims in India are converts. It's not like somebody else came in,

00:59:54.880 they converted. So they're like you, they're the only difference, they believe in Muslims. So, 0.96

00:59:59.760 but they live together, they go to school together. So what, what concerns you the most?

01:00:03.920 So I am, I know that the Muslim population will never be 30% in India. The maximum would be 15% 1.00

01:00:14.080 because they are also subject to the same. The population growth rate has been going down.

01:00:20.240 It's now 1.8%. And both Hindus have gone down faster because we are economically better off than 1.00

01:00:26.400 the Muslims today. And the Muslim population is also going down. Their growth rates are going down,

01:00:32.720 not as sharply as the Hindus, but it has gone down. And in terms of educated Muslims who we find it's 0.96

01:00:44.000 very easy to work with them. We have got them in various places. We have got, even in the BJP,

01:00:49.120 which is supposed to be anti-Muslim, we have got ministers who are Muslims. And so it gets, you know,

01:00:57.600 the black and white presentation of these things is worth the difficulties.

01:01:01.440 I certainly believe that in the countries that are having trouble, take for example,

01:01:07.680 the Palestinian-Israel conflict that's going on. What is the problem? The Palestinians already have 1.00

01:01:17.360 one country, one country which is called Jordan, 55%, 55% are Palestinians. So they got it, they got a 1.00

01:01:33.360 authority, Palestinian authority. And if they were agreeing to exist to the, agreeing to Israel being 0.66

01:01:41.680 accepted as a given fact, tomorrow they will be recognized as a country. And now you see the UAE,

01:01:52.240 Bahrain, so many countries have now started having diplomatic relations with Israel. Look at Egypt,

01:01:59.600 not a single conflict after the Israelis gave up Senai. So I am not saying that, I'm just saying that in 0.96

01:02:09.040 countries where you have this problem, because the ideology of Islam says that there are three parts

01:02:17.440 to the world. One is called Darul Islam, where the Muslims are in overwhelming majority and rule. 0.76

01:02:23.760 That's called Darul Islam. That's called Darul Islam. Then there is a Darul Haram. This is all in Quran,

01:02:31.520 and in the Hadiths, and the Sira, it's all there in writing. If there is the Muslim population, 0.99

01:02:42.560 is a minority, and the majority, and the majority is all amorphous, you know, fighting amongst each other,

01:02:50.640 then he says the object of Muslims, this is what is the direction given, the object of Muslims is to 0.95

01:02:58.240 slowly go into a majority. And that's called Darul Haram. And then there is the third thing called Darul 0.95

01:03:06.000 Ahad, like New Zealand or Australia, where you are a minority, but the majority is united. And there they

01:03:18.000 say comply. So they will not agree to uniform civil code, that is one man, one woman, which Hindus have, 0.95

01:03:27.040 they will say, no, no, no, you can't allow you. We will have four wives. You can't stop us. We have 0.76

01:03:31.440 our own separate thing. But in Australia, they have agreed. In the United States, they have agreed.

01:03:37.840 Why can't they agree in India? So there are the, you know, these clerics, they read from the Quran.

01:03:46.560 The Quran was written long, long time ago. There's been no, it's not, you're not allowed to amend it.

01:03:52.640 So these are preached. So therefore, I think the, when I said 30%, I had no idea that this

01:04:00.640 will be applied to India. It's not India. India cannot be. They have been from the day of partition, 0.99

01:04:06.240 after Pakistan was created, they have been 12%. Today, there may be 14% or 15% because the census was,

01:04:13.680 the last census said there were 14. So I don't know whether they're now for 15 or 16. There's no doubt

01:04:19.440 that because of poverty. Because if you look at the Muslims of Kerala, they have fewer children

01:04:25.600 than the Muslims of UP. Why? Because the UP Muslim is poor compared to the Kerala Muslim. 1.00

01:04:32.080 Same thing, the number of children that Hindus in Kerala have is much less than the number of children

01:04:39.920 that UP, Hindus in UP have because Hindu, UP is a poorer place. And the Hindus are also poor on 1.00

01:04:47.680 per capita basis. And so they, as economic growth, the thing goes, continues, you will find that all

01:04:55.520 these countries do want that fewer children, so they can educate them and bring them up and to have

01:05:00.960 a better standard of life than they have. And in India, we have no problem. We have got Muslims in

01:05:05.520 the army, we got Muslims in the, our number two man on our intelligence is Muslim. You have Muslims,

01:05:12.640 ministers. And this is just, you know, the, the, the people who, a handful of leftists and others who

01:05:21.200 make a demonstration, get international press. And then we are given lectures, uh, from, uh, from, uh,

01:05:27.920 from the United States by the liberals there.

01:05:33.280 Last question for you before we wrap up is you, you seem very insightful. What is the biggest threat

01:05:38.480 U.S. faces from your perspective as an outsider, not India, not Russia, not China? What's U.S.'s biggest threat 0.65

01:05:45.120 U.S. is, uh, biggest threat according to me is not your, any of your internal problems because I have

01:05:54.240 seen, having lived in the United States almost continuously for a period of seven years and then

01:06:00.480 in and out, in and out, I've been coming to teach at, back at Harvard. Uh, United States is a problem

01:06:07.040 solving countries. And, uh, when I was there, they were, uh, in the sixties, oh my God, the Vietnam War,

01:06:16.240 then the, the, uh, those days they used to call themselves Negroes. Now they call them black Africans 0.98

01:06:22.160 or something. Uh, and, uh, they were on streets and were beaten up. They couldn't climb on the bus and,

01:06:29.440 you know, so on. And now when I look back on America, and when I go to America, I am amazed

01:06:35.920 the amount of progress you make. So you have a problem solving problem. I, I don't expect any

01:06:40.720 difficulty in your social problem. Even Trump may come and Trump may go, but it's not going to change

01:06:46.240 your, uh, uh, demography or your political democracy. The thing that I am finding which is disturbing

01:06:56.320 is that United States doesn't have the staying power once they make a decision.

01:07:01.680 You pulled out of Vietnam, dumped everybody. And then luckily for you, the Vietnamese are anti-Chinese. 1.00

01:07:08.960 So they, you know, now they are your friends. Now you're going to leave Afghanistan. Now, Afghanistan, 0.99

01:07:17.680 you went there. You didn't say that I'm going there just to take a revenge. You said, no, no,

01:07:22.720 we are going to transfer it into democracy and so on. A lot of people trusting you came and joined with

01:07:28.080 you. They took English education. The women dropped their, all their, uh, uh, part of the pardas and 0.97

01:07:35.360 I was, we call it in our country is all these, uh, garments, uh, and became, uh, modern women spoke English.

01:07:42.800 And suddenly you just say, no, Taliban can take over. I mean, this is not the way to generate confidence

01:07:52.000 that you can rely on the United States on a long-term basis. Everything is cost and benefit.

01:07:59.200 Very interesting. Sir, thank you so much for your time. I have really enjoyed it. And I hope the

01:08:04.400 audience has enjoyed it just as much as I did. Okay. I hope you learn more about India because

01:08:09.920 India is going to play a very big role long-term 5, 10, 15 years from now. US staying strong because

01:08:15.520 China is trying to get India to be on sale like many other countries are to them. And India saying,

01:08:21.200 no, I think we can hang, uh, uh, and, uh, compete with you directly. And you kind of saw what he had

01:08:25.440 to say. Curious to know what you took away from this. By the way, if you've never seen my, uh,

01:08:29.200 visit, we did vlog style when I was in India, take a look at this because it also has a part of me

01:08:33.760 meeting with Divyong Turaki. He was the youngest billionaire at the time. And I gave a speech to 5,000

01:08:38.240 students at IIT, which, you know, uh, he used to be a professor at for math. So if you've never

01:08:44.000 seen that, click over here. And if you've never seen my interview with the former chairman of the

01:08:48.960 state bank of India, 400, I think 240,000 employees, Arundhati Bacharya, click over here to watch that

01:08:55.840 interview as well. Take care, everybody. Bye-bye.

Valuetainment - May 28, 2021

Is India China’s Biggest Threat？ - Subramanian Swamy

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript