EML | Dr. Anand Ranganathan at IIT Madras #eml #iitmadras #india #politics #ranganathan #vishwaguru

[Music] [Applause] he [Music] [Applause] he [Music] good evening ladies and gentlemen we the team of extramural lectures at I Madras invite you for a fireside chat on the on the topic India visha Guru uh and Beyond a land of of opportunities I kindly request all of you to keep your phones on the silent mode today we are honored to have Dr Anand ranganathan with with us as we all know he is a faculty at the jnu uh he specializes in the field of Mo molecular biology and he is also an intellectual he obtained his BSC honors degree from St stens in Delhi and after that he went to University of Cambridge UK for completion of his PhD his work is in the field of directed Evolution he has been awarded the young scientist me medal of the Indian National Science Academy as well as he is an associate fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences in in addition to his academic achievements Dr ranganathan actively engages in a public discourse delivering talks and participating in seminars on the topics ranging from politics to media and science he is also an author of five books and he regularly contributes in Columns of news laundry saraja DNA first post and quads he is also as a he also he's also serving as a Consulting editor of the saraja magazine I would like to First invite our faculty adviser Professor basavaraj to present Dr Anand ranganathan with the [Applause] [Applause] angram now starting with the fireside chat I invite Dr Anan ranganathan onto the stage along with our moderators for this session bhavi and arj now I will pass the mic over to our moderators and Dr Anand ranganathan so um I'm audible to all yeah uh good evening to all and everyone present here thank you for joining us here for NL and uh yeah so let's begin uh with the fireside chat uh first uh before asking further questions how you like the audience and how was the campus hi good evening everyone such a pleasure um not just to be in I Madras but to be back in I Madras not many of you know that I am an alumni albeit for a very short period in uh the early '90s and my hostel was jamuna hostel so if there are few from the jamuna hostel uh absolutely fantastic of course a lot might have changed in the last 32 years um we used to be for breakfast given an egg and we would be asked to go into the kitchen to get it into the shape you want it was like traveling to Dante's Inferno uh coming back with or without the egg was an exercise in its own right um but absolutely wonderful memories uh and one of the most beautiful uh places uh in India is it madas so thank you so much for inviting me thank you for the wonderful audience so good so uh first question to you sir uh like given your uh background in science and your parents as well as were scientist and you work in the field of directed Evolution and pathogenesis and your achievements as an author like what inspired your shift towards engaging political debates how do you reconcile your scientific expertise with the often subjective nature of these discussions so um what I like is it straight away jumped into the question answer no that's how uh it should be um I've always had an interest in politics but uh of course uh being uh a student who was pursuing science one doesn't get that much opportunities uh but I've always had more than a passing interest and uh I think it was possibly a natural inclination to know more about uh you know politics in this country and Beyond uh after all what actually uh changes and forces uh change upon the world is uh not so much science as it is politics but I've said this before um uh you know never mix politics with science because then all you end up with is political science uh which is great in its own right let me say this for uh many who would be offended please don't um and incidentally uh I mean I'm sorry I would have loved to uh speak in Tamil as well but my Tamil is very limited I only know the swear words um and if I were to use Tamil speak in Tamil then you might mistake me for a Raja so I don't want to do that [Applause] um and I'm always invited only once to any place so I'm very comfortable in that uh uh yes about about two weeks ago 3 weeks ago in fact I was invited to talk about um Indian politics and Beyond and I said forget about castigating the Indian politicians we've had that we do day and night it's time to take the judges to task and then I went on for the next 10 minutes to narrate the absolute crisis in judiciary it's gone down the drain and is everything that is wrong in there nepotism and uh collegium system and Corruption and 50 million cases pending and then I sat back and uh went back and I realized the person sitting next to me you had lit the lamp Force the Chief Justice of alabad high court so I forgot where my car was parked I ordered Uber and ran from there so so please be aware that I will be absolutely what I am not just who I am what I am uh so I leave it to you to invite me again but as an alumni I even if I'm not invited I will come again but to come back to the question finally uh uh pardon the rambling uh as I said I think um science there is can be very exacting the fruits of uh scientific Labor uh are very few and far between it can take uh to write an article can take about 10 minutes um but to write a scientific paper and its contain sometimes takes more than 2 3 years 4 years uh if you're lucky uh so I think um I always found it important to kind of uh uh maybe straddle between two stools you know U and I've always believe that uh one should always aspire to be jack of all trades and master of none uh even in today's world it is impossible to be an expert in anything even in the field in which you've gained uh prominence or exper quote unquote expertise things change so fast uh that uh for you to be called an expert in anything is is almost become a joke now so be um uh be a lay man in everything and that is what kind of Kindles the Curiosity so you know just to answer that I started writing in 201 10 uh publicly articles on various themes and topics and I think I kind of enjoyed that away from science I could switch on and switch off um and it wasn't uh uh you know that I found that people who only do one thing uh there is a tendency to get frustrated in that area I've seen a lot of scientists who are frustrated as I said results are few and far between and I have seen a hell of a lot of people who are non-scientists who are frustrated uh so if you straddle between two stools yes there is danger of falling in between them but it's great fun so politics is like uh violin for Einstein for you if you uh yeah uh yeah but please don't compare with me Lalu Prasad yadav yes but not [Applause] Einstein okay so coming to next question so uh you have identified as a free speech absolute in the past and an approach has not seen a wider legal implementation so understanding the pills of big Tech and big state how do you substantiate the Free Speech absolutism in the space of re disinformation uh in which the attention economy and uh U invent of AI makes verification less and less likely yeah I I think U to me uh once the stomach is fed and you know where your next meal is coming from the most important right is the right to free speech and I think countries sooner or later Discover it of course as they progress uh right to free speech is obviously secondary to your right to survival and U this this phenomena is exploited by the politicians who thrust upon you that look let me first you take take care of your next meal you take care of your family you take care of your job you take care of all the basic um necessities of life and then you come to uh uh you know criticizing us or talking about what is right what is wrong you know leave that later on but I think many nations who profess this have been destroyed along the line sooner or later it is inevitable um uh that Nations will progress towards free speech and uh we have recent world history or you can take world history of thousands of years it has shown this that those those Nations progress and develop who profess some kind of the other free speech so and it is ironical that the bastians of free speech the so-called West is now taking a uturn is now heavily into cancel culture is now heavily into curbing Free Speech which would be disastrous for it I mean just two days ago uh Scotland has uh come up with the legislation that would imprison for 5 to S years if you were to negate uh recognition of pronouns or of transgenders of so JK Rowling is in a bit of a bother there uh and that is the whole controversy you know about but the fact of the matter is that it is the most sacran of Rights if you take that away uh then what is left of a human being you know if you're not able to say your mind then you are an automaton you're a robot if you're happy being that uh and millions are um you know be that as it may uh it is unacceptable to me um and of course Free Speech comes with four caveats for common sensical caveats that you cannot for example free speech does not endow you the right to shout fire in this crowded theater because that may endanger the life in a stampede of others uh you cannot um diverge State Secrets uh in the name of free speech um otherwise a lot of Indian journalists might do that um uh thirdly you cannot incite a mob directly uh you know to kill or to create havoc and fourthly um uh there is uh um uh legislature or there is a a law of defamation so as long as that is so you can accuse me of being corrupt it's fine that is your right to free speech after all what is corruption uh you know there is an abstract meaning of being corrupt in cash or kind so this but you cannot accuse me of taking 500 crores from adani or Amani then I'll sue you you know um so other than those four caveats I think I uh you know free speech is a must especially when it comes to criticizing the government the state the nation um uh the the state of the nation and most importantly religion and I think going forward these uh more than being critical of the government what I'm sadly seeing is that more and more the governments are stifling people being critical of religion and that is unacceptable to I'm not just saying this because I'm a Darian atheist but uh it is a Dogma it is an ideology it is an idea religion is an idea uh and we are going back to the times of Galileo when he was asked to apologize do we want to do that what happened to all the progress that we've made in the last 500 years so I think that's absolutely Draconian and unacceptable to me that is the reason why I'm a free speech absolute so so uh next question so um again the topic as suggest uh India vuru and Beyond so there are many factors that uh play a crucial role in this one of uh the factor is uh like us student sitting here so the question is like that uh so it is uh despite India being seen as a land of opportunities many people still consider moving for various reasons uh factors like high taxes strict rules on sending money abroad and limited travel options with an Indian passport uh given Indian passports rank is 82nd right now and along with the appeal of a better life abroad contribute to this this stum also known as brain drain and has attained significant attention across various platforms and by several individuals so uh The Brain Drain term like uh how and what are measures that we can uh that can reduce this thing and like not just reducing just eliminate it and people should just stay back if possible and uh contribute to the nation right so I think one thing that uh we must realize now especially the younger generation is uh not to be tied to this phrase that was um uh most often used in the 80s and '90s when we were growing up brain drain I I think there is there should be no such thing as brain drain uh scientists recognizes No Boundaries least of all national boundaries and as Indians we should be the first peoples to not recognize National boundaries because after all one of the greatest phrases um ever or you can say our greatest gift to humanity is this magical phrase which is scientific so accurate kukam the world is a family for for a people who believe the world is a family to talk about brain drain is I would say anachronistic and it is contradictory and let me explain that um I think science the purpose of science is to benefit Humanity if the purpose of science becomes to benefit a nation then it is a tool and more often than not it is a tool for warmongering uh 99% of uh the help that has been rendered to Indians uh through science let us accept it for one reason or the other we were poor we're developing is through the scientific advances that have been made by non-indians so we should be the last people to say that uh we should uh hold Indians back to India or we should not uh you know let people go ultimately what matters is the idea that you generate and as I said science truly it should not recognize any boundaries whatsoever you want to take the example of Co um the vaccine that has saved millions of Indians um was developed by scientists in Oxford you know and I I want to come to that because when we talk about um Vish Guru what do we actually mean by India being a Vish Guru you know I think we should be a Vish student um a teacher who stops being a student stops being a teacher and I think it's very important rather than us to uh be dactic and teach the world it is very important for us to be in a pool that learns from each other and if we are going to do that then most of our problems would be be solved uh if only we realize it so um uh to answer your question in a very limited way I don't believe in brain drain at all and you know the evidence proves me right in the last 20 30 Years thank you for that answer sir uh so coming to next question uh how can India balance the preservation and promotion of its cultural diversity and Heritage while also embracing modernization and globalization right so one thing we have to realize is um our cultures um the opposite of modern what if your culture what if your civilization is something that you can learn from in the Modern Age what if your culture and your civilization was Modern to begin with what is modern what is archaic you know um is religion modern why are 99% of people in this world religious um the religious Doctrine is it modern it's 3,000 years old 2,000 years old 1300 years old um whereas uh majority of the civilizational endowments that we have been blessed with are tremendously modern I just gave you one example vuda kukam I mean that Outlook itself is just unbelievable you know because science tells you it is uh the diversity that ultimately wins over it is the uh the number of mutations that you generate I mean I'm talking purely at the biological level the more you mix and mate the more chances are there of your survival so the more diverse you are uh the more uh you will survive and how do you become more diverse by mixing more by making the world a family the more inclusive you are the more uh you believe in othering the more supremacist you are the more you believe that your nation is the greatest your ideology is the greatest you exclude yourself and you take any civilization any nation that has done so it has been destroyed you know so uh I I I believe in order to say um uh to answer your question you have to Define uh whether a whether the civilization and the aspects of civilization that we embibe are archaic to begin with I I would say it's a mix uh some of them we should be taking forward because they are tremendously modern and tremendously scientific thanks a lot for your answer sir so uh coming back to uh so uh the last question from my side was regarding brain drain uh like u i it is kind of follow up and our next question uh we have seen uh Japan uh rise from nothing you can say after World War II and it is believed that the phenomenal modernization would probably have been possible without the ralistic spirit of Japanese nationalism considering the discourse around modernization what role do you envision for de coloniality in India's future trajectory and how does decoloniality influence or impact our society and why is it significant in our context yeah that's that's a great question and I think that um I would like to devote five or six minutes to that because it encompasses a lot of disciplines U and there's a lot of fusion of various other ideas that would go into answering this question uh I have written about this I am against nationalism I don't believe Indians are nationalists at all the whole confusion started from the fact when somebody asked Narendra Modi uh and he said yes I am a Hindu and I'm a nationalist uh we are not nationalist we are patriots there is a distinction between the two we are the most we are not exclusivist we are not supremacist we are the most friendly of Nations we take in refugees we trade with 196 countries um we are signat two deals that are at the detriment to our own progress compare it to for example America and you talk about the Paris climate deal America reneged out of it famously to our detriment that deal because we are a developing economy we need thermal power we need coal power and yet we are a proud signat to that do you think people who believe our nation is the greatest and who are exclusivist would think like that no so one thing we have to get in our psyche is that we are not Believers in exclusivity uh ideologies are that so Communists um islamists a lot of religious people who believe that they believe in othering they believe in Supremacy they believe in exclusivity in fact George aell has written about this Catholicism the whole aspect of that is this othering exclusivist thing we are anything but that so we are not nationalist that is in my way of thinking we are patriots um your question was regarding development and I think you took the example of Japan let me mix it with something and as I began with saying that we we might have confused ourselves as to what we are uh it's not just that we as a people have confused ourselves our governments are confused and I I put it to you that India would would have been where Japan is um 30 40 years ago had we realized um what is the role that every entity in India must do let me give you an example what is the role of the government honestly a we still don't know yes it's not just that we don't know the governments don't know the governments routinely infringe upon the roles that they are most ill suited for uh despite the fact that our leaders tell us that we are not going to infringe on there for example one of the uh things that endeared me to Narendra Modi uh was in 2013 when he said a government has no business to be in business I thought here is a politician who's finally realized what is the role of the government and he said it government is not going to be in the business of running businesses unfortunately in the last 10 years all what his government has done is to be in the business of businesses he's repeated it 2017 2019 2022 without realizing that we now have even more public sector units now than we did in 2014 without realizing that 21% of our annual budgetary allocation of 40 45 lakh crores goes in propping up these public sector units and I and a very uh young brilliant buding Economist Karan Bassin we took months with help uh to collate how many such public sector units there are State and Central and it took us a lot of time because there is no Central information deliberately where you can get this information because they're all uh completely down and out most of them are loss making so why should the government tell you that they are loss making they are uh spending 21% of 45 lakh crores every year in it there are 1830 public sector units 400 of them are non-functional I.E they're not making what they are supposed to make and yet government is giving them thousands of crores in fact one famously uh thankfully it closed down I don't know how Narendra Modi gathered the courage to close it down but three or four years ago he did close down a public sector unit that was supposed to make choros fluorocarbons that were banned in the late 80s for the next 30 Years After CFCs were banned this P public sector unit was taking thousands of crores from the government there are 400 such units like that you look at the state of our banks tremendously loss making uh giving loans at the backck and call of politicians what has changed Congress was booted out because it believed in such things but the new government nendra Modi also believes in exactly the same thing um so what is the role of the government and when we talk about for example npas and this government says npas have been reduced well there is something called waving off and writing off the loan so you've written off 14 lakh crores and then you're saying your books are fine now they they are easy to look at it's not just a question of writing them off how much of that have you recovered in the last 10 years barely 10% the other 10 L odd crores is our money that has gone down the drain when you have 400 psus that are leeching thousands of crores of our taxpayer money and the government keeps on giving them money is that not a confused state of mind so that's Point number one point number two is what should be the role of the government the Supreme Court said this and this is one of the going forward the youngsters among you I mean not to exclude ourselves and those sitting in the the the front low sir you with the beard you look like a jnu undergraduate so that's a compliment no the fact is we we as a country have to realize the Supreme Court asked us to do this Define what is a freebie and what is welfarism it ask the government to do it we haven't done it you know why because the polit the last thing the politician want was wants is to Define it because then he will be accused of indulging in freebies I am not against a welfare state I think a country like India needs to be a welfare state otherwise we will wipe off tens of hundreds of millions of Indians off the map we need health education food during covid 80 CR people were provided ration for three years running had we not done it Millions would have died but what people have to realize is that a welfare state or a socialist state is Possible only in a capitalist state only capitalism you need to generate money in order to then spend it a socialist State cannot take care of welfare state so again there is confused thinking this government like every other past government before it is a complete died in the wool socialist state it has not defined what is a freebie what is welfarism I'll give you two examples of what freebie is because I have myself have tried to Define what welfarism is in my own small way and I encourage everyone else to because the Supreme Court asked us to Define it politicians haven't defined it so it is up to you up to us this is the most important question facing this country if we don't Define it we are going down the drain without a hope or recourse for me freebie is something that is against national interests it's a dole that is against so appeasement for example is freebie recently in telengana elections the the ruling dispensation that uh got booted out promised a Muslim only it park that is pandering to appeasement that is against National interest the BJP in nagaland promised the Christians who voted for it free trip to Jerusalem imagine BJP doing this aoda you know that is freebie what right does a government have prospering on our taxpayers money to send someone who votes for it uh on a pilgrimage these are the things for example the the Congress realized through the vision certainly of Dr Manmohan Singh and Monte Singh alalia that this country cannot go on on the pension scheme that it had we will be bankrupt so in 2005 the Congress junked the old pension scheme and it brought the new pension scheme but you know what Rahul Gandhi did 2 years ago of course he is more more of an economist than Manan Singh so what does Manan Singh know plus he's a Youth Icon as well uh he said if you vote us to power in Himachal Pradesh we will junk the new pension scheme that we brought we will revert to the old pension scheme he won Congress won and they junked their own scheme and they brought on a scheme that is now taking leeching of 85% of Himachal pradesh's tax revenue people don't even know this they're going to go bankrupt and this is a domino effect op was voted to power in Punjab they resorted to old pension scheme Maharashtra when it came under the BJP and shiena Rule lacks protested went on a strike they wanted old pension scheme that is freebie you are working against National we don't have much time but one of the biggest freebies given was the repeal of the farm laws by Narendra Modi that is a most anti-national step any government has taken so once we Define what is a freebie what is um uh welfarism I think this nation will progress I end this by asking um a show of hands um what according to you is the one policy in the last 75 years years in India Indian policy taken by any government uh that has been proven to be the greatest benefit to businesses just one policy can you name one policy uh one at a time yes or you liberalization most people would say this anybody else this would be uh yes yes sir make in India okay although uh I have a lot of things to say about uh uh make in India yes sir prence giving preference to education over food all right okay ma'am GST GST very good answer sir reduction of corporate tax reduction of corporate tax right what scheme sorry PL what's the full form of PL oh okay okay sorry I'm very bad at acronyms you know somebody says Tina there is no alternative then I said there is something called Nita Narendra is the alternative then Amani amazing Modi building a new [Applause] India so Nita Amani means Narendra is the alternative amazing Modi building a new India Nita Amani is going to come back basically no but so did you see some thing when I talked about the one policy that has helped businesses most all of you without fail talked about economic policy all of you somebody talked about GST you talked about liberalization you talked about P everybody else and that is what every one of us has been programmed to do I think there we go sir could you stand up please a huge round of [Applause] Applause the greatest policy single most greatest policy developed by any politician around the world living or dead that has helped businesses is the midday meal scheme and you know who got it kamaj he never even went to school this is the greatness every day 130 million Indian kids get educated go to school why because they will study and they will get nutrition what is this is exactly the job of the state the job of the state is not to run businesses the job of the state is to allow businesses to run using a productive labor force how do you make a productive labor force you make it educated you make it wellfed you make it ready for challenges you make it ready to combat any stress medical healthwise or any other education that is the the job of the state is not to run businesses that is where our confused thing comes in that is why all of us and I'm not blaming you because I was in the same boat as all of you we think the the most helpful policy that will help businesses would be a business oriented policy wrong we have 515 million ion labor force 44% of it is involved in agriculture 44% almost 250300 million Indians productive labor force is involved in a sector that contributes only 14% 14 to 14 and a half% to our GDP from production to purchase it is the most archaic set of rules that govern this sector and yet no politician before Modi had the guts to change it and those three Farm laws that he said would revolutionize this whole thing in the west 2 to 3% of the labor force is involved in agriculture out here 95% of the farmers are not insured 117,000 Farmers have committed suicide 84% I can rattle off these figures they will scare you even more and more but what's the point those three Farm laws were supposed to revolutionize the this sector much needed 300 million uh Indians were involved in this and what did the opposition do they started calling it The Black laws they went on a dhna they blocked highways for a year every day the nation incurred a loss economic loss of 3,000 crores for a whole year but the saddest thing was that each one of those Farm laws verbatim were in the manifestos of each one of these opposition parties but because Modi brought it they they became black laws how will the nation progress if you don't realize these simple things that the job of a government is not to run businesses it is to create an atmosphere it is to create a labor force so to cut a very very long story short my apologies um as a as a South Indian of course and a fan of PG PG Woodhouse there's an anecdote that you know um uh wer and Jes they're talking to someone and it goes on and on and on and the other person is rattling off and he says to cut a long story short and you know ber he said I did I walked away so please don't walk away my apologies but the whole thing stems from the fact we are not yet developed because we are confused as to what our role should be and when I say visha Guru and Beyond um India right now is truly at an inflection point truly it is bound to take off but then we have been here before that's the tragedy uh so coming to next question your work has often centered on discussing how institutional bias manifests it uh itself in policies with the current state of affairs in mind how do we Institute accountability or mitigation mechanisms such that systems disadvantage none of the Indians that's that's a great question again I'm not just saying this to uh have favor from my fellow uh interviewers interviewees but it truly is a great question and I think it's a very pertinent question and I I said this before uh talking largely of you can say abstract philosophical issues like what is defined the role uh let me talk uh take it to a pol iCal level which is our opposition doesn't know what its role is and I tell you Modi is blessed truly blessed with the kind of opposition that it has in all the decisions that he takes for National interest the opposition castigates him and outrages and in all the decisions he takes against National interest the opposition supports him is the perfect position to be in he repealed the farm laws the opposition supported it he took back the land acquisition act the opposition supported it he has done zero privatization other than Air India that has been going on for 30 years the opposition supports it he has done Capital infusion of lacks of crores in junk companies like telepon BSNL the opposition supports it he's he continues with nationalized banks the opposition supports he all the uh pr- National decisions I don't need to go into that the opposition is against so the opposition doesn't know what its role is when the the most prevailing phrase that we have in the current political climate is democracy is under threat right democracy oh my God democracy is under threat and you know democracy and all that stuff my thing is democracy has always been under threat ever since we became a democracy it is because of the opposition because of our constitution as I say we are a Banana Republic ever since we became a republic let's not beat about the bush the constitution endows rights that the politicians and political parties exploit so you end up blaming the politician the politician I'm following the Constitution and he's absolutely right you know take the issue of electoral bonds Anonymous electoral bonds yeah they they were they were Anonymous and they were struck down rightly so by the Supreme Court rightly so and I was against it from the day one because it's all very well for companies to give donations anonymously to any entity of course but then if that entity is asking for our vote we have a right to know which company gave it money to give an example if a political party says please vote for me I will preserve this pristine forest or this area of it Madras beautiful ecosystem and you know this U ecological Zone and I'll and the we vote for it the moment it comes to power suddenly next day you find that a mining company has landed in it Madras and is mining the forest and you say why the hell did that happen and you realize that anonymously that mining company had given thousands of crores to that political party so it is in our right to know because the political part is asking for our vote so anonymity of electoral bonds was completely wrong and illegal so Supreme Court Struck it down now the opposition called it corrupt opposition said it should be struck down rightly so opposition said it is prospering those political parties who are neck de in corruption rightly so but then why the hell did Congress take almost 2,000 crores from the same electoral Anonymous electoral bonds if you believe a system is wrong why are you using that same system that's why for a change I admire the Communist it's just once in a lifetime opportunity for me to say so the CPI said we will not use electoral bonds for it the only party to have not done it it's another matter nobody was donating to them that's another but still I admire it it stood for the principal trinamul castigating the anonymous electoral 1600 crores it has taken arm admy party 100 crores it has taken from so you are saying that the system is corrupt at the same time you are using that same corrupt system to prosper corruption is that not hypocrisy so how is the opposition staving off or saving democracy it is pushing democracy more in danger I'll give you another example and these are examples that nobody knows because nobody wants to talk about it least of all the opposition the BJP was convicted not just castigated by the high court was convicted of violating the FC Norms in taking illegal donation from a mining company conviction carried a prison sentence for the BJP head whoever that was not Nada but somebody else almost overnight the next day the BJP retrospectively amended the FC act on the floor of the parliament rendering the conviction toothless now if something like this happens in a democracy what do you think the opposition will do it will come onto the streets in thousands chaam Anarchy B politician high high prime minister resign President the whole nation will be neck deep in this until the opposition is has forced the the government to resign the prime minister to be behind bars did you see any of that in 2015 not a whimper many of you like me did not even know this fact you know why because the high court had also convicted the Congress of the same offense because if the BJP was able to retrospectively amend the FC act going back to the ER of Emergency the Congress voted for it as a this is how you will save democracy that's the problem the the onus of saving democracy has been put on citizens citizens can't do it you can at most talk about it uh the onus is on Supreme Court Supreme Court does it in fits and starts supreme court itself is confused about what its job should be and I'm saying it now because I've been saved of contempt of courot uh ji saved me [Applause] so thank you thank you ji um otherwise I would have been like Arin krial Behind Bars you know with my poster in between bhagat Singh and edar so you know who is to save democracy I'm truly I don't have an answer I'm sorry to be despondent on this but what is the recourse now I the another thing that is going on right now rightly so is the BJP is using its investigative agencies as recovery agents and as uh uh you know in a very Draconian way absolutely true it is true and I I was the first one to say this I have made so many enemies amongst my own right wing I don't know what to say they because the the Supreme Court rightly called the CBI and Ed as caged parrot when during the UPA I said the parrot has remained the same just the shoulder has changed now the shoulder is of Modi 95% of all the politicians who are being investigated by these agencies belong to the opposition obviously there is selectivity obviously now the the Supreme Court made the anonymous electoral bonds illegal did it not because it felt something wrong was happening please tell me why has the Supreme Court not made the dependence non-independence of these agencies as illegal whose fault is it the politician will say the government will say well has it is it illegal that the cbis and EDS are under us it's a different matter that the late m Mr jley had vowed that if BJP comes to power in 2014 it will make the CBI and the Ed independent it didn't in fact there's a very famous rajas saaba speech that the late Mr jley made seven-point agenda to make CBI independent they came to power and all that is forgotten but isn't there Supreme Court the job of Supreme Court to see this is happening this is wrong make it independent declare them uh their dependence illegal why has hasn't it done so so whose fault is who is confused so as long as these things happen you can I'm I'm not a big voter for change from the bottom up we are talking amongst 1,000 people you know the change has to happen amongst 1 billion people that is to happen through the governments unless that happens there is very little hope thank you for your answer and um there are so many terms so uh uh now we are opening the mic for audience questions uh so because of the constraints we'll just uh limit the number of questions to four and apart from that there is a request to all after this please don't record any of the any of the part of the lecture it is the the copyright of EML I Madras and don't upload it as it is completely on the YouTube this comes under Free Speech absolutism so I'm fine thank you so much for the amazing talk sir uh I'm a big fan of you and forgive me if I stutter or forget my words of because of my excitement so my question was triggered by my friend mentioning our ranking in the passport index like we are 84th or 86th there are other indexes like hunger index poverty index happiness index Pakistan and Palestine are above us Bangladesh are above us so my question is what should how should we hit back to these European countries ranking US so Rock Bottom like should we come up with our own ranking indexes or should we try to increase we have ANF for college ranking for example right so what should be our headback to it my question we should all migrate to Gaza and to Islamabad should we stop caring Venezuela is by the way ranked 76 we are 126 so we should all go to Venezuela uh no but you see how can you stop this you know you can't um as as I say uh in science there is one condition of Science and one obligation upon a scientist is never to repeat a failed experiment you will be called a fool if you do it very few if at all any scientist repeats a failed experiment and very few if at all a politician never repeats uh or you know a failed exp always we Revel in politics in repeating failed experiments you can't stop it that's the nature of the Beast now everyone knows through evidence through experimental evidence that whichever nation has espoused communism has been destroyed down to its threadbear and yet we have Communists especially in jnu uh when you know an ideology is going to destroy you make you Hollow economically mentally physically in every which way and still you espouse it is the um reaction to that to ban it certainly not you know let it be let there be these indexes you know ultimately what matters is your happiness and your contentment so we have to be aware about what our job is and certainly um 350 million Indians right now living on 60 rupees a day if you believe that is an element of happiness you know I leave it to you but I certainly don't you know I don't so we are not a happy Nation but then what are these rankings they are esoteric you know they're abstract who is Happy who isn't uh do you feel adani was happy a year ago you know fellow fellow was ready to jump off the ledge and I'm talking of adani you know you can imagine so what is happiness what isn't that a totally different matter altogether I mean I as a dominian atheist I believe life is totally meaningless um has no purpose at all uh you derive as much contentment out of Sorrow as you do out of happiness and one of the most profound uh philosophical statements ever made has been by kamu who said The only philosophical problem remaining right now is that of suicide why don't we commit suicide please read his myth of Copus we are all cuses all we do every day is push a stone up a hill and then watch it tumble down and then we repeat it next day we are condemned to do it so what brings happiness and kamu gave an answer and I'm not too sure of that he said U uh this uh cifas must derive happiness from his struggle that is what his reasoning was I'm not sure of that you know um and the the advance of biology in the last 30 40 years maybe 50 years starting from Stanley Miller's experiment where he replicated the early Earth atmosphere and he found out that the basic building blocks uh were constructed miraculously we are a um result of pure chance to Jac yac who uh built this Proto cell that said even without genetic duplication you can have cells dividing to uh um um I forget the name sexual PCR William stemmer who said mutations are accumulated within a period of seconds to uh for you to survive to genome sequencing there really is uh uh you know uh completely meaningless uh devoid of any purpose this existence the same as any animal the same as as a plant the same as eoli so ultimately uh nothing matters you just hear very fleetingly if we did not learn this from the covid pandemic I'm sorry to be so despondent almost as if jumping off the ledge but uh that is what I believe uh Co taught us this you know the most successful people just died stumbled why because something happened that they weren't ready for uh um people saw death and escaped people saw death and succumbed this is what life is so fleeting you know so to again to cut a very long story short don't believe in these indexes uh good evening sir uh my question is uh we have heard J sa Deepak sir say that the India can't be a secular country what's your view point on it India is not secular I want India to be secular it might be that ji doesn't want India to be secular that is his prerogative but I so our Preamble has this word secular that was ironically inserted by Indira Gandhi during the emergency it was absent from ambedkar's constitution of course I believe personally we believe I I believe should be we should be secular what is the definition of secularism it is that there is a 100% distinction separation between the church and state that means religion and state the the state cannot indulge in any religion religious activity and vice versa do you think we are that when the state controls 100,000 Hindu temples how are we secular when the state pays the salaries of M and Priests when the state has H subsidies when the state has a Min a Ministry for minorities that gives interest free loans to W board for it to set up shops in its properties how are we secular so when we ourselves are not secular we ourselves are confused about what the definition of secularism is we are not a secular State I would like we to be us to be secular state but we are plural state but for some odd reason we don't like the word plural we prefer the word secular so we are secular we are secular no I I don't think we are secular in spirit um I think uh well it's it's contentious I mean what you mean to say I got it because what you're saying is we are secular because we are a Hindu Hindu by this thing yeah so I got what you meant but do you consider Hinduism as 100% religion I don't I believe the religious aspects of Hinduism are an offshoot of a way of life in Islam the way of life is an a shoot of religion it's totally the other way around so one aspect is amable to change because ways of lives change so what you might consider today as religious as a Hindu might be different tomorrow because it is an offshoot of a way of life and ways of life change so we are all accepting um we we do not condemn anyone we don't believe in exclusivity we don't believe in othering that is what Hinduism I believe is and that is why all of us sooner or later will be converted that's another matter I uh to expose somebody dark side that person has to have a bright [Applause] side I was told some questions are off limits but I've answered nonetheless I hope that good evening sir uh I have I'm really big fan of you first of all and thank you for being here I have always seen you on podcast and on different news channels you talk about how India is a land of missed opportunities can you please throw some light on it and another question I have in my mind like we have seen multiculturalism is getting destructed in Europe in most of the countries so why does why don't these countries fail to cope up with multiculturalism whereas India is a good example of it so well is India a good example of it I don't know what is multiculturalism as I said is it multiculturism when you have predatory religions out to destroy you your way of life is it would would you want to live in a society where one set of people are constantly prying on you to convert you to tell you that what you are following is wrong come to our fold this is uh you know we will give you these incentives we will do this at all times if you are being exclusivist if you are othering if you're cancelling if you're castigating if you're denigrating the other group of people how it is multiculturism it might be multicult in that it is two cultures but it is a clash of cultures and a society that has a clash of cultures cannot survive as that sooner or later the culture that is clashing is the one that will supersede others and we've seen it we've seen it we've seen democracy shifts because of this issue of multiculturalism of as somebody says I don't know who said it that to uh a tolerant Society uh sooner or later becomes intolerant by virtue of the fact that it is accepting intolerance that's you know that's a very true statement so about India's land of M opportunities I yes absolutely and I said um I do a show of hands here and I ask people that how many of you believe that India is a land of opportunities and uh how many of you believe India is a land of opportunities right almost all hands have gone up all of you love India including me so the next question is how many of you believe India is a land of Miss opportunities as many hands gone up so you're not nationalists you're Patriots that proves it and let me give you one example of this do we have time for this thank you thank because I think this is important and this illustrates this what what I mean by opportunities and missed opportunities India had an amazing opportunity I say it scientifically not uh uh in a way to in a very mifid sense at all when covid struck because we were supposed to be the world Hub of vaccines all of us know this right uh and we we thought we were so on Jan 12th January 12th 2020 China made public The genome sequence of SARS COV 2 We Are the World Hub of vaccines on 13th Jan 24 hours later Mna had applied for Phase 1 clinical trials of their vaccine they made a vaccine in 24 hours okay within 2 weeks Australia and CDC Atlanta cultured the virus which is most important if you want to inactivate the virus and make that as a vaccine it took us till June for the government US World Hub to culture the virus and give it to bhat biotech to inactivate it using beta propon actone chemical inactivation and to make the vaccine a world Hub delayed getting a vaccine Preparatory stages by 3 to 4 months is that not a missed opportunity and it didn't dawn us then because all of us have seen the vaccine development one way or the other even if we are not scientists we know that a vaccine coming to the market takes six to 7 to 10 years you know Rota virus vaccine with even with 50% efficacy took about 10 years to come to the Market but here 10 years everything would have gone we needed it like that and the time hit us during the Delta wave the next year when each person not vaccinated meant one oxygen cylinder less millions could have been saved had we made those vaccines or you know made those vaccines available 3 months earlier than we did which head rolled none who is a accountable that is a missed opportunity we had an opportunity you know and it's not just that kov Shield that is based on the adino virus system we were unaware of it and Oxford scientists knew we were working on these vaccines before for rabies these Technologies are 10 years old decades old but we miss the bus likewise for example I don't know how many of us know that okay this is very interesting just give me a couple of minutes plus 30 seconds extra um so uh you know liberalization saved us as somebody said it is one of the most prominent policies that have economic Liberation to saved us and 3 four years ago I think icmr brought out very revealing pie charts you know about the nature of diseases that Afflicted Indians in 1990 on the cusp of economic liberalization and now and it's so revealing because in 199 70% of the diseases that Afflicted Indians were communicable diseases 30% were non-communicable diseases and it is understandable because we're a poor country we didn't have good sanitation right now we have 120 million toilets 110 million water tap connections 330 I can rattle off but the point is 30 years ago those were the communicable diseases that were afflicting us because of our poverty 30% were heart diseases asthma diabetes you know 30 years later with economic Prosperity with wealth creation the chart has completely flipped now 70% of Indians are afflicted with non-communicable diseases asthma diabetes heart ailments 30% have communicable diseases and going forward using genetic technique crisper and so many other advances we might end communicable diseases all together in fact Narendra Modi has kept the target of eradicating tuberculosis in 2025 obviously that will never happen you know politicians always set targets never meet them scientists always meet targets never set them but be that as it may we know that going forward with more and more Prosperity what is going to hit us like a tsunami are the non-communicable disease and let me give you one example we have the highest incidence of cancer that we've ever had in our last 7 5 years in the last 2 years heart ailments diabetes there was a Lancet report 3 months ago of a 10e survey did you know 150 million Indians are pre-diabetic right now 100 million Indians are confirmed diabetics that's more than the population of Germany it is a catastrophe are we prepared for it no we're not where is the anti-diabetes drug that we have made in India and for that I want a show of hands how many of you you know who lakmi is okay not a single hand has gone up okay uh three years ago I would have been like the audience even I did not know who lakmi is let me tell you who lakmi kti is lxmi kti is an 85y old frail woman all her life she has spent in the forest deep jungles of Western G she has a ornopia over a library of medicinal plants 500 medicinal plants she's been treating tribals with that lxmi got the padmashri four years ago that is how I got to know of lakmi kti she came bare feet she stayed in rashtrapati bav and she went away after 3 days she said I'm not used to this thing my my life my whole calling is in the forest she returned to the forest Lakshmi kti has 500 medicinal plants we should have by now 100 Lakshmi kti Institutes of natural products taking those medicinal plants finding out the active molecule ingredient in each one of those who knows we would have already come up with a trillion dollar selling anti diabetes drug anti- heart ailment anti- athema but you know what will happen a Nordic lab or some Science Institute in UK or Germany will come down descend down to the Western GS we'll meet lakmi kti take her cornicopia of 500 medicinal plants go back to Sweden discover the active ingredient the super drug that will cure diabetes they will get a Nobel Prize and at the Nobel Prize ceremony they will thank lakmi kti and we'll be so chuffed with it we'll say oh wow let her give us let let us give us a Padma let her give her a padmabhushan she deserves that or if you know God forbid if she is no longer there we'll give her apus bhat ratna this is the situation is this not missed opportunity and if you believe this is a figment of my imagination let me take another show of hands how many of you know who two youuu is again not a single hand has gone up likewise I would have also not raised my hand because I did not know a year ago who tuu was to youu just like lakmi kti is an 80-year-old frail Chinese woman just like lakmi kti she spent most of her life in a forest in China but unlike lakmi kti she has a library of medicinal plants she isolated the active ingredient of one of those animal one of those uh medicinal plants artemisin to you won the Nobel Prize four years ago and that artemisin is the only viable malaria curing drug because now there is widespread resistance to chloroquin this is this is what is missed opportunity we should be not just honoring lakmi kti we should be honoring her work and the best way to honor her work is to take that forward where are the Adis and ambanis who could make those hundreds of lakmi kti institutes and then reap the billions of dollars that will come later on Tim mnin alone has tens of billions of sales every year but it you require that foresight to not constantly harp us as a land of opportunity but to realize that yes this is a land of missed opportunity thank you the undergraduate from jnu would like to so what is scientifically wrong cannot be said to be scientifically right by anybody else I mean logic and rational if he was saying something that was not scientifically proven that would have put a lot of people people's lives in danger it's wrong so be it ramd or be it anybody else selling anything and I've said this before it is as much true of some aspects of ayurveda it's not that aayurveda per se should be junked ayurveda is absolutely brilliant field ayurveda has given us so many many medicines I'm talking of uh uh you know so many medicines natural products that have been isolated from Plants Earth while I I myself have been lucky enough to be working in one of those fields where uh you know one of the active ingredient of uh a leaf turned out to be uh very potent anti-tubercular in its activity so you can't junk the entire field but what is wrong scientifically is wrong and you cannot put people's lives in danger by promoting something that has not been proven right uh so as we conclude the fireside chat we express our heartfelt thanks to the our esteem speaker Dr Anand ranganathan as well as the the [Applause] Moder I have been asked a lot of questions if I if you permit me I could ask one question yes sir sure please goad would I be called again yes [Applause] I kindly request the students heads of the EML Mahesh and arjo to present Dr Anand ranganathan with with with a momento as a token of appreciation from our [Applause] side [Applause] thanks a lot everyone for coming uh Refreshments are outside please have uh take it and go

Channel: Extra Mural Lectures IIT Madras

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Length: 73min 16sec (4396 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 07 2024