Sadhguru at Express Adda: ‘India going to COP28 proudly, none of the others kept promises’

Asked why the West believes India has made fewer promises than it should have, he said it was an attempt to change the narrative. “In 2009, when I was at the World Economic Forum, they raised the issue of coal and oil, saying India and China are the big polluters in the world. I said we should look at the environment per capita. Our carbon footprint is a fraction of the West,” he said.

“In a nation where 400 million people are still living in slum-like conditions with no drainage facility or electricity, you can’t talk to them about the environment. It is cruel. These concerns are where people are well-to-do and consuming at a certain level. This doesn’t mean that we should not involve them because without involving those masses, we can’t find solutions. But thinking that developing countries are consuming more, this is just to change the narrative. It has got nothing to do with the environment, but with politics and geopolitics.”

Sadhguru also spoke about how Europe arose from the destruction and bitterness of World War II to form the European Union. To a question from the audience on the possibility of a similar union between India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, he said, “Before 1947, we referred to this land as sub-continent. By cutting off what we today call Bangladesh, which was also Pakistan at one time, and Pakistan, we have turned this into an island…. No island nation has ever gone on to become a great power on the planet. It cannot.”

Sadhguru also pitched for ‘One Nation, One Election’, something that he said he put forth almost 17-18 years ago. “Particularly because of television and audiovisual medium, elections seem to be going on just about all the time,” he said, adding that every local election has become a priority nowadays.

“Earlier we wouldn’t know there was an election in Nagaland but now it’s not like that. There are much louder journalists, who will scream it into our bedrooms and unfortunately, there’s television in every room, so wherever you go, they’re screaming at us. It becomes so important that the Prime Minister himself is going there, chief ministers are going there, and all leaders are going there. Now it seems like a big affair even though it isn’t. It is important for Nagaland people, not for people who are living in Maharashtra, Karnataka or Tamil Nadu…”

Sadhguru also borrowed from his own experience with the Save Soil movement to make his point. Stating that drama is necessary to get attention, he said he spoke about his movement to nearly everybody for over 30 years but it mitigated change only after he embarked on a 100-day motorcycle journey from London to India, covering 30,000 km and 27 nations.

“During the election, we have to give a margin to all political leaders that they will say a few senseless things because the whole thing is an emotional movement. People are not going to vote you for a sensible thing that you said, they’re going to vote you for drama. I have learned this the hard way. When you are doing drama, dialogues will sometimes cross limits, and things will be said that aren’t true,” he said.

On the ongoing Israel-Palestine and Russia-Ukraine conflicts, he said, “War can be lost only if you’re fully invested in this. If you’re just putting your pocket money in it, nobody will win, and nobody will lose. It’s an enduring war.”

Many a fight, he said, were being fought over religion. “If we are fighting for land, we can sit down and negotiate. If we are fighting for economic wealth, we can sit down and do business somehow. But once you’re fighting for your god, there is no compromise because if you are making a deal, you’re forsaking your god so there is no compromise. If we take away that one thing, the number of conflicts on the planet will come down significantly,” he said.

Sadhguru also spoke about his various movements and how they were all connected. “I started with Project GreenHands, then Rally for Rivers, then Cauvery Calling, and now the Journey to Save Soil. Next year, we are rolling out Conscious Planet. Safe Soil and other moments were under its umbrella,” he said.