 Lovely to see you and thank you. Thank you for coming yesterday. No, I don't because I felt that it's my duty as an Indian to voice my anguish, my apprehension that what's happening. And before coming I was just looking through the pages. There's a big book I have in your grandfather's name. And I was looking through that and I know you, this 2,800 kilometers is nothing. You walk through sweat, tears and blood, literally. And we have seen history happen from the inner circle. I watched it from the outer circle. So walking with you, if I don't come with you, it's not fair. My nephew's a photographer. So I said, listen, I want to give a little present to my friend Kamal Hassan. And I said, give me a picture, one of your pictures as a gift to him. So I want you to guess what he came up with. What picture do you think he gave me? I don't know. Let's go and see it. Oh, it's here. Tell me what Kamal is, right? And so this is what he gave me. Oh, he shot this? And that's for you because it tells us your approach, your attitude to life and the fact that you're a great Indian and a great Tamil. Thank you. And we're proud of you. Thank you. It looks nice, huh? I'm quite interested in how you see what is going on in India. Of course, an Indian person, but also a Tamil person because the view from South India often looks very different. It is. Then the view from North India. I'm sure it is the same from Assam or Meghalaya. The same, exactly. At the capital. We forget history and we are only agitated by the topical or recent happenings. I talk a lot about Gandhiji now. It is not right from the beginning. My father was a congressman, but my environment made me a bitter critic of Gandhiji when I was in my teens. My father did not say, he said, just read history. I think you're talking from today. Yeah. Yeah, but today matters. This is my question. He's a lawyer and he didn't argue with me on this case. Around 24-25, I discovered Gandhiji on my own and over the years, exponentially, I've become a fan. And that's me to explain myself. To actually correct yourself and say sorry. That's why I made Heiram, a film where I played a parallel assassin wanting to kill Gandhiji. And as he goes nearer to the person and the truth, he changes. But it's too late. Somebody else does the job that he wanted to do, but he changes his mind. That's the story of Heiram. So did you came up with the idea? Yes. That is my way of saying sorry to my father. Excellent. That's quite a sort of sophisticated, intelligent way of looking at the problem. Yeah, because I have to take the owners of all the crimes, including what happened in your family. We let it happen. But I think inside what you're saying is hatred is actually blindness and misunderstanding. Yes. And the worst form of criticism is an assassination. I think that's very cheap. It's a coward. A coward does that because he has no other way to fight. That cannot be the answer. So what's your view then of the violence and the hatred that is being spread in the country? I mean, I view it as a consequence of the fear that is being spread in the country. No, this is actually a synthetic, reproduced... Manufactured. I don't think so because going to Kerala, more than Tamil Nadu, you will find amity prevails unless you doctor it. You can do it from either side. I think there are more sides to it than just Hindu and Muslim. We have to look at all that and understand that this country will flourish only with this plurality. As a person who loves Tamil Nadu, loves the Tamil people, whenever I go there, I try to understand slightly better what exactly is the Tamil idea. So as somebody who is looking at it from far, what does it mean to be Tamil? I know that the Tamil language is important. What does it actually mean? It means the same as wanting to be a Maharashtrian or Telugu or a Malayali. We all have a pride, but I must say something about Tamil Nadu. They always feel that it's an island with parochial mindset and language chauvinism. Everybody is proud about their language, but I can tell you, you can go to a village, any village or town, my town, and just stand in the middle of the road and shout, Nehru, a dark man will turn around or you say Bose, somebody will turn around and he doesn't look anything like Nehruji or Boseji and you'll find Gandhi, many Gandhi. That is the mindset and at a particular point they felt there was apathy from the centre. That happens every time. It will happen with every government. They are now unhappy with what is happening now, but that's not permanent. If you can approach it like you're doing it now. The reason why I want to celebrate your walk is that reaching out to the people and lending the ear instead of standing on a podium and lecturing. That's commendable from your side. But my experience when I go to Tamil Nadu is that they express themselves in a very passionate, it's different expression. So if you go to Maharashtra, people show affection, but the way the Tamil show affection is something completely different. I get that feeling when I go there and I always wonder, what is that exactly? Why such strong affection or strong expression or so passionate? It's part of the culture. It's a very old culture and they've seen wars in battles. They've learnt a lot from Jainism, Buddhism. It's a mixture of everything. That kind of affection was enjoyed by Kamarajji, MGR, all those leaders. They are moved to tears, laughter, screaming when they see the man of the... I think around the country it's like that with variations. And also the Tamil language is very important to them. Yes, I think even non-religious, godless people celebrate Tamil and worship Tamil. So you said you're doing this fashion business and so you know a lot about what is going on in the rest of the world. How do you see the United States, China, these countries? How do you see India's place in all this? Nowhere less than them, but we should walk the talk. Like you're doing, every Indian must walk the talk. I want to be or simply resigning ourselves to calling it a third world country. You can't do that anymore. That's blasphemy. And you said in our earlier discussion that production has a lot to do with it. The ability to produce something and sell it outside India, not just in India. We have a toddy mindset because you can't bottle it as we had then and there. We are in G20 not because of one government, successive governments and whatever good they could do, that has accumulated and come to this day. So we are aware of that and you are talking about China, I want you to say more. The security of the country both internal and external, your opinion on it. I was speaking to some ex-servicemen the other day when I was mentioning to them that security today in the 21st century, it's not good enough just to say okay, what do our borders look like? Because security today has become a holistic thing. You don't necessarily get attacked from the borders. You can get attacked from inside. You can get attacked by cyber weapons. You can get attacked by use of your media. So in the 21st century, one has to have a global view about security. And that's where I think our government has completely gone and miscalculated. We constantly hear about what is going on on the border. And the fact of the matter is that China has taken 2,000 kilometers of our territory, square kilometers. And frankly, we haven't said anything. The Prime Minister hasn't said anything. The military has clearly said that they are sitting in our territory, but the Prime Minister said nobody has come. This sends a very clear message to China. And the message is we can do whatever we want and India will not respond. And in fact, in some of the conversations that they are having with our military, they are actually making the statement that look, your Prime Minister himself has said we are not in your territory. So what is the conversation about? That's one aspect of it. To them it will look like we are whistling in the dark to Aleph here. No, imagine if you are the leader and your forces and my forces are negotiating and your forces are coming and saying you are in my territory and then I say no, no, but your leader has said we are not. So it destroys the entire negotiation position of India. So that's one aspect of it. The second aspect of it is how conflict has been transformed. And conflict has been transformed because earlier you fought on a border. Now you fight everywhere. So you fight by shutting down power stations. You can fight by attacking the railway system. You can fight by militarily attacking. And the oldest trick is to contaminate the border. So you can do that. So the single most important thing in the 21st century is that a country has internal cohesion, that there's harmony in the country, that people are not fighting, that there's peace in the country and the country has a vision. The point is not going to war, right? The point is being in a position where you cannot be attacked. And there's a link between a weak economy, a confused nation without vision, hatred and anger and the Chinese sitting in our territory. Because they know that we are dealing with internal matters, internal confusion, an internal lack of harmony. And so they can just go in and do whatever they want. So that's one element of the problem. The other huge element of the problem is what has happened in Ukraine, right? And essentially what the Russians have done in Ukraine is they've said, look, we will not accept that the Ukrainians have a strong relationship with the West. And they've basically told the Ukrainians, if you have a strong relationship with the West, we will alter your geography. And that is the exact same principle that can be applied in India. What the Chinese are saying to us is be careful with what you're doing because we will alter your geography. We will enter Ladakh, we will enter Arunachal. And what I can see is them building a platform for that type of an approach. So as an Indian person, I don't want to be somebody who's warmongering but I would like our country to be aware that there are real problems on the border and those problems on the border are connected to what is going on inside our country. When Indian fights Indian, when the economy doesn't work, when there's joblessness, our external opponents can take advantage of that situation. It's an opportune moment of distracted. So one of the things that we've constantly telling our government is talk about it. If you don't want to talk through the media, at least talk to the opposition. We understand these things. We might be able to help you, advise you, bounce ideas off us, but they just don't listen. So it's the approach that we understand everything. The other aspect of it, which you touched on, is that frankly there's no one who can compete with China. I do not believe that on production, as far as the economics is concerned, I do not believe that the West can take on the Chinese. I believe that India can take on the Chinese. We have the population. We have the population. We have the people. What do you need to take on the Chinese? You need a young population. You need large numbers of people. You need a large educated base. Compared to China, our population is younger. Exactly. And if you see the West, and this might be a bit controversial, but they've got too much. They're flabby. They're living in opulence. They live on. And they're outsourced. And they're outsourced. Whereas our people, they know what a struggle is. They understand difficulty. So I think as an Indian person, I see a huge opportunity for India to become like China, the producer of the world. And of course the West has a space, which is high-end manufacturing, high-technology, et cetera, et cetera, which they're very good at. They'll dominate. And we should try and challenge them on that. But I do not think they can compete with China on the large-scale manufacturing, blue-collar work. And I think that's the tragedy that we are walking on these streets. You walk with us. And all our children are saying, we are unemployed. When, in fact, we could have huge amounts of employment through our agricultural system, through sort of manufacturing. The constant neglect of agriculture is disgruntled many families. They're voiced. They came here. They didn't even get an audience. India has skills. And it has skills everywhere. I always say that the next Satyagraha is the skillset development for India. Because making thousands of lawyers who won't get a job, thousands of engineers who won't find a job, instead, if you develop their skills, they can have their degree, but perceive their passion. Instead of me talking about other subjects generally, let me talk about where I come from, the film industry. But the number of training facilities, 200 jobs in air film, and there's no ITI for that. So what it is, right, is actually a disrespect of skills. You will not respect the person's skill and then say, okay, as the nation, how do we empower this person's skills? So I give you the example of Bellary, right, which is the genes capital of India. Now Bellary should be exporting genes to the rest of the world, should be exporting different types of genes, should be innovating on genes. Bellary has been shut down because of demonetization and wrongly applied GST. And you've literally taken a hub which could challenge the Chinese across the world in making genes and you've destroyed it. It used to have 4.5 lakh people working there, now it has 50,000. Like something like what you're doing with Khadi, right? I mean, who would know that that's a Khadi jacket? Nobody. More than the publicity of it, the reach of it. And Americans are loving it. And then you got the history of Khadi, right? Because if you start to say, well, this is Khadi from the Indian freedom movement, this is made by Indian people by hand, this is what fought the superpower, you can make a beautiful story out of it. Yes. And it's not done in a modern factory. It's done by people sitting in villages and handmade, you know. I am very happy and honored to be sort of partnering with these people who've been neglected. They're almost on the verge of closing down and going back thanks to GST. So how many people now are working there? We have started, like we have not started a full fledged tailoring system because we don't have, we only have 12 outlets and we can supply with a number of tailors. But the number of weavers are many. They are in Telangana, Karim Nagar and we are sourcing it. We are going even to Kutch and other places so that we can bring India together. So that's, it was very nice of you to come, I must say. I, you know, with all the situation and BJP and sort of the ability they have to coerce, I think it's also a brave thing. You know, that's why, I think that's why he, that's why he gave, he came up with that idea of the picture. No, no, we have. It's not easy. I'm glad he thinks of me that way but I still remember the speech by Gandhi Ji when he said, shake the lion's mane for which he was incarcerated. So we have the strength and ability but I'm happy that you're meeting people, you know, the autistic jujutsu, walking miles and miles and miles. It's nice. And because you're doing exactly what Gandhi Ji did to understand the nation before fighting for it. No, it's actually, it's quite a fantastic experience so I remember walking from Tamil Nadu into Kerala. It's completely different. Yeah. And as you said, it's changed but then it's the same. So there's huge commonality and then there's huge difference. That's the individuality of it. The duality that we should not lose at all. And I think a lot of what we traditionally have is also the artisan, the small and medium person, you know, the little clusters who have huge skill but they are sort of hidden away, hidden treasures so to speak. Yeah, I think it's very important that a government in position should bolster like farmers during the Gajah calamity. For them, after some time, party affiliations don't matter. The calamity that they're facing is... The pain is... The most important thing, it doesn't matter. And politicians always go and talk about the next election and their trajectory is towards that and that they don't like. They don't, they can't tend to take the eyes of it, the politicians. I find that. And I get criticized a lot, you know, sometimes where they're like, oh, you know, he's not, you know, he's not election centric. I mean, I think, of course, one has to fight elections. One has to be in politics. One has to take them seriously. But there's also another role of people. There's a role of bringing people together, of listening, of being affectionate. You know, that role, I think, is a very important role. What we have done through our party is that simply sort of wipe the dust away from the Gram Sabha and brought it back into... Now it's happening because we are attending and now we want to take it into the towns. I think people should participate in politics, not necessarily electoral politics only. Exactly. But they must have a firm say that politicians will have to understand it's not all about number crunching, that they'll have to answer certain things. And people should also feel that I can vent or complain. I can say something. And politicians should also feel that I can take some punishment. You know, he's shouting at me, okay, no problem. I did something wrong. I go and listen to what he's doing. What he's saying. I think that's... You know, people don't like criticism. I think, I think, that's a good thing. I think we are a very young democracy still in spite of 75 years. The reminiscence of the monarchy is still in our mind. That's a profound thing you've said. It's true. It's still... They want loyalty. And politicians who are in power want to somewhere behave like a king. Because we are not... It's not too far behind an history that we had princely states. 70 years, yeah. But I think if you look, a lot of sort of our chief ministers and leaders, the approach is that of a king. You know, you look like unilateral decisions. I will do whatever I want, not taking into account what people feel, not listening. I think there's quite a lot of that. Yeah, and they are offended when you call them a civil servant. I'm not a civil servant. I'm in position, I'm in power. But that's what we are, ultimately. It should be a position of honor rather than position to serve. The trusty idea of Mahatma Gandhi. Over the time, I'm looking for people who are at least assemblages of that in them because it's unique. He's a tall international figure. And that we realize when he's not there. Well, anyway, I won't keep you. No, no, I'm keeping you. It's lovely to see you. And whenever you're in Delhi, you know, next time, maybe we go and have a meal or something. Yeah, sure, sure. Yeah, I'd love to do that. And I'd like you to look into our thing I've sent to you. I will, I will. And your measurement. I will 100%. We'd like to dress you up. Okay, I'll do that. Thank you. Thank you for the time.