00:00Thank you, Sam.
00:16I'd like to welcome everybody, starting with Namaskar.
00:20Starting with Sam Pitroda ji, Aarti Krishna ji, Mohinder Singh ji, George Abraham ji,
00:31Pradeep Samla ji, Bhullar ji, Gurudev Hayar ji, leaders on the dais and dear members of
00:42IOC.
00:45Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to welcome all of you here and wish you happy Onam and
00:53happy Ganesh Chaturthi.
01:01I was listening to Mohinder ji's speech and he was describing in detail what the job of
01:11the leader of the opposition is.
01:14He said opposing the government in parliament, he said not letting them run a dictatorship
01:28and he gave a list of three or four things that are, that define what a leader of opposition
01:37is supposed to do.
01:42This is true.
01:44One can say that those are all elements of the job.
01:54But while he was speaking I was thinking to myself, actually that is not really my role.
02:02Those are maybe my responsibilities.
02:08But my role is broader and bigger than that and in many ways simpler than that.
02:15And while he was speaking I thought to myself, if I am going to speak to people of Dallas
02:21I need to be clear about what my role is.
02:25And so I'd like to tell you that I believe my role is injecting the values of love, respect
02:39and humility in Indian politics.
02:45I think what is missing in our political system and across parties, love, respect and humility.
03:00Love to all human beings, not necessarily only of one religion, one community, one caste,
03:14one state or to those who speak one language.
03:23Respect to everybody who is trying to build an India, not just the most powerful but the
03:38weakest and humility not in others but in oneself.
03:46So I think that is how I see my role.
03:51And if you were to ask me five years from now, do you consider yourself successful?
03:59I would look at these three things.
04:01I would say, have I helped bring the idea of love into the forefront of Indian politics?
04:06Have I helped make politicians and others and myself in particular more humble?
04:16Have I increased the respect that people have, that Indian people have with each other?
04:24Those would be the values that I would be thinking about.
04:27Of course what Mohinderji said would also form part of my work.
04:37Now we started here with the Indian National Anthem and while the National Anthem was playing,
04:48I was thinking to myself that this song mentions all our states and it mentions them all equally.
05:04It does not start by saying this state is the best and this state is the second best
05:11and this state is the third best.
05:13The song basically describes India as a union of states, very much like the United States.
05:24So people say, often people say, oh, we share the fact that we are the two biggest democracies
05:33but we share another very important fact that we are both union of states.
05:40The United States, the United States, whose National Anthem we also played and in our
05:51constitution it's clearly stated, India that is Bharat is a union of states.
05:58Which means, just like in the United States, no state is superior to any other state.
06:09No religion is superior to any other religion.
06:12No language is superior to any other language.
06:15My brother who's wearing a turban there deserves the same respect as somebody who doesn't wear a turban.
06:22We cannot say, we cannot say, look, we don't like him because he wears a turban and we
06:26like him because he doesn't wear a turban or, you know, he speaks Tamil so we don't
06:31like him and he speaks Hindi so we like him or, yeah, or you know, he speaks Malayalam
06:38so we don't like him.
06:44And so Telugu, because these are, see when we say Telugu, we are not just saying language.
06:57Embedded inside Telugu is history, is tradition, is music, is dance, is food, is everything.
07:07So if you say to the people of Andhra Pradesh that look, Telugu is not as important as Hindi,
07:18you're insulting the people of Andhra Pradesh.
07:21Because you're saying to them that your history is not important, your tradition is not important,
07:25your food is not important, your music is not important, your forefathers are not important.
07:32And this is the simple battle that is being fought in India.
07:37The RSS believes that India is one idea.
07:44And we believe that India is a multiplicity of ideas.
07:52And we believe, by the way, very much like the United States, we believe that everybody
08:01should be allowed to participate.
08:04We believe that everybody should be allowed to dream.
08:09Everybody should be given space, regardless of their caste, language, religion, tradition,
08:16history.
08:17This is the fight.
08:19And the fight was crystallized in the election.
08:23When millions of people in India clearly understood that the Prime Minister of India is attacking
08:33the constitution of India.
08:36Because what I am saying to you, union of states, respect to languages, respect to religions,
08:46respect to traditions, respect to castes, this is all in the constitution.
08:54Every single word that I have said to you is in the constitution.
08:57The foundation of modern India is the constitution.
09:05And what people understood in the election, clearly, and I saw it happening.
09:11When I used to raise the constitution like this, people understood what I was saying.
09:16They were saying that the BJP is attacking our tradition, attacking our language, attacking
09:24our states, attacking our histories.
09:29And most importantly, what they understood was that anybody who is attacking the constitution
09:39of India is also attacking our religious tradition.
09:48And that is why, in my first speech in parliament, you must have noticed, when I described Abhay
09:56Mudra, this, the fact that this is a symbol of fearlessness and it is present in every
10:03single Indian religion.
10:07You can look, you go on the internet and you can see, every single Indian religion, Guru
10:12Nanak Ji holds his hand like this, Shiva holds his hand like this.
10:17Every single Indian religion, the hand is a symbol of fearlessness.
10:22And when I was saying this, the BJP could not stand it.
10:28They don't understand.
10:31And we are going to make them understand.
10:34You see, and the other thing that happened, the other thing that happened that was very
10:40beautiful, that in fact I was amazed that it happened so quickly, was that fear of
10:49the BJP vanished, disappeared, gone.
10:55And we saw that immediately, within minutes of the election result, nobody in India was
11:05scared of the BJP or the Prime Minister of India.
11:10So these are huge achievements, not of Rahul Gandhi or the Congress party.
11:17We are peripheral.
11:18These are huge achievements of the people of India who realised, of democracy, of the
11:23people of India who realised that we are not going to accept an attack on our constitution,
11:29we are not going to accept an attack on our religion, we are not going to accept an attack
11:36on our states.
11:38Now, now finally, I am speaking to people in Dallas.
11:48And who are you?
11:50You are people who have come from India.
11:55The values that I have been describing, values of the constitution, values of respect, values
12:01of humility, you carry them inside your heart, you have them in your blood.
12:07So when you come, when you came to this country, you did not come with arrogance, you came
12:14with humility, you did not come with hatred, you came with love and affection.
12:20And you did not come with disrespect, saying that, you know, we have come to America and
12:23who are these people, we will show them.
12:25No, you came with respect.
12:28So inside your heart is respect, is love, humility.
12:38And you are our ambassadors in one way, you are the bridge between these two unions.
12:46United States of America and Union of States, which is written in our constitution.
12:52And so you have a very important role, because the relationship between these two unions
12:57is going to determine the future of both these unions.
13:03The United States needs India, and India needs the United States, it's a fact.
13:08We cannot get away from it.
13:10So you have a very important role of being the bridge between your old home and your
13:19new home.
13:23And in my view, you should travel freely between these two homes.
13:31And you should bring the idea of India to the United States and the ideas of the United
13:37States to India.
13:42Sam said that, I had promised that I will go to Dallas.
13:48And it's true.
13:52But I would like to say that our trip was supposed to be longer.
13:57And we were supposed to go to New York, Washington, California, and Texas, and then in Chicago,
14:06and then we had to shorten the trip.
14:09So I told Sam, look, I have promised the people of Dallas, so we have to go to Dallas.
14:16And so we included, we included Dallas in our itinerary.
14:22And I think it was a very good idea.
14:24100%, we'll come to Chicago, love you.
14:27And we included Dallas.
14:29And I think it was a very good idea because Dallas is thriving, Texas is thriving, a lot
14:36of technology is moving here.
14:38And I can see that all of you are doing a tremendous job in raising the flag, raising
14:45the Indian flag here.
14:46So I'd like to thank you.
14:50And I'd like to also tell you that it's important that the ideas you carry of humility, of affection,
15:00of respect, you spread them between in our community here, and also among the people
15:10of India.
15:11Thank you very much.
15:12Namaskar.
15:13Wow, what an inspirational speech, right?
15:25What was your take home point?
15:26There was something, three main things that he told us to keep and take home point, what
15:32is it?
15:33Three things.
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