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How to make peace? Get angry

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    Today, I am going to talk about anger.
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    When I was 11,
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    seeing some of my friends
    leaving the school
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    because their parents
    could not afford textbooks
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    made me angry.
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    When I was 27,
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    hearing the plight
    of a desperate slave father
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    whose daughter was about
    to be sold to a brothel
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    made me angry.
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    At the age of 50,
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    lying on a street,
    in the pool of blood,
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    along with my own son,
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    made me anrgy.
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    Dear friends, for centuries
    we were taught anger is bad.
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    Our parents, teachers, priests--
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    everyone taught us how to control
    and supress our anger.
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    But I ask why?
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    Why can't we convert our anger
    for the larger good of the society?
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    Why can't we use our anger
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    to challenge and change
    the evils of the world?
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    That I tried to do.
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    Friends,
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    most of the brightest ideas
    came to my mind out of anger.
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    Like when I was 35 and sat
    in a locked up, tiny prison.
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    The whole night, I was angry.
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    But it has given the birth
    of a new idea.
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    But I will come to that later on.
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    Let me begin with the story
    of how I got a name for myself.
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    I had been a big admirer of
    Mahatma Gandhi since my childhood.
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    Gandhi has fought and lead
    India's freedom movement.
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    But more importantly,
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    he has taught us how to treat
    the most vulnerable sections,
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    the most deprived people,
    with dignity and respect.
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    And so, when India was celebrating
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    Mahatma Gandhi 's birth centenary
    in 1969, at that time I was 15,
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    an idea came to my mind.
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    Why can't we celebrate it differently?
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    I knew, perhaps many of you
    might be knowing,
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    that in India, a large number of people
    are born in the lowest segment of caste.
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    And they are treated as untouchables.
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    These are the people --
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    forget about allowing them
    to go to the temples,
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    they cannot even go into the houses
    and shops of high-caste people.
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    So I was very impressed with
    the leaders of my town
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    who were speaking very highly against
    the caste system and untouchability
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    and talking of Gandhian ideals.
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    So inspired by that, I thought that
    let us set an example
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    by inviting these people to eat food
    cooked and served
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    by the untouchable community.
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    I went to some low-caste,
    so-called untouchable people,
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    tried to convince them.
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    But it was unthinkable for them.
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    They told me, "No, no. It's impossible.
    It never happens."
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    I said, "Look at these leaders.
    They're so great.
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    They're against untouchability.
    They will come.
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    If nobody comes, we can set an example."
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    These people thought that I am too naive.
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    Finally, they were convinced.
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    My friends and I took our bicycles
    and invited political leaders.
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    And I was so thrilled, rather, empowered
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    to see that each one of them
    agreed to come.
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    I thought, "This is a great idea.
    We can set an example.
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    We can bring about change in the society."
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    The day had come.
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    All these untouchables,
    three women and two men,
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    they agreed to come.
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    I could recall that they had used
    the best of their clothes,
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    they bought new utensils,
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    rather, they had taken bathes
    hundreds of times
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    because it was unthinkable
    for them to do.
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    It was the moment of change.
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    They gathered, food was cooked.
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    It was 7 o'clock.
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    By 8 o'clock, we kept on waiting,
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    because it's not very uncommon
    that the leaders become late,
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    for an hour or so.
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    So after 8 o'clock, we took our bicycles
    and went to these leaders' homes,
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    just to remind them.
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    One of the leader's wives told me,
    "Sorry, he is having some headache,
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    perhaps he cannot come."
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    I went to another leader and his wife
    told me, "Okay, you go,
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    he will definitely join."
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    So I thought that the dinner
    will take place,
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    though not at that large scale.
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    I went back to the venue, which was
    a newly-built Mahatma Gandhi park.
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    It was 10 o'clock.
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    None of the leaders showed up.
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    That made me angry.
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    I was standing, leaning against
    Mahatma Gandhi's statue.
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    I was emotionally drained,
    rather, exhausted.
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    Then, I sat down where
    the food was lying.
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    I kept my emotions hold (?).
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    But then, when I took the first bite,
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    I broke down in tears.
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    And suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder.
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    And it was the healing, motherly touch
    of an untouchable woman.
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    And she told me,
    "Kailash, why are you crying?
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    You have done your bit.
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    You have eaten the food
    cooked by untouchables,
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    which has never happened in our memory."
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    She said, "You won today."
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    And my friends, she was right.
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    I came back home, a little after midnight,
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    shocked to see that several
    high-caste elderly people
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    were sitting in my courtyard.
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    I saw my mother and
    elderly women were crying
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    and they were pleading
    to these elderly people
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    because they had threatened
    to out-caste my whole family.
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    And you know, out-casting the family
    is the biggest social punishment
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    one can think of.
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    Somehow they agreed to punish only me,
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    and punishment was the purification.
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    That means I had to go 600 miles
    away from my hometown
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    to River Ganges to take a holy dip.
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    And after that, I should organize a feast
    for priests, 101 priests,
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    wash their feet and drink that water.
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    It was total nonsense,
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    and I refused to accept that punishment.
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    How did they punish me?
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    I was barred from entering
    into my own kitchen
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    and my own dining room,
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    my utensils were separated.
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    But the night when I was angry,
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    they wanted to out-caste me.
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    But I decided to out-caste
    the entire caste system.
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    (Applause)
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    And that was possible because
    the beginning would have been
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    to change the family name, or surname,
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    because in India, most of the
    family names are caste names.
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    So I decided to drop my name.
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    And then, later on, I gave
    a new name to myself: Satyarthi,
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    that means, "seeker of truth."
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    (Applause)
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    And that was the beginning of my
    transformative anger.
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    Friends, maybe one of you can tell me,
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    what was I doing before becoming
    a child's rights activist?
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    Does anybody know?
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    No.
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    I was an engineer, an electrical engineer.
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    And then I learned how the energy
    of burning fire, coal,
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    the nuclear blast inside the chambers,
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    raging river currents,
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    fire vents (?)
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    could be converted into the light
    and lives of millions.
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    I also learned how the most
    uncontrollable form of energy
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    could be harnessed for good
    and making society better.
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    So, I'll come back to the story
    when I was caught into the prison:
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    I was very happy freeing
    a dozen children from slavery,
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    handing them over to their parents.
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    I cannot explain my joy
    when I free a child
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    and I was so happy.
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    But when I was waiting for my train
    to come back to my hometown, Delhi,
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    I saw that dozens of children
    were arriving,
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    they were being trafficked by someone.
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    I stopped them, those people,
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    I complained to the police.
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    So the policeman, instead of helping me,
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    they threw me in this small,
    tiny shell, like an animal.
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    And that was the night of anger
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    when one of the brightest ideas was born.
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    I thought that if I keep on
    freeing 10 children,
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    then 50 more will join.
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    That's not (?)
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    And I believed in the power of consumers,
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    and let me tell you that this
    was the first time
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    when a campaign was launched by me
    or anywhere in the world,
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    to educate and sensitize the consumers
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    to create a demand a demand for
    child-labor free rugs.
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    In Europe and America,
    we have been successful.
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    And it has resulted in the fall
    in child-labor
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    in South Asian countries by 80 percent.
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    (Applause)
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    Not only that, but this first-ever
    consumer's power, or consumer's campaign
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    has grown in other countries
    and other industries,
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    maybe chocolate, maybe apples,
    maybe shoes -- it has gone beyond.
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    My anger at the age of 11,
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    when I realized that how important
    education is for every child,
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    I got an idea to collect used books
    and help the poorest children.
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    I created a book bank at the age of 11.
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    But I did not stop.
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    Later on, I co-founded the world's
    single largest civil society campaign
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    for education that is the
    Global Campaign for Education.
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    That has helped in changing
    the whole thinking towards education
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    from the charity-mode
    to the human rights-mode.
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    And that is concretely helped
    the reduction of out-of-school children
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    by half in the last 15 years.
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    (Applause)
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    My anger at the age of 27,
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    to free that girl who was about
    to be sold to a brothel,
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    has given me an idea to go
    for a new strategy
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    of raid and reduce,
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    freeing children from slavery.
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    And I am so lucky and proud to say
    that it is not one or 10 or 20,
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    but my collegues and me
    have been able
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    to physically liberate 83,000 child slaves
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    and hand them back to their
    families and mothers.
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    (Applause)
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    I knew that we need global policies,
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    we organized the worldwide marches
    against child labor
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    and that has also resulted in
    a new international convention
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    to protect the children
    who are in worst forms.
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    And the concrete result was that
    the number of child labors globally
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    has gone down by one third
    in the last 15 years.
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    (Applause)
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    So, in each case,
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    it was anger -- it began from anger,
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    turned into an idea,
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    and action.
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    So anger, what next?
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    Idea, and..
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    Audience: action
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    Kailash: Anger, Idea, Action,
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    which I tried to do.
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    Anger is a power, anger is an energy,
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    and the law of nature is that energy
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    can never be created a
    nd can never be vanished,
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    can never be destroyed.
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    So why can't the energy of anger
    be translated and harnessed
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    to create and better
    and more beautiful world,
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    a more just and equitable world?
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    Anger is within each one of you,
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    and I will share a secret
    for a few seconds:
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    that if we are confined in
    the narrow shells of egos,
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    and the circles of selfishness,
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    than the anger will turn out to be
    hatred, violence, revenge, destruction.
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    But if we are able to break the circles,
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    than the same anger could turn
    into a great power.
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    We can break the circles by using
    out inherent compassion
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    and connect with the world
    through this compasison
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    to make the world better.
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    That same anger could be
    transformed into it.
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    So dear friends, sisters and brothers,
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    again, as a Nobel Laureate,
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    I am urging you to become angry.
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    I am urging you to become angry.
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    And the angriest among us is the one
    who can transform his anger
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    into idea and action.
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    Thank you so much.
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    (Applause)
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    Chris Anderson: For many years,
    you've been an inspiration to others.
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    Who or what inspires you and why?
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    Kailash Satyarthi: Good question,
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    Chris let me tell you,
    and that is the truth,
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    each time when I free a child,
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    the child that has lost all his hope
    that he will ever come back to his mother,
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    the first smile of freedom,
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    and the mother who has lost all the hope
    that the son or daughter
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    can ever come back and sit in her lap,
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    they become so emotional
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    and the first tear of joy
    rolls down on her cheek,
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    I see the glimpse of God in it,
    this is my biggest inspiration.
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    And I am so lucky that not once,
    as I said before,
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    but thousands of times,
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    I have been able to witness my God
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    in the faces of those children
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    and they are my biggest inspirations.
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    (Applause)
Title:
How to make peace? Get angry
Speaker:
Kailash Satyarthi
Description:

more » « less
Video Language:
English
Team:
closed TED
Project:
TEDTalks
Duration:
18:29
  • The English transcript was updated on 4/17/2015. At 12:43, "maybe chocolate, maybe apples, maybe shoes -- it has gone beyond." was changed to "maybe chocolate, maybe apparel, maybe shoes -- it has gone beyond."

English subtitles

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