#460 – Narendra Modi: Prime Minister of India – Power, Democracy, War & Peace
Lex Fridman Podcast
Lex Fridman
4.7 • 13K Ratings
🗓️ 16 March 2025
⏱️ 206 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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Transcript:
https://lexfridman.com/narendra-modi-transcript
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Narendra Modi's Website: https://narendramodi.in/
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OUTLINE:
(00:00) - Introduction
(17:24) - Fasting
(29:42) - Early life
(41:38) - Advice to Young People
(47:20) - Journey in the Himalayas
(58:50) - Becoming a monk
(1:00:37) - RSS and Hindu nationalism
(1:08:22) - Explaining India
(1:12:32) - Mahatma Gandhi
(1:24:27) - Path to peace in Ukraine
(1:27:41) - India and Pakistan
(1:33:21) - Cricket and Football
(1:37:45) - Donald Trump
(1:48:56) - China and Xi Jinping
(1:56:01) - Gujarat riots in 2002
(2:11:37) - Biggest democracy in the world
(2:21:53) - Power
(2:26:39) - Hard work
(2:29:46) - Srinivasa Ramanujan
(2:31:53) - Decision-making process
(2:39:40) - AI
(2:49:55) - Education
(3:00:10) - Learning and focus
(3:06:01) - Mantra
(3:07:45) - Meditation
(3:13:43) - Lex visiting India
(3:18:08) - Siddhartha
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following is a conversation with Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India. |
| 0:07.4 | It was one of the most moving conversations and experiences of my life. |
| 0:13.3 | Allow me here to say a few words about it. Please skip ahead straight to our conversation |
| 0:19.1 | if you like. |
| 0:23.6 | Narendra Modi's life's story is incredible. |
| 0:30.8 | He rose from poverty to lead a nation of 1.4 billion people, the biggest democracy in the world, where he won epic-scale elections for prime minister three times. |
| 0:37.3 | As a leader, he fought for ideas that unite his |
| 0:40.3 | nation of India, a nation that is composed of a large number of highly varied and disparate cultures |
| 0:45.9 | and peoples who have a long history marked by religious, social, and political frictions. |
| 0:53.4 | He's known for taking decisive, at times controversial actions, |
| 0:57.7 | for which he's loved by hundreds of millions of people and is also criticized by many. |
| 1:04.3 | We discuss all of this at length in this conversation. |
| 1:08.7 | On the world stage, he is respected as a peacemaker and friend by most |
| 1:13.6 | major world leaders, even those whose nations are at war with each other, from United States |
| 1:19.7 | to China, to Ukraine and Russia, to Israel, Palestine, and the Middle East, and everywhere else. |
| 1:27.8 | Now, at this moment in history, it is clear, at least to me, that the flourishing of human |
| 1:34.0 | civilization hangs in the balance, with several wars on the brink of escalation to regional |
| 1:39.1 | and even global conflict, rising tensions between nuclear powers, technological developments from AI to nuclear fusion |
| 1:46.5 | that aim to completely transform society and geopolitics as we know it, and of course generally |
| 1:54.3 | increasing political and cultural turmoil. So now, more than ever, we need great leaders, great peacemakers, who build bridges, not destroy them, |
| 2:07.1 | who may preserve the identity of their nations, but still celebrate the common humanity of all of us, |
| 2:13.4 | all people on earth. For this and many other reasons, this conversation with Prime Minister |
... |
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