Grubstakers - Episode 28: Baba Ramdev

Episode Date: August 13, 2018

Baba Ramdev is in the hot seat this episode. He's been linked to the BJP party in India, his Patanjali products have been bought around the world, but are they manufactured with no malicious intent? We answer these questions any many more right here on Grubstakers. Also some discussion of his partner billionaire Acharya Balkrishna

Hey everyone, this is Yogi. Thanks for checking out Grubstakers, the podcast about billionaires. Today we're going to be covering Ramde Baba, the Patanjali guru, the Jack LaLanne of India, the man that my mom and many other Indian people love. Unfortunately, I'm now going to be exiled from India, so enjoy this episode. It was a sacrifice on my part. I think we disproportionately stop whites too much. I taught those kids lessons on product development and marketing, and they taught me what it was like growing up feeling targeted for your race.

I am proud to be gay. I am proud to be a Republican. You know, I went to a tough school in Queens, and they used to beat up the little Jewish boys. You know, I love having the support of real billionaires. Five, four, three, two... Hello, welcome back to Grubstakers, the podcast about billionaires. Sean P. McCarthy here, joined by... Steve Jeffries. Andy Palmer.

Yogi Poliwal. And this week we're taking a look at Baba Ramdev. This is our first Indian billionaire we're looking at, you know, until we do our Yogi Poliwal episode. This episode was requested by a billion people, Sean. Baba Ramdev is... One for each dollar. Yeah. Well, so, and his net worth is,

it's, I guess, controversial to call him a billionaire because... Yes, yes it is. As a, what's his exact title? Or a Baba? That's his religious title? Yeah, so it's less religious and more he's a spiritual guru,

healer, practitioner, wrestler like it's like it's not technically speaking he does everything but i think baba is the best way to put it right but so he has so forbes in 2016 estimated his net worth at about two and a half billion dollars but he himself has told bloomberg his net worth is quote zero and then he also told the new york time that new york times that he doesn't even have a bank account because he abides by the monk's vow of austerity and chastity uh though uh the company that he is a co-founder of which we will talk about in a minute apparently takes care of like all his expenses yeah and like the this new york Times reporter went out to visit him,

and he's in this mansion with armed guards and stuff. We're just there. Right. Just like anybody with net worth zero lives behind a fence with armed guards. Right, right. You know how the nicest people in the world have armed guards at their side at all times? You know, I have just realized prisoners do technically qualify under that definition. I was going to say.

But so, Baba Ramdev, the New York Times has also compared him to the American preacher Billy Graham because of, you know, he was a political preacher, essentially, like just quoting from the New York Times, Ramdev has been compared to Billy Graham, the Southern Baptist firebrand who advised several American presidents and energized the Christian right. The parallel makes some sense. Ramdev has been a prominent voice on the Hindu right and has and his tacit endorsement during the 2014 campaign helped bring Prime Minister Modi to power, the current prime minister of India. Yeah, I mean, the thing is, is that televangelism is a very perfect example of how Ramdebaba advertises who and what he is.

We'll get more into this in a moment. But the reality is that he has a large platform where he's talking to an international community at this point, whether it indians in india or outside there's a lot of followers of his brand and his uh entity and um he has a lot of sway politically because he is a self-proclaimed no value no net worth no anything and it's like wow i'll follow that guy to the end of the world what does that really mean america well it's interesting like in the new york times i read this new york times a long piece about him I'll link to in the Tumblr. I believe it's The Secret Billionaire Yogi Behind Modi's Rise, the other one. But so the piece, they quote a bunch of people on background because it seems like a lot of people in India, even like powerful business people are just straight up afraid of the dude. Yeah, I think so.

Unfortunately, we are complicating Yogi's return to India with this episode. Well, what are you going to do? What are they afraid he's going to do? Well, calm them down way too much. They think they're going to force him to do yoga, man. Breathing

exercises. Watch the fuck out, bro. Reincarnate backwards. I do not want to breathe through my sternum. He's going to do his wrestling moves on them. But no, so there's, and again, we'll get to this later. There's a biography on him that was banned last year in India. Right. And the biographer ties him to three mysterious

deaths that again, he's not been charged with anything, but these may or may not have been people that he conceivably had murdered. So we'll talk a bit more about that. Or super calm. They are not dead. Or maybe we

won't talk about it. We can rethink this entire project. I like the idea of him having them murdered and then reincarnated as something really shitty. Yeah, not only did his goons shoot you to death, but then they made you an earthworm. Right, right, right. But so I guess...

The other thing about Ramdebaba is that he's not just a televangelist. He's also like a Jack LaLanne type. Right. He is a spiritual healer who talks about Ayurvedic methods of breathing exercises and yoga. And this is the part that unfortunately is good about him. He does preach healthy lifestyle habits that can make you more flexible and make you live longer. Right.

Like being straight. He is adamantly against homosexuality, and he believes that yoga can cure homosexuality, which many people in the West would argue the opposite. But he also believes that breathing exercises can cure hypertension right and hiv oh really yeah he believes uh yoga that's how i cured it hiv cancer um yeah so i mean although that maybe he just he believes yoga can cure hiv by making you not gay anymore but breathing deeply and stretching are in general really good for you. I mean, that's the thing.

So. That's like, it's, you know. There's like a kernel of wisdom. Yes. But who's going to pay you billions of dollars to be like, yeah, just breathe deep and stretch. You'll feel better. He's very popular. Yeah.

Like, people love him. I was in Manhattan. I take a cab here. And the guy was Sikh. He was from Punjab. And I asked him, hey, do you know Bob Aram? He's like, of course. Like, he was mad.

Forget about it. He thought I didn't know about this guy. He was like, what are you, not brown? Look at you. I'm like, what? Of course I know this guy. Yeah, well, it's interesting. And again, like, I read the New York Times long profile.

There's also a Bloomberg profile of him. And both of them essentially make the argument that kind of his yoga practices, he uses it as a way to impart Hindu nationalism, where he like, you know, ties yoga into these ancient Hindu traditions and says, you know, like, this is how we get the Western colonizers out. And this is how we separate ourselves from, you know, the Muslims among others. So it is kind of just like a way of, you know, the yoga and the breathing exercises might be perfectly fine, but he kind of wraps them in a nationalist cloak of like, this is what makes us Indian. This is what makes us Hindu and better than others, you know. Which is what I've been saying all along.

So I don't know why I'm not a billionaire as well. It explains why all my exes really hated Pakistan. But so I guess we can talk quickly about the company that he co-founded and then we'll kind of go through his biography in general chronological order. So the company is called and I'm glad Yogi is here to make

fun of me as I attempt this Patanjali Ayurved. I don't think you need Yogi here to make fun of you as i attempt this uh patanjali iu iurved i don't think you need yogi here for that pronunciation it's like you got it not wrong but you did it so slow because of your fear it's i was like yeah no i like that i just pronounced it like a condescending white girl on vacation is it patanjali iu verde he repeated to his concierge in the hotel who despises him. But yeah, so Panchali. And so this is a company that he co-founded with a guy named Achara Bhakrishna.

And Achara is actually a verified billionaire on Forbes. So this is, again, Baba Ramdev's co-founder of this company. And according to Forbes, this guy, Echada, has a $6.9 billion net worth U.S. dollars as of July. And that's because Echada owns 98.6% of the company, Panjali.

98.6% because, of course, Baba Ramdev, because of his vow of austerity or poverty or whatever, can't really officially own the company. Right. But again, from these New York Times, Bloomberg profiles, it's pretty clear that almost everybody within the company defers to him. Yes. And treats him as the actual leader of it.

In one of the Forbes profiles I saw on him that there was a building that was one of his partners, and in every room there's a giant portrait of Baba Ramdev. And that's like straight dictator, I own the fucking universe type of shit. It's not a cult. No, no. And here's the thing. I had a vested interest of like,

hey, are my parents dabbling in a cult? Because it seems like it can be. And from our stereotypes of what a cult are in this country, it's a brown dude telling you to stretch before you have punched. Like, I mean, like that's what we look at it as. Well, that was basically what Rajesh Purim was. Yeah. Right. It's just that Ramdev, unlike Rajesh Purim, didn't have... Can you explain Rajesh Purim was. Yeah. Right. It's just that Ramdev, unlike Rajesh Purim,

didn't have... Can you explain Rajesh Purim? Rajesh Purim was a movement that came out of India. I guess Rajesh was the name of the guy who...

I believe it's Rajneesh. Rajneesh was the name of the guy who started it. And then eventually they decided that they were going to form their own quasi-Jones town

in Oregon. And they tried to make their own town... Justones town in Oregon. And they tried to make their own town. Just watch Wild Country on Netflix. Yeah, the Netflix doc is about, yeah. Yeah, and then they ended up, while trying to disenfranchise, they tried to get this vote to make a town theirs

both by importing homeless people and then also poisoning salad bars in the local town so that the locals couldn't vote. Right. And then they ended up, they decided that the homeless people were too problematic and would like just drop them off outside of vans. And if anyone argued, they'd point guns at them. I haven't seen Wild West Country yet, but I do know because I've read some of that stuff. Because my parents, that guy later on goes by Osho and his writings are very interesting

as well. You didn't come across that bad compared to this one lady. You mean Ariana Huffington? Yeah. Who was a follower of Rodney's firm. A part of some of the issues with that was that

white Oregon residents were like, fuck this noise oh yeah uh brown people living life and preaching spirituality and shit not in my fucking neighborhood so there is i mean they did some some of the members did some very fucked up things including poisoning and and the homeless people uh stuff but a good chunk of the racism that they dealt with was uh also part of the reason why it was so unfortunate. Yeah, no one really came out of that documentary looking good. Except, interestingly enough,

the leader looked okay. At least compared to all the horrible people. No, but you know what? There's a lot of sex scandals. The thing is that these people do this thing and one thing I really want to address on this podcast episode is that Rami Baba does some terrible things and some okay things, but it's not him that you should necessarily worry about but it's copycat people

like them to have even more malicious intent because right now this guy's you know has over a billion dollars net worth from making products and claiming that he doesn't own the company when he really does so that he can advertise them without having to pay taxes on it. It's such a beautifully hurtled loopholes of what's going on. But think about how many people in the U.S. can be swindled by, I don't know, like an Alex Jones type. It's the same fucking thing. Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Well, and so just to circle back to the company Patanjali, they got, according to the New York Times, $1.6 billion in sales in fiscal year 2017. And interestingly enough, to show you the sway, in May 2017, there was a survey of consumers in India reporting that Patanjali was the most trusted brand in the entire country. Yep. And this is after we'll kind of get into, but there've been a couple of different scandals as to among other things, human DNA being in the products, just like, and again from the New York times studies have found some of the products

contain toxic levels of heavy metals, usually from soil or ash in the mix. You know, and so, you know, and so... You know, the human DNA thing doesn't really bother me, because the thing about DNA is, like, if someone's handling it, there's going to be human DNA. Well, it was like... It doesn't necessarily mean they're

throwing people in the meat grinders. But the heavy metals, though. Yeah, the heavy metals, though. That's fucked up. And Modi himself has endorsed this. Prime Minister Modi of India has said, Ramdev's herbs help you overcome all problems. Oh, my God. End quote.

Oh, my God. But so I guess if we want to get into his general biography, and then we'll kind of circle back to Hindu nationalism, Baba Ramdev, according to the New York Times profile, he was born in a poor farm family. Both his parents were farmers. And profile, he was born in a poor farm family. Both his parents were farmers. And they believe he was born in 1965. But it is interesting where, like,

nobody for sure knows exactly when he was born. He grew up in poverty. And he's kind of kept a lot of his early life shrouded in secrecy. When he was born, the the medical records in india are not well they haven't been as well kept as they are in this country so that's also a reason why they don't know how old he is but we do know that he he worked in the fields from the new york times and he suffered a series of like different accidents and illnesses um he uh has a scar on his forehead from a fall when he was three or four years old

he fell into a pond and nearly drowned and then he got an illness that paralyzed the left side of his face giving him like a permanent kind of squint which apparently the other kids uh mocked him for um and uh those indian kids man fucking they see an ailment. They'll go at you, man. So it is pretty funny. What if they're like, the kids were like, no, no, we were punching up because we knew he would become a billionaire, possibly corrupt, linked to three murders. So you see. He's in the warrior cast, too. Yeah, that's right.

Oh, yeah, yeah, that's right. His caste, we believe, is Yadev. Yeah, Devangari is the name, yeah. So what are the castes? Brahman's the highest. Brahman's the highest. There are, I believe... Man, why are we talking about caste on this fucking podcast?

Because we're talking about this guy's cast. Because we agree with it. It's a weird thing to talk about. It is pretty weird. Because we want to institute it in the U.S. Yeah, when we're talking about those countries that have other systems rather than economic net worth to divide people into casts. If anyone's wondering the social context here, Yogi's got Brahman guilt. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Why we got to air my dirty laundry in the fucking podcast, huh? Well, we could circle back to the cast. But it is like something that's been talked about is how Baba Ramdev, because he was of a lower caste, kind of helped the Hindu nationalist parties such as BJP appeal to mid-caste and lower-caste people when they were traditionally for the, primarily supported by the higher caste, the Brahmin and such. So Brahmin's is the top, and then his class, the Kshatriyas, is second. And then it's Vaishyas, which is farmers, traders, and merchants,

Shudras, the laborers, and then Dalits, who are the untouchables, the outcasts. He's the second caste? He's second highest, yeah. So it's sort of like the car dealership owner appealing to working class people on behalf of the Republicans. It's more like the king's warriors are telling the peasants and the untouchables and the merchants, listen to us.

We know better than the king. Right. Yeah, I'm not taking any of that shit from a sports authority manager. But what they're also saying is, as a small business owner. Yeah, sure, sure. a small business owner yeah sure sure well that that is one of the things where pathangeli like the big claim about it was like you know that people were very critical and they ridiculed what they were trying to do but they were like fuck colgate like that's they came out swinging you know and because a large population of the fans of bombay are so um indoctrinated in his everything even if the product let's say was 50 times shittier

let alone you know fda issues like let's say it was like literally the worst shit ever i don't even think these people would bother they would be like well i love this shit so i'm gonna rock this shit i mean like it's just branding they love him and they love the stuff that he makes well yeah it is interesting. He appeals to nationalism to sell his products by, you know, tying, you know, Colgate or these other internationals to, like, the British East India Company and saying, you know, these multinationals are, like, poisoning people in India, which, I mean, they are, but...

Yeah, oh, yeah. But so, oh, yeah, he had just, like, this fun quote that he said, Patanjali will, quote, shut the gate in Colgate. It will make the birds in the Nestle logo fly away. Yeah. Just like that kind of stuff. Yeah, that's the thing.

It's very like poetic type of like, we can be stronger than them when we're together. But really, it's give me your money, what tiny amount of money you have, so I can have armed guards and promote peace. So you're saying his slogan could be onward together? Yeah, I think it could. And so just to kind of continue on this biography, according to the New York Times, he read about yoga in a book, he told the New York Times. He read about yoga in a book, he told the New York Times, and then he started practicing it in order to fortify his weak body because of these childhood illnesses and the like. And he says as a teenager, he left home for a gurukul. Do you know what that is, Yogi? It's basically like a training school for people that want to go down the Ayurvedic road of

becoming yogis and spiritual healers and stuff, I believe. And again, the... It sounded like Guru-kul, which is like, we got to call the gurus there. I mean, essentially, it's where they learn to be better, you know? It's a type of... They're eating all the crops. This is from Wikipedia. This is a type of residential education system in ancient India. So it's like boarding

school for spirituality that's what a girl cool is you got to bring like 10 people to watch you be a guru hey we got to bring a girl cool coming out here five dollar cover two drink minimum but you know it's a good show all right so he guru Being a guru is like 90% grinding. But so, and again, according to the New York Times and other publications, this space in his life is kind of blank. From when he leaves home as a teenager in the late 70s, early 80s, Ramdev meets his business partner, Balkrishna, around 1990, when they were both students at a traditional religious school in the north of India.

This is according to Bloomberg. Ramdev became a teacher, but according to an authorized biography, he actually left his job in remorse after an incident in which he savagely

beat a student. Oh, really? Yeah. They don't really elaborate on that, but... Yeah, this article from the Times of India talks about...

You're not Zen enough! It says that he was so inspired by... See, here's the thing. So, like, that thing that Sean just said, I'm literally reading propaganda that says opposite. The propaganda I'm reading right now says that he was so moved by the writings of Dhananjad Saravasti that he quit the government school as a curriculum was left over

and just fled. It's like, he really just ran out? I just feel like you shouldn't breathe through the top of your lungs in his presence. That just sets him off. In this article,

they open with like, when he picks up the phone, he doesn't say hello. He just says, and it's like, go fuck yourself. It's not impressive. Through his business partner, Balkrishna, they meet a yoga teacher called Karamvir Maharaj,

who this yoga teacher accepts Ramdev as a protege on two conditions. And this is in the early 90s. The two conditions are that he remains celibate and that he never accepts money if he began to give lessons himself, Baba Ramdev. And they would later have a falling out over this. But according to Bloomberg... You thought too much.

According to Bloomberg, the three of them, they journeyed to the Himalayas where they meditated in caves, and then in 1995 they took over the operation of an ashram in in haridwar and yogi if you could just explain what an ashram and haridwar is um an ashram is essentially a spiritual location where they have a guru and that person lives there and operates out of there and then spiritual um people that want to like become more spiritual spiritual will do the work of an ashram while learning from the leader of the monastic community, basically.

Right. So they open this ashram in 1995, the three of them. And then Ramdev starts teaching yoga around this time. And what happens is they also start peddling these homemade herbal pills from their clinic at the time. It was a small clinic. But according to the New York Times, the breakthrough came in 2002, which is when a religious TV channel offered to broadcast Ramdev's yoga classes. Right. The way Bloomberg tells it is that they were seeking like a yoga class instructor or a

different channel, I think, was seeking a yoga class instructor and then they picked someone else. So Ramdev actually managed to raise money from his followers to buy airtime to put himself on a competing program and then he was so popular that he was able to get picked up from that rise and grind yes so so two things one the hurry water is just a city that with the ashram is yes and secondly this is like bob ross doing the joy of painting and then andy being like fuck bob. I'm going to buy the block of time that Bob Ross is on and do my own painting show.

And for some reason, people going, I like this Andy guy more than Bob Ross. I like the way Andy keeps painting Master Chief from Halo having sex with Sonic the Hedgehog. I mean, you have to be able to explain how Sonic is pregnant in my other paintings. But I mean, so he hood be able to explain how Sonic is pregnant in my other videos. But I mean, so like he hoodwinked his way. Andy makes like a small mistake.

He's like, oh, we're just going to turn this into a Knuckles blowing Sonic in the corner here. Live stream is his TV art. I mean, but like this is the beginning of the like smiminess of Ramdev. It's like they chose a different yoga instructor and he's like, fuck that noise. Right. My followers give me money so I can produce a program and compete with them. But this paid advertising strategy is one he utilizes to this day. And so like according to the New York Times, he becomes a star because he charms audiences with his mobile eyebrows, his giggles, his trademark stomach muscle routine, I guess.

He moves his stomach muscles around. Yeah, he does this breathing exercise and he really brings his gut in. Steven, you watched it earlier. What do you think? You ever played as Dhalsim? Yes, I've played as Dhalsim. He does that. Yeah, he does, yeah he does yeah i mean here's the thing he knows he knows his shit and i hate that the part that i justify in rom dave

is the part that like science debunks from time to time yeah um because the other side is pretty clear cut he is a piece of shit from time to time however these breathing exercises have some medical relevancy that we might not understand and dalcym could breathe fire and he was really stretchy and i loved him my takeaway from this is just like oh i should go back to the gym and get abs abs are powerful yes if you have abs you could become a billionaire yeah all right so like 2002 he kind of like starts getting on um television and it is interesting again according to this new york times article i didn't know this but like around this time relatively few indians actually did yoga even

though it was you know very popular in the united states and uh among hollywood pedophiles but uh so he kind of brought it to like middle class indians where yoga was more viewed as like an upper class kind of thing and he you know like speaks in according to new york times speaks in this down-to-earth playful language and you know he kind of like uh he's very charismatic right yeah and he brought something that was traditionally done by you know priests and noblemen to the working class. I mean, it's the same thing that happened with chocolate, if you think about it historically. It was something that only the richest of the rich got to use, and now most of us are

diabetic. But the same thing happened with yoga. Its popularity in the United States was kind of odd, because it wasn't popular in India when it was starting to boom here in the late 90s boomed in america oh yeah in the 90s in america boomed and then it kind of he helped to take off in the early 2000s in india he just looked at the figures from how many smoothies were being sold i'm gonna get on that but so yes uh his empire kind of takes off around 2002 once he starts getting his regular program to, you know, do his yoga routines.

And then through that, he's also able to advertise his company. And once again, these aren't programs that a company is putting on that they're paying him for. He's paying for the airtime and then self-producing this content. I mean, it might be slightly different now. I don't know exactly. But the reality is, is that it's not like a cable network was like, hey, you got a great get great thing. Let's put you on. He is paying for advertising of himself. And that allows him to legally advertise his Patanjali products during his program as many times as he wants with zero regulation and zero oversight. Right. And so in 2005, this is when things kind of start to change for him.

So they're making, they're raking in a ton of money by 2005. And in 2005, according to Bloomberg, Indian authorities raided the pharmacy that they were selling out of as part of a tax evasion investigation um but so a local official told um the biographer who just wrote this biography that got on him that got banned last last year a local official told the biographer that he was ordered by his superiors to desist from this investigation he said quote too many people in power were protecting Ramdev. I came to my census and left. So essentially they raided his company in 2005 for tax evasion, but he had friends in the government who were like, no, this goes away now. And just the other thing that happens in 2005 is his mentor, we mentioned the guy who made him take this pledge of chastity and austerity,

he also leaves because he sees that baba ramdev is kind of changing his um his tune a little bit he actually has a pretty good quote uh power crops all and i mean like you know the fact that his mentor was like bro i gotta go i mean it's pretty indicative of how he broke whatever bond that they had that got him the strength to be the person he is now. So his mentor Karim Ver Maharaj, he says this, and again, he says this to his biographer. He says,

quote, idealism is easy when you have nothing. It's what you do when you have fame, money, or power that matters. And this will become relevant if our podcast ever becomes successful. This will never become relevant for us. That's dope.

So Tupac said that? Yeah. But so yes, his mentor leaves in 2005. And then like, this is according to around 2006, he goes to Britain, Baba Ramdev does, where he required a $20,000 donation for a home visit to people to do his little yoga instructions.

And he stood on... Does he offer snacks? He does now. When he did public performances, he stood on a cloth that could be rolled up easy to collect the money people threw at his feet. So he's very clearly, at least at 2006, 2005, by the latest, he is full-on capitalist mode. Yeah. I mean,

if people are throwing money at you while you're rolling up your cloth, like, what are you supposed to do? Throw it back? No one's got time for that. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. It's very easy for us to say, like, man, this dude who accepted the money

people were giving him for teaching is shitty, but man... No, when we set up our Patreon, we will refund all the money. We own nothing. People are throwing money in our direction. We don't know what's going on. And whoever's running the Patreon collects it.

The IRS believes that we need to pay money on this money. We don't believe any money has ever existed. In fact, the entities above us are not real at all. Neither is this conversation. You're listening to nothing. I'm just picturing him cartoonishly carrying his cloth, rolled up cloth over his shoulder with money. Yeah.

And then just walking by a tax collector and being like, it's just my cloth. he wears like traditional garb so he just he looks like a dude that's a beggar next to people in suits being like here's all my money um but so and then the other thing is like we can talk about his company a little bit but this is the other weird thing about his company is essentially his workers are kind of horrifically underpaid because he encourages them to... You mean horrifically enlightened? So basically, this is from Bloomberg. A Hindu guru is often a figure of absolute authority to his followers, and Pantanjali employees treat Ramdev as such.

He forbids them to eat meat or drink alcohol. He tells them that their labor is a form of siwa, or spiritual service, and expects some of them to accept lower salaries as a result. And the New York Times says that Patanjali reportedly pays 25 to 50% less than its competitors. So again, I mean, this is a... So he's running a startup. Yeah, but this is where he's making the money.

He's not paying them as much. He's advertising through his advertising. And he's raking in the money because he doesn't pay taxes on it. Just a really good panhandler, okay? We can't compensate you, but this is very important work we're doing. We're innovating. We're thought-fluencing. He has a cardboard sign that says, need a miracle.

And there's like $10 million being thrown at him. I'm imagining an employee explaining to his wife, like, yeah, you know, I mean, like, the wages are kind of low, but the non-wage benefits such as reincarnation are very positive. Listen, we're going to need you to bark for this ashram. We can't give you money, but there's good exposure. So this kind of comes to a head. All his greed and kind of problems start to appear in 2005. In 2005, a quarter of Patanjali's workers go on strike, claiming they've been underpaid. And they actually had assistance from the Communist Party of India

in this, which is partly, might have something to do with why Ramdev absolutely hates the Communist Party of India. Yes. Well, they're also big upper chest breathers um but so a quarter uh 25 percent of his workers go on strike in 2005 and then ramdav and uh bakrishna uh fire all of them in response to this um and so uh but around this time very positive remove the negative energy around this time uh some of the workers had kept samples of, from New York times. Some of the workers had kept samples of the firm's medicines and said they contained unlisted ingredients, including crushed human skulls.

I guess this is a residue from soil or ash. And so, yes, a government lab tests the samples from the workers and finds both human and animal DNA. And then Ramdev says, quote, powerful interests were

tampering with the samples they submit another sample to the government which comes back clean of course and then this thing kind of goes away and um and they also were also very ineffective yes you've got to have that skull in there uh and also like this was an interesting thing because the workers were kind of put on the defensive where they had to clarify that they weren't attacking you know traditional indian medicine they were just attacking his products because bjp and some other people started you know saying the workers are like westerners or whatever or saying that you know indian medicine is bullshit or whatever so all these kind of like slanders and eventually he's able to triumph over his striking workers.

That's my favorite line of bullshit is the idea that like scientific medicine must be Western. Yeah. It's I mean, it's like the Maoist thing where, you know, they couldn't afford medicine. And so Mao's party basically just created traditional Chinese medicine, which didn't exist as a thing for Mao. We talked about this during the pharmaceutical episode. But so there's this copyright issue with medicine that the Indian government has turned their back on and decided to make their own generics. And so the medicine that's westernized in india is being made illegally so this supposed western medicine that sucks it's like yeah it's medicine you're stealing

like it's like yeah of course this medicine's not gonna be as good as the real stuff though also good on them for not paying attention to the you know listen the law is if your country's in crisis you can make you can make whatever medicine you want. And India's like, we're always in crisis, baby. Mao's traditional Chinese medicine, massive starvation caused by sparrows. Just intermittent fasting, dog. Yeah. And not showering ever. So according to the New York Times, retention is still kind of a problem.

Like many workers leave Patanjali after a year or less. As we mentioned, they're paid 20 to 50 percent less than their competitors because it's considered, you know, religious service. And then an executive at Patanjali said on background in the New York Times that autonomy is very low at the company. Ramdav is very hands on. There's no doubt who's in charge. He's a micromanager. And people think he's an autocratic boss behind the scenes, despite his kind of bubbly public personality. The second someone in a company talks about retention, it is an immediate flag that that company is shitty. All the worst places i've worked have

talked about retention that's how you end up with your skull and being in the medicine you talk about unionization too much um and so i guess there's a couple other things to talk about with uh regards to baba ramdev but um in, he launches these anti-corruption hunger strikes. Dark money or black money, excuse me, was a big problem in India. Why's it got to be black? We have fun here. Why's it got to be in India? For our listeners that don't know, black money is just counterfeit money

that's often either literally fake or also untraced because there haven't been taxes being paid on it. A lot of land purchasing or real estate purchases in India are done via black money because you have more of it because you're not paying taxes on it. And India has a longer history of using a higher proportion of cash for all of its commerce than the u.s or britain or anywhere and fortunately we don't have that here in america by the way yogi great view of hudson but yes so he launches this um hunger strike anti-corruption campaign in 2011 um and so he goes on a uh a fast and a major protest um uh in new delhi at june 4th uh he goes on uh i think like 40 no 65 000 people gathered for his like protest hunger strike um and then the indian police uh cracked down violently on this

they said because he only had a permit for like 5 000 people to do yoga wow yeah um and this was kind of widely condemned one woman was killed you know the indian police unleashed you know tear gas and clubs and everything and dispersed the crowd that many people doing yoga it's you don't know what's going to happen but so interesting uh story from this and he was kind of um too much concentrated uh inner inner energy he was mocked a little bit in the indian press because when the police cracked down he attempted to flee the scenes dressed as a woman so there are pictures of him in like woman's clothing with this giant beard and stuff

but i just like the idea that his like escape is like a dustin hoffman movie right right right um but so yes like and it's it's interesting where he does this you know big anti-corruption you know hunger strike fast. And he raises his profile a lot doing this. And then as part of this, the governing party in India obviously detests him at this point, because he's called them out for corruption. So he initially says he's going to found his own political party, and he makes some noise like he's going to do that. But then instead, he kind of falls in with the BJP, which is the India's's people's party which is what prime minister modi is part of and is kind of you know a uh right-wing hindu nationalist party in india so you get a coke brother right yeah seriously

and so uh he kind of uh helps the bjp uh campaign um and then. And then the corruption angle is interesting because, according to New York Times and others, after the BJP won in 2014, they started giving him a ton of support. According to New York Times, Petanjali was given a 1,200-acre parcel of land in the eastern state of Assam at no cost. Assam is, of course, the state where this massive Muslim disenfranchisement list has just kind of come up. Assam was recently taken over by the BJP. And then a Reuters investigation found several discounted land sales and leases in three other Indian states that uh that saved the company a total of 46 million dollars so it's kind of interesting where he's this anti-corruption campaigner but then as soon as the bjp comes into power they're giving him all these kind of handouts um as is understandable they would because he was a big force in helping turnout people to vote for the bjp and modi well

that's just the favors are turning favors i'll scratch your back if you scratch my back. Yeah, that's not corruption. They also, the New York Times says that the Modi government has allowed him to kind of ignore laws regulating the harvest of medicinal plants. I mean, this is the thing about

this guy. On paper, he's not doing bad things, but the reality is he's... That sounds he's not doing bad things but the reality is is he's no that sounds like he's doing bad yeah but he's really relaxed while he's doing it he's like he's like mcconaughey you know he's like he's just hanging out he's having a fun time sure some people get hurt in the process but isn't everything all right when you're with McConaughey? And then the other thing, like while he was campaigning, this is according to Bloomberg, so he helps, he... I'm still stuck on where did they get those skulls?

You know, incidentally, I learned this from my friend's mom who was a doctor. She said a lot of the skulls you see in various medical facilities are from India. Oh, really? Huh. That's some of that British enlightenment for you. Yeah, I mean, you're not wrong. It genuinely is, hey, where's there a lot of skulls at? I know there's Browntown. There's a whole

bunch of skulls over there. Get some of them. We'll sell them for 80% markup. 80? Let's do 130% markup. They're like, where'd all that mass grave come from? Well, let me tell you the story of the time the Raj wanted a cup of tea From the other side of town

I mean really though Like how much is a skull worth to you Andy How much would you pay for a skull You know I can honestly say I've never thought about that before Well what's the number give me something I don't know 30,000 You're overpaying for skulls

That's the first thing you need to know And secondly if I Really wanted to $30,000. You're overpaying for skulls. That's the first thing you need to know. And secondly, if I really wanted to, let's say you had that $30,000. Yeah, but I'm going to put on a really good Hamlet production. It would cost me... Earn it back. Once you say there's a real skull in your Hamlet,

that skull's going to pay dividends. I'm going to leverage the skull and borrow money against it yeah initial skull skull offering i'm just saying i don't know why but if you want bones i guarantee india is a place to be are you my bone guy now i mean how much money you got we're gonna call you bones i like i like the the like the Emily Deschanel more. So one other thing about his campaign for the BJP. In 2014, according to Bloomberg, he was having these kind of like non-official yoga rallies for the BJP. The Indian Electoral Commission actually looked at these and kind of wagged their finger at him about it.

But in one of them, according to Bloomberg, a BJP politician was caught on camera asking him about fundraising. And Baba Ramdev said, quote, are you a fool for asking and talking about money when cameras are on? So he at least is smart enough to know that, you know, you don't do it when the cameras are on. Can't you see that I, someone with a zero net worth, wouldn't want to discuss money? Isn't it crazy that Bob Aramdev is smarter than Donald Sterling? Isn't that crazy? Wait, wait, hold on a second. Also, maybe they can get cheap skulls, but why would you go to human skulls as a filler for your pills?

Well, I mean, it's the same reason why Chinese billionaires use rhino horns for their dick. It doesn't make sense but it kind of does and that's all they need. But if they're trying to hide that they're putting skulls in there. Maybe they were just putting dirt in there and there just happened to be masses of dead bodies. Honestly, yeah.

Okay, here's the thing. All of this shit is fucked up. there and there just happened to be like masses of dead bodies yeah honestly yeah i mean okay here's the thing all of this shit is fucked up but more importantly it's propaganda at its highest form and the corruption is so bad in india that no one's regulating this he's got ties to the government he's got over a billion dollars net worth and he's done it with seemingly zero percent of the western population knowing who he is. Yeah. I mean, that's fucking insane. Until this episode comes out and then 200 people will know who he is.

Hey, 150 at most. Some people like to listen to the episode twice. What if we write a paper about how our episodes about white billionaires get more listeners and we use this to prove implicit bias? BuzzFeed, what I learned about billionaires get more listeners. And we use this to prove implicit bias. BuzzFeed, what I learned about billionaires

is people only want to learn about the white billionaires. They don't want to learn about the brown Hindu nationalist billionaire. Let me tell you something about billionaire privilege. Hey, I'm Chris Hayes. We have to deduct $300 million from his net worth just to make up for the obstacles he faced.

Emily Deschanel was on a show called Bones. I just need all of you to know that. Yes, no, I got it. I don't know if you understood that or not. She was on a show about how Baba Ramdev makes his medicine. It also had the bassist from Courtney Barnett's band. We can cut that. So we mentioned a bit this biography of him that was banned by an Indian court in 2017.

The biography is called From God-Man to Tycoon. We haven't mentioned it yet, but God-Man is kind of a term in India that refers to the type of spiritual leader Baba Ramdev is. And many God-men have had various scandals where it comes out that they kept harems or castrated their followers or these kinds of things. I mean, it's completely different from men of the Lord in the Western world. It's almost like he went from an ashram where you get kicked out for not having sex to going and founding one where you get kicked out for not having enough sex. You know, power corrupts all. And in this case, a god man is just a charismatic guru.

And what can't he get away with at this point? We talked about murder on the table. We talked about malpractice in business. We talked about corruption malpractice in business we talked about uh corruption and hiding shit you know it's one of those things where man this fucking cross-dressing yes he could not get away with cross-dressing that is that is a true statement he's too recognizable he's like no i cured myself with yoga um all right so the this biography we mentioned uh it's called from god man to tycoon it was written by priyanka patak uh narin is the author and she writes about part of the reason it was

banned is because there are three mysterious deaths that are linked to baba ramdev and i just want to kind of go through them these are soon to be four yeah Sean. It's going to be Sean. The first is the murder of Swami Yogananda, who was a doctor and a friend who allowed Ramdev to use his medical license for the medicine manufacturing unit that they set up in 1995. We mentioned this is kind of where they got started. And so after eight years of operating under Yogananda's license, the alliance was dropped

in 2003. Over a year after the pharmacy stopped using Yogananda's license, in December 2004, he was found dead in a pool of his own blood in his home in Haridwar. The case was closed, unsolved in October 2005. That was from the author of From Godman to Tycoon. Then in July 2007, Ramdev's 77-year-old guru, his other guru, Shankar Dev, who gifted Ramdev his ashram and its lands, enabling him to establish the Devriya trust, he disappeared. Shankar Dev, who lived in austerity to the end,

even after the success of his disciples' ventures, went for a morning walk and never returned. He left a cryptic garbled note about a loan he had taken and was unable to repay. At the time of the disappearance, Ramdev was in a yoga tour in the united states and united kingdom and did not return home till the following month he was asked at a press conference why he did not cut his short his trip to you know try and check up on his mentor and ramdev said quote if i knew he was alive i would have um and again that's from the author of uh from god man to tycoon he's really he's really in touch with uh the universe yeah so and apparently this note that uh this guy left

before he disappeared it was something about like i have uh taken a loan that i cannot repay or something like that or i've borrowed money that i cannot repay. And it's just kind of weird. I mean, again, this is a guy who lived in complete austerity and probably never really touched any money, to the best of our knowledge. The trend here seems to be that you should not give RomDev gifts. It seems to be the through line here. And so the last one is in 2010, another mentor of Ramdev. It's a very dangerous position to be.

His name was Rajiv Dixit. And apparently he taught Ramdev Swadishi messaging. He died suddenly. Also, this guy was, I believe, involved in ramdev's anti-corruption campaign uh so after making a speech in bematra canvassing for the uh oh yeah he and ramdev founded the political party together that they would later kind of disband and ramdev would go on to support bjp um but he made a speech uh canvassing for the political party, and then after that he collapsed in the bathroom in 2010, evidently due to a heart attack. He died that night, age 43.

The following day, Dixit's colleagues noticed that his face was, quote, unrecognizable, a strange purple and blue. His skin was peeling strangely. They demanded a post-mortem, but Romdev, eyewitnesses claim, refused to allow it, citing scriptural prohibition, and had Dixit's body cremated instead. And so, again, this is all from the author of the banned book, From Godman to Tycoon. And, you know, none of that is enough to prove murder, but it all is kind of suspicious how, like, two of his mentors and the guy who gave him his business license all died under mysterious circumstances um and it also kind of explains why so many people in addition to his political connections seem so afraid of him in new york times interviews that they have to go on background just to talk about him uh they have to go on background what does that mean they have to go anonymously like they'll say say an executive at a competing company

instead of giving their name or whatever. So all of this is to say, Yogi, enjoy your next trip to India. I mean, you know, there was a great... Try not to catch one of those skin-peeling heart attacks. Skin-peeling heart attack. That's fucked up. The New York Times did actually ask him about these murders,

and he dismissed that with a smile and a wave of his hand saying, quote, it's not true. I am a very simple and humble and compassionate person. Wow. So believe who you want to. But I guess before we run out of time here, we can talk just a little bit about nationalism, though we should actually just mention his lifestyle.

So apparently he does yoga every day from like 4 a.m. to, yeah. So he practices and teaches yoga every day from 4 to 8 a.m. in a hangar-like auditorium with hundreds of students and TV cameras rolling, this is from New York Times. Rise and grind. And then again when he can in the afternoon and evening from 5 until 7.30.

And then in between, he oversees the company Patanjali and its associated trusts and charitable activities. And just one other thing on the corruption, there is like a story. Honestly, if someone was like, do you want a billion dollars, but you have to get up at 4 a.m.? Why have a billion dollars?

That's the Howard Stern story. Yeah. But so according to the first post, and again, we'll link to this on the Tumblr, just actually came out yesterday. Baba Ramdev's Patanjali, it's been pumping money into various businesses with zero operations. Like at least I think we calculate 65 million US dollars. We might have got the exchange rate wrong, but several tens of millions of dollars

just into like businesses and subsidiaries that are apparently not doing anything. So it's just kind of like interesting where we've talked about his anti-corruption work, but clearly he's moving money around in kind of a shell game kind of thing. His zero net worth money. Yeah, I'm beginning to suspect that this guy isn't actually anti-corruption.

I'm not convinced, but I'm getting there. So I guess we'll talk about Hindu nationalism and particularly the anti-Muslim side of it, and then we can see where we're at. But you might have heard this story. India, in the state of Assam, which we mentioned, he got 1,200 acres from the government for basically nothing to set up a factory there. But the BJP has taken over Assam, the government, and they published a list which effectively strips about 4 million people in Asham of their citizenship. It's called, according to the BBC, the National Register of Citizens it's just a way of stripping 4 million mostly Muslims of their citizenship

And it's just interesting where Babar Amdev is a Hindu nationalist And he's obviously supported Modi who you might know from the riots in 2002 You know those riots that prime minister was a part of? Yeah. And so the Gajarat riots, which was like, it's been alleged that Modi as the chief minister at the time might have stoked the violence. This is where a bunch of revenge mobs killed more than a thousand people,

mostly Muslims. Well, to be fair, Modi was just yelling world star over and over again. So that's not, I mean. And in 2014, he got to meet Elmo. Oh, Modi? I thought you meant Ramdev.

Oh, no. Modi. Elmo doesn't meant Ramdev. Oh, no. Modi. Elmo doesn't have Ramdev's correct sex. Elmo's a little pan. And so a little bit pan.

And he's a little bit rock and roll. Elmo actually wasn't read before he met Modi. But so he has this... Baba Ramdev has this quote about... Basically, there was a Muslim politician who refused to chant the Bharat Mata Kija, which is, I guess, a nationalist...

a traditional slogan expressing reverence for India as the motherland, and it's kind of become politicized where it's like this nationalist program, uh, um, uh, this part of the nationalist program. And so there was a Muslim politician in India who,

uh, refused to chant it. And Baba Ramdev said that he would quote, have beheaded those who refused to chant it. Were it not the law of the land. So he's, um, I mean, how could he afford it though? You know the law of the land. So he's... I mean, how could he afford it, though?

You know, I mean, that's... He's got no money, you know? How could... What? But it is... I think you underestimate the power of breathing exercises. Well, I mean,

if it could cut a man's neck, it can cut a man's neck. Have you seen how long he can collapse his abdomen? Yeah, you see, that ab work could split a man in half. I mean, it's mesmerizing. I get lost watching it.

I just watch it as GIF over and over again. Just a couple things about Baba Ramdev. His brother has been in trouble with the law at least twice. In 2013, there was an arrest warrant for his brother. His brother is Ram Bharat, who has been called, quote, Patanjali's, quote, informal CEO. This was an arrest warrant over the alleged kidnapping and imprisonment of a watchman at the company who was suspected of theft. And then the witnesses recanted and the case was dropped uh but then and this is from bloomberg in may 2015 patanjali's security forces

brawled with truck drivers at the company's food processing complex leaving one trucker dead later a video came out of rambarat appearing to encourage the guards to you know beat the shit out of these truck drivers he was arrested and held in jail for 14 days though he was never charged so again just like these kinds of things and uh patanjali or sorry has um baba ramdev has dismissed this all as you know it's corrupt to the core man right it's fucked up and uh um and then there's just been like a lot of uh stuff about the various products we've kind of mentioned um they unveiled these instant noodles when nestle's instant noodles had to like got banned over lead concerns yeah um but apparently indians food india's food and safe food safety and drugs administration found they had an ash

content triple the legal limit um and then uh uh the indian military stopped selling a popular Patanjali juice to the soldiers after a government agency found samples were, quote, unfit for consumption. It's from New York Times. They were also selling a ghee, you know, like a cow's butter type thing, which they advertised as the purest on the market. But apparently it was sourced... Wait, cow's butter, did you say? Yes. You mean butter? It was basically a sampling found

that it was a blend of cow, buffalo, and goat milk, and apparently, according to New York Times, in India, pure ghee is required for religious purposes. Right, right. So this kind of stuff is uh it matters essentially there's just been like a bunch of little scandals with bullshit in the products uh and he's still the most trusted brand in india so it is quite impressive and you know if a lot of the biographies and such they talk about how his face is on like almost every corner

apparently he wants to have sim cards with his name on it uh this is an additional like he's like a mix of you know televangelist jack lane and also gene simmons from kiss like it's a lot of i want my face on everything and richard simmons that's right yes yes all the simmons yeah russell well. All I'm saying is it's been too long since we had a vegetarian nationalist running around the world. But yeah, no, he just wants his face and all these packaged noodles, herbal constipation medicines, floor cleaner. He puts on like 10 pounds and it all goes away. He can't do the ab thing anymore. Floor cleaner made with cow urine is another thing.

But it is just something where... Yeah, cow urine is another thing um but it is just something where yeah cow urine is a huge thing in india i've drank it once oh yeah it was a religious ceremony they put in some yogurt verdict i mean i didn't do it again so you tell me what the verdict is but but yeah i mean it it's fucked up i mean not the cow piss thing that's just just um that's that but that is a um indication of how far the religious right in india convinces the population of their fucking views it's like you know i don't know if cow piss is good or bad for you but i do know i shouldn't be drinking it um and the country of india is run by um a religious right that uh is ruining the country they they they're fucking up it's like they they're like oh hindus are better than muslims everything should

be made in india it's like you're just wrong and you're dumb. You don't understand that when the world mixes, things become better. And more importantly, the more you're stopping this and telling people to be against one another, you're just telling them to be less than what they could be if they work together. Now, wait, Yogi. In this room full of three white dudes, this is your one chance to go full throat at Hindu nationalism and have people be too afraid to correct you. I was kind of hoping when we did this episode, Yogi would just go all in like, you don't

understand what the English did to India, okay? Modi is the necessary antidote. They destroyed our country. Famines. And, you know, these Western products are poison. Here's what's crazy. Hindu nationalists actually believe the opposite. Right.

They're like, you know, the Europeans came in. I mean, the British came in. They gave us railroads. They gave us access to tea. They put us on the map. They look at suffering as the growth that it can be instead of the pain that it is. So in the same vein of I don't have any money even though I'm a billionaire, it's like the British aren't bad

even though they stole our goods and gave us fucking shitty railroad tracks. And starved millions of people to death. I mean, that was going to happen regardless. Fuck you, Indians. That's where you're giving them the pass. Modi just turned off

Grubstakers. Sat back in his desk chair. Sean, wrap this up. He's actually a big Churchill fan. But so, Baba Ramdev, just to kind of summarize, you know, this billionaire nationalism, and he says this to New York Times, his idea of nationalism embraces, he says, all religions and castes, but he adds the revealing caveat country first, which we might be familiar with. He says, this is a must. Not I'm great, my caste is great, but my country is great. Unlike Muslim leaders, they say Islam is great. I say no, the nation is great. The citizen is great. And according to New York Times, it is telling the nation is

wrapped up in a Hindu culture, which is, you know, yoga, traditional medicine, Vedic scriptures, and such. And again, we mentioned the beheading thing. The actual quote is worse. He said, if it were not for the respect of the law, he said we would, quote, behead hundreds of thousands of such people. And that's hundreds of thousands of people who refuse to say these kind of nationalist Hindu chants. So it is just something where it's like he's been called the Billy Graham, he's been called the Donald Trump of India, but he's clearly got an in with a very nationalist government that is currently trying to disenfranchise and

make illegal more than four million mostly muslims so it is something where we should keep our eye on because he's he's also collecting a lot of corruption money and maybe allegedly having people disappeared i mean but you criticize him but can you make your abs flap like a flag in the wind i did like this episode because like the only way i will make the most basic effort to learn and understand about my friend yogi is if we are doing it for a podcast and you know what sean you didn't do bad oh thanks thanks buddy um all right well anything else about our good friend baba ramdev i think hes a lot. I think he's eating butt left and right. I think he's... He doesn't have a wife,

but it's not because he doesn't want a wife. It's because he just loves slanging that D. It's like their religious duty to accept like 25 to 50% less orgasms. I'm going to say though, eating butt with that beard. Gross. If Me Too ever hits India, man, he's going to have a negative network.

Yeah? Oh, yeah. He comes early, and then he's doing the ab motion. He's like, what, this isn't enough for you? There's nothing else. If this doesn't get you, I'm not even going to bother, okay? I made some Patanogenly birth control, but let's be honest,

it's just Tic Tacs. Why is he wearing human skull fragments on his penis as some sort of condom? And with that, this has been Grub Stakers. Thank you very much. We'll have another episode next week. I'm Yogi Pollywall. I'm Andy Palmer. I'm Steve Jeffers. I'm Sean McCarthy have another episode next week. I'm Yogi Poiwal. I'm Andy Palmer.

I'm Steve Jeffers. I'm Sean McCarthy. Check back next week. Peace. Boop, boop, boop.