Lex Fridman Podcast
#460 – Narendra Modi: Prime Minister of India – Power, Democracy, War & Peace
16 Mar 2025
Narendra Modi is the Prime Minister of India. On YouTube this episode is available in English, Hindi, Russian (and soon other languages). Captions and voice-over audio tracks are provided (for the main episode video on YouTube) in English, Hindi, Russian, and the original mixed-language version, with subtitles available in your preferred language. To listen to the original mixed-language version, please select the Hindi (Latin) audio track. The default is English overdub. Thank you for listening ❤ Check out our sponsors: https://lexfridman.com/sponsors/ep460-sc See below for timestamps, transcript, and to give feedback, submit questions, contact Lex, etc. Transcript: https://lexfridman.com/narendra-modi-transcript CONTACT LEX: Feedback - give feedback to Lex: https://lexfridman.com/survey AMA - submit questions, videos or call-in: https://lexfridman.com/ama Hiring - join our team: https://lexfridman.com/hiring Other - other ways to get in touch: https://lexfridman.com/contact EPISODE LINKS: Narendra Modi's X: https://x.com/narendramodi Narendra Modi's Instagram: https://instagram.com/narendramodi Narendra Modi's YouTube: https://youtube.com/narendramodi Narendra Modi's Website: https://narendramodi.in/ SPONSORS: To support this podcast, check out our sponsors & get discounts: Brain.fm: Music for focus. Go to https://brain.fm/lex Shopify: Sell stuff online. Go to https://shopify.com/lex MasterClass: Online classes from world-class experts. Go to https://masterclass.com/lexpod NetSuite: Business management software. Go to http://netsuite.com/lex AG1: All-in-one daily nutrition drinks. Go to https://drinkag1.com/lex LMNT: Zero-sugar electrolyte drink mix. Go to https://drinkLMNT.com/lex 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
Full Episode
The following is a conversation with Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India. It was one of the most moving conversations and experiences of my life. Allow me here to say a few words about it. Please skip ahead straight to our conversation if you like. Narendra Modi's life story is incredible.
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.
As a leader, he fought for ideas that unite his nation of India, a nation that is composed of a large number of highly varied and disparate cultures and peoples who have a long history marked by religious, social, and political frictions. He's known for taking decisive, at times controversial actions, for which he's loved by hundreds of millions of people and is also criticized by many.
We discuss all of this at length in this conversation. On the world stage, he is respected as a peacemaker and friend by most major world leaders, even those whose nations are at war with each other, from the United States, to China, to Ukraine and Russia, to Israel, Palestine, and the Middle East, and everywhere else.
Now, at this moment in history, it is clear, at least to me, that the flourishing of human civilization hangs in the balance, with several wars on the brink of escalation to regional and even global conflict, rising tensions between nuclear powers, technological developments from AI to nuclear fusion that aim to completely transform society and geopolitics as we know it, and, of course, generally, increasing political and cultural turmoil.
So now, more than ever, we need great leaders, great peacemakers who build bridges, not destroy them, who may preserve the identity of their nations, but still celebrate the common humanity of all of us, all people on earth. For this and many other reasons, this conversation with Prime Minister Modi was one of the most remarkable I've ever had.
You may hear such words and think that I'm just enamored by power or access. No, never was, never will be. I do not idolize anyone, especially those in power. I'm generally skeptical of power, money, and fame because of their natural, corrupting influence on the mind, the heart, the soul of a person.
The whole point of all the conversations I've had in my life, on mic and off mic, is that I try to see and explore the full complexity of every human being, the good and the bad. I believe we're all the same in a deep fundamental sense, all capable of good, all capable of evil, all carry stories of pain and stories of hope.
whether you're a world leader or a truck driver, a coal miner, or a farmer in the American Midwest. And by the way, I will be talking to a lot of the latter kind of folk this year off mic and maybe even on mic as I travel the U.S. and the world. My brief statements here about Narendra Modi are about both him as a leader and especially him as a human being.
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