Recites a Sanskrit verse and leads the crowd: 'Krishna Kanhaiya Lal Ki Jai!' You don't feel like saying Jai? Come on, say it! Krishna Kanhaiya Lal Ki Jai! Thank you. Thank you, greetings.
So... I'm just a village boy named Govind. Now everyone calls me Govind Kaka — Uncle Govind. My village has a population of 700 — Dhuriya village — with a school from first to fourth grade. For fifth, sixth, and seventh, I walked barefoot without slippers — three years of schooling in the taluka. Our village is called Dhudhala in the records. I studied only up to seventh grade, but I don't have a seventh-grade certificate. My certificate is only sixth grade because I didn't take the seventh-grade exam.
Sixty-two years ago, I came to Surat from my village because of diamond cutting and polishing. At that time, Surat had only 200 diamond cutting and polishing workers. Today, one million people are in diamond cutting and polishing. How is my English? My English is without grammar. But you see — who wants grammar? Only two countries in the world want grammar: the British in England and India. For the British it's their mother tongue, and India has the largest English-speaking population. That's why only two countries want English grammar. I can't speak it for the rest of the world, but my English is very powerful.
If I go to Switzerland, Russia, or China, those people feel like they know English as well as we do, and we don't know it any better. That's why my English works powerfully. When I came to Surat, I worked in a factory for six years. My first salary was 13 rupees, and my last was 600. In 1970, three of us friends were working together, and we started a factory. After that, it just kept growing and growing. Why? Because when dharma grows, wealth grows. When wealth grows, the mind grows. Growth keeps growing. Where dharma has support, wealth keeps increasing. Dharma is not about any sect or religion — dharma means humanity. Be human. That humanistic thinking is what we call dharma. In Gujarati there's a saying: 'Brother, you are human' — that is called humanity. So by God's grace...
We started the company in the year 2000 with zero, and it kept growing. Today our company has 1.8 billion — 12,000 crore — in exports, with 7,000 people as our family members. We don't call anyone 'workers' in the company. Nobody calls me 'boss' — everyone calls me 'Uncle.' All our staff members are called SRK family members. It's a family-like company — when they call me Uncle, it feels like family. By God's grace, we export to more than 100 countries. Our online business is more than 90 percent. Only six percent of people come to see the diamonds in person, because we've built that trust. I'm under the influence of Dongreji Maharaj. Dongreji Maharaj was a Bhagwat kathakar — a spiritual storyteller. He passed away 30 years ago. He didn't know me personally, but in my heart I considered him my guru. He had one saying: 'Property and progeny come according to destiny. For these, one must make effort, not commit sins.'
So in the diamond market, we have an open challenge: if we have ever lied even once for money or for business, we'll quit the business. This is the reality — that you can achieve full success even through honesty. This is the fruit of God's grace. What is our life's achievement? That itself is the achievement. Dongreji Maharaj says that money brings happiness — there's nothing wrong with that. Money is a means, not the end. I have money, I bought a car, I can come here in the car. But the car has its limits — we have to leave it in the parking lot and walk in. So the car is a means, not the end. The end is our life, our thinking, our parents, our wife, our children, our family, our company, our society, and our India. This is our secret of success. Not all rich people are valuable, and not all valuable people are rich. There is a difference between value and money.
So becoming wealthy is good, but becoming cultured and valuable — becoming valuable — that is truly good. Why? 100 years ago, in 1922, if you asked who was the richest person, it was the British King who ruled one-third of the earth. Such vast wealth! And at the same time, Mahatma Gandhi had nothing but a loincloth. But today, how many people recognize that king? Out of 800 crore people, probably not even 100 crore would recognize him. But Mahatma Gandhi — 300 crore out of 800 crore would recognize him. Why? Because he was valuable. So we should become wealthy — that is a means. But going from being wealthy to being valuable is very important. That is life itself. So if you have any questions, we'll answer them. Because I'm uneducated, I haven't studied. We'll talk about practical knowledge — what is practical life? I'm not here to show off. I'll answer based on practical experience. I don't know everything — you can ask anything, but I don't have knowledge of the whole world with answers for everything. Whatever comes up, we'll have a satsang — a spiritual discourse.
And satsang is like in the village — when you make curd, then churn the buttermilk. When you churn the buttermilk, butter comes out. So today, through conversation, we'll extract that butter. When you came here for satsang with Govind Kaka, if at the time of leaving there's any change in your life compared to when you came — that is what we consider God's grace. Our thinking is: the happiness we've practically received in life, may everyone receive it. Because God's grace is raining on everyone. But why are we unhappy? If I could say it in one line: we're not unhappy because we can't become PM. We're unhappy because we can't find parking. There's traffic — that's what makes us unhappy. This thinking needs to change. If I'm driving, I have to accept the traffic. Then happiness happens. It's about changing our thinking. So — any questions? Thank you.
Lovely, thank you so much. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I will try and contextualize some of that in our industry landscape as well. I had told him: first of all, thank you for coming, Govind Kaka ji. But I had some questions. When I was reading the history of SRK, sir, your attrition rate is less than 1 percent. Your people don't leave. So why don't they leave? What's the reason? Do you feel you've been able to create an environment where people don't want to leave?
No — as I told you before, we create a familiar, family-like environment. Because truth exists for everyone, but the boss's truth and the employee's truth are both different. We shouldn't cling to our own truth. We need to stand in the employee's position and understand what the truth really is. In my book, I've written that in 2008, the world recession came. The whole world had problems — everyone knows. In our diamond market, prices dropped by 70 dollars. Everything became disorganized. At that time, everyone broke down their infrastructure — because if any work results in a 30 percent loss, who would do it? But we — our company is a family. Our partners are nephews, brothers, family. So I called everyone and explained: we will not break our infrastructure. Our 6,000 people will stay with us. I tried to explain: look, if Reliance comes today with 10,000 crore, if Tata comes — they won't be able to do diamond cutting and polishing. This is our infrastructure. Don't just count the money in our books — count the value of our skills, our infrastructure. My nephew even asked: Uncle, when everything is burning in a fire, shouldn't we at least save whatever we can? I said: if we don't survive, we don't survive. We'll all leave together. But if we sit inside and our employees are sent outside — where will they go in this world recession? What will happen to their food, their livelihood? When we go, we go together — all 6,000. But I'm sitting here as Uncle, as a father. As long as I'm here, no one of my children will go outside.
And look — some invisible force is working. Our company's name is Shree Ramkrishna Exports. This is according to Dongreji Maharaj. He used to say: do any work, keep God with you, keep God's share, and do it in God's name. Two gods were his favorites — Ram and Krishna. Which one to leave out? So he named both — Ram Krishna. Then you need Lakshmi, so 'Shree' — Shree means Lakshmi. So: Shree Ramkrishna. See, God has been running this company to this day. In 2008, when four or five months passed, finished goods were down 30 percent. But then raw materials dropped 50 percent. The situation arose: buy goods today at 50, and sell within a month at 70. How much percentage profit? 40 to 50 percent. So the company that was ranked 25th in 2007 came to 5th place in 2009. Who did this? Not my intelligence — not mine. The giver of intelligence is someone else. 'Dadāmy buddhi-yogaṁ taṁ' — in the Gita, God Himself says: 'I am the giver of intelligence.' This was God's company. God gave the intelligence: don't abandon anyone. There were losses, money was gone, but afterwards there was so much profit. Yet nobody else had their infrastructure ready. We did.
Now talk about Corona. During Corona, the company was closed for four months — the locks didn't open. But the total salary of all 7,000 staff members went into their accounts on the first of the month. Because we told everyone: look at our partners — Corona might come a second time in our lives, or might not. It came once. So until then, whatever money we have, share it with everyone. This is about sharing.
Wow, wonderful! Big round of applause. Just to give you all some context in terms of the scale of Ramkrishna Exports — and when we talk about Western management principles where we're looking at hire-and-fire culture, when we're looking at productivity at any cost — here is a case study from India built on trust. Trust is the only currency that operates. And I want to ask one more thing, sir: in your diamond facility, there are at least 500 million dollars' worth of diamonds at any given point in time. Your family members come to work — I won't say workers, I'll say family members — and you don't check them. You're going on trust. How did you create this environment where, without frisking, without checking, you let people go, and still haven't had a single incident?
Thank you. Thank you. Look, there's technology too. But a company that's been built over 55 years — it wasn't built overnight. Trust was earned from everyone and maintained with people. You'll be happy to know that our company has a 'no addictions' policy. Our company's rule is: give up your addiction, or leave the company. What is addiction? The joy is within me, not in alcohol. If it were in alcohol, why wouldn't the bottle dance? That's not the point — this isn't just about alcohol. No gutkha, no tobacco, no cigars. The entire company is a mix of sattvic — pure — people. Everyone who is addiction-free, those are our family members. They're like our children. Because we take care of them — not just of them alone, but of their families too. We take care of their children's education. We take care of everything. That's why they work like our own children, and the company progresses.
I'm now on the Labour, Skill and Textile Committee of the Government of India — a Parliamentary Committee. So I attend the committee meetings. Big companies that work with the government were asked: how do you treat your workers equally? The chairman said: when one of our workers had an accident, we all collected 3 lakh rupees. He passed away, so we gave his wife 3 lakh rupees. I said: you make 7,000 crore profit in three months, and you gave the worker's family 3 lakh? And you're proud of that? Why not 3 crore? This is the thinking. The intellect speaks like that — because the intellect is barren. And look, you'll be happy to know: in our company, we insure heavily with Bank of India — premium insurance. If any staff member passes away in an accident, in illness, any way they go, their family receives 60 lakh rupees. We don't need any directive for this. Because they gave us their lives, their families shouldn't face hardship after. Why does this happen? You need to have a heart. History remembers the generous, not the miserly. The heart becomes generous, but the mind never does. The mind says no, stay home, don't go out. That's what the intellect says. But the heart says: no, I have to go. You should do things from the heart.
Lovely, lovely. Sir, what you say, you also do. I saw your balance sheets — about 4 percent of your profit you dedicate to social causes every year, and you've been doing this consistently. Why was that so? There wasn't even a mandate back then that you must spend 2 percent of profit on CSR. The mandate came later. Before that, you were already allocating 4 to 5 percent for social causes.
It's not that it's sometimes less and sometimes more — this is God's will, depending on the situation. But CSR — we only recently heard that name. We've been doing CSR for 60 years because it's in our nature. It's natural. What we received, God gave us — so share it. This is nature's work. God gave us this nature. Not everyone has the same nature — even two real brothers or real sisters don't share the same nature. Why? Because nature is called 'kudrat' — and God's name is also nature. That is God.
Namaskar, namaste. The question isn't mine — it's from my colleague. Her Hindi isn't good, so I'm being the translator. The question is: what is success? Success is different for everyone. So how do we develop the maturity to understand what success is, not compare ourselves to others, and when feelings of jealousy arise, how do we handle them?
Thank you, sister. Look — the secret of success... actually, what is the cause of unhappiness? I received a WhatsApp message: what is the greatest disease people talk about? Show-off. The greatest unhappiness comes from showing off. Show the world as you truly are — there's no unhappiness then. What will the neighbor say? What will they say? Nothing. Show yourself as you are, and life becomes very enjoyable. There's no need for show-off. And whom do you consider successful? Look, I'm successful now, but if I look at Mukesh Bhai — Reliance — then I'm unhappy. If I'm unhappy, then I should be content with what I am. Dongreji Maharaj had a saying: 'Contentment in one's attained situation — that is called bhakti, devotion.' This is the form of devotion — between the devotee and God. What kind of devotion? Be content with the situation you've attained. Don't show off, and don't be unhappy seeing others. Thank you.
