The Courage to Care: Kailash Satyarthi on Rescuing Childhood, Fighting Slavery & Changing Humanity | Tomorrow Today

**Kailash Satyarthi** (0:00)
Now onwards, your children will go to the next grade, higher grade. And then if you started bringing books, put them on my cart, three, four hours, my cart was filled with books. So more than 2,000 books were collected in one day. In a few months, more than 10,000 books were collected.
Then they set up a book bank. So people started calling me Kailash Book Bankwala.

**Shekhar Natarajan** (0:26)
Tell me why we have this problem? Is it feudalistic society? Are we a feudalistic society? Is that why it is? Or is it like?

**Kailash Satyarthi** (0:33)
It's a combination of several factors. One is the greediness of employers and the vulnerability of poor people, of societies, communities deliberately kept backward, or poor, who wanted to make easy money out of poor people, poor people and children in particular. Children cannot raise their voice, cannot form the unions, they cannot go to the court after law, you know, exploited physically, mentally, but also in many cases. This is the biggest reason.

**Shekhar Natarajan** (1:03)
Can you go back to the day I stopped writing and then someone came to you and said like, my daughter getting trafficked. So tell me that whole like story, what happened?

**Kailash Satyarthi** (1:12)
And his daughter's name was Sabo, when she was about to be sold to a brothel. One day, parents saw that some unknown people came from a brothel and they were bargaining the price. They wanted to buy that girl and this girl is virgin and you have to pay more money. Girl was taken to a room and these people have touched their body and all kinds of nonsense happened. I started feeling something different, that look, my brother, I am going to rescue your daughter at any cost.

**Shekhar Natarajan** (1:47)
You lost three people of your own.

**Kailash Satyarthi** (1:48)
I lost three people. One was shot dead, one was beaten to death and one died in the operation. And according to it, there were more than one million children working in carpet making in South Asia. At least 800,000 kids were rescued and they might have gone to school. Many of them, I cannot guarantee, because the demand for fair carpet, demand for labelled carpet has increased. This initiative was able to create at least 800 adult shops in place of children. History is never written by those who just sit and clap at the fans. You need not to look outside. I always say that don't look heroes and worship them outside. There is a hero inside each one of you.

**Shekhar Natarajan** (2:44)
Welcome to yet another episode of Tomorrow, Today with Shekhar Natarajan.
It's my real honor to have an idol on this show, Kailash Satyarthi ji. So, he's a Nobel laureate. Won his Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 for humanitarian causes. There are many, many celebrities and many influencers and many strong people I have interviewed. But this is going to be my absolute favorite because I've been awed by your stories. I'm like, you know, like you're a superhuman. And the world would see why you're a superhuman through the show as well.

**Kailash Satyarthi** (3:23)
I cannot fly even if you say so.

**Shekhar Natarajan** (3:27)
But you can rescue a lot of people. So, yes. So, no, this is like, there are many moments in life where you meet a lot of interesting people, but this is a moment of awe for me.
It's an honor to have you on the show, sir.

**Kailash Satyarthi** (3:41)
Thank you very much, Shekharji.

**Shekhar Natarajan** (3:43)
Thank you.
Let's start from the very beginning, like, you know, of your early days. And these are all pretty known to people, but like, I would love my audience to hear. And we have like about like a million and a half people following us, subscribed to our show.
And there's been incredible love and affection of what we're trying to do.
So, age five, you go to school, you saw a kid, like, who was actually polishing the shoes outside the school. Something in you said, this doesn't seem right. Like, I never even thought of something like that. Like, where does that compassion in you come from? Like, what was the moment? Like, why did you feel that?

**Kailash Satyarthi** (4:28)
Yeah, thank you.
I don't know whether I thought or I felt. I think I felt. Because it was so spontaneous when I was entering in my local school for ordinary people, poor people. I was going there because I also come from a humble background. So, it was a municipal school.

**Shekhar Natarajan** (4:55)
And this is in Vidisha?

**Kailash Satyarthi** (4:56)
This is in my hometown, Vidisha, where I was born and grew up. That is an ancient place close to Sanchi, the stupa of Buddha. So, that is an ancient place. Anyway, so when I was about to enter and climbing up some stairs, I suddenly saw a boy my age sitting at a corner. And I could not forget his face and eyes because he was not looking at us, me and other young boys and girls going to school. He was looking at our feet. Perhaps we are going to give him some job.