So it's like a double check on delegation, whether and can I add quality. Because my goal is only to add quality, or maintain quality, and recognize quality and reward quality. Because I'm a rewarder, so if there's a modification required, that's my role — to look for the modifications required. It's my role to see things keep improving without causing stress. Taking people along and encouraging them to continue to think ahead. We achieved this far, very good, but let's consolidate. But let's move forward, too, because what has been consolidated if not moved forward, will start slipping back. Because monotony and boredom shouldn't stick in.
So I think these are the areas. So it is a hands-on approach. But it's a very interactive, very enjoyable approach; it gives you so much of joy everyday when you see the smile on your students. They're carrying so much back out of this training, because this training is not so much just to make them good police officers. This training is to make them good human beings, because finally it's your human, human kindness, humanity in you, which is going to be projected through your legal work.
Now they are the ones who will be in service for the next 15 years, 10 years… but this sensitivity they will go through will bring greater change in their world.
Holly: What was the initial reception to the meditation idea? Was it initially accepted or was it, was there resistance ever?
KB: No, our meditation program, there has never been a resistance. Because these meditation programs are not conventional programs, they're not sectarian, it's introspective mediation, it's not to do with any form of religion. It is introspective, which means you are learning the techniques to observe yourself, through your breath watch, you are leaning to introspect within. So all you, all your emotions, the techniques which have been trained are such that they bring out the emotions within you while you are introspecting and you learn to observe it. Whether it's your addictions, whether it's your anger, whether it's your revenge, whether it's your lust, whatever it may be, it surfaces through these techniques.
So it's not religious, in the dogmatic sense, it is introspective; therefore it's a very scientific technique of meditation, which we've brought to them. That's why there is no resistance. Because you can be a Muslim to do that, you can be Hindu to do that, and you can be a non-believer and do that, because it's introspective.
Holly: And did you do it yourself long before you introduced it to them?
KB: Yes, I've experience this myself. You see, as a teacher it's important to experiment with things yourself before you introduce them elsewhere. And that's what, and this is why once I was convinced this is worthwhile, and it's shown amazing results, it's shown great results.
Holly: Is the international community responding, or are there other places that have emulated it?
KB: Prisons even in America are experimenting with this program. But what is important is that the police officer is just not armed with knowledge, but the police officer is armed with the intellect to use that knowledge in the most humane and just way. Now where does that humanity and justice come? Because that's not been taught here through the books, you have to learn it through introspection. He's learned it; he's going to learn it through the value system of education, which he learns through these techniques because we can give knowledge. But what is important is that the police officer is just not armed with knowledge, but the police officer is armed with the intellect to use that knowledge in the most humane and just way.
We can equip him to fire perfectly, but fire to defend or fire to kill? Fire to protect or fire to murder? What? That's his hand and the hand is linking to the thought in the mind and the mind has to be developed and that's called developing the intellect over the mind, because the mind is a bundle of thoughts. The intellect is the wisdom which judges between one right thought and one wrong thought. I love this training, without the introspective technique, the, this training would be a burden of knowledge.
Holly: A burden?
KB: A burden, would be almost a burden of knowledge. Because if you are a human being with a lot of knowledge and do not know how to use it, I think you are a liability, because you could be the biggest white-collar criminal. It's very important to recognize that police training which equips you with all the power.
Holly: When you were playing tennis, did you have these spiritual underpinnings to your tennis game.
KB: You see, tennis, when you are a sports person, you're learning to compete very prosperously, very fairly. If you win a tournament in front of thousands of spectators, you have to play a fair game. And you also learn to call a call, which is bad call. You also learn to question. Because you competing so fairly that if it's a bad call, you develop the courage to say, 'Could you please check if this wasn't a bad call?' So you're learning, you learn the fair rules of the game while you play as a tennis, as you play as a child, as a girl. I think it's so important, sports is so important to build a person more holistically. Because books only don't teach you what a sports crowd teaches you. Sports crowd is a remarkable training ground for the overall development of a human being. And with books, it's a great combination.
Holly: So this sort of open book policy that you apply, to everything, to the management around here and to teaching, is that ever been met by resistance maybe by other powers that be?
KB: No, what is it has often caused, since it's got a lot of exposure, the open-door policy means everybody knows everything, so then the media knows. So if the media knows all about the innovations, all about the new things that are emerging, that's great news, because the more you share, the more it is known, including the media. And when the media writes, because it's something new to write about, it's sometimes very unique and sometimes very interesting, very laudatory sometimes, but it's sometimes critical, sometimes unappreciated, all kinds of situations.
Holly: Well, when we were out with the girls on the ropes this morning, it was just great energy and they were saying, "Madam says, 'You can do anything, you know, don't think you're just a girl and you can't do it.'" And they were all like yeah. It was really fantastic.
KB: Yes, I want them to be black-belters before they leave so that they can actually do a lot of self-defense and defend others.
Holly: Out on the street.
KB: You see, the key is that when they're going to be doing this Judo Karate, they're not just going to be shooting around, actually they're going to become very confident human beings.
And in this uniform, what you really need is confident human beings, who can, who can respond to various challenges, various challenging situations. It's not defending for themselves, they're going to be defending others. So they must have the confidence to defend themselves before they defend others.
Holly: How about creativity? Does that come into their jobs in the future, do you think? I think you said something about you have to draw on 5,000 years of creativity to do things right, or something to that effect.
KB: Creativity basically means becoming innovative, becoming a problem solver. I think that the approach is to seek out the situations which you can do better and better. Don't' leave the situation as it is, look at it what you can do better, how can you improve it. It's using your imagination in a problem solving approach.
Holly: I wanted to talk a little bit about fear. After following you around today, and talking to people; I'm convinced you have no fears. But you must. Do you have any?
KB: After I lost my mother, I'm fearless. There's no more fear. I think the only fear I had was to lose her, and I've lost her. So I have no more fears. You're afraid of something you love most, of losing something you love most, and I think I loved her the most. And I lost her. And after this, there's nothing more to lose, nothing more to lose. I'm today fearless. It doesn't matter how long I live. But the only thing I would love not to happen is, is to be an invalid, and be dependent on somebody to look after me and nurse me. That would be the most hateful thing to happen. But how long I live, it doesn't matter anymore.
Holly: Since you lost your mom.
KB: Yes, and that is nearing two years ago. I loved her so much. I could still be a child when she was around. Now I have to be a grown-up.
But the point is, we were absolutely fond of each other in the sense, we were a great source of joy to each other — her love for me and concern for me and my doing things for her. But after she's gone, it shows how everything is so transient. There's nothing permanent. You, the day keeps moving. What you do today, you're going re-do it tomorrow, because yesterday, today is going to be yesterday, and tomorrow is going to be another today. So you, but how long you do it, it's not in your control. But what you do in that day is probably in your control. That's all I am. So I have no more fears, how long I live, what's going to happen to me. I think the key is what do I do with what I have today, because I know nothing is permanent.
Holly: So the transience makes you more invested in the moment, rather than less.
KB: You're right, in fact, the transience makes me focus more, because I know it's going to go away. Let me do my best, because it's going to be another past tense. So rather than say, "Let it go, because it's going to go anyway." I say, "NO, don't let it go because it's going to go away, let's do our best, let's do whatever I can."
Holly: Do you talk to your students about that?
KB: Yes, I share a lot with them, and I also teach them to be fearless. I tell them, nothing is permanent with you. What is permanent with you is your attitude to the moment. That is what is within your control, and that's the only permanent thing at the moment I can see. Time is going to go away, this day is going to go away. These postings are going to go away. So be in a hurry to do your best wherever you are.
Holly: I've been hearing a lot about the notion that we all have divinity within since I've been in India, what do you think of that?
KB: I think each one of us defines divinity the way we're brought up, and if you're brought up in a value-based environment, then you see divinity in another person. You start seeing divinity in another person. And I think that's what happened with my upbringing. I was trained to look at divinity in service. Look at divinity in doing the right things. Divinity in human kind. In fact, when I was taking my public service examination, which qualified me for the service, there was a column in the form called religion, it still is called religion. I could have written Hindu, I could have written anything, but I remember as a 20-year-old woman, when I was filling in this form, I wrote human kind. That for me, stood for divinity, because it's like seeing yourself in others, and reaching out to others as you would want others to reach out to you. This was my education. So for me, this is divinity.
Every one of us defines divinity as per our own upbringing and education. And I belong to a very open system school, it was a Catholic school. I had Belgium nuns teaching me, Irish nuns teaching me, a couple of Indian teachers teaching me, but there was nothing imposed. It was for you to choose. I think what we were really learning and what we were being trained for is to be good human beings.
Holly: What happens if there isn't enough, uh, humility in the mix?
KB: If there isn't? I think we would all be animals. We would all be biting at each other. If there wasn't humility, we would all be actually getting at each other, because there would be nothing but a clash of egos, and always a warfare. There would be no gratitude.
Holly: If your philosophies that you're infusing the police force with were part of the broader culture, what do you think would happen?
KB: I think there would be greater peace and security in society, and less stress, less attention. Because police would become a benign hand, for providing security and peace, and reducing anxieties and stresses. In fact, policemen that wouldn't be keeping security, they would be creating security.
That's what I'm working on, saying, 'Don't be watchmen, be educators, be mobilizers, be security givers, not just security keepers.' So, be from a watchman moved to a guardianship, so that's what your role is. I think that would be a larger role of protection and prevention, rather than arrest and reaction and violence. That would obviously be because there will be a segment of society which would only understand that language, of physical control. But policemen doesn't only mean physical control. The very presence a policemen should send the message of prevention, and security, and guardianship.
***
Holly: And you have some of your best ideas in motion?
KB: Yes. You're so, with yourself, there is energy. When I'm on a walk, I feel synergetic. This is energy, there's a total connection. There's silence, and there's nature, and there's fresh air, and there's early sunrise, there's chirping of the birds, and sometimes, I have my music if I want it. Or I have even the news, but even news is so, so refreshing for me, if I get, or I have a choice to switch it off. So I switch on and switch off. Sometimes I'm in prayer, sometimes in my own thoughts, and sometimes it's a very creative time for me, which is the morning walk. Very creative, I can't do without it. If I have one fear, it is this. Not being able to walk. I don't know how I would live, if I couldn't walk my morning. And when I have a holiday, I walk twice a day.
Holly: Do you take a holiday?
KB: Every morning. Every morning is real vacation. But, the holiday, like a Sunday when I walk, I just don't walk; I listen to an audio book. I listen to a discourse. I listen to a spiritual discussion. I listen to a spiritual presentation. I love that.
Holly: Do you consider yourself a spiritual leader?
KB: Yes, I would say. Spiritual leader? Oh my god, not a leader. I am, all I can talk to you about is what kind of a human being I think I am for myself. Yes I'm not as much materialistic as I am spiritual. Because I'm pretty contented with myself. What I need is more of inner food, rather than external belongings. If I were to choose a diamond ring and a beautiful book, I would pick a beautiful book like that, rather than a diamond ring. For me, a diamond ring is a waste, but a book is full of knowledge, because that's my food.
Holly: Do you have a favorite goddess?
KB: No fixations, no fixations. It's sometimes an invisible strength I feel, invisible strength I reach out to. It may have no shape, it may have no name, it may have no recognition.
Holly: Why do you think people respond to you in the way they do, almost magnetically?
KB: Because I don't wait for them to come to me, I go to them. And I go to them because that's my duty to do, but it's also a source of joy to me. And it's the most real, realistic and reliable feedback of what I'm doing, whether it's worthwhile. I don't call people to the office, I go to the classroom. Because for them, I don't want to waste their time. Their time is to learn, and my time is to see that they do learn. That the environment enables learning.
So it's for me to go to the classroom to check, whether what I'm enabling is it worth it. Rather than calling them out to, from their classroom to say, "Hey, are you learning?" That means he or she is going to miss that much time. That would be the wrong way. So I go to them, rather than ask them to come to me. So every morning, I keep going from different classrooms, different groups, to see whether what we're trying to do is the right way. And I'm willing to amend every day, every minute and keep learning, so that I can do it better again. Better tomorrow.
Holly: I read that your posting at the prison was bit of punishment for you, or some people thought it was.
KB: Some people think prison postings are a punishment. In the scheme of things, in the mental conditioning, it's sometimes considered certain postings as backyard postings. And prison was considered, is still considered, a backyard posting.
Holly: Why did that happen, do you think?
KB: It's just a matter of conditioning. And I think it's a hell of a stupid conditioning in my country where there's some postings considered sensitive, and some considered non-sensitive. Some considered forward, and some considered backyard. I, as long as any posting is dealing with people, I don't know how any one posting is any less important than the other.
Holly: Did you feel that way going in?
KB: No, I didn't. That was the difference. I do not consider any posting as a backyard posting. For me, as long as there is a posting, there's a meaning behind it. You got to go around it to find why am I here. Why am I employed in this posting? The very fact that the government sanctioned this posting has a meaning, let's go search the meaning and make it meaningful.
For me it was not a backyard posting, I think what it was one of the best places to work, because you're dealing the future of people's, the future of families. You're dealing with the future of communities, when you work with prisoners. You're dealing with future, the future of peace and security in the society. I think it's one of the most critical opponents of larger crime prevention.
Holly: You've tackled huge projects and I'm sure many I don't even know about, but I'm wondering if you've had any failures. What you would consider a failure?
KB: If I'd considered it a failure, I would have walked out of it. And said, somebody else, they should do it better. I don't want to make a failure, as long as I'm earning a salary; I've got to succeed. So, there wasn't a situation where I said, please take this posting because I can't do it. I'm proving a failure. No.
Holly: And what do think your biggest success?
KB: Is to keep learning at every posting I got, and to make it a perfect one. That's my success. Wherever I went, it was my duty to learn it as soon as possible, and make it perfect. And then, make it perfect better than yesterday. Today better than yesterday. But today I think it's perfect, but tomorrow I realize it wasn't, so I want to be better.
Holly: What's a diva to you?
KB: Sunshine, diva means sunshine. Sunshine which lights up the whole world, in its own phases, but it lights up uniformly and universally, and which is so integral to life and living, that's what diva means to me, Sunshine. And by the way, my name comes out of sunshine. Kiran stands for the rise of the sun and moon.
Holly: So are you a diva?
KB: I am; I'm one spark of that. I'm one ray of that.
Holly: There are a lot of divas in India.
KB: Oh, there's lots of divas all over the world.
Holly: What do you think it means to all these girls and women that I saw today to have you in the position you're in?
KB: I think their search stops, when they see me here, they stop searching for role models. They can see a role model in me, a woman whose made it into this career, and who's made a success of it. Who's made it such a great joy to be in it, and reached out to thousands and thousands of people. I think their search stops, so they can straightaway focus and say, we can do it this way.
What they're seeing here is credibility. What they're seeing is word and deed matching with each other. If it said, it is implemented. And they also see a constant audit towards perfection. They're seeing commitment. They're seeing transparency. So what they're seeing here is not words, but deeds, and I think that's very important for them to see at an early age. They also see compassion, they also see concern, they also see a hell of a lot of communication, and they're also seeing a hell of a lot of interaction and reaching out. I think it's very good that they're seeing all this. Because these ideas and these practices rub off on people, so they carry these along.
Now, if it keeps getting nurtured during training, and once they're getting back to the field, they can start filtration, and their behavior will become very noble. Their behavior will become very humane. Their behavior will become one of great compassion… The roots are sown here. And such roots, such seeds are bound to fruition. Such seeds cannot make you violent. Such seeds bound to give sweet fruits because the seeds are sweet. You may not see sweetness in that seed because it's hidden, but actually it has all the elements and components of a sweet fruit. Once they go away from here, in another few years or few months, it's started ripening and they start plucking the fruit and eating it. But the fruit will be so much that they'll have to share it.
Holly: Where were those seeds sown for you?
KB: That's exactly the point. I think they were sown from the day one of my upbringing. And they kept getting nurtured day by day, instinctively, environmentally, by the nurturing hands of my parents. And then they trained me to nurture it myself. My schooling was also nurturance. My soul was my college. I had some wonderful teachers in school and college. I had the best books to read. The best game to play, that's tennis.
But, then my work, sensitized me further, because I saw agony, I saw pain, I saw suffering, but then I found myself in a privileged position to heal. But then I already had the spirit to heal, for me, healing wasn't a burden, because for me, healing was a need to express, because I had learned to heal.
Holly: Why the police force then? There's lots of, one might think there would be other avenues for someone who feels like they're a healer.
KB: It's one of the finest healing jobs. When I was growing up, I wanted to be either a doctor, but I couldn't take up science, because I was a tennis player, and it took me six months out of the laboratories. It was a need to express, because I was getting so much love, it is important to give it back. You can't just take it. You have to give it.
Holly: How will you transform the police force?
KB: Through expressing the same kind of concern and love.
Holly: So in a massive police force like this, maybe 15 years ago, there's charges, like in every country, charges of corruption and everything else.
KB: Absolutely.
Holly: And do you have a mission vis-a-vis that?
KB: I know exactly the keys to handle that, in fact, my last two postings have taught me, how to correct this without loss of time. My prison posting and my police-training posting actually have given me a good experience, the right kind of experience to turn a department around. When I get into greater positions, it wouldn't be much of a time. All I have to do is, put them through these programs, within the first three months, the key people in the key positions, they just have to be brought through this program for the first three months, and you'll have different responses from them. They'll have got sensitized and sensitive policemen or a policewomen behave very differently from an insensitive one.
Holly: So that's your, the first thing you do, if you're taking a police officer who's been around working for 30 years, or somebody who's 18 years old. It's sensitizing them.
KB: Absolutely.
Holly: So you're talking to them, they're doing meditation, they're doing unarmed, they're doing martial arts, essentially. And then you don't get around to the guns and the paperwork for a long time.
KB: They're doing all the three things, they're getting equipped to be a police officer, which means physical fitness, physical courage, knowledge of law, skills in handling difficult situations, but a human heart, a beating, sensitive heart, which uses all this knowledge with great humanism. Now we're addressing the heart, we're addressing the intellect, we're addressing the thought process, we're calculating the thought process which judges the thoughts. So we all have thoughts, but there has to be a judge within to judge the thoughts.
Holly: Do you think it would fly in any other place in the world, is this happening in other police departments around the world?
KB: I think the third element called the inner door concept, because we have the outdoor concept, we have the in-door concept, which is a lot of education. But I think the third concept called the inner door concept is coming through very expensive management training concepts. But I think it's a very common sense approach. And since it's common sense, it's uncommon.
Holly: And it's free.
KB: Because it's free. Anything that is free has no value. Common sense is free. As for how we are going to use this training of guns, to kill or defend, it's the intellect of the mind. The mind might say kill, but the intellect will say save, you are here to save, not to kill. So we're trying to sow the seeds of intellect over the mind, so that there is the human heart, which is sensitive and says, 'I came into this profession to defend and protect and not to kill.'
Holly: Yeah, there's a very visible humanitarian ethic here compared to anywhere else I've ever been. Obviously that's a generalization, but people speak of it in a way that you don't hear about, certainly not where I come from.
KB: Well India has reasons to be both happy and angry.
Holly: What are they?
KB: Happy, they're settled with themselves, they're contented people.
Holly: Why?
KB: Why? Genetically.
Holly: It's not the three hundred and thirty million deities?
KB: No, no, none. I think it's genetically. I guess we all look for our anchors. We all do look for anchors. Sometimes you look for an external anchor and sometimes you train to be internally an anchor. But I think, by and large, all Indians do look for an anchor. And they do have an anchor. And once you have an anchor, I think you're very well put, aren't you?
Holly: What is their anchor?
KB: Anchor could be a deity, it could be a god, it could be a church, it could be a temple, it could be a parent, could be a teacher, could be a guru, could be a spiritual teacher, once you, it could be a book, it could be an exercise, it could be yoga. I think every Indian has a habit of looking for an anchor, and if, and they get an anchor very soon in their life. And once they anchored and if they're convinced, they're settled, their search stops. And they settle with it. And they keep going back to the anchor, if they're in trouble.
Holly: So, if they have their anchor relatively early, what is the form of the next evolvement? I can tell you that most Americans spend a good 40 years looking for their anchor.
KB: I think um, anchor basically means, where you can go back to anybody, where if you are in distress. And you can get an answer. You can get help.
Holly: Is there a spiritual evolvement beyond that?
KB: Yes, that anchor does not mean, doesn't hold you back. It allows you to grow. That's the anchor I'm talking about, an anchor which allows you to fly. In fact, an anchor which teaches you to fly, and then fly. An anchor doesn't clip your wings, that's not an anchor, that's an imprisonment. But an anchor, which trains you to fly, and believes you to fly and then it's your decision how far you want to soar.
I think, by and large, Indians do get an anchor, which allows them to soar and gives them back, kind of, which is easily available in this country, around. Which allows them to grow and grow and grow. Which actually which purifies the source and enables them to sanitize them, teaches them, steers them, and allows them to grow. But then, thereafter, it is individual left which takes them as far as they want. Some just fly a little, and think that's the best of evolution and they can stop here. For some, the search goes on.
For me, for instance, the search is still on. So therefore, we all then look for our platforms. There is an anchor which teaches, but then some quickly look for a platform and settle down, and some keep looking for the next one. So I think that's the way it is in India.
Holly: You started this by saying, there's a lot to be happy about, a lot to be miserable about.
KB: Yes, a lot to be miserable about. The area of misery is looking for better governance. I think Indians are looking for better governance. Better governance at all levels, whether it's civic administration, village administration, state governance or national governance. Because better governance also supplies a better sense of security and faster economic development. So therefore I think that's the area where there is an anxiety in every Indian. How do we get better enforcement of laws? Better justice?
Greater prosperity. More employment. Overriding secular tension. Overriding caste problems. Imbalance and development. If one state is rich, another state in this country is very poor, so it brings down the overall, overall national income. So how do we reach out? But since India is a federation, you can interfere to an extent and not beyond. Because after all, India is one, it may be 28 states, but it is one. So where, if you have 10 states doing extremely well, you have few states lagging behind, all which are contributing to the higher population growth. How do you address that?
These are areas of anxiety, yet, yet you will not find riots because there is, you will find people still at ease, settled down because they have their anchors.
Holly: There was a very peaceful rally we saw yesterday, the Anti-WTO rally, people walking to Parliament. And I would say is this a protest, and they kept saying, no, no, no, it's a rally.
KB: By and large India doesn't protest. An Indian in fact is not a violent man; he's a contented man. He's a man at ease with himself. But that doesn't mean being contented and at ease, you don't want progress. You want progress without being ill at ease. You want progress. So that's why, there isn't' a race for materialism. There isn't saying, let me do it anyway. They want to go it their way, at a steady pace. So, steady pace is the Indian spirit, and a lot of toleration. Toleration too is a very strong Indian spirit. Tolerates a hell of a lot of nonsense, at times, even in the neighborhood, even within family.
They tolerate because they think it's a duty to tolerate, it's within families. You don't throw out people. If you have a deviant son, you don't put him on the road. You spend, you live with him. We don't send out aging parents.
Holly: Did that belief system apply to how you address the prison?
KB: I guess so; it was the same Indian spirit, by which I addressed it. But it was beyond an Indian spirit, it was a responsible spirit, it was meeting the mission statement of my job, because, after all, what am I there for otherwise for reconstructive justice or rehabilitation. I was trying to meet a mission. I guess this should be or could be the mission statement of any prison governor.
