Acharya Prashant responds to a question about the mental and cultural impact of foreign companies in India. He begins by explaining that for anything to be sold, three conditions are necessary: there must be a product, a market, and a buyer. He emphasizes the third condition, stating that to sell something, one must also create a buyer for it. The things a person buys are not just based on fundamental needs but are heavily influenced by their culture and environment. What one person considers a necessity, another from a different culture might see as a luxury or waste. For instance, an Indian visiting America for the first time is often surprised by the seemingly frivolous and wasteful consumption, which Americans consider their genuine needs. This difference arises from their respective cultures. Therefore, a seller knows that a product doesn't sell merely on its own merit; it sells when a culture is created for it. When a foreign company wants to sell its products in India, it must first create a culture that desires those products. This involves a form of cultural conversion, making the seller a kind of missionary. The speaker argues that since the Indian economy opened up in the 1990s, it wasn't just foreign investment that came in; Indian culture itself has undergone a massive transformation. This change was a prerequisite for foreign goods to be sold. The seller, or the manufacturer, knows that their product will only sell if the culture is changed to align with the one in their home country, where the product is already successful. This cultural shift has led to the degradation of Indian language, spirituality, thought, poetry, and music. The current generation in metropolitan cities has lost its connection with both Hindi and proper English, speaking a slang-filled mix. Spirituality has become commercialized, with new-age gurus emerging whose values are consumerist. The speaker points out the decline of classical Indian instruments like the sitar, sarod, and tabla in popular music, replaced by electronic sounds. He asserts that these changes are directly linked to marketism and money. The foreign companies are not just traders; they are here to take away India's language, culture, past, life, spirituality, and even religion. We have forgotten that the economic benefits come at the cost of immense cultural loss. A country ('desh') must first be a nation ('rashtra'), which is defined by its culture. By compromising on culture for economic progress, we are destroying the very soul of the nation.