"If I am a criminal, then nobody on this earth is innocent.

"It is perfectly good; if they have guts they should arrest me and show their real faces to the world, show that democracy is just fake. America and the Soviet Union do not differ in any way. Perhaps the Soviet Union is more straightforward; it says what it does, it is not phony.

"The Soviet Union may be doing all kinds of wrong things – it is – but it calls itself the dictatorship of the proletariat. America calls itself a democracy – a government by the people, of the people, for the people. Arresting me, they will destroy their own image in the whole world.

"I am perfectly happy. I don't want to miss this opportunity. But why tomorrow? – because tomorrow never comes. It is better today. Arrest me today. And arrest me as a criminal, handcuffed, so the whole world can see that this government is not for the people, of the people, by the people. That this government is, behind a mask of democracy, as dictatorial, as fascist as it can be.

"But they should remember. I inquired of a few of my sannyasins: they are all wanting to be voluntarily arrested, they want to be with me. So they should come with five thousand handcuffs. It is not going to be an easy thing. And we know how to make history. We don't read history, we make history. Five thousand sannyasins will offer themselves voluntarily to be arrested. And that will make what I say is the beginning of the end of American hypocrisy.

"We are for the American Constitution, but not for American dirty politicians. We will fight for the Constitution against the politicians. I have tremendous respect and love for the Constitution. It has all the great values that humanity needs. But these politicians are not Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln must be tossing and turning in his grave. The best in America will feel it, and will be with you.

"Not only here – if five thousand people are arrested here, then the same is going to happen in every country. Sannyasins will offer their governments, 'Either disconnect all connections with America, throw out the American embassies, or arrest us.' In every country thousands of sannyasins are going to do the same, because they feel the same as you feel."