Why India needs Parliamentary debates in High Schools and Colleges

(Parliamentary debate is a debate format where 2 teams – the Government and the Opposition – comprising of 2/3 speakers each, debate on a motion that is announced just before the debate. For more info, try this.)

 

I was part of the debate panel of my college for all 5 years of my B.A., LL.B. course, which was funny because I was a mediocre speaker by any standard. Initially, I was lucky because most motions (debate topics) debated upon in the college panel selection rounds were based on politics and governance, something I really enjoyed talking about.

I remember my first parliamentary debate was in St. Xavier’s College Mumbai. In the first round of the debate (British Parliamentary style), we were up against NLU Delhi and two teams from St.Stephens, Delhi. The only instructions I had from the seniors accompanying me were, ‘Bhai enjoy kar, jeetne toh wale ho nahi.’

Out of the 6 rounds in the St. Xavier’s debate, I could barely speak for about 5 minutes of the allotted 7.20 minutes in most rounds. I had no idea what I was doing. Beating 3 fellow novice teams from NLU Jodhpur was the only highlight from that tournament.

To get into the college debate panel, we had selection rounds at the start of the year. These rounds seemed like the most important debates of that year because the pass to my short vacation was at stake. I realized if I could somehow do well in those internal rounds, I would get a chance to skip at least 10-15 days of college, to go on a college-sponsored trip to a distant place and meet interesting people. So it was a no-brainer that I took the internal rounds seriously, albeit for all the wrong reasons.

Once you were on the panel, you could represent your college in various debates outside; I was average in most tournaments in terms of wins and losses, though somehow I always managed decent speaker scores. I was always proud, however, that I was able to present some good arguments before people who were brilliant and very eager to contradict me. It is vital as a student that your ideas are mocked and criticized because you are in an age where you can adapt and in an environment that helps you get better. It would be safe to say that attending a debating tournament seemed more enriching than a month of college. I also looked forward to visiting a new city, trying out the local cuisine and having a good time overall.

What I miss most about these debates is that there were times when debating made me uncomfortable, something that rarely happened in the classroom (which is sad if you think about it).

For instance, in NLU-D, we were up against a team from NUJS; the motion read, ‘This house would legalize bestiality’. You don’t usually discuss topics like bestiality with your family or friends, and even if you do, there’s hardly a well-rounded appreciation of the subject. So a couple of minutes into the 20 minutes of preparation time, one of my teammates said he had no idea what bestiality meant!

After explaining to the team the motion for that round, we decided our strategy would be to establish why pleasure is one of the reasons we do a lot of things. How animals are expendables, instruments of achieving objectives, in this case, sexual pleasure. Our opponents, who were also in their first year, were expecting a case where we’d say animal lives matter or love has no boundaries. So, obviously, they could not react to our dispassionate and unexpected line of argumentation.

There is little scope for assumption in parliamentary debates. The teams have to help the judges visualize their case, and simply stating things is not enough. For instance, we once had to propose a motion, ‘This house would legalize graffiti on public walls’. We had a very average liberal case where we argued that art and its expression are essential to life – Graffiti was art, albeit looked down upon – it is time we changed that perception.

The opposition asked all the right questions, but that is all they did, and they lost the debate. What happens when law and order is disturbed? , they asked. What if anti-social elements use graffiti for their cause?

Generally speaking, we’d not care to explain how it could lead to law and order problems because we’d assume the person we are talking to understands what we are talking about. However, this is not true in parliamentary debates. You must show how the harms are directly linked with the move and how the harms outweigh the benefits.

Towards the end of the debates, most new speakers are confident that they have done enough to win the round convincingly. But with time and experience, you realize it is difficult to be sure about how the debate panned out in the minds of the adjudicator.

Role-playing

When you are debating, you are role-playing by being someone who would generally advocate that cause. Consider the motion ‘This house believes that radical feminism does more harm than good, to the cause of feminism.’ We were opposing the move, and hence we had to undermine the harms of having a radical movement and explain how it was essential to overthrow the patriarchy. When you are arguing vehemently, probably assuming the role of a radical feminist for the first time in your life for the sake of the debate, you are not the same person by the time the discussion is over. You have stepped into the shoes of a radical feminist, something I would have never honestly tried otherwise.

We are more likely to give an honest attempt to understand a stakeholder’s predicament if something is at stake for us. However trivial it might seem in the grand scheme of things, the debate’s outcome is good motivation to appreciate the debate honestly.

Black or White

Parliamentary debates compel you to take positions that you’d probably never take in real life, thanks to all the biases you harbour. Your personal beliefs are irrelevant in the debate; what matters is how convincing you can be.

I remember this debate in IIM, Ahmadabad, where we opposed the motion, ‘This House regrets the acquisition of land by the Indian Government.’ So essentially, we had to convince the adjudicator how or why it is entirely okay for the government to dispossess people of their lands. We’re talking about real people and communities who have lived on their lands for years, and we had to come up with some reason why the state had the legitimate right to move these people.

If you are not a parliamentary debater, you’d probably say that land acquisition, subject to reasonable restrictions, is a good opposition case. Sure, we had a similar case, but we had to come up with something strong that justified even forceful eviction to a certain extent. This is so because you cannot put up a strong case with a lot of concessions and compromises in a debate. Parliamentary debating isn’t mediation or settlement; it’s war. So if you try to find a middle ground, you come off as soft or unsure.

Law schools and Debates

People are quick to dismiss parliamentary debating as an everyday activity that does nothing to help you as a law student. This is like calling football just a sport of 22 people trying to put the ball in a net, which is valid in terms of modality but fails to capture the essence of the activity. Debate demands three things: quick thinking, the ability to make convincing arguments and delivering them in a manner that is easy to understand. Now I don’t think I need to tell you how that could help you as a lawyer. But even if it didn’t help you one bit in acquiring any of those skills, it indeed gives you a mental shakedown. It enables you to consider views that you would not have otherwise. Not only do you consider different views, but you also defend them like they really mattered to you.

Conclusion

In my humble opinion, many people in India cannot appreciate opinions contrary to what they believe to be true. This is scary because we live in a society where a few bigots can enthuse disoriented youth into doing their bidding. We are at risk of such fragmentation, and a practical solution to this problem is the introduction of ‘parliamentary debating’ into schools and colleges. Sure, we already have debating as an exercise in schools; but there is little engagement between the two sides in conventional debates, and the topics are mostly stale.

Parliamentary debating will surely help students question their own beliefs, consider evidence, and all stakeholders in any given problem. Once they start appreciating different perspectives, there’s no going back. We’ll have a generation that can think for themselves and consider the issue from the vantage point of their opponents.