Debate

The St. Stephens Debating Society, the word goes, is probably the most elite debating society in India. They throw a debating tournament in November that attracts debators from all over Delhi, all over India, and all over Asia at large (good teams from Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Bangkok). Former winners of this tournament include former Prime Ministers, Chief Ministers, and heads of major businesses. The society engages in competitions where the cash prizes average (average!) well over $1000 for a semester. All the members of the executive board have already paid off the rest of their tuition and rent to St. Stephen's with earnings from debate, with plenty to spare. And I just walked onto the team. There were two rounds held this week. The first was an individual round with 24 hours preparation, requiring a 4-minute speech and 2 minutes of question answering. The topic was "This house believes there is no such thing as national sovereignty anymore." I was on the government side, so I had to affirm the topic. I argued that the cumulative Philosophical, Technological, and Economic developments of the 20th century had nullified the concept of national sovereignty as it stood for the last 1000 years or so. It was a pretty good argument, and I spoke pretty well, I think. I was quite nervous, but I think it came across well. Cat said I moved too much while I was speaking, so I worked on that in the second round. The second round was a real test. The resolutions given were really abstract and you had to make a concrete case out of them in under 3 minutes. Cat's resolution was "This house is comfortably numb." She crafted a case that said social apathy was the biggest obstacle to constructive social change in the world today. My resolution was more straightforward: "This house believes in free-for-all," and I had to speak for the opposition. I crafted an argument that said "This house should show a proper respect for law and order." I said that a proper respect for law and order permitted economic growth, enhanced democracy, and saved lives. It worked out pretty well. I thought I spoke very clearly. I didn't even get any questions, which I thought might be a bad thing. After I spoke, they told us that the list of those who had made it would posted on the main board tomorrow (today - Saturday) morning. I have classes early Saturday morning, so I knew I'd be able to check. I honestly didn't expect to make the team. There were some very good speakers. It was interesting, actually, that the speakers were mostly either very, very good or very, very bad. The contrast from speaker to speaker was striking. There were enough good speakers that I put my chances at making the team at 50/50. Thus it was nice to come in this morning and fine both my name and Cat's name on the list. The list said that we qualified for the "interview round." I thought this was the final selection process, but apparently, in talking to some of the exec. board members, it's just a "get-to-know-you-and-give-you-crap-because-you're-new" session. It should be interesting. I'm excited for the debate tournaments to start. Apparently we're going to be practicing rather hard every other day for the next few weeks in order to prepare for the first big tournaments. Apparently a big topic at these tournaments is to rail against U.S. foreign policy/hypocrisy, etc. This, of course, begs the Teddy Roosevelt question: Does partisanship really stop at the water's edge? For most Presidents/Congresses, I would probably say yes. This one is so ludicrous and vindictive that it'll be fun to take it to task with greater precise knowledge than most Indians could. Let the games begin. UPDATE: The interview round yesterday was really more like an explanation of what was expected in terms of membership. It's a lot of debate, a lot of competition, but also quite a bit of work. If we were prepared to give a lot of time and effort to the society, we would gain a lot in return. But the relationship, said the President, Anvesh, should be you giving something to the society, not the society being solely for your benefit. He said if they saw that, that a student was taking advantage of society membership and not helping out with anything that it does, that that person was out. Cat and I are both very serious about doing debate, so this didn't phase us at all. After the interview/explanation, the President and Secretary took us aside and talkted to us for a bit. "I just want you to know that the people selected for the interview round were selected based on debating merit alone. I was under a lot of pressure not to select you two, as you will be leaving in December and won't form a good basis to build the society on in the future. But since we decided to select people based on debating merit, we didn't take those things into account. We just wanted to be clear with you regarding that: the only reason you made it here is because you deserve it." "Thank you, thank you very much," we responded, rather uneloquently. "That said, I don't think it would be untoward of us to ask quite a bit from you in return. By virtue of being from a different place, you think differently than we do. We could see this in your debating style. It's just a product of geography and culture. So we want you to interact heavily with the society, to share your ideas and different views on things, your experiences regarding organizing and putting on events." I responded with something stupid like "Absolutely, as long as you do the same. I want to learn from you as well," then went on to talk about how I had organized some big events before and that I had an idea of how to work with unwieldy administrational/societal internia problems. Cat was actually on the executive board of the debate team back at Brown, so she responded that she had been smiling the w whole time Anvesh had been talking because the problems he described were precisely the problems that the Brown debate team grappled with every year. So she knew what she was doing. The President and the Secretary seemed pleased with our responses and our enthusiasm. I'm even more excited to get going with this than I was before.