Not an Apt Format

Last week, I had the opportunity to participate in the 11th Vivekananda Memorial Debate at IILM, New Delhi - the self-styled "India's most sought-after debating platform." Well, I'm not so sure. Having devoted over a year in Parliamentary Debating, going back to a regular-style debate was a good opportunity to hone my core skills.

Motion: "Is Generation Y savvy enough to lead the nation ten years from now?" (not drafted like a motion, but read ahead)

If only it had been a debate. In my opinion, a debate has to give you an opportunity to rebut your opponent - to say that you said so and so but you're wrong because of so and so. However, IILM's format only allows a small refutation from participating teams and judges and that too without any cross-questioning. You can actually get away with a vague answer!

But it doesn't end there. The biggest handicap of all is fact that you get a measly three minutes to make your point - in three minutes, all you can do is send off a flurry of assertions. So you had one speech in which we had to bear the agony of listening to how facebook and twitter were going to change the world and how we bore the brunt of 9/11 and Katrina - at the end, I wished they had defined "nation" in the motion. You ask a question in the refutation and all you get is a repetition of points!

What was really infuriating was the fact that early speakers were handicapped, as the ones later easily referenced previous speeches and commented on those. This gave them a huge advantage because they could turn a 6 min speech into a 3 min one. In fact, the whole event was really a competition in oration rather than a debate. One team tried their best to make it a Parliamentary Debate, but by the time they finished their definitions and enumerations, time was up! Of course, they just kept talking, which was the other shock for us - the judges were ignoring the time limit!

Overall, this format, while extremely simple, is not really meant for debaters with some experience, least of all those with experience in PDs. This self-styled "India's most sought after debating platform" (which all engineering schools except IITR decided to skip) was not really worth the hype. Still, I did get to see the neat IILM Campus and their exquisite canteen (free food coupons!), from where you get a view of JLN Stadium. Not entirely a waste of time, really.