Jamia Hosts Nat’l Trilingual Inter Univ. Debate Competition

Bol–Jamia’s debating Society under the aegis of Office of Dean Students’ Welfare, Jamia Millia Islamia–organized a national trilingual inter university debate competition on Tuesday, March 13, 2012. The three languages in which the debate was conducted were Urdu, English and Hindi. The M.A. Ansari Auditorium was the venue for the national competition.

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The topic for the debate was, “Absolute Freedom Leads to Anarchy.”

Contestants were in a team of two, where one of the members had to make an argument in favor of the motion and the other against it.

There was an impressive show of numbers from several participating institutions from across the country. A total number of 21 institutions had participated in the competition; which included Jawaharlal Nehru University, Aligarh Muslim University, ST Xavier’s College, Jaipur; G. B Pant University, Pant Nagar; National Institute of Technology, Kurukshsetra; Jammu University, National Institute of Technology, Bhopal: Banaras Hindu University, Makhanlal Chaturvedi Rashtriya Patrakarita Vishwavidyalaya (MCU), Bhopal; Rajendra Prasad Degree College, Bareilly; Amity School of Communication, Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai and the University of Delhi.

Interestingly there were eight teams from different colleges of University of Delhi; which were from Dayal Singh College, Lady Sri Ram College, Rajdhani College, Zakir Hussain College, Sri Venkateshwar College, Hansraj College, Sri Guru Nanak Dev Khalsa College, Hindu College and one from the Campus Law Center.

As per the established tradition of Jamia Millia Islamia, verses from the holy Qur’an were recited in the beginning of the program. A translation of which was also read in Urdu and English.

Following which, Prof. Tasneem Meenai, Dean, Students’ Welfare, presented the welcome address and congratulated the concerned faculty members and students for volunteering to make such a convivial and coveted event happen.

The inaugural address was presented by Prof. Rose Varghese, Dean, Faculty of Law, Jamia Millia Islamia. In her speech she said, “I must congratulate the organizing team for conceiving an idea like this and that too on such a pertinent issue”. She referred to the famous English play “Julius Caesar” by William Shakespeare and said there is lot to learn from this very interesting drama. She concluded her short speech by declaring the event open and remarked on the topic of the debate saying, “Much can be said on both the sides.”

The Urdu language debate was first to start with six teams participating from three different universities, including Jamia.

The session was chaired by Dr. Nizam Elahi, former professor, State Council of Educational Research and Training, Delhi. He is presently associated as a specialist in Teacher Education and Development with the Azim Premji Foundation.

The judge’s panel for this session included Dr. Akhlaque Ahmad who is a bilingual poet of Persian and Urdu as well as an assistant professor in the Center for Persian and Central Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University; and Dr. Chaman Ara Khan, Assistant Professor, Department of Languages, National Council for Education Research and Training (NCERT).

Later in the day, after a short tea break, the debate in the English language started with 15 teams participating from 15 different institutions. The chairperson for this session was Dr. B. M. Bhalla, former principal, Dayal Singh College, University of Delhi.

Mrs. Indu Bala, former principal, Delhi, Tamil Education Association School, and Prof Amitabh Roy, Director, Center for Management Development, Modinagar, were present and took the responsibility to be the judges for the session.

Requested to speak a few words at the end of the session, Mr. Bhalla acclaimed the quality of debate and expressed happiness at the conduct of the function and said, “Debate is the soul of democracy”.

Later on, the third and the last sitting of the debate started in the Hindi language. There were 15 teams who took part in the session. Prof. K. M. Upadhyay was assigned with the task of chairing the discourse.

The auditorium witnessed a huge round of applause when a blind student Mr. Manoj Yadav from Zakir Hussain College stood at the podium and enthralled everyone with his strong arguments against the motion.

Dr. Afzalur Rahman, Deputy Director, Indian Council of Social Science Research and Dr. Madhavi Kumar, former Professor, National Council for Education Research and Training (NCERT), were the judges for this particular session.

With a day-long healthy competition in three widely spoken languages in India, the debate came to an end. The recent developments in the Arab world, polemical issues regarding Mr. Salman Rushdie, Ms. Tasleema Nasreen and Mr. M.F. Hussain, the unfortunate rift between civilian governments and military in Pakistan and regressive nature of its democracy and the movement of the so called anti-corruption crusader Mr. Anna Hazare were the dominating issues which were adverted throughout the competition.

The prize distribution ceremony witnessed the presence of the chief guest, Mr. Ravish Kumar, Executive Editor, NDTV, along with conveners of the event and senior academicians of the university on the stage.

Aligarh Muslim University, Makhanlal Chaturvedi Rashtriya Patrakarita Vishwavidyalaya (MCU) and Hindu College, bagged the first prize in Urdu, English and Hindi languages respectively.

“I was left spell bound to see the Ansari Auditorium and I am even more stunned seeing you folks debating with such enthusiasm and exuberance. I can bet you guys are better than the people on Television,” said Mr. Kumar.

The very last address of the day was made by Dr. Sheema Aleem, Convener, National Trilingual Inter University Debate Competition, Jamia Millia Islamia, who presented the vote of thanks. In her speech she expressed gratitude towards the Vice Chancellor, the pro Vice Chancellor and the Dean Students’ Welfare of the university for their kind support and guidance. She also expressed gratefulness towards Dr. Khan Masood Ahmad, Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences for his valuable presence. She further added, “I am thankful to Mr. Ravish Kumar for visiting the university and I confess that you are my personal favorite too.”

She further went on to thank the media team for covering the event.

DEBATE RESULTS: NATIONAL TRILINGUAL INTER UNIVERSITY DEBATE COMPETITION – 2012

Scenes From the Event:

*click on an image to enlarge.