A little before the phrase “surgical strike” had gone viral, one was listening to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Kozhikode speech and wondering how sometimes words could achieve more than weapons ever could. Fond of alliteration, he soon packaged the country’s collective anger succinctly: khoon aur paani saath sath nahin beh sakte (blood and water can’t flow together) while addressing a meeting to review Indus River Water Treaty.
Many believe Modi has not only brought India on the global stage but has also kindled interest in public speaking. After a long time, we have found a leader whom students can quote. So much so that Virender Kapoor, a noted inspirational guru, has come up with a book called “Speaking, The Modi Way” where he has analysed Modi’s oratorical skills and how one can adapt them to crack an interview or make a presentation. Kapoor says Modi speaks without a crutch. “I feel if you use Power Point, there is no power in your point.” He feels the Prime Minister has the power of persuasion, the right body language and the ability to adapt according to the audience.
Oratory has been an important part of academic life since the days of Roman Empire. In his book “Debating India”, Bhikhu Parekh talks about the Indian tradition of public debate, which doesn’t exist in any other country. A tradition where debate is a public spectacle, where in front of thousands of people two or more individuals debate big issues. However, in modern Indian, television debates are increasingly becoming pointless and chaotic. In modern universities, debating societies are an important part of academic activity but they no longer make as much impact as a drama or music club does. Newspaper supplements cover the annual cultural events of universities but they hardly report annual debates.
It seems style is taking over content. Noted academician Dr. Sukrita Paul Kumar says these days debaters do not think too much of the what of it but focus on the how of it. “They become smart presenters. So the impact would be there but not a lasting one. I feel a little concerned. It might be a generational thing as we used to feel that greater reflection was required. Today, the conviction level is not high and debate is often reduced to buying and selling of argument.” The usage of commercial terminology reflects that there is greater stress on management skills. “It is about how you manage the argument in style. As educators, we are not looking at the philosophy of education. We are only thinking of the skills that we want to have.”
Aatika Singh, a law student and an avid debater, admits taking side on a topic of national importance without actually believing in it is one big task every debater is faced with. “Also, logically analysing the other person’s point of view without letting your objectivity slip is something I grapple with every time I take stage.” Aatika says most of these debates are fought for the prize money without conviction. “There are few debates where people speak what they really believe in.” She says one should know who is funding a particular debate and what the agenda is. “It should not remain a bastion of the elite, only then we could have a more egalitarian debate.” In the US, she says, there have been instances where students debated with prisoners and that is one good thing that we can adopt. “Sometimes, the prisoners win also, like they recently did in a Harvard University debate on capital punishment, because the ideas they put forward are new and their implementation is possible. The minds who come through a routine education process have fixed ideas that the society can go only this far and no further.”
Many believe the focus on style reflects education system’s shifting focus from humanities to management sciences. Kumar, who currently holds the Aruna Asaf Ali Chair at Delhi University, agrees, “Even those who are into humanities, they are doing it like management studies. That’s sad.”
It could well be a reflection of our leadership. “Leadership says it has something to do with market forces, Market forces say it depends on the human resource we are given. I think as educators we need to be more proactively engaged in the domain of what we give and take in a university. Focus should come back on what the society needs rather than what the market wants.”
Talking of leadership, veteran political commentator Saeed Naqvi says, “Since television and mass media has become the principal vehicle for politics and political message, gradually politicians are beginning to adjust to the new requirement. It was not always the case and Naqvi reminds the days of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Prakash Vir Shastri, Ram Manohar Lohia, H.V. Kamath, Hiren Mukherjee and Krishna Menon when the parliamentary debate was as good as that of the House of Commons. “In between, the intellectual calibre collapsed. Now, what you have is not great oratory but a catering to the requirements of mass media. In that, demagoguery trumps substance.” But even so, he continues, the speech by Prime Minister at Kozhikode was an improvement on whatever he had done before. “Particularly, the way he managed to cater to the constituency which at the moment is very angry and yet he was able to give it a tweak at the end in a constructive and clever way by separating the citizens of Pakistan from the government. A great deal was hinted at in that speech of what is to come in future,” says Naqvi and goes on to praise Sushma Swaraj as well for her speech at UN General Assembly.
Having said that he agrees there is a decline and it is a global phenomenon as the opening US Presidential debate didn’t enthuse many with its intellectual depth. Naqvi says politics has become like theatre. “It has become a TV show. It has become increasingly difficult to distinguish between policy and performance.”
Prof. Apoorvanand Jha of Delhi University says he has been a champion debater during his school days and now he knows why he won every time. “Schools coach their students to indulge in demagoguery. It is not a discussion. It is not about your conviction. It is about scoring a point over your rival. This is what you are taught. Substance matters little. It has always been there, and it hasn’t changed.”
And this, he says, reflects in our political speeches as well. “When Modi went to Bihar and told people that Alexander was defeated on the banks of Ganga, people laughed but he knew it didn’t matter. When Amit Shah took the name of a 13th Century Ahom king and said he had driven Mughals out of Assam, historians kept pointing out that it was factually inaccurate but he knew what we was doing. The facts didn’t matter.”
This, he says, has something to do with our understanding of public speaking. “We don’t believe in creating a dialogic situation. That everything can’t be divided into ‘for’ or ‘against’. We don’t believe in listening to the other. Instead, we believe in our power to convince the other. Are we also ready to get persuaded?”
Kapoor might not agree. For he sums up the book with the words of Thomas Macaulay: “The object of oratory alone is not truth, but persuasion,” but attributes them to William Bernbach.
