An Indian team emerged world champion at the World Debating Championships 2019, defeating Canada, with Tejas Subramaniam of the Padma Seshadri Bal Bhavan (PSBB) School, Chennai, adjudged the best speaker.
The five-member Indian team included Tejas Subramaniam (PSBB School), Bhavya Shah (a visually impaired student from the Rao Junior College of Science, Mumbai), Manya Gupta (Neerja Modi School, Jaipur), Saranya Ravindran (also from PSBB School, Chennai) and Prithvi Arun (Sri Sankara Senior Secondary School, Chennai). The tournament, which was held in Thailand, saw 600 participants from 64 nations, and the Indian team reportedly did not lose a single round. After an elaborate selection process, the five students were chosen by the Indian Schools Debating Society (ISDS) and trained for months.
Tejas Subramaniam, a Class XII student says, for seven months, they attempted 140 debates on various topics. “We had to research feminism, sports and environment, sit for training in video calls, and listen to lectures on finance and developmental economics. It was gruelling training but everything paid off in the end,” he said.
For Bhavya Shah, a Class XII student and the first visually impaired debater in an Indian team, the world of debating, rebuttal, reasoning and arguments were rather new before he applied to get on the team. In the quarter finals, the team faced Pakistan on the topic ‘This House supports China’s attempts at becoming a dominant global power’. When a member of the Pakistan team said they supported China as it was the Avengers of the global south, Mr. Shah, known for his humour, shot back, “If you think China are the Avengers , I marvel that.”
P.R. Venketrama Raja, Chairman of the Ramco Group, which sponsors the ISDS, said: “There should be reason rather than rhetoric and emotions. Debaters may have opinions, but since they have been trained to have both points of view, they may never get offended because someone is differing from their opinions.”
