Importance Of Debate And Discussion

Debate is contention in argument; sespecially a formal discussion of subjects before a public assembly or legislature, in Parliament or in any deliberative assembly.

Debate is a method of formally presenting an argument in a disciplined manner.
Through logical consistency, factual accuracy and some degree of emotional appeal to the audience are elements in debating, where one side often prevails over the other party by presenting a superior "context" and/or framework of the issue. The outcome of a debate may depend upon consensus or some formal way of reaching a resolution, rather than the objective facts. In a formal debating contest, there are rules for participants to discuss and decide on differences, within a framework defining how they will interact.

Debating is carried out in assemblies of various types to discuss matters and to make resolutions about action to be taken, often by voting. Deliberative bodies such as parliaments, legislative assemblies, and meetings of all sorts engage in debates. In particular, in parliamentary democracies a legislature debates and decides on new laws. Formal debates between candidates for elected office, such as the leaders debates that are sometimes held in democracies. Debating is also carried out for educational and recreational purposes, usually associated with educational establishments and debating societies.

 The major goal of the study of debate as a method or art is to develop the ability to debate rationally from either position with equal ease.

Similarly TV channels can use debate on various points related to growth , education, culture , sports, health care etc to get fruitful results . 

But if these TV are used to toe the line of a party or the other , to sing the songs of those who pay money for it and to spread the views of a particular party or religion, it can creates division in society , it can give rise to caste conflicts, it can create conditions for inciting violence and rioting and it can help in pulling down a lgally elected government from power. Such biased debates instead of making a country may mar and destroy a country. Such ill-motivated and biased debates and discussion may spoil the culture of the society , may demotivate many weak minded persons,and may cause havoc in a peaceful society. TV channels in general are not providing creative ideas to viewers but playing with their emotions and feeding one-sided picture of a story .

We have to be very much careful from such debates and discussions which are organised not with open mind but with evil motto in mind. 

Debates and discussion  in modern era has become a tool for TV channels to serve interest of politicians of their choice, who may be looters and who may be real nationalists too. Now it depends on quality and capacity of viewers whether they can discriminate between good and bad ideas , valid and invalid logics , right or wrong news , merit and demerits of issues ,purpose of such debates and finally pros and cons of the matter. It the viewers are weak , they may become victim of ill-motivated debates and cause loss to nation directly or indirectly.

If people stop watching TV channels which are indulged in promoting anti- national activities, which are bent upon weakening India and which are Supporters of anti-india-slogan-shouters, and similarly business houses stop giving them advertisement work, I think evil minded TV anchors and TV promoters will stop their ill-motivated, fabricated, concocted and biased reporting and country will become peaceful and safe. There will be lesser caste conflicts and lesser number of communal riots in the country. It is these selfish anchors and promoters of TV channels who incite violence by giving provocative and prejudiced picture of an incident or an accident.

In coming days, peace lovers will have to discard social sites like Facebook and WhatsApp too ,to save their children from becoming of victim of evil culture, of mis-information campaign and of dirty materials which hav potential to spoil not only immature minds but also to matured and talented mind. I suggest them to discard such evil channels and evil newspapera because I know a government cannot regulate or censor such channels in framework of democracy.

Some people plead that one should always listen crtitic and opponents because it gives an opportunity to learn new things and gives an opportunity to face new challenges in modified and more effective way.

Kabir says-
Nindak niyare rakhiye, Angan kuti chawai,
bin pani sabun bina, nirmal kare subhaiy 

which means-
Keep your critiques close to you, let their hut be in your courtyard,
That way you don’t need soap n water to cleanse your nature,

It means to say that you get to know your faults if someone criticizes you, and you will have a chance to correct them. Listen to the criticism without annoyance, because the critic is not your enemy. He is helping you to clean the rubbish from your own life.

We are taught in schools and colleges that State Assemblies and Parliament are meant to make laws. In these temples of democracy, it is assumed and anticipated that a bill is proposed by a ruling party to make certain law or modify some of existing law to suit the need of time and then elected members are supposed to discuss and debate pros and cons of the proposal so that more and more refined and best suitable law is enacted.It is good in theory but not happening in practice.

If we closely watch the activities taking palce in majority of  State Aseemblies and Parliament, we will find that ninety nine percent of important proposals are passed by voice votes and without any discussion and debate. It is also observed that ruling party proposes a bill and members of opposition parties blindly and strongly oppose it as a ritual without looking into merit or dmerit of the inputs contained in the  bill  .

Similarly ruling party turn blind eyes  on suggestions offered by opposition members even if they are valuable and worth acceptance. 

It is open secret that elected members normally act as sheep and guided by their High command . Every party in opposition camp has a High Command which gives dictation to its members how a member has to react and respond on a bill presented by a ruling party .Similarly members of ruling party are advised to say Yes loudly in favour of the bill and strongly rebute all suggestions offerd by opposition members. 

It appears every members have to kill their own soul , conscience and views and act as puppet of their party high command. If any member of a political party dares speak against the dictate of his party high command, he or she is termed as dissident and spoiler of party's fate. Such members are many times expelled from the party.

It becomes crystal clear and it is proved that more often than not, elected members are to dance as puppet whose commnding thread lies in the hands of party supremo. We usually witness tug of war between two gangs of  elected members, one of ruling party and another of opponents. 

As such the talk of debate and discussion or talk of parliamentary democracy looks farce and deceptive. This is the position of highest place Parliament  which is meant for debate and debate only. What things may be more painful than this?

Similarly on majority of TV channels , it is observed that quality of discussion is biased towards some party or the other. If an anchor likes to support line of action of Congress Party on a point or a bill proposed by BJP , he will pick four strong spokesman who blindly follow Congress Party line of action and pick one spokesman from camp of BJP so that the team appear to be representative of all parties and all groups. But while discussing , the anchor will supprress all valid logic of BJP and give full time and maximum coverage to invalid points of Congress Party. Similarly opposite situation happens when an anchor of a TV channels who likes line of action proposed by BJP , he will pick four strong supporters of BJP and one supporter of Congress Party and follow the same biased strategy to suppress the views of Congress Party spokesman even if it contains some valid points.

In this way , majority of debates which are carried out on various TV channels lead to wrong conclusion and are enough to pollute the minds of weak viewers.There are many TV channels which show misinformation and ill-motivated anti-national materials and repeat it time and again such that even lie start appearing as truth .

It is said that if several persons start speaking lie loudly , the voice of a few persons who speak truth is suppressed and such persons are normally isolated from society and sometimes eliminated too. Hundreds of lies make a truth.

In recent past , some of students and some of outsiders shouted Anti-India slogans in Jawahar Lal Nehru Univesity (JNU) campus and there will be no doubt in the mind of a unbiased and unprejudiced person that those slogans were totally meant to malign and weaken our country . 

Shouting slogans like "Waging a war till destruction of country and till breaking of India into several pices" can never be considered as slogan for welfare of nation. Similarly many such slogans were shouted in JNU campus which a nationlists will never like and never support to be used anywhwere in the country. Still there are many politicians and individuals in our country who do not consider those slogans as anti-national-activity but treat the same as using  their right of freedom of expression. 

Some people are opposing police Action and BJP for calling persons as anti-nationals who were directly or indirectly involved in anti-india slogan shouting in JNU campus on 10/02/2016. They are perhaps opposing for the sake of opposition and some others are supporting for the sake of support. But ,in my view there should be unanimous and only one view when one says two plus two makes four. Similarly there should be no second opinion on fact that anti-india-slogan-shouters are anti-nationals. And court will decide whether charges of sedition applied by police are sustainable or not.

Unfortunately, There are some TV channels in our country where TV anchors call a few advocates of anti-national culture and call such politiicans on their TV who are inclined to weaken India  and then start debate on quality and justifiability of aforesaid slogans and finally forcefully conclude that anti-India slogan shouters were not anti-nationals. 

TV anchors conduct media trial and declare a person as innocent or culprit as per their whims and fancies. Debate is simply a tool for TV anchors to substantiate their evil opinions and enlarge its acceptance in public domain.. They do not want to wait till police investigation and judicial scrutiny of an incident or accident is completed.

Anchors of such TV channels are clever and cunning enough to pick speakers of their choice so that they may malign Mr. Narendra  Modi Prime Minister of India and Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) and in return get the blessings of leaders of Congress Party to which they are associated since childhood or for serving their self interest or for monetary gain . Similarly left parties which have been uprooted from entire India are now trying to use students to brighten their future even at the cost of Nation.

In such position , the word 'debate' appears deceptive and dangerous. Such unhealthy debates which have ill-motivated strategy and which have evil purposes to be served by organisers of debate  cannot be said protector of right of freedom or savior of democracy. Rather it is these TV channels which are injecting poison in the minds of not only innocent Indian citizen but in the minds of talented Indians too who do not have enough analytical capacity to discriminate between evil and bad logic with good and  valid logics.  Children beco.e victim of bad culture of quarrelling and mutual mud- slinging process shown on TV channels.

The statue of three monkeys, which Gandhi Ji always kept by his side, is still in use by our political class, babudom & many organisations. If not the statue, at least the idea and the principals for which these three monkeys stood, is quite clear to many Indians.

However, in modren era, so called reformers have given  new meaning to valuable suggestions of Gandhi ji and the relevance of these monkeys in today's world. 


The first monkey is supposed to See No Evil. In today's concept he still sees no evil - in the form of 'corruption, inefficiency, lethargy, garbage, poor infrastructure' etc.
The second monkey is supposed to Hear No Evil. Today's monkey does not hear any complaints, criticism, suggestions. He has almost lost hearing. May be due to age, since Gandhiji died in 1948.

The third monkey is supposed to Speak No Evil. Now he does not speak out at all. Any answers are given only in response to RTI queries or on judicial intervention. He is not bothered. Let people go to hell.

So what is the big challenge — leaders have to transform their attitudes, approach & people orientation. 

We need to develop a talent pool, so that we have better leaders in the future. We have either to make debate useful and fruitful or discard it altogether. 

Similarly if we cannot control mischievous TV channels and anchors ,we are left with one option of bycotting them. We can choose newspapers of our choice which may help in making India great and prosperous and bycott those newspapers which are indulged in Anti-national activities.

We should not remain silent spectator of all mishappening and all evils of society as three monkeys of Gandhiji. We must lodge our protest in our convenient way and in all possible ways, our silence empower evil doers .



Information is helpful but wrongly presented information may cause disasters too. Let us be selective and conscious all the time . some of  TV  channels and newspapers are spreading false news and we cannot control them. But we can definitely persuade our family members, our friends and our colleagues to avoid watching such channels and reading such newspapers. Prevention is better than cure. 

If you want to remain happy and in mental peace ,you have to control yourself, modify your habits and keep away from all who may disturb your peace.

There are many offices, many departments, many banks and insurance companies and many PSUs where  Chief of that office act as dictator and do not believe in mutual consultation or in debate and discussion . In such position , juniors and subordinates of Chief remain silent spectator or if they dare oppose evil work of chief , he or she has to face torture in diffrent way. In such position clever but true person expresses in different platform in disguised manner. In long run , avoidance of debate proves fatal and disasterous.

 

Debates and discussion must be held before taking any final decision on any big and valuable issue. But if such debates and discussions are held with dishonesty and prejudiced mind , entire exercise of debate become a laughing stock and proves futile. Debates and discussions are helpful only when all participants are with open mind and flexible attitude.

 It is however pitiable and painful too that debates held are more often than not , not with honest motive . If Partipants in debates sit eith fixed and closed mind , there is no fun is carrying out a debate on any subject just to make a formality. Honesty in fact is not part of any debate   neither in our Parliament and state Assemblies nor in our offices, nor on TV  channels.

 This is why I am constrained to suggest you to  avoid watching TV channels which presents report in biased and distorted way. I suggest you to avoid reading newspapers which serves a Party or an individual at the cost of our country. 

And if at all, you decide to watch such anti- national TV , you must have courage to protest wrong acts of media and if needed try for punishment to erring TV channels in lawful manner.