JU debates nationalism at Sanskriti, presented by TOI

Kolkata: The girl in shorts, who was heckled in JU for smoking a ciggerate came up for discussion when the Jadavpur University community debated nationalism and whether it is harmful for democracy. What kind of nationalism will you brand the incident under? Is this democracy? These are some of the questions that came up for discussion at the debate that was organised as part of the Arts Faculty Students Union's annual fest Sanskriti, presented by The Times of India.The debate was bilingual and is a part of an innovation that TOI is experimenting on city campuses, starting with Presidency University at their union's fest.
The experiment is to do with giving a fillip to Bengali and bringing out a regional flavour in the debate. The motion for the debate was: Nations are not set in stone, but are dynamic and changing. Nationalism is harmful to democracy. There were a total of 10 speakers divided into two groups.
Apart from one participant who came from Symbiosis, Pune, the remaining were all from JU itself, spread across English, Bengali and International Relations departments. Srijita Poddar, who spoke against the motion emerged as the winner. Taking her argument from Bhagat Singh's brand of nationalism to comparing that with Gandhiji's, she tried to explain the difference that could co-exist to make a democracy successful. Tannistha Sinha, who is quite popular in college debating circle spoke against the motion and gave the example of Nazi Germany and its role in starting off World War II. A story from Manto was interestingly presented by Sammya Mukhopadhyay who spoke for the motion.
Akash Chatterjee, who spoke in Bengali, gave this point a fillip when he compared the notion of nationalism to French absolute monarchical system under Napoleon. He used examples of Robespiere and Bismarck and linked to more recent happenings like - 'Maharashtra for Marathis' and the Hindutva backed nationalism.
The problem that surrounds the issue of Kashmir secession was also brought up by the debaters, both for and against the motion.