Shashi Tharoor at the Oxford Union – How to be a whip in an Oxford style debate

As the Union debated upon whether or not Great Britain owed reparations to India, Dr Shashi Tharoor, Member of Parliament was called on to speak in favour of the proposition as their last speaker. Within the Oxford style of debating, he thus has a very specific role – refute the arguments made by the opposition while strengthening those made by his own side. The following article will attempt to elucidate and contextualize the arguments made in Dr Tharoor’s speech, and in the process explain the main role of the whip in Oxford style debates. 

After some light banter that strategically draws the crowd’s attention without wasting too much time, Dr Tharoor goes straight into his first refutation. Sir Ottaway had previously suggested in his speech that it was not a given that British imperialism had at all caused any economic harm to the colonies in consideration. Dr Tharoor counters this simply and effectively by means of a simple factual argument – the percentages of the world market share held by India before and after colonial control.

Basic familiarity with the structure of an argument might cause the reader to question how the crux of the same can be a piece of evidence, instead of the usual statement-reasoning-evidence-linking format. But here’s where we see a differentiation between evidence-based and reasoning-based argumentation. This is an example of an evidence-based argument, wherein the very statement of the argument is a piece of evidence, which is subsequently substantiated by further evidence, using logical consequence as the reason for the statement.

The multiple pieces of evidence substantiating this are obviously the various sanctions and tariffs imposed upon Indian handlooms, muslins, and other articles of export, which served to strategically reduce the country’s share in the global market.

From here, Dr Tharoor enters his own arguments, detailing the systematic exploitation of Indian weavers and artisans by British officials like Clive. He also mentions how reparations have indeed been paid, but to wealthy Victorian families who lost money invested on transporting slaves when slavery was banned in 1833, including the very man whose name is commemorated in the Wi-Fi password of the Union, Mr Gladstone.

Details like this serve to set up a sympathetic background for the proposition, in order to garner the votes of the House in their favour. Catering to the House is seen by some as a waste of valuable time in a debate, but in larger debates with sizeable Houses, it is a clever tactic that can not only be used to pad your speech for content but also turn opinions to your side in a more straightforward way. 

He continues in this vein, mentioning the Bengal famine, and how resources were redirected from the starving Bengalis to contribute to the reserve stockpiles of Europeans. Churchill’s racist apathy is again used as a powerful example of the general British attitude towards India and her people. 

Now, all of this information is tied up to the original refutation from the start of the speech, completely debunking any remote notion that the intent and interests of the British in India were driven by a genuine will to bring the benefits and advancements of the Occidental world to the ‘backward’ colony.

Wasting no time, Tharoor goes onto his second major argument, that the reality of the colonial experience was violence, financial exploitation, and racism. He connects this argument with a direct refutation of one of the arguments of the principal speaker of the Opposition, Mr Lee, who had said that historic evils could not be quantified reliably, by citing the figures of Indian participation in the First World War. I will not waste words reiterating the figures he mentions, but to summarise, these figures drill home the enormous and definitely unrecompensed contributions made by India to the efforts of a war that wasn’t hers to fight or win (and reap rewards from). While on the topic of forced contributions, Tharoor also brings up the Scots employed in India, and the wealth they drew from the country, making a sharp jibe at the crumbling state of Anglo-Scottish relations in the absence of India as a cash-cow.

The oft used example of the railways as a boon left by the colonisers in the colonies had already been debunked by a previous speaker of the proposition. Dr Tharoor reiterates and further strengthens this argument, performing another one of his main responsibilities as a whip – strengthening his own side’s arguments. Not only were the railways built with British interests of transporting troops and resources in mind, but they were also built on Indian taxpayers’ money, with an added load to accommodate the incentives for British investors to build them. All the profits from this venture, obviously, ended up going back to Britain. 

He goes back to refutations, stating that British aid to India is merely 0.4% of its GDP, and that the Government spends more on fertiliser subsidies, moving swiftly on to linking this entire second argument back to the context of reparations in the motion. If the British people of today cannot ethically be held responsible for paying reparations for the actions of their forefathers, they can also not point to the pathetically miniscule foreign aid they provide to the colonies (fun fact about that: India in fact had asked Britain to stop giving it aid in 2011, via senior diplomat Nirupama Rao, because it fostered a fictitious image of India as a poor country in the global stage. They refused, citing a “grave political embarrassment”, only to be mocked by Pranab Mukherjee in the Rajya Sabha in August 2012, when he said that British aid is like “a peanut in our total developmental exercises”). Other countries like Germany, Italy, etc., also pay reparations to victims of their violence, and in fact the UK itself has paid reparations to the Māori of New Zealand, so there is not only justification for a program of apologetic reparations, but also global as well as national precedent for the UK. 

Lastly, Tharoor goes back to principal speaker Lee’s speech, countering his argument that reparations would enable corrupt and incompetent governments to have the necessary rhetoric to attribute their failures to colonial history, saying that reparations are not meant to empower anyone from the recipient country; they are a means of apology and atonement for the giver, in order to attempt to right the wrongs of their countless atrocities upon the receiver. He thus ends his packed speech, saying that even a mere acknowledgment, and an amount as little as a pound a year for 200 years, referring to the 200 years of British rule in India, would go a long way in correcting the misgivings of British history. 

From this robust speech, we may draw several lessons for the ideal Oxford whip. Firstly, one’s most important responsibility in this role is refutation, and it isn’t necessary that their phrasing and evidence coincides exactly with the arguments of their opposing side, as long as the part where they link everything they’ve said to the motion is logically sound.

Secondly, just because one is refuting doesn’t mean they won’t make any original arguments. They can be sub-arguments to the main counter to something the opposing side said, and one can afford to have them be less detailed than, for example, an argument made by the deputy speaker, but a good debater will find a way to include some of these in their speech. 

Lastly, rhetoric. Just because one might be a whip does not automatically imply abstinence from employing rhetorical devices to appeal to the House’s heart and/or humour instead of just their wit. The use of these devices must be judicious, as a break from monotonous verbal rampages of content, ensuring a strong response from the house. 

Oratory is not easy. This article, however, aims to establish that it is not some impenetrable echelon of skills that only a select few can learn. Instead, it’s simply a set of a few ground rules, and a lot of practice. Practice speaking, and that’s half your battle won. All the best.

Written by: Ayon Basu