Adel Adem
Qatar University
Adel Adem, Qatar University
We arrived on the 14th of February in the early hours of the morning to a calm and beautiful dawn. Fog covered the skies over Delhi. Driving to the hotel it was the first time I'd seen vehicles on the left hand side of the road.
In the afternoon we took a tour of St. Stephen's College and met with students of the college's debating society . From the moment we arrived they were welcoming and friendly. Sharmen and Rajive took us through the history of the college. One thing that surprised me was the number of dogs that live in the college yards, apparently it's a tradition to keep dogs on campus which the students love.
During our tour around the college, we saw the team working on the venue for The Doha Debates - fixing the lighting and making last minute adjustments to the set where the panel of speakers would sit. After taking some photos with the debating society, we headed back to the hotel for dinner and a debate with the students of St. Stephen's College.
The debate was a friendly one. It wasn't us against them. One of our group (Moe) co-proposed the motion with one of their team( Rajive), likewise the opposition had a student from both Doha and Delhi. The debate was chaired by the President of St. Stephen's College, Tania Bhattacharyya. The motion was about terrorism being a justified means of resistance and was defeated.
15th of February: In the morning after breakfast, we went to a dance studio to be taught some traditional Indian dancing. It was funny and cool! We did the "Jay HO" dance from the film Slumdog Millionaire. After that we visited Humayun's Tomb, one of the ancient historical tombs in India. I was amazed with the architectural design and huge buildings. Its construction dates back to around 1565 A.D and the second Mughal Emperor is buried there.
That evening we attended the debate. It was heated due to the nature of the controversial motion and the fact it was taking place just days after a suspected terrorist attack in India. I found the opposition side more convincing and objective than the proposition. I addressed Ms. Seema Mustafa with a question on whether or not the social problems involve non-Muslims in India as well. The motion was defeated. That night we had dinner with the speakers and exchanged ideas on the debate and other issues.
16th of February: I woke early to meet an Eritrean friend for breakfast who studies in Delhi. We discussed a number of issues including the problems of studying abroad.
Mr. Mani Shankar Aiyar, a former member of the Indian parliament was one of the speakers at the lunchtime roundtable discussion hosted by the think tank - The Centre for Policy Research. I enjoyed Mani's discussion so much and learnt a lot about the India-Pakistan issue. I believe he was very objective and presented a very clear picture about the nature of the conflict and where the solution to it lies. He suggested that the involvement of the people in the political process is the way to conflict resolution. But before that can be achieved stereotypes must be erased from those living in these neighboring countries. I asked him about the Indian economic system and why the remarkable economic growth of India is not reflected in the living standards of the majority of the country's population. He answered my question frankly and said that India has to choose between pleasing the western world by keeping its capitalist economic system or by going for a socialist economic system, which he advocates.
After the roundtable we went to visit the Red Fort. What drew my attention in our tour guide's explanation was the amount of money in terms of pure gold that was used to build the throne of the Mughal Emperor. It was 40 million rupees at the time for just one throne, such a huge amount of money! Later I jokingly said to one of the Indians who was chatting with me that the reason why prices in India are high today and life is so difficult must be due to the abuse of resources by those Mughals.
One major thing I learnt from my trip to Delhi is that there are so many things I thought I knew but I don't. I found out that I know little about many things indeed! The more we travel and tour around the world, the more we become aware of how little we know about our world.
