The terror attack at Uri in Kashmir that killed 17 soldiers has resulted in renewed discussions of retaliation by the general public. Twitter all day today, 19th September, has been an odd mixture of “nuke them” and “doodh mangoge toh kheer denge…”.
Within all the commotion, Stand-up comic Tanmay Bhat of All India Bakchod decided to tell a little story about a debate that happened when he was in school. This supposed 8th grade school debate had a sensitive issue like “Should India go to war against Pakistan over Kashmir?” as the Topic.

Bhat’s story involved him speaking against it and his opponent using a simple parable like throwing stones till the breaking point as his argument. In this supposed story, Bhat’s opponent ended his “argument” with “Bharat Mata ki Jai” and got a mass response from all the students.

Bhat shared his story in series of tweets: “Here’s a thing that happened with me when I was in school. It was the annual school debate and I was a participant. I was going up against a very sharp student. I was anxious about my topic. The topic given to us was “Should India go to war against Pakistan over Kashmir?” – I was supposed to argue against the motion. I was relieved. I was in 8th grade and I felt that people dying for no reason isn’t the solution. Don’t ask, I was a weird kid. I was well prepped for the debate with facts about how wars can be expensive, destructive etc. etc. You know, crazy people arguments. I went up first in front of 200 kids in the 8th grade, and all my teachers, and tried to convince them that war is a bad idea. I thought I did reasonably well. Some of the kids seemed convinced that pointless killing was futile (weirdos) Teachers looked proud. Twas time for my opponent (an 8th grader) to convince others (8th graders) that we should nuke Pakistan (probably including 8th graders). The kid got onto stage and began narrating an incident. Genius, begin with an anecdote. Should’ve thought of that myself. “When we were in PT period yesterday, I threw a stone into my dear friend Tanmay’s pocket…” He said. “The first time I did it, he got annoyed and shouted at me. So I did it again. This time again he shouted at me” He continued. “I did it 4-5 times. He went and complained to the teacher. But even that didn’t stop me..” “Until the final time that I threw a stone in his pocket, he got up and pushed me..” Stunned silence in the audience right now. “Now you tell me, if Tanmay can hit me back for doing something so small like throwing stones, WHY CAN’T WE ATTACK PAKISTAN!.” “And he toh is a friend! IF HE CAN DO IT, WHY CAN’T WE AS ENEMIES ATTACK THEM!” – I could see concentric circles forming in 8th grade eyes. He ended his speech by yelling Bharat Mata Ki (no jokes) while 8th graders yelled JAIII officially giving their consent for violence. The teachers watched in horror. They were the judges of course and I won the debate. But none of the students thought I deserved to.

While as a story, it does speak on several levels about knee-jerk decisions and blind jingoism, it seems pretty unlikely that any school would pit 13-year-olds against each other in such a volatile and politically charged debate. Fake story or not, it still is an entertaining and intelligent read.