The Oxford Union – long celebrated as a cradle of free speech and the stage for some of history’s most consequential debates – was meant to host another landmark discussion last week.

The motion, “This House Believes India’s policy towards Pakistan is a populist strategy sold as security policy,” arrived at a moment of heightened tension following the Pahalgam attack and the duelling responses of Operation Sindoor and Bunyan Marsoos. Anticipation had been building for weeks: the term card had withheld speaker names, rumours swirled on both campuses and online, and many expected a rare, substantive public clash on one of South Asia’s most fraught relationships.

What unfolded instead was a spectacle of confusion, competing narratives, and political opportunism.

The event that should have offered clarity on a complex bilateral issue ended up exposing deeper fractures – within the Oxford Union’s own leadership and in the way national politics eagerly co-opt student platforms. As Indian and Pakistani media rushed to claim victory, blame walkouts, and spin the story to their domestic audiences, the Union found itself once again at the centre of a drama that said far more about institutional decay and geopolitical posturing than about the motion being debated.

Social media, particularly X, and news media in both Pakistan and India, have been debating and discussing what happened and what this means. The Pakistanis claim India backed out of the debate and gave Pakistan a walkover, while the Indians claim they were ready to debate, but because the Pakistanis refused to participate and claimed a false victory, there was no high-ranking opposition to debate. There is some truth in both claims, but something far more sinister is also at play. 

Before this, for the uninitiated, the Oxford Union is a student debating society based in Oxford, with no official affiliation to Oxford University, nor is it representative of all students.

Its primary aim is to organise debates and provide a platform for a variety of opinions. It claims to be the “last bastion of free speech”. It is in this spirit that, historically and even recently, it has held debates that have shaped opinion beyond the confines of the Oxford Union.

For instance, the former US President Nixon made one of his few public admissions of his failures in the Watergate scandal in the Union. For those from the Indian subcontinent, especially Pakistan, it holds a special place, as the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto, was famously elected Union president during her time at Oxford and was the first woman of Asian origin to serve as the Oxford Union’s President. 

In this context, the weight of the Union’s word and platform is significant. However, the India-Pakistan fiasco is a prime example of what the Union has been reduced to in recent years. 

Much can be written about the fall of the Union, including controversies, such as the recent Charlie Kirk-related one, or the Union’s depleting finances due to a variety of reasons. However, the consistent trend over the past few years has been a lack of serious leadership that prioritises high-quality debate and focuses more on internal politics and Machiavellian political machinations. Adding to this mix are Oxford Union presidents who have an eye on their domestic audience and their future goals. 

In recent years, Pakistani presidents have used the Union explicitly to serve these purposes. The recent drama with the India-Pakistan debate is another casualty in this perverse use of the Union. 

What actually happened? 

While multiple stories are floating around Oxford, the most prominent one is that the invites for the Union debate were sent out to multiple Indian speakers, including but not limited to – Sachin Pilot, Priyanka Chaturvedi, Suhel Seth, Abhijit Iyer-Mitra, S Jaishankar, Shourya Doval, General MM Naravane (Retd), J Sai Deepak and Subramanian Swamy. The final line-up was supposed to be former union minister Subramanian Swamy, ex-army chief General Naravane (Retd) and lawyer J Sai Deepak. However, both Swamy and Naravane backed out a few days before the debate, leaving only J Sai Deepak. The narrative goes that Swamy and Naravane were denied permission by the Ministry of External Affairs or the Indian High Commission. However, this is highly circumspect since neither of these individuals hold any constitutional office or elected position that requires them to seek permission from the government. Whatever the reason, since these speakers backed out, the Oxford Union reached out to UK-based options on a few days' notice, and they agreed. 

At the same time, the Pakistani side, sensing an opportunity after major speakers withdrew, chose to claim an early victory and withdraw from the debate altogether. While speakers from the Pakistani side, such as Hina Rabbani Khar, the former Foreign Minister, were already in Oxford, they decided or were pressured to simply not participate to keep up the charade of having won without debating. Thus, even the emergency short-notice speakers from the Indian side of the debate decided not to attend since there was no serious or high-level Pakistani side to debate against. J Sai Deepak, who was in London and prepared to debate, also backed out since he didn’t want to debate only students.  

The context to be added is that the Oxford Union sends out invites to anywhere between 75 and 100 people for each debate, a few months in advance. This is done since there are scheduling challenges of lining the availability of speakers and the debate date together. In the course of this, speakers may give initial consent to participate but not a full confirmation. Priyanka Chaturvedi’s case confirms this wherein she mentions that she was contacted earlier in July, but had only received further details days before the debate. This is a stereotypical case of the lack of professionalism and competence in the Union management, which is run by students. Further, they often over-exaggerate their claims about the potential line-up and present tentative confirmations as final confirmations to create hype. Having worked on debate planning in previous terms, I’ve often seen speakers I confirmed fail to attend simply because they never received the follow-up details.

While there is a lack of confirmation or clarity on whether this was an honest mistake or some deliberate sabotage, the Pakistani High Commission and the President of the Oxford Union took this as an opportunity to claim victory. Despite all these high-profile dramas, the debate did continue, albeit with student speakers on both sides. The motion was “This House Believes India’s policy towards Pakistan is a populist strategy sold as security policy”. The Pakistani side in the debate used this as a chance to charge the Modi government as a fascist regime that uses Muslims at home as an electoral punching bag, and as an extension, also treats Pakistan and its Islamic government as a means to gain votes. They argued that elections and terror attacks often coincide, allowing Pakistan to be seen as the permanent enemy that the government must defend the country against. 

The argument completely ignored how the security policy towards Pakistan has remained consistent despite changes in government, barring the Modi government’s stronger public posturing and PR blitz that accompanies these actions. 

Further, there have been instances – including the most recent Delhi Red Fort terror attack – where, despite its timing being close to the Bihar elections, Pakistan was not blamed, and the Modi government exercised restraint. Clearly, our security policy is not driven by elections and rests on much more nuance and pragmatism. These arguments were raised strongly by the side against the motion, represented by three Indian students who presented a strong case. The Indian side lost the debate, with a majority of members voting in favour of the motion. 

The debate, which should have just ended in the House, was brought into the public sphere by the Pakistani side as well as the Union’s President. The Union President, Moosa Harraj (whose father is the current Federal Minister for Defence Production in Pakistan), has engaged with several Pakistani media outlets post-debate, further pushing the narrative of the Indian walkout and lack of participation. The Union’s current President has deep links to the Pakistani government, which explains his extreme levels of patriotism. 

‘No longer a fair platform for debate’

This isn’t a new phenomenon. A few months ago, Israr Khan was appointed as an Ambassador by the Pakistani government due to his stature as the Union’s former president. During his tenure, the Oxford Union debated a motion on the independence of Kashmir, during which several Indians publicly declined to participate. And the Pakistani side took advantage of this, leading to their 'victory' in the debate, which was broadcast to the audience back home and globally. The intermeshing of the Pakistani state and the Union has produced situations like these, where, rather than being a fair platform for debate and discussion, the odds have favoured one side, making it a fixed match of sorts. 

The recent India-Pakistan debate fiasco is a stark reminder that platforms once revered for fostering open dialogue can become entangled in political theatrics and strategic manipulation. What should have been a robust exchange of ideas instead morphed into a carefully choreographed spectacle, highlighting not only the Union’s institutional challenges but also the lengths to which external actors may go to shape narratives in their favour. Moving forward, it is essential for the Oxford Union to reclaim its role as a genuine forum for debate by prioritising professionalism, inclusivity, and transparency. Only then can it live up to its self-proclaimed status as the “last bastion of free speech” and ensure that future controversies do not undermine the integrity of this historic institution. Until such reforms take root, episodes like this will continue to raise questions about the true purpose and impartiality of this once-prestigious platform.

Amaan Asim is a former appointed officer of the Oxford Union and is a current MPhil student at Oxford University. 

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