At the Oxford Union, one of the world’s most prestigious student debating forums, one may witness remarkable exceptions in the structure of debating. This often becomes evident when student debaters engage with motions involving the two long-contested nations of India and Pakistan. In a debate like that, an emotional binary emerges – on one hand, it is about how the debaters fiercely defend their propositions rooted in history and policy, and on the other hand, it is about how they turn it into banter, resembling exchanges between old friends bound by a shared yet complicated history. In a November 2025 debate, when the house believed that India’s policy towards Pakistan is a populist strategy presented as a security policy, remarks by Indian student speakers travelled far beyond the Oxford Union, quickly going viral across news and social media platforms.What makes it a truly memorable debate is how history, identity and memory were woven into every speech, instead of performative rhetoric. While debaters invoked decades of Pakistan-sponsored terrorism on Indian soil, their arguments consciously avoided abstract theorisation, idealism and perfunctory nationalism. One of the debaters, Viraansh Bhanushali, added in his speech personal memory of the devastating 26/11 attack as a Mumbaikar. Another debater, Devarcharan Banerjee, defended India’s security policy as a measured response in accordance with international law, while a third debater, Kautilya Pandit, offered a pointed rebuttal to what he termed the opposition’s “factual diarrhea”.What these young debaters show is not just a factual adjudication of policy but a more revealing picture of how today’s generation engages with South Asian politics: emotionally invested, morally assertive and increasingly skeptical of idealist theories. Bhanushali’s words echoed long after the debate ended: “I’m an idealist by heart, but unfortunately, I’m a realist by circumstance.” Preceding this remark were moments of far-sighted idealism in his speech, imagining a future where India and Pakistan might debate cultural similarities and differences, rather than engage solely through the language of security and policy that has historically defined their relationship. Nearly 7,000 kilometres away from home, within this small debating chamber, the voices present a unique picture of the entrenched hostility between two warring neighbours. The aim was not to reiterate the India-Pakistan antagonism like the mainstream media successfully does every day, but rather to fit a cross-border understanding in just an hour’s show without supposed sensationalism.While the debaters acknowledged that lasting peace and understanding are difficult to achieve in a transnational context, international academic spaces such as Oxford at least allow the political discourse to function simultaneously as both, a possibility and a constraint. Just a couple of months ago, when this house believed in an independent statehood for Kashmir, the unflinching debaters from India refused to settle in for the motion, much less involve in a banter.The subject of Kashmir is often treated as ontological – integral to India’s territorial being – and thus positioned beyond deliberation. This raises a broader question not on whether Kashmir constitutes a political red line while policy matters remain debatable, but how such sensitivities are negotiated within international forums. The significance of both these debates lies in the engagement where competing national narratives confront one another in the absence of state actors, revealing not only the boundaries of political flexibility but also the conditions under which dialogue, however limited, becomes possible.What distinguishes the Oxford Union debate from televised national-level discussions is not merely the camaraderie shared by participants outside the chamber, but more importantly the intellectual jibe and witty exchanges between people of the two nations – the same people who would joke and argue about the best music or biryani outside the house later. The debate was not about defending India’s policies and letting Pakistan down, but about asserting that terrorism, driven by non-state actors, cannot be morally relativised. A decade ago, two mainstream media channels aired a Youth Parliament session that invited astute young speakers and politicians (from the political class). It served as a rare face-off between India’s aspirational youth and the contested political class. As youth-led debates gain more traction in India, debates like the one at the Oxford Union Society are a reminder how political discourses led by the country’s youth integrate values such as liberalism, freedom of speech and right to life with cross-border understanding and security. However, one can also not miss the fact that this debate happened in the absence of state actors. Initially scheduled to feature established speakers from both sides, the format eventually shifted to just student participation. At the very end of the debate, the question wasn’t about winning or losing, or about the fear of a political fallout, it was about correcting factual fallacies, speaking morally, and remembering the collective loss and grief as a way to defend India’s response to all those ill-fated moments in history. What emerged was an engagement where defending India’s response to terrorism did not rely on rhetorical aggression, but on negotiating memory, responsibility and ethical restraint. The debaters in the chamber were born hearing stories of Kargil, grew up during the Mumbai attacks, and came of age after Pulwama attack. They have never known India and Pakistan at peace. And yet, when given the floor at Oxford, they proved that one could grieve without demonising Pakistan’s citizens, and defend national security without succumbing to nationalist hysteria. Two things remain clear: first, Oxford is not Delhi or Islamabad, it offers a neutral ground, and second, the debate on India-Pakistan is far from over. Will the next generation be ready for a conversation involving more space for dialogue and less for hatred? The question is whether our nations are. Manya Singh is a student of South Asian Studies at the Oxford University.