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New Delhi: A speech at the Oxford Union by Mumbai-born Oxford law student Viraansh Bhanushali has become viral, in which he has slammed Pakistan. The speech was given after the Oxford Union's Pakistani president, Moosa Harraj, allegedly staged a misleading stunt, allowing Pakistan to claim “victory” in a debate that did not occur formally.
The high-profile debate that collapsed had Indian and Pakistani politicians with the motion that India’s policy towards Pakistan is a populist strategy under the garb of security policy. But in a separate student-led debate on the same motion in November at Oxford University, Bhanushali slammed Pakistan on terrorism and said, "We have learnt it the hard way, you cannot shame a state that has no shame."
Bhanushali referred to the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, and being a Mumbaikar himself, he knows about the trauma of the attacks that killed over 250 people. He said, “One of those targets was Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT), the very station that my aunt passed through almost every evening. By chance or by providence, she took a different train home that night, narrowly escaping the fate of the 166 souls that did not.”
He added, "I was a schoolboy then, glued to the television as my city burnt. I remember the fear in my mother's voice on the phone, the tension in my father's clenched jaw. For three nights, Mumbai did not sleep, and neither did I."
He also brought up the 1993 Mumbai blasts, and said, "So when someone claims that India's tough stance towards Pakistan is merely populism masquerading as security policy, you might understand why I bristle. To win this debate, I do not need to use rhetoric. I simply need to use a calendar."
Bhanushali also brought up the 1993 Mumbai blasts during his speech and said, "257 people died. Was there an election in March 1993? No. That election was 3 years away. Terror did not come because we needed a vote. It came because Dawood and the ISI wanted to fracture India's financial spine. That was not populism. That was an act of war."
He also attacked Pakistani leaders and said, “You cannot give your people bread, so you give them the circus." The speech has become viral and has drawn widespread acclaim.
