At ConQuest, university students locked horns to test their knowledge of the Indian Constitution, history and politics.
New Delhi: The quest is on to find the true scholars of the Constitution within India’s universities, and north India has shown its cards.
The third edition of ConQuest, India’s premier national quiz on the Indian Constitution, history and politics, is being organised around the country by the Centre for Law and Policy Research (CLPR), and the finalists from northern region were chosen Saturday.
Teams from Delhi University’s Ramjas College and Campus Law Centre won the regional round held at the National Law University, Delhi, and will now be heading to the national finale on 28 September at the School of Law, Christ University, Bengaluru. On the day, Ramjas beat Campus Law Centre by 10 points.
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The northern regional round saw a turnout of 87 teams from various universities battle through a preliminary quiz and the final regional quiz to represent the north in the finale.
The quiz is aimed at CLPR’s initiative to engage the youth with India’s rich constitutional and political history. However, unlike most general knowledge quizzes, this one didn’t pose questions that were just taken out of textbooks. It took into account the social context and status quo of the society to address some of the most pressing issues of our time, as well as those that shaped India’s politics through the years.
In order to form a well-informed and impactful voter-base, as well as future leaders, an active engagement with politics, policy, governance and the law is essential. As digital partner, ThePrint not only supports this aim, but also works independently to implement it — through focussed reporting and writing on similar themes.
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These were some of the topics that the quizzers had to deal with to make it to the end. One of the questions that the quizmaster posed pertained to the incident back in 2012 when the police took action against a sleeping crowd at Baba Ramdev’s rally at Ramlila Maidan. The competitors also had to guess which right was included in the ambit of the right to life by the Supreme Court while ruling over the case. The correct answer was the right to sleep.
One of the questions that tickled everyone’s brain was when they were shown the following clip and asked to identify the woman and the cause for her jump.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_dXmmHxh_w
The scene, which was recreated in 2015 English film Suffragette, was based on the Epsom Derby incident in 1913, when Emily Davison jumped in front of the king’s horse and died due to the collision. It is alleged that she collided with the horse as a self-sacrifice to bring attention to the suffrage movement.
Another question that had many of the contestants scratching their heads was based on a dialogue from Rajinikanth’s movie Kaala, which was based on the speech of a real historical figure. Only one team got the answer right as they recognised the words “educate, agitate and organise”. The figure in question was Dr B.R. Ambedkar.