Strikes ended as FTII's basic issues are resolved-Ex FTII Chairman Gajendra Chauhan
7:44 AM
Gajendra
Chauhan, whose tenure as head of the institute ended in March, presents
a rose-tinted view of his stint; Vikas Urs, the face of student
protests that erupted soon after the former’s appointment, counters his
claims
Sanyukta Iyer (MUMBAI MIRROR; July 26, 2017)
Four-and-a-half months after his troubled tenure of a year and three months — as opposed to the stipulated three years — as Chairman of the Pune-based Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) ended, Gajendra Chauhan looks back at the stint as “highly productive and controversy-free”. The actor, 60, whose appointment in 2015 fueled an unprecedented uprising within the institute’s ecosystem with its prolific alumni taking it beyond its walls, believes that the furore eventually died as “all the basic issues at FTII have been resolved”.
Chauhan, who is now Chairman of the Evaluation Committee of the upcoming Doordarshan channel, Arun Prabha, brands his reign from June 9, 2015 to March 3, 2017, as “perfectly in sync with the ideologies of the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) and RSS (Rashtriya Svayamsevak Sangh)”. “A lot of work was done during my tenure. The students were on strikes because nobody was looking into their problems. They didn’t want me there so I was running the institute from Mumbai. I conducted four governing council meetings and you can see the results today,” he says.
Relay Chauhan’s claims to Vikas Urs, who graduated from FTII last month and had spearheaded the anti-Chauhan protests for four months, and he says, “He is the Government’s puppet and Director Bhupendra Kainthola is another ‘Yes Minister’. He’s such a sell-out he can’t even face the students.”
Urs, who spent six years on campus, says his phone was tapped, he was blackmailed by government officials, and spent a night behind bars (he was one of the five students arrested on August 26, 2015, for holding unofficial court). “The strikes stopped because we realised we’re dealing with people who don’t care about art and cinema. Chauhan is insignificant, it’s the Government who wants to convert FTII into commercial propaganda. New admissions are asked to sign a bond of ‘no protest’, an early dictatorial set-up for a future where filmmakers will not question anything. It’s outright tyranny,” he asserts.
Meanwhile, Chauhan continues to extol his contributions, saying he implemented a semester format and a choice-based credit system and brought the country’s best academicians— ex-vice chancellor of Mumbai University and professors from IIM Ahmedabad and IIMC Delhi—as visiting faculty. “Since FTII was short-staffed, we introduced walk-in interviews to fill the vacancies. I replaced the diploma with a Government-certified Master’s degree. It was my masterstroke!” he adds. Urs rubbishes this. “Students have been trying to get the syllabus changed for 10 years. Until 2015, there were three stakeholders on the academic council—the Government, faculty and students—but now students aren’t allowed. The Government made radical changes to make the syllabus box office-oriented so the students would create revenue-generating content.”
Chauhan informs that a request has reached the Finance Ministry to rebuild the 60-year-old hostel. Urs asserts that his 8x10 room was the least of his problems. “My degree was delayed by nine months because the management did not allocate funds correctly and there was no projection system, which costs Rs 60 lakh, to screen my film.”
While FTII continues to grapple with newly-formulated red-tapism, Chauhan has blithely moved on. “In the end, I am an actor. I have two bilinguals stuck at the Censors and another film, Rishtey, coming up, in which I play a tough cop whose motto is, ‘Nation first, Family later’,” he says.
Four-and-a-half months after his troubled tenure of a year and three months — as opposed to the stipulated three years — as Chairman of the Pune-based Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) ended, Gajendra Chauhan looks back at the stint as “highly productive and controversy-free”. The actor, 60, whose appointment in 2015 fueled an unprecedented uprising within the institute’s ecosystem with its prolific alumni taking it beyond its walls, believes that the furore eventually died as “all the basic issues at FTII have been resolved”.
Chauhan, who is now Chairman of the Evaluation Committee of the upcoming Doordarshan channel, Arun Prabha, brands his reign from June 9, 2015 to March 3, 2017, as “perfectly in sync with the ideologies of the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) and RSS (Rashtriya Svayamsevak Sangh)”. “A lot of work was done during my tenure. The students were on strikes because nobody was looking into their problems. They didn’t want me there so I was running the institute from Mumbai. I conducted four governing council meetings and you can see the results today,” he says.
Relay Chauhan’s claims to Vikas Urs, who graduated from FTII last month and had spearheaded the anti-Chauhan protests for four months, and he says, “He is the Government’s puppet and Director Bhupendra Kainthola is another ‘Yes Minister’. He’s such a sell-out he can’t even face the students.”
Urs, who spent six years on campus, says his phone was tapped, he was blackmailed by government officials, and spent a night behind bars (he was one of the five students arrested on August 26, 2015, for holding unofficial court). “The strikes stopped because we realised we’re dealing with people who don’t care about art and cinema. Chauhan is insignificant, it’s the Government who wants to convert FTII into commercial propaganda. New admissions are asked to sign a bond of ‘no protest’, an early dictatorial set-up for a future where filmmakers will not question anything. It’s outright tyranny,” he asserts.
Meanwhile, Chauhan continues to extol his contributions, saying he implemented a semester format and a choice-based credit system and brought the country’s best academicians— ex-vice chancellor of Mumbai University and professors from IIM Ahmedabad and IIMC Delhi—as visiting faculty. “Since FTII was short-staffed, we introduced walk-in interviews to fill the vacancies. I replaced the diploma with a Government-certified Master’s degree. It was my masterstroke!” he adds. Urs rubbishes this. “Students have been trying to get the syllabus changed for 10 years. Until 2015, there were three stakeholders on the academic council—the Government, faculty and students—but now students aren’t allowed. The Government made radical changes to make the syllabus box office-oriented so the students would create revenue-generating content.”
Chauhan informs that a request has reached the Finance Ministry to rebuild the 60-year-old hostel. Urs asserts that his 8x10 room was the least of his problems. “My degree was delayed by nine months because the management did not allocate funds correctly and there was no projection system, which costs Rs 60 lakh, to screen my film.”
While FTII continues to grapple with newly-formulated red-tapism, Chauhan has blithely moved on. “In the end, I am an actor. I have two bilinguals stuck at the Censors and another film, Rishtey, coming up, in which I play a tough cop whose motto is, ‘Nation first, Family later’,” he says.
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