Drama at Film Institute as students go on hunger stir

PUNE, February 11: With its gates blocked by a stern metal bar, that is being lifted only to let students and faculty pass, the Film and Tel...

PUNE, February 11: With its gates blocked by a stern metal bar, that is being lifted only to let students and faculty pass, the Film and Television Institute of India wears a decidedly unfriendly look for visitors.

Implemented yesterday, the new regulations do not allow students to have any visitors inside the campus, including the press. Director Mohan Agashe, with a characteristic outburst, poured his ire on journalists wanting to know why this had been done. “Don’t ask me such insensitive questions, am I not a human being, and are you not aware of the circumstances prevailing in FTII,” he thundered, equating the queries to “routine questioning of rape victims,” which he was fighting against.

He said his faculty “who were academicians and not fighting people” were working in an atmosphere of fear. The director also informed that he did not want outsiders coming in because “a certain person had been going around the campus telling people that he was there to teach students how to conduct astrike.”

Since yesterday the agitating students are on an indefinite hunger strike to protest against the Governing Council’s non-implementation of the Minister of Information and Broadcasting Jaipal Reddy’s promises made to them about a month back.

There was an air of tension at the FTII campus as students sent a notice to the Deccan Gymkhana police station informing them about the decision to go on a hunger strike. And Dean, Films, Mehboob Khan, sent one to students saying “your proposed act will not be permitted within the institute premises.”

“We will not permit a hunger strike within the campus because that is not one of the objectives and trainings of this institution,” declared a worked-up Agashe. “The problem with students is that they cannot take no for an answer,” he said, quoting a paradox that last year students had gone on a strike because the GC had overruled the Academic Council recommendations and this year because they wanted the GC to overrule the AC recommendations on a zerosemester and giving faculty time to whet the revised syllabus.

Agashe also hinted at political inclinations of the students who had garnered letters of support from organisations like Sahmat, the trust started by the late Safdar Hashmi in Delhi, and the Jawaharlal Nehru University.