FTII students to continue stir as talks fail to end deadlock

The agitating students will meet officials from the information and broadcasting ministry on October 1. 

Even as Film and Television Institute of India students called off their relay hunger strike and held talks with the information and broadcasting ministry officials, the parleys remained inconclusive, failing to end the 110-day-long impasse though both sides agreed to go for the next round of negotiations on October 1.

The meeting, which began at 11 am at the Films Division office ended at around 1.30 pm without making a breakthrough as students stuck to their core demand for dissolution of the governing council of the premier institute headed by actor and Bharatiya Janata Party member Gajendra Chouhan.

I&B ministry Joint Secretary Sanjay Murthy was among the officials who participated in the talks, a senior official said.

“Despite a 2.5-hour-long meeting with seven students and three joint secretary-level officials of the I&B ministry, we could not reach an accord as we emphasised on the core demand that was to remove the present governing council, headed by Gajendra Chauhan,” said Vikas Urs, spokesman of the FTII Students’ Association.

Urs, one of the students invited for the talks, said, “We maintained our long-pending demand that is the dissolution of the present FTII governing council and  simultaneously setting up of a new search committee through a transparent process in place to look into appointments of chairperson, members and other staff,” he said.

As of now, our protest will continue as per our resolution and we are very much hopeful that the meeting on Thursday would bring positive results, Urs added.

Another FTII student, Malayaj Awasthi said, “We don’t want temporary arrangements to sort out the deadlock, rather we want a permanent solution from the government that can bring the glory of the institute back.”

Students have already expressed their demand that they also want FTII to be given the status of a premier national institute like an IIT or an IIM.

They have been opposing the appointment of Chauhan as the chairman of the governing council and its four members Narendra Pathak, Anagha Ghaisas, Shailesh Gupta and Rahul Sholapurkar by questioning their credentials.

“We don’t have any personal animosity against Gajendra Chauhan and other members. We want someone who truly has a body of work of national and international standards,” a former FTII student said.

After a police crackdown on students who had gheraoed FTII Director Prashant Pathrabe in August, the I&B ministry had appointed a three-member panel headed by S M Khan, the Registrar of Newspapers for India, to have a dialogue with the students to find a way out of the deadlock.

The step was taken due to all-round pressure from students, their parents, alumni association as well as the film fraternity to end the logjam.

The I&B ministry-appointed committee had visited FTII’s Pune campus on August 21 and held discussions with students, faculty members and the alumni association.

The agitating students called off their 180-day-old relay hunger strike on Sunday after having boycotted classes since June 12, demanding withdrawal of Chauhan as the institute’s chairman.

Image: Staff members walk past graffiti painted on a road at the Film and Television Institute of India in Pune. Photograph: Danish Siddiqui/Reuters