The recent appointments of Gajendra Chauhan as the Chairman, Anagha Ghaisas and Shailesh Gupta as Governing Council members of FTII have been made not on the basis of creative contributions in the field but solely on the basis of their loyalty to the RSS-BJP brigade. The students of FTII have been engaged in a determined protest against the appointment of Gajendra Singh as Chairman of FTII. AISA and JNUSU earlier in the week released statements congratulating the students for their spirited protests and expressed solidarity with the students. JNUSU president and AISA leader Com. Ashutosh Kumar has also left for Pune to join the agitating students in an expression of solidarity.
On 16 June 2015, Students, Flimmakers, Alumuni of FTII, Students of FTII and student organisation participated in a protest at the I&B Ministry at Shastri Bhavan. The protest was in solidarity with the on going students strike at FTII and the Saffron appointment of Gajendra Chauhan as the Chairman of the Governing Council of FTII. Nakul Sawney, Filmmaker, Sanjeev Sood Sec of the Northern Region of the Alumni Association of FTII, Kishlay ex- Gen Sec of FTIISA, President of NSDSU Naresh, JNUSU VP Anant, Student Organisations like PACHHAS and Naujawan Bharat Sabha participated in the protest.
A delegation met the PS of Arun Jaitley and submitted a memorandum to him which stated that the current Chairman Appointee doesn’t hold the necessary credentials needed to hold a post of such immense responsibilities an. There are wide ranging speculations of the appointments in FTII (the Chairman and other newly appointed governing council members) being political and to make the situation worse, Mr Gajendra Chauhan is a known face of the ruling party. His association with BJP and his selection bypassing well known stalwarts, has created an atmosphere of mistrust and anger among the student-teacher-film maker fraternity.
Speaking at the protest Sucheta De, National President of AISA said, ‘We are time and again seeing that appointments to the heads of institution are being made as a reward for being loyal to the ruling party rather than actually fulfilling the criterion required for the said post. This is the case for institutions like ICHR, ICCR, Censor Board etc. The students of FTII have shown that this won’t be allowed and we have to stand shoulder to shoulder with them. Nakul Shawney filmmaker said, ‘The FTII has produced filmmakers who have shunned corporate funding and made films by collecting money from the public, it is this idea that the Government wants to kill but we shall not allow it to happen. Kishlay, Ex Gen Secretary of the FTIISA and Sanjeev Sood, Secretary of the Alumni Association of FTII, Northern Region, representatives from PACHHAs and Naujawan Bharat Sabha also spoke at the protest.
