A post of such importance being given to people having double standards
not only alters the thought process, curriculum and teaching process of the institute
but pushes the institute towards rapid destruction
people can certainly raise this question
how come destroying the institute has become the objective of the government
understanding this is actually very easy
since the decclaration of globalization in this country in 1991
one after one, policies have been adopted in order to destroy our educational institutes
policies were adopted in the nineties with the objective of destroying the whole schooling system
the complete plan for which came from the world bank, and was subsequently implemented by the government
all political parties remained mum over this and during the 2000s when the rapid privatization of the schools began
a huge number of private schools opened, when public schools where destroyed, government schools were shut,
a market was created for private schools and then began an era of defaming the public schools
and now, in the present decade the school system is being sold out,
since the introduction of right to education act in 2009, some one hundred thousand schools have been shut or have been merged with some other schools
and more schools are waiting in that same queue
only in maharashtra, some 14-15 thousand schools have been shut, that is, they have been damaged to such an extent that now they have the excuse to sell it off
hence if we closely look at this pattern, it becomes clear that destroying FTII will open the avenues for selling it off,
the government will get the excuse to say, “see, this institute isn’t working well as it used to do in the past and now there’s only one way out,
let’s privatise it, let’s outsource it, let’s hand it over to some private player, some NGO, some corporate under the guise of public private partnership
even if it’s a multinational company. let’s hand it over and be free”
this is not that surprising, only 5 years ago in 2010, concrete steps in that direction were already taken
and during that process, it was decided that a private company called Hewitt Consultants, which is a multinational company and has headquarters in several countries across the globe,
be given the contract to compile a detailed project report in order to alter FTII
and when that project report was completed, the students therein came to realise that through this, 10 acre land from the 100 acre that FTII owns,
will be taken out and be given away to a private organisation which will establish a computer games training facility there and will train the FTII students in that field. And thus it will get the contract no matter the same having or not having any relevance to cinema.
and the land will be awarded to it with this excuse
this met with heavy protests from the students of FTII, just the same way they are protesting today
i want to remind a very beautiful story of Gandhi, in 1920, when he called on people to quit the schools, colleges and universities run by the british government,
come out and build new schools, colleges and universities in that foster the spirit of the freedom movement,
many people did come out and a great many new institutes were established, one of them was the Gujarat Vidyapeeth, in 1920,created by Gandhi himself
he came back there 8 years after its establishment and addressed a convocation ceremony
I am stating an excerpt from his speech, he said
I am proud that students of our Gujarat Vidyapeeth are taking part in the Peasants’ Movement happening in southern Gujarat in Bardoli,under the leadership of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.
They are being jailed and beaten up for this. I am proud of this and Gujarat Vidyapeeth should be proud of these students.
Gandhi further says, this fortune of fighting, resisting and getting imprisoned, cannot be experienced by those students who belong to the institutes run by the british government
because, they don’t have the freedom to raise their voice there, their voice does not command any respect and they do not have a platform to express their dissent,
and hence institute like Gujarat Vidyapeeth can lead the national freedom movement
I feel that the students of FTII should build on this and they should feel proud of them, there is nothing to regret even if they are being beaten,
they should be proud because they are fighting, and as Gandhi said, they are the participants of the new national movement,
they are building this new national movement, they have done this before as well and now they are doing it again
any ideology that fears the questions raised by people,
the people in power, when they are questioned they feel threatened
those who suppress the voices of dissent
such ideologies will always push these educational institutes, institutes of art, institutes of science and technology, medical sciences, to the craters of confusion  and mediocrity
they cannot develop these institutes because if you see the world history pertaining to the evolution of knowledge, whether it is before the emergence of capitalism, or after it,
the history of knowledge evolution is always linked with raising new questions
questions that have not been raised before
for a new thought process
to carve a new way, away from the established norms
and it has been a tradition in the field of art, the myths and biases that have been set by societal equilibrium,
art has always struggled to disrupt it and pave a new way forward
and those who paved the new way, are the ones who led the society towards enlightenment
ideologies that are scared of new thought processes, afraid of new question, tries to suppress the voices of dissent, something that happened recently, not only at the film and television institute
the students who rebelled, who raised questions, their Facebook pages were blocked,
similarly when the students of the Makhanlal Chaturvedi institute of journalism in Bhopal, raised questions a  gainst the same forces present there, the ones that are trying to set foot in FTII now, their Facebook pages were blocked.
this means that you are not inspiring people to think, but instead you are suppressing their ideas, and trying to block them from spreading their ideas just the way it was done in fascist Germany.
the seeds of same are now sprouting in our country
and this is a grave concern
when such people are holding top positions, how can you except the institute to progress, this becomes the doubt
recently there was an attempt to suppress the  ambedkar periyar think tank in IIT Madras
they were even told not to take Ambedkar’s name, who had been conferred Bharat Ratna, whom the whole world respects,
and harbinger of social revolution in Tamil Nadu, Periyar who propounded  his views
who spearheaded movements to relieve the society from the clutches of the upper castes
the authorities are so scared of their legacy, that students organisations that  propound their ideas are suppressed
wherever artists, writers, scientists, engineers and doctors have raised voices against the norm, the authorities have felt threatened and have tried to suppress them
and in the last one year, several such instances surfaced in our country and now it seems that suppressing the film and television institute has become absolutely necessary for them
because the institute has, during the last few decades, produced many film makers who have questioned the caste structure of the Indian society
Indian society where dalits, and especially dalit labourers are suppressed, are made bounded labourers,
they have made films on their lives, have made films to enhance the creativity of children, have highlighted the great many inner conflicts in the indian society,
educated the common people of india, have developed a progressive, thoughtful and evolving public opinion
the government is feeling scared of that same Film & Television Institute of India
appointing such people to the institute are signs of a terrified government
post globalisation, the policies that have been dumped on india by the capitalists of the world
whether they are in the matters of health, drinking water or transportation, or about modernisation of cities, facilities in the city, be it any field
these policies are bing called neoliberal policies
these neoliberal policies are nothing but part of the same capitalism, which has been and are being fought against the world over
this is a new phase of capitalism, the global capitalism now needs newer markets, newer resources for raw materials, they want new forests, new mines, new drinking water,
they aim for having complete control on them
we have to understand one thing about this neoliberalism, why has extremism flourished in this phase
not only in India, extremism is on rise throughout the world, and under the garb of various religions
some religions have taken the course of terrorism
but terrorism is rooted in extremism
terrorism cannot progress without extremism
this is a new development in the global scenario
and this is not a coincidence that when our country was targeted for globalisation, extremism erupted in the form of Babri Mosque demolition
and rage in the name of Ayodhya was being pursued throughout the 80s
if you look closely, you will find  a common pattern that all the decisions that have been taken recently, are increasingly creating space for extremist ideas
why do we find this link?
it is because neoliberal policies lead to immense oppression of people, they are exploited, they are looted, people become homeless at a massive scale
the issue of massive refugee crisis arose in this era only, earlier they used to occur sporadically
and when people unite against this, raise their voices  of dissent, then it becomes inevitable that in order to mute their voices, their unity, their spirit of movement be broken. And for this purpose, extremism is used as a tool, religious bigotry,
and then people are divided on the basis of religion and caste, on the basis of language
they are made to fight against each other
so that they cannot unite and raise voices against neoliberal loot
and the government that uses communalism as a tool in order to achieve these objectives,
they have now decided to capture this institute so that it produces only those film makers whose films preserve the current social order and not alter it
it is crystal clear, art that can change society, music, dramas and all other things that the government is scared of, need to be stopped
and hence send people who would not allow this kind of education, this kind of teaching, alter the ways of imparting education and only produces film makers who maintain the current social order and not change it
