Indian
Express: New Delhi: Monday, 13 July 2015.
While top
government sources have been defending the choice of Gajendra Chauhan as the
chairman of the Film & Television Institute of India (FTII) governing
council saying “many eminent people” turned down the post, leaving the I&B
Ministry “with a very limited list of people”, an RTI reply shows this may not
have been true.
“As per
record, no candidate was approached for the position of the chief of Governing
Council of FTII,” says a reply to an RTI filed by The Indian Express. It
further says, “the president of the FTII is nominated by the Central
government, who acts as the chairman of this Governing Council”.
The Indian
Express had sought to know “Names of the candidates who were approached for the
position of the chief of the governing council… before the appointment of
Gajendra Chauhan”.
In response
to another Express RTI, on the “Names of the candidates who declined the
offer”, the FTII reply says, “The information is unavailable in record.”
Again,
officials have insisted that “the selection of chairman of the FTII was done
through a process of wide consultations. The names that came up during the
selection process consisted of people well-known in the industry as well as
alumni of FTII”.
Ministry
sources said earlier that some of the people “considered for the post” included
Rajkumar Hirani, Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Jahnu Barua and
Gulzar. While Chopra, Gulzar and Hirani were unavailable for comment, Barua
said, “I was never approached for the post, so there is no question of
declining the offer. If they had approached me, I would have been very keen to
take up the offer, especially given the fact that I have passed out from the
institute and I share an emotional bond with the place.”
Barua
incidentally resigned from the FTII Society recently as part of protests over
Chauhan’s appointment.
Gopalakrishnan
too denied being approached for the position. “But even if I was approached, I
wouldn’t have been keen because I have already held the position twice in the
past. I wanted someone else to take up the position but definitely not Gajendra
Chauhan,” he said.
The students
of FTII continue to be on strike against Chauhan’s appointment, as well as of
some other FTII Society members such as Anagha Ghaisas, Narendra Pathak,
Shailesh Gupta and Rahul Solapurkar.
As the strike
entered the second month, filmmakers Kundan Shah and Aziz Mirza joined the
calls for Chauhan to step down. Shah, an FTII alumni, told PTI that the
appointment was “absurd”. “Isn’t the whole issue shameful? It’s a shameful
decision by the ministry. Who knows this man (Chauhan)? Just see his body of
work. By appointing such a person, what is the government trying to do?” Shah
said.
Targeting the
government, the Congress dismissed its explanation that Chauhan was appointed
as he can devote time to the institute. “Even a peon has ample time,” the party
said.
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