The FTII strike and the future of education

As a middleclass kid I received that lecture surely familiar to many readers look we cant afford to give you fancy stuff but we can give you a good education Use it well yaniki fail mat honaThanks to some excellent state subsidized institutions I did end up getting a pretty good education that has stood me in good stead through my life and contributed to my feeling I should give back to the place that made me what I amFor various reasons I didnt go to film school But had I chosen to I could have tried to go to the Film and Television Institute of India FTII as many of my colleagues and friends did It was a worldclass film school where you learned to be fabulous camerapersons sound recordists editor actors or directors ndash and do what students do think grow argue find your voice and make friends who go on to become colleaguesIts a film school thats given us Raju Hirani and Saeed Mirza Sriram Raghavan and Rajat Kapoor Jaya Bhaduri and Rajumar Rao Resul Pokutty may be the only sound recordist you know thanks to the Oscar for Slumdog Millionaire But countless others are famous within the industry for their abilities and work on different features and documentaries Indian and internationalStudents protest the appointment of Gajendra Chauhan as FTII chairperson Pic PTIFTIIs glory days are some way in the past thanks to neglect and stagnation though it still manages to turn out excellent people But the appointment of Gajendra Chauhan best known for his role as Yudhishthra in BR Chopras 1988 TV series Mahabharat as its Chairpersonisnt going to remedy that and is in fact a severely elitist moveSome object to Mr Chauhans appointment because of his somewhat craven affiliation to the ruling party and because he has acted in a softporn film These objections miss the point In a democracy people have the right to any political affiliation horrible or wonderful To stigmatise someones livelihood is moralistic and sillyFTII is an institution which needs someone with administrative experience a complex outlook exposure to diverse worlds and markets of cinema who does not confuse education with the market There is a pettiness of vision in appointing someone illequipped for a job It empowers neither the institution nor the person who is unequal to the taskThere is an undercurrent of thought that the leftliberal artsiness of film students is elitist and bastions of such thinking like FTII should be cut down to size To dismiss art as elitist is to make art the domain of the elite ndash when in fact its something all of us need in varied ways We need a national vision that makes art and education a resource for allIf indeed FTII is an elitist institution the bathrooms could fool you then the solution is not to throw a tantrum and make it mediocre The result of mediocre universities is that those who can afford it will send their kids to foreign schools Those who cant will have to be forever handicapped by a poor educationApplications to FTII are huge and getting in is tough It should have a Chairpersonwho can create a kickass model that can be replicated around the country More state supported films schools means more people can access a good film education at Indian prices Only this can enrich and diversify our cinema culture whether commercial or notsocommercialThe student strike at FTII therefore represents an important set of issues for the future of education including arts education That the best should be available to more not fewer people in a supposedly prosperous IndiaParomita Vohra is an awardwinning Mumbaibased filmmaker writer and curator working with fiction and nonfiction Reach her at wwwparodevicomThe views expressed in this column are the individuals and dont represent those of the paper