The problem may be, just as is the case with many
States in the Indian Union, let alone our many institutions of different kinds,
that the FTII is steeped in fuzzy ideological dogmas, a befuddling bureaucratic
outlook, and an abject dependence on Government funds.
There are today, as always, just a limited number of
seats, no more than 400, for the post graduate three year diploma course. The
course fees are deliberately held down to make it accessible to most people,
there are faculty shortages, and not even very many short-term courses to make
up the budgetary shortfall.
There is also a towering ideological resistance,
both from within and without, to any big brotherly moves on the part of the
government, in return for its largesse; all in the name of being a crucible for creativity and artistic
freedom.
So here is yet another institution inherited from long-time
socialist India, with the forbidding attitude that its lack of ability to
generate its own resources and funds has given it!
This, even though the FTII is ostensibly autonomous,
and therefore theoretically and practically free to plough its own furrow. It is only overseen by the central I&B
Ministry because that is its administrative conduit through which indents can
be raised for more government money to support it.
The fact that a lot of FTIIs famous personalities
are a little long in the tooth, speaks
for itself. Where are the brash new FTII bred actors, directors, editors, or other
less glamorous kinds of Movie/TV/Theatre people?
The FTII has, indeed, been in a steep decline for
ages. Today it is an administrative and political morass with dire need of
sweeping reform and great strides in efficiency. The last happy convocation of
graduating students held, graced by thespian Dilip Kumar, was in 1997; and the
one before that was in 1989! The clock seems to have stopped for the FTII in
1997. It is now a place where the last diploma certificate was also handed out
in 1997.
But from 2014, we may be looking at a Phoenix,
rising once again from the ashes. In 2014, by some quirk of fate, the FTII received
Rs. 80 crores in fresh funding, courtesy the erstwhile Planning Commission. It
also started taking three year post-graduate course students afresh after a
hiatus, and a new syllabus, was, at last, adopted. And then, FTII also announced
that it would issue diplomas for courses completed by people between 1995 and
2006!
The Institute seems to have been hijacked for a long
time before this by a status quoist mindset. But who is holding it back?
If its not the students, is it perhaps the faculty, fearful of being turfed out,
if they allowed any changes. Is it an unimaginative administration, conducted
by short-tenure bureaucratic overseers, who neither understand how to run such
an institute, nor have the necessary energy and commitment?
To wit, the
I&B Ministry hired management consultant Hewitt, which put out a report
in 2010, suggesting a public-private partnership and expensive/profitable short
courses to bring in the money. This did
not find favour for its utilitarian bluntness, its attempt to professionalise
artistic endeavour, nor its thrust towards a perceived elitism.
Another committee, this time made up of Movie/TV/Theatre
people such as Kundan Shah, Saeed Mirza, Nachiket Patwardhan etc. plus students
and faculty to bring up the rear, suggested administrative tweaks to get
abreast of the backlog in conducting courses. There are students from 2008 who
haven’t managed to finish and leave as yet! And this is because they haven’t
submitted their assignments on time, and the faculty/administration haven’t
cracked down on them either.
The FTII hostels, canteens and corridors are naturally
overflowing with ancient mariners rubbing shoulders with bright-eyed and
bushy-tailed ingenues ,many years their junior. And everyone can afford
to stay on and on because it is cheap at the price.
So, the rot has been settled in for quite some time.
Until its present head Gajendra Chauhan, a saffron appointee of particularly
jarring and garish hue, amongst all the pink and red the FTII is
familiar with, took over, there has been one short tenure IAS babu or another from the I&B
Ministry, running the Institute for the last 15 years.
Of the Governing Council of 15 Members, all
bureaucrats, barely 5 of them bother to attend meetings. The faculty has about
70% of its number appointed on a contract basis, and even after all this, there
are just 30 teachers to 400 students. There are gender issues too. Over the
last twenty years there have been just 3 female teachers employed on a tenure
basis, and currently all the 21 tenured teachers are male.
The last film person who headed the FTII as Director
was Mohan Agashe, but he was hounded out for trying to change the syllabus. So, that the place has gone on strike because
Gajendra Chouhan, a relatively obscure saffron ‘Yudhistir’ from a TV serial
Mahabharata, who does actually have some experience in running film-world
associations, is not surprising. But, can he do any worse than his predecessors
of recent decades? At least the man wants the job badly.
The real solutions to FTIIs woes however, won’t come
from any magic wand solution of kicking out a low-wattage Chouhan, in favour of
a celebrity Director who could be inveigled to take the job in his place.
It may lie in looking for successful and
contemporary role models such as Juillard of New York. Juillard
is probably the world’s best private music , drama, and performing arts school.
There are also scores of top film and television faculties in universities
around the world.
These can be invited to set up shop in India, and
give this has-been situation in FTII a run for its money, in qualitative terms,
and on a private, full-fee-paying basis. Everywhere, it is seen, that they are
expensive, and they won’t be cheap when they come here either. But they will
provide high standards and robust competition.
Meanwhile, the powers that be at FTII have two
simple choices. Allow standards to decline, and the debate to descend into irrelevancies
of a saffron versus secular narrative;
or creatively muscle up the resources and devote all energies towards the
pursuit of cinematic and television production excellence.
It is impractical to expect much money from the
Government year after year without strings, and without it becoming part of its
own agenda and patronage system. It is therefore imperative that the FTII
raises a great deal of its own finances from rich patrons, foreign
collaborations, course fees etc. Only then can it reclaim its glory days and
perhaps surpass them.June 20th, 2015
Gautam Mukherjee
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