FTII row: Was Gajendra Chauhan the only candidate considered?

As the FTII stalemate continues, an RTI reply reveals that contrary to the government's claims no other candidate apart from Gajendra Chauhan may have been approached for the position of council chief at the institute, Indian Express reports.

The newspaper filed an RTI asking for the names of those who had been approached with the offer of being president of FTII. The president acts as the chief of the governing council at the film institute. The RTI response said that no information was available about the candidates approached.

On July 10, the government had defended the appointment of Gajendra Chauhan as head of FTII, saying it wanted someone who could devote time to the premier institute. This had come in the backdrop of reports that names of Amitabh Bachchan and Rajnikanth were among those suggested for the post.

Despite hints that filmmmakers Adoor Gopalakrishnan and Jahnu Barua had been offered the position, according to Indian Express, both denied having been approached.

Barua, who is an alumnus of the FTII, had quit FTII society after being nominated to it by the I&B Ministry last month. Supporting the student protests, Barua had said, "Our point is that we want obviously the institute to be headed by a stalwart from this field. Somewhere we feel in a way that something is going wrong in that kind of a decision."

Adoor Gopalakrishnan and film personalities like  Anupam Kher, Rishi Kapoor, Ranbir Kapoor, Amol Palekar, Resul Pookutty, Kiran Rao, Rajkummar Rao, Sudhir Mishra, Sayeed Mirza and Piyush Mishra among others have voiced their strong reservations over Chauhan's appointment. 

Backing the agitating students, veteran actor Rishi Kapoor said Chauhan should not fight for his post but step down as students "are not able to look up to him". "They need someone to look up to and be inspired from and this post requires someone who has knowledge about production, direction, cinematography and fine nuances of filmmaking," he said.

Son Ranbir made a plea to the authorities to pay heed to the students' demands, initiate a dialogue with them and address their grievances. "I think it is only fair that students deserve a fair hearing of what they want, all they require is an aspirational figure to look up to somebody with a large body of work, (if) not large body of work but a body of work that they can aspire or they can be inspired from," Ranbir said in a video.

According to actor-filmmaker Anupam Kher, FTII needs a "much qualified" person at the helm of affairs and also supported the idea of turning the government institute into an autonomous body. "I personally feel that FTII represents a certain art form... it does need a person who has a great body of work. Certainly FTII needs somebody who is much more qualified than whatever Gajendra ji's qualifications are coming across," Kher had said. 

With PTI inputs.