Given the refusal of the students to accept him despite intercessions by the information and broadcasting ministry, which has privately conceded that it did not make the best of choices in selecting Chauhan, the best course for him would be to leave the scene gracefully by resigning.

If he hasn’t done so, the reason perhaps is that he knows that someone of his limited calibre will never be able to get position as prestigious as that of the FTII chairman. He is also aware that he has got his present posting not because of merit but through political backing which is not something to be spoken of with pride by either him or those who appointed him. He apparently believes, therefore, that it is better to lie low in the hope that the students will finally become desperate enough in their despair to accept the inevitable.

If Chauhan is not allowing a sense of self-respect to come in the way of stepping down, the government, too, seemingly suffers from the same mental block which makes it deliberately ignore any inner urge to do the right thing. The government also probably believes that an admission of wrong-doing in one appointment may reflect adversely on similar questionable choices in other fields as well, thereby making the whole house of cards about unwise selections come tumbling down.

The FTII is not the only institution which the government wants to mould in its own saffron image. There are others like the Indian Council of Historical Research (I\CHR), the National Book Trust and the Central Board of Film Certification which have saffron apparatchiki at their head. Any sign that the government can be pushed by rebellious students, who have been called “anti-Hindu” by the RSS magazine, Organiser, to cancel a controversial appointment in one institution can encourage activists to call for changes in the others as well.

Behind this official obstinacy is the awareness that nearly all these appointees are deemed unfit for their jobs by the non-saffron intelligentsia. The ICHR chief, for instance, is a “historian” who was virtually unknown in the academic field before he was imposed on the institution. The biodata of the others are equally unimpressive. Their only claim to fame is their proximity to the Sanghparivar.

Although the FTII is no stranger to agitations – its last convocation was held in 1997 after a gap of eight years – the targets of the protests were well-known film personalities like Mohan Agashe and Adoor Gopalakrishnan. The students’ objections had nothing to do, therefore, about kowtowing to a nonentity.

In its 16 months in office, the Narendra Modi government has had a fairly easy run since its political opponents are still licking their wounds from their 2014 drubbing. The government’s difficulties about passing some of the pro-reforms legislations on land acquisition and goods and services can be ascribed to the exigencies of the parliamentary system.

The agitations in the FTII and by Hardik Patel are the only two which are not strictly political in nature but have to do with misguided policies and economic failures which have raised the hackles of those at the receiving end. In both the cases, the motivating factor is the impatience of the youth. What the elderly might have accepted in a resigned frame of mind, the young in Pune and Gujarat are not willing to do even if it means going on hunger strikes and facing police action.

In Gujarat, the government has already taken a step back by offering special packages for the financially weaker sections of all communities to assuage the demand of the Patels for relegation to the OBC category in order to avail of the education and employment quotas in government institutions. In Pune, the government is considering taking half a step back by appointing a co-chairman who is acceptable to the protesters. Although such a step will be a blow to Chauhan’s prestige, it is unlikely that he will step down and return to his earlier obscurity.

As for the government, it will have to realize that the reputed institutions in the academic and cultural fields are not like the Raj Bhavans where out-of-work saffron factotums can be accommodated as a recompense for their past service. Making all appointments on political grounds will not only lower the prestige of the various well-regarded establishments, but also lead the government to a dead end as in the FTII.

A democracy cannot be run on totalitarian lines where there is no place for those whose views are different from the government’s. Considering that distinguished film personalities like Gulzar and Shyam Benegal were among those whose names came up for selection as FTII chairman, the government could have spared itself much embarrassment by choosing one of them. (IPA Service)