Only good thing to come out of FTII protests till now: student creativity

Art, films and music can drive home the message as clearly as high-pitched protests and slogans. That’s what the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) Students Association believes. Even as the battle rages on at the FTII’s leafy campus in Pune and the strike completes a month, the students have shown that protests aren’t always all about "morchas" and marches. Putting their creativity and film studies to work, the students have come up with innovative and peaceful ways to protest the appointment of Gajendra Chauhan as the FTII chairman. With noted film personalities and artists lending support to their cause, the campus, which is a hotbed of creative energy at all times, is now turning into a space for music, art and poetry as a mark of protest.

1. The banners urging the government to rethink its decision are there but along with the boring banners are colourful graffiti and paintings by students. Instead of shabby hoarding and placards, they’ve painted on attractive graffiti which spells their message loud and clear. "We don’t need a karyakarta chairman" or "Chauhan Go Back" and "Chauhan Resign and Go" are painted on to the walls of office blocks.

2. To believe how a picture can speak more than words, one must take a look at the painting of a person using a film camera as a gun. That black graffiti says it all - that the film institute students are willing to battle it out.

3. Songs can be both, inspiring and a reflection of the mood and cause. So, there was ample music on the campus too. Indie band Swarathma’s lead singer Vasu Dixit performed at the FTII campus. Other bands like Altered Theory and NuEdge, the SIPA dance troupe, fire art performer Arpit Singh also regaled the students while lending support to the protests. To fit the mood, NuEdge performed Another Brick in the Wall by Pink Floyd.

4. People joining the students in their protest, too, aren’t just making statements and leaving. Artist and filmmaker Sukant Panigrahy spent time at the institute painting and discussing the philosophy of his work with the students as a form of support to the strike.

5. Pune Poetry Slam wrote and performed a hard-hitting poem, My Classroom Has No Colour, lending support to the students. “Sticks and stones may break our bones but our think tank brain will steamroll yours" and "my classroom is not a sinking dictatorship, not a long-drawn battle for false authority" were some of the lines from the poem that was performed to slam the information and broadcasting ministry’s decision to appoint Gajendra Chauhan as chairman of the institute.

6. With institutes and students from across the country lending support to the strike, the Government Law College, Thrissur, held a screening of Ram Ke Naam as a mark of solidarity with the FTII students' strike.

7. Students clicked and posted telling pictures of empty rain-washed lanes within the campus with the words "Strike is On" painted on the floor.

8. In the early days of the strike, the students put up a street play to portray the authoritarian nature of the appointments urging people to speak up against it.