Tagore theatre, the main venue of the popular International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) was the site of a student protest on Tuesday, December 13. The protest by students of KR Narayanan National Institute of Visual Arts and Science was against the institute’s director Shankar Mohan, and it had a theme – an opportunity for everyone to talk – and the protesters named it Mindal Samaram (talking protest). Directors Jeo Baby, Kamal, Ashiq Abu, Mahesh Narayanan and music director Bijibal joined the protest in solidarity with the students. Notably, the protest was also against Kerala’s renowned director Adoor Gopalakrishnan, who is also Chairman of the institute. Adoor drew the ire of the students after he made derogatory comments against students, dismissed their claims of discrimination and supported Shankar Mohan.
TNM spoke to Sarath S, a student who did not get admission to the institute this year allegedly because the Director disregarded reservation norms to admit students under the general category. Sarath asserted that Shankar Mohan, who belongs to the dominant Nair community, exercised caste discrimination in the running of the institute, which is named after KR Narayanan, the first Dalit President of India. The autonomous institute was set up in Kottayam since KR Narayanan belonged to Uzhavoor village in the district.
Sarath had sought admission for an Editing course for the academic year that began in November this year. A Dalit student, he was allegedly denied admission even when the reservation seat for SC/ST (Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe) was vacant. “I was not given admission in the name of cut-off marks. For Editing, the cut-off mark was 45. Going by this, only those who got marks above the cut-off would get admission. But fixing the cut-off marks itself was questionable because they fixed a general cut-off mark for all the subjects,” Sarath said. The Student Council also raised complaints against the Director stating that reservation norms were completely set aside in the admission process.
“The admission process lasts for three days with classes, tasks and assignments. The admission will be given based on these marks and also on the marks of a department-wise interview as well as a general interview. I was aware right away of how I performed for all these and went by my assessment. But I was told (by the authorities) that I scored below 45 marks. When I asked them for the marksheet, they said they would give it later. Soon, they stopped responding to my calls, and that is when I realised that the admission procedure was a farce and Shankar Mohan chose students of his choice,” Sarath said. He is now a student at Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute in Kolkata.
Sarath filed a writ petition in the Kerala High Court in August seeking to get his marksheet from the institute. “The authorities submitted that the marksheet was not ready and submitted it only two months later. It was clear that fixing cut-off marks was a farce. As per the marksheet, I got 42.5 marks and I was denied admission, while a student of general category who got 44.5 got admission. The marksheet looked like it was prepared hastily. When the result was announced, only the names of students who had been admitted were announced and there was no mention of the category under which they got admission,” he said.
When Sarath questioned why reservation norms were not followed in the admission process, he was allegedly told that it was followed for the Cinematography course and so that there was no need to admit students to Editing too as per reservation norms. “There is no justification for such an argument as both are different courses. Would it make sense if the authorities of a college said that they admitted students to Chemistry as per reservation norms and so they will not take anyone for Physics?” he asked. Sarath also faced discrimination from other students of the institute, who told him that the quality of the courses would be compromised if students were admitted as per reservation norms.
The Students’ Council issued a statement in December saying that the Director of Lal Bahadur Shastri (LBS) Centre which conducts the entrance exams for the institute, told the students that Shankar Mohan told LBS that if guidelines were followed there would not be any students with quality. “SRFTI is one of the top institutes in the country and I got admission there. And it was about students like me that Shankar Mohan said were ineligible which was later echoed by Adoor Gopalakrishnan when he came in support of him. What Shankar Mohan has done is violate the reservation rules. All the ten students who got admission to the Direction course were from the general category with none from OBC (Other Backward Community) or ST and SC. This is the same in the case of Audiography and Acting, while one student was admitted to Cinematography. The student, who does not belong to any community with reservation, was admitted to Cinematography because that student got marks high enough to be admitted even to a general seat. The criteria for admission to a film institute are to check creative ability, not to vet students as is done in a Civil service exam,” Sarath added.
The High court issued an interim order on November 11, directing the institute to provisionally admit Sarath for the Editing course, subject to the final outcome of the writ petition.
“The institute’s lawyer told the court that I should not be admitted and that hurt me the most. The advocate for LBS orally submitted that the flaws were on Shankar Mohan’s part, but in the written statement they took a stand that was safe for Shankar Mohan. LBS Centre’s lawyer even told the court that what was done (to the student) was injustice, but as LBS’s counsel, he could not take a different stand. Since it is an autonomous institute there was no one to monitor from outside,” he said. He received a call last week from the institute asking if he would be taking admission, but he had joined SRFTI by then.
The other students began an indefinite strike on December 5 seeking removal of Shankar Mohan from the post of Director. Adoor Gopalakrishnan then came out in support, dismissing the caste discrimination allegations against the former. Adoor even said that Shankar Mohan was from a “good family.” The students questioned this in an open letter to Adoor asking “How is one’s family stature an answer to the allegations raised against him?”
The sanitation workers of the Institute had also raised complaints against the Director, alleging that he made them clean toilets at his house in addition to making them do household chores. Ironically, Shankar Mohan was the festival director of the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) Goa in 2014.
Watch TNM video on the protest at the IFFK venue