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| Edited By: |Source: DNA |Updated: Jul 23, 2016, 08:30 AM IST
An educational institution is as good as the quality of students it produces. The Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) in Pune since inception can boast of many worthies it had trained and who have made India proud at home and abroad. It was possible because FTII not only nurtured fine minds but also encouraged an atmosphere of free thinking — a rarity in India’s educational system. True, over the years it has been racked by protests and strikes, but that’s an essential attribute of a democratic space. In the late Sixties and Seventies, the colleges of Bengal became a hotbed for student politics but still they managed to churn out brilliant students. What’s likely to happen now at FTII will end a glorious phase and kill the culture of dissent. Now students will have to give written declaration that they promise to maintain “decorum and decency” on campus and will not “insult” faculty and staffers. In other words, students will have to behave like sheep and only concentrate on their curriculum. Make no mistake, this new culture will kill the very spirit that FTII has embodied all these years — the spirit to defy conventional norms and question established principles. Even Satyajit Ray was not spared when he visited the institute to interact with the students. By restricting students’ right to protest, Gajendra Chauhan, the new FTII chairman, has begun the process of turning the institution into a run-of-the-mill centre of learning and skill-training.
There are stars and superstars, and then there are institutions. Rajinikanth belongs to that third category. In that rarefied atmosphere, he has perhaps only Amitabh Bachchan for company. While Bachchan’s popularity has declined, Rajini’s has only grown. The madness surrounding his latest release Kabali draws attention to a cult that very few actors in the history of Indian cinema have ever enjoyed. Every Rajini release is a grand affair where fans go to great lengths to make it memorable. In Mumbai, rival fan associations try to outdo each other in the competitive demonstrations of loyalty. At the epicentre of this spectacle is a humble, soft-spoken man from a Marathi family, who found stardom in the Tamil film industry. Rajinikanth is the only legend who sports his bald pate like a badge of honour. This requires tremendous self-confidence, especially in cut-throat show business where actors-performers will do anything to stay youthful — often resorting to unhealthy means — even at the not-so-unripe age of 50.
The crackdown in Turkey after a failed coup has assumed monstrous proportions. The witch hunt, apparently to purge the country of coup sympathisers and further strengthen President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s position at the head of the government, has put an end to free speech. The conservative government has taken the path of retribution, which can prove to be counter-productive. Only days before the government announced a ban on the travel of academicians outside the country. Now Turkey has decided to temporarily suspend the implementation of its obligations emanating from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) because the government has declared a state of emergency following the coup. Though deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus has asserted that fundamental rights and freedoms will not fall under the purview of the emergency, it doesn’t take much to guess that in this current climate of fear and reprisals, human rights will be grossly abused. Turkey is fast moving towards an authoritarian regime despite the people’s spontaneous resistance to a military takeover.
