The Gajendra Episode in Pune- Shame the RSS
Tuesday, July 14, 2015
Since weeks, the students of the prestigious Film and Television Institute of Pune are agitating against the appointment of the RSS-sponsored candidate, Gajendra Chauhan, to the top post of the Institute.
FTII is a premiere institute, which was headed, until recently, by professionals with deep expertise in acting, directing or other fields of film and television industry. Gajendra Chauhan was an actor in the television mega series on Hindu mythological epic Mahabharata in the late 1980s, where he played the role of the elder Pandava, Yudhishthira, after that he never had any such role or casting for which he can be recalled by the people of the country.
Then the question normally arise, why Gajendra Chauhan was chosen by the Modi government for the role of heading such a premiere institute without any credible performance or track record in the film or television industry?
The answer is simple, like most of the top nominated positions in Modi-ruled India, the FTII also achieved the opportunity to be governed by an RSS nominee. Gajendra Chauhan had been an RSS supporter since a long time and his ideological closeness with the Sangh family gave him the chance to grab the top post of the prestigious institute.
Gajendra Chauhan is an upper-caste Rajput Kshatriya and that gives him a special privilege in the ruling BJP and the Modi government that wants to re-establish the Brahminical hegemony officially in India and that’s the reason that the saffron outfit is bringing forth the upper-caste yesteryear actors who played lead roles in the television and film industry, especially in Hindu mythological series, to influence the psychic of the voters, who are mostly politically backward Hindus. It’s the same reason that the BJP brought the lead female role player in the same TV series, Rupa Ganguly, a Bengali Brahmin, to its party leadership in West Bengal.
It is very normal in India that institutes that receive government grants or are affiliated with it are lead by people who are political representatives of the ruling clique. The Congress party, when in power, had its own set of followers leading the premiere academic and technical institutes. The BJP has a more notorious track record of placing unqualified people at the helm of affairs of government bodies due to their allegiance to the Sangh ideology.
Education and culture are the principal targets of the Sangh family led by the RSS in its pursuit to formally establish a Hindu Brahminical fascist and theocratic dictatorship firmly in the multicultural and multi-ethnic India.
The Gajendra Chauhan episode has irked the students of the institute, who are now staging protests against the RSS stooge who is all set to rule over them despite their opposition and despite the opposition from renowned film actors and directors.
Reports say that the government has rejected the names of prominent film artists like Amitabh Bachchan, Anupam Kher (an earnest Modi-bhakt), etc. for the top post of FTII and selected Gajendra Chauhan instead. This clearly manifests the fascist agenda of the Sangh family to impose its will on the future of the institute, well known for its brilliant products who have made remarkable progress in the film industry of India.
Many people above the age group of 30 can recall today that with the advent of the BJP rule under Atal Bihari Vajpayee, around 17 years back, the television and film industry was flooded by a herd of films and soaps that eulogised the reactionary ultra-chauvinist blend of nationalism preached by the RSS.
Under the guidance of Vajpayee and Advani, a number of intellectually creep films were released in the late 1990s and the early years of the new millennium, especially films starring Sunny Deol as the lead, and those films were based on the theme of ultra-nationalism of the fascist BJP that bashed Muslims, stereotyped them as Pakistani agents, and made a saviour out of the upper-caste North Indian white skinned Hindu man, who will fight and defeat the enemies of the nation and protect its sovereignty.
The TV soaps of that time, especially those shown by the monopoly media baron Rupert Murdoch-owned Star TV group, showed incessant series' themed upon ideal upper-caste North Indian Hindu vegetarian families, where the wives were shown as obedient and subordinate to their husbands, women who were not pious in the ideal Hindu frame were shown as vamp and the men were shown ardently following religious morality codes.
All these stories centred around upper caste Hindu families, mostly traders, the traditional vote bank of the BJP. One of these mega soaps was "Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi" that went on for years and cast the BJP leader and now Minister of Human Resource Development, accused of using fake educational certificates, Smriti Irani as the lead female role.
The TV series of the "saas-bahu" category continued to dominate Indian television for quite some time and transformed into the upper caste Hindu dramas with sexist and reactionary tone.
Gajendra Chauhan belongs to that very school of RSS cultural values and his role is to ensure that the products of the institute gets trained as per the doctrine of the saffron camp and does not venture into progressive arts and toes the line of the establishment forever.
Though most of the prominent film actors of yesteryear as well as of present have thrown their weight behind the agitating students, like Rishi Kapoor, who could not get admitted in the FTII due to his poor academic performance in Std XI, and his son Ranbir Kapoor, Gajendra seems reluctant to leave his post due to such public shaming.
It is a well-known fact that the issue with appointments in top positions of the government turns into prestige issue between the government and the opposition, and this time the students are more adamant than before to have Mr Chauhan pack his bag.
Gajendra Chauhan should read the wall graffiti and say his goodbye to FTII, as RSS stooges like him will not be tolerated at the helm of affairs of institutes with repute, simply because his genre does not qualify for those roles. Rather no roles but those in the theatrics produced by the BJP to wean the politically backward masses by showcasing yesteryear actors as baits.
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