The Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust (Sahmat), a forum for promoting democratic unity among artists, has issued a statement in support of the FTII students who are on an indefinite hunger strike protesting the controversial appointment of BJP leader Gajendra Chauhan as the institute's chairman.
Here's the full text of the statement and list of signatories:
As the strike by students of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) enters its fourth month, and the condition of students on hunger strike deteriorating alarmingly, we join the distinguished alumni of the institute, national award winning film personalities and others of the artistic fraternity, in extending our solidarity to the cause they are fighting for.
We are shocked and outraged at the continuing intransigence of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting which has refused to give the agitating students a fair hearing. Cynical indifference to the need for top quality management in a premier national institution sparked the student strike. And in the manner that the Ministry and its top officials – including the Union Minister and the Minister of State – have allowed the strike to drag on, a clear tendency is evident to put political prestige before institutional integrity.
We are deeply disturbed over the possibility of a national asset, an institution set up with ambitions of creative excellence, being irreparably damaged.We underline once again that national institutions are not to be transformed into parking lots for second-rate talents and political time-servers. The pattern of appointing individuals who have nothing to recommend them except their engagement in campaign propaganda for the ruling party is too shockingly obvious to ignore.
Some of India’s most distinguished film personalities, all recipients of national and international honours, have appealed to the President to intervene and advise the government to take heed of the dangers of prolonged default on its responsibilities. We join this appeal since every other recourse has seemingly been exhausted.
The list of signatories:
Painters:
Vivan Sundaram, Shamshad, Veer Munshi, Gulammohammed, Nilima Sheikh, Inder Salim, Arpana Caur, Geeta Kappur, Wasim Kapoor, Sharmila Samant, arunkumar H.G.
Theatre/Music:
M.K.Raina, Anuradha Kapur, N.K.Sharma, Vidya Shah, Madangopal Singh, Dwijen Bandopadhyay, Neeta Mohindra, Dolly Basu, Suman Mukherjee, Tripurari Sharma, Usha Ganguli.
Photographers/Designers:
Ram Rahman, Romi Khosla, Parthiv Shah, Kanishka Prasad, Rajinder Arora, Rajni Arora
Historians/Social Scientists:
Irfan Habib, D N Jha, Prabhat Patnaik, C.P.Chandrasekhar, K. M. Shrimali, Prabhat Shukla, Aijaz Ahmad, Amar Farooqui, Anil Bhatti, Arjun Dev, Archana Prasad, B.P.Sahu, Mukul Manglik, V.M.Jha, Zoya Hasan, Sadanand menon, Sashi Kumar
Writers/Authors:
Kalpana Khosla, Githa Hariharan, MMP Singh, Manmohan, Shubha, Rekha Awasthi, Vishnu Nagar, Mihir Bhattacharya, Malini Bhattacharya, Badri Raina, Kumkum Sangari.
Others:
Ayesha Kidwai, Fahad Hashmi, Firdaus Ahmed, Girish Mishra, John Dayal, Indu Chandrasekhar, Biswamoy Pati, Shatrup Ghosh, Shiba Sen, Shabnam Hashmi, Anis Azmi, Manzoor Ahmad Mir, Javed Hakim, Sameer Aich, Kriti Sharma, Teesta Setalvad, Amarjit Chandan, Kaushik Sen, Biplab Bandopadhyay, B.Ananthkrishna, Rajeev Vellichetti, Naushad Mohammad, Sanjiv Kumar, Atluri Murali, Banwari Taneja, Purushottam Agrawal, S.B Rai, Vijay Kankare, Chandrakant Kulkarni, Pratima Kulkarni, Mangesh Kadam, Kedar Shinde Sanjay Narlekar, Bharat Jadav, Prashant Damle, Meena Kulkarni, Vandana Gupte, Mohan Joshi, Hasmukh Baradi, Bharat Dave, Janak Rawal, Manvita Baradi, Amitash Kumar, Faraz Ahmad, Rajeev Nail, Prashant Delvi, Sudhir Chandra, Geetanjali Shree, Rajendra Sharma
