Pune: Prashant More, a student from the TV Direction Course, had filed a complaint against Prof. Milind Damle, last year, accusing him of making casteist remarks against him and posing an obstacle to his academic performance. The student association at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) has raised serious concerns after one of the professors, facing allegations of caste-related discrimination against a student, was given a clean chit by the institute. The body has demanded a reinvestigation into the matter. 

Speaking of the experiences, right from the day of his orientation interview in 2022, More recounts, “Whatever I wrote or presented during the orientation interviews always had a mention or reference of caste, caste atrocities in some or the other way. That was the first time Prof. Damle asked me, ‘Why do you always write about caste?’”

"Prof. Damle asked me, ‘Why do you always write about caste?"

Having grown up in a Dalit locality himself, More says he replied that his work comes from his life and the experiences that he has faced until now.

“I did not think much of the question at the time. Wherever I go, whenever people see or read my work, they tend to ask me this question,” he said.

But he began noticing the issue, he said, began during an assignment wherein the students had to visit the Mahatma Phule Mandai (Pune’s age-old vegetable marketplace) and write a fictional story based on their observations.

“The main character in my story was an old woman in Mandai, who migrated to the city years ago, after she faced a caste atrocity in her village. When I submitted that story, Prof. Damle said to me that I had some problem, that I had come to the institute with some preamble that I was not going to write on any other topic except that of caste. When I questioned what was the problem with that, he responded saying that I should write about something else as well,” More said.

He said that the professor continued to discourage More from writing on caste-related issues on several instances and also hindered his academic work. “He asked an in-charge in the institute not to assign me a location that I required for a shoot, that I needed for my assignment. I was told that the location was unsafe, but it was given to a senior just months earlier,” More said.

He also accused the professor of instigating other students, who used to work with More, to stop working with them. He also alleged that the professor denied him permission to screen his film for his friends and family, like many students at FTII do.

However, the final blow, More says, came during the assessment of his final film.

“Director Umesh Kulkarni had come for the assessment of my final film. He asked me why my film looked so dark. I answered saying the visuals are not dark, but the system in the classroom is not properly caliberated for the screening. This was on a Sunday, so Damle sir was not present,” More said.

He said that Kulkarni asked a faculty member present there why is the assessment taking place in a classroom, when FTII has a good theatre?

“The professor called Damle sir and told him that I said some of the details of my film are getting lost here, so could we shift the screening to the theatre? On this, Damle sir question, what is his [More’s] problem now? Can’t he see Ambedkar’s photo in his film now?” More alleged.

"What is his [More’s] problem now? Can’t he see Ambedkar’s photo in his film now?”

He said that there is no mention of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar in his film in any form and Damle knew that.

“He had seen my film twice before, he knew that. The comment about Ambedkar was purely provocative. It was at that point I completed to the FTII admin, on December 13, 2023,” More said.

When asked about these allegations, Prof. Damle said that being an employee of the institute, a government employee, he would not respond to the media query and that the appropriate authority to respond to this would be the institute, as it had already taken up the matter. However, despite several attempts to reach him, he was not available for a comment. The story will be updated regarding the same once Indie Journal is able to get in touch with him.

Loopholes in investigation

The FTII administration had formed a two-member committee to look into the matter.

“I was told by the Registrar that the committee would submit its findings within 15 days. However, around two months passed and still, there was no answer. Meanwhile, I kept asking them, how come the committee had only two members? I had simultaneously also filed an application about the same at the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC). It was after that that I was told, it was just a fact-finding committee,” More said.

He also said that while the process continued to get delayed and that the committee kept asking for extensions, he was not told, even upon asking multiple times, why the process was getting delayed.

Eventually, the two members filed conflicting reports, he added, one of them confirmed that caste-based discrimination had indeed taken place, while the other said that such was not the case. The report was referred to a third party after this, for unbiased evaluation.

“The third party deemed the report denying Damle's discriminatry behaviour against students to be true and that it was the student who perceived it the wrong way. I recently got to know Prof. Damle has just been given a cautionary note,” More said.

More has also filed a complaint about the same with the Deccan police station, but the police have told him that it is going to be difficult to prove discrimination.

The FTII Students Association recently released a statement, demanding a reinvestigation into the matter. However, no further developments have taken place regarding the issue since.

While FTII had no permanently appointed director, just a couple of months ago, IIS officer Dhiraj Singh took charge of the position. More said that he spoke with the director about the issue personally, but was not sure if any action was going to be taken by the institute, even after this meeting.

No SC/ST Cell at FTII

FTII, shamefully like many other premium institutes, lacks a functional SC/ST Cell for the students.

“All we have is an SC/ST liaison officer,” More said.

The SC/ST liaison officer at the institute was one of the members of the fact-finding committee appointed by the institute to look into the matter. Indie Journal tried contacting him several times to talk over the issue. However, despite initially agreeing to talk, he did not respond to the attempts.

While speaking on an earlier occasion, a former FTII student had said that while there was an SC/ST Cell at the institute, it was not functional. A couple of years ago, FTII students had alleged irregularities in the admission processes saying that the institute has left a few seats as well as waitlist positions in the OBC, SC and ST categories vacant, citing reasons of ineligibility.