The Future of Film & Media Education in India

In response to Paromita Vohra's write-up on Subhash Ghai and Whistling Woods in Mid-Day: 

Vohra’s logic is so sloppy that to deal with it comprehensively, one would need more space than what this forum allows. Though I have been a professor at WW since its inception, I am not its spokesperson by any means and I resolutely maintain my critical distance with it. However, certain things need to be pointed out. The state of film education in India is a serious matter that needs to be addressed with the right degree of seriousness and certainly not with flippant social analysis which trivializes the entire issue with mere claptrap. Vohra might get some cheap thrills out of ridiculing the “international” aspect of WWI but I bear witness to what the Dean of UCLA (one of the world’s leading film schools) had once said: “We do not have anything like this in the US”.  Having seen all major film schools in India from the inside (and several major film schools abroad), I have not come across any institution where curriculum issues and teaching methodologies are discussed and debated in detail for months on end and constantly updated by some of the best minds in the Indian film industry. Student responses are constantly assessed and courses are redesigned in almost every semester. Personally, I have never witnessed such positive energy, seriousness of purpose and academic rigour anywhere else, far less in our state-run film schools which are in a pathetic state of decay.  

At a time when the Indian state acknowledges its own failure in creating worthwhile institutions and is emulating successful ideas developed and implemented at WW (entrusting it to develop, for example, the CBSE curriculum), it is a fundamentally regressive mode of thinking that creates false oppositions of “state vs. private” (or legit subsidy vs. lusty profit) as if it was a good guy vs. bad guy encounter of a “Bollywood” thriller. At a time when India is on the verge of ushering in private universities to play a lead role in defining India’s intellectual future, individuals like Vohra need to develop a more nuanced understanding of the state’s role in enabling the creation of such institutions, which may often have to include generous land grants/subsidies without which it is impossible to make such educational ventures possible, specially  in a city like Bombay. In any case, the whole hoopla around the legitimacy of the land grant is based on a false premise. WW does not even own the land. It is convenient to ignore such small details. 

There are several things in WW that one would be critical about but the fact remains that rarely in India has one seen such an efficient set-up where everything seems to work with clockwork precision. What I personally consider extraordinary about Subhash Ghai’s achievement is not necessarily the films he has made but the fact that he has made WW grow beyond himself and if one looks closely, one would find that ALL the teachers who are moulding the “next-generation” filmmakers of the mainstream industry actually belong to the opposite camp of “parallel cinema”, thus imbibing students with a sensibility that can perhaps change the face of our cinema. In this regard, Ghai’s extraordinary dedication and sincerity takes on the dimension of some kind of “public service”. Add to this the fabulous infrastructure and the beautiful architecture! 

Far from being a rhetoric, the ‘international’ dimension in WWI is real in that there are several members of faculty, staff and students who are from abroad and the curriculum is not at all narrowly ‘Bollywood’. The overwhelming number of films that I personally show and analyse in my Film Appreciation classes are a far cry from what goes by the name of Bollywood. We have even shown extremely “mediocre” Indian documentaries and put them up for debate. Vora should be thankful for that.

The prohibitive fees is definitely the major talking point, always. However, the student profile seems to be changing gradually. They are not rich-kids always; many of them have inner-town middle-class backgrounds, empowered by loans at a time when Indian middle classes have consciously realized that education is their best investment.

It is fundamentally dishonest to ask WW to show results in terms of “stars” that it has churned out. It is common knowledge that hardly anyone makes an impact in the film industry in less than 15 years and WW’s first batch graduated only 4 years ago. A proper assessment can only be made at least a decade later but to dismiss all the significant achievements already accomplished, is to trivialize the debate about film/media education and the creative role of the private sector. Every film institute in the world, overtly or covertly, has a certain ideological stance (and agenda) with regard to mainstream industry. It is obvious that a film school located in the heart of the world’s biggest film industry would be resolutely industry-oriented like many film schools in US. It does not serve any purpose to resort to simplistic, prejudiced stereotypes that refuse to see the cultural battles that are being fought on daily basis by people who have chosen to be inside the bastion of commercial filmmaking with the hope of making it a bit more sensitive to the world around us.

Finally, I would leave Vohra with the thought to honestly ponder over whether she would go to a state-run subsidised hospital or go to any extent to avail the services of an efficiently-run but expensive private hospital, in case she is confronted with a severe cardiac arrest.