Kolkata: Marking one month of the Sept 27 clashes with ABGP members, SRFTI students launched a nationwide protest on Tuesday demanding an end to campus saffronisation and privatisation, drawing solidarity from visiting directors, actors, lawyers and student activists.Chanting slogans against vice-chancellor Santosh Ajmera, protesters reiterated demands to halt RSS-affiliated appointments, stop attacks and revoke student rustication. Beginning with a morning garland ceremony at the BR Ambedkar statue and a convention at the pandal, the protests also drew student questioning over the denial of entry to certain dignitaries while staff, faculty, and delivery personnel retained full access.“In the name of implementing regulation, the state or any other authority can’t take away our liberty. Both Kamaleshwar Mukherjee and I were not even allowed to enter the premises. There was a gate separating,” said advocate Shamim Ahmed, adding, “We will also take recourse of law against the illegalities done by the authorities.”Mukherjee said he had been on the SRFTI campus on multiple occasions. “I have taught students. My films have been screened there. I have even directed a production with the students. Yet, I was not even allowed to enter the premises on Tuesday when I went to show solidarity to the students. I want the democratic rights of students to be upheld. I don’t support saffronisation of educational institutes,” he said.Film-maker Indranil Roy Chowdhury, who is a regular on campus, was allowed entry. He criticised the administration for shifting the entire narrative to a “student disciplinary issue”. “If students had indeed misbehaved, why did they do so? Nobody was hurt in the skirmish. But on Sept 27, there were photographic and surgical evidences of at least a dozen students being hurt,” he said. Post-lunch, participants engaged in banner-making and art against, leading into a protest march at 4 pm.Linking the SRFTI violence to a broader attempt to “saffronise institutes across India”, director Debalina Majumdar said the student protests have spread to other campuses. “I am at the Jadavpur University protest while some of my friends have gone to the protest site on College Street. I fail to understand why the intruders at SRFTI carried knives and why not a single arrest has been made even after a month.” She also slammed the administration’s 24-hour hostel vacation notice.Addressing allegations of inaction, Ajmera stated that a state govt SIT is investigating the incidents while SRFTI’s internal fact-finding committee is ascertaining the sequence of events. “Police have to take necessary action according to the law. The institute has already filed official complaints against both the incidents of violence.”Meanwhile, the FTII Student Body and Association also demonstrated outside the institute gate on Tuesday. Demanding that the rustication order of students be revoked, it asked the SRFTI administration to stop “cruelly evict all students from the campus in the name of restoring normalcy”.
