Gajendra Chauhan’s appointment as SUPVA V-C raises eyebrows

Rohtak: The appointment of former television actor Gajendra Chauhan as the vice-chancellor of Pandit Lakhmi Chand State University of Performing and Visual Arts (SUPVA) in Rohtak has disappointed many a varsity students and ex-students who were waiting for a notable film personality to head their institution.

The students said that when the search was underway for the full time V-C of SUPVA, they were expecting the names of iconic personalities like Anupam Kher, Satish Kaushik or even Randeep Hooda but to their disappointment, Gajendra Chauhan got the appointment at the coveted post.

Raising concern on the issue, Yogesh Vats, former students of SUPVA and Bollywood director said that varsity has been turned into a place of “adjusting political personalities.”

“The institute of film and television was established as an autonomous body, but now appointments are done on political recommendations, sometimes on caste consideration and sometimes for ideological reasons,” he alleged. On the appointment of Mahabharat fame Gajendra Chauhan as VC, he said that notwithstanding the party affiliations, Chauhan is at least from a film background.

“I sincerely hope that he would not let his political leanings get in the way of fixing long-pending varsity issues in the larger interest of the students,” he added.

Ranjeet Chauhan, another former 2012-13 batch student from SUPVA, said that the varsity needed a full-time vice-chancellor as presently Prof Rajbir Singh was holding additional charge along with Rohtak’s MDU. He said that there are apprehensions in mind about Gajender Chauhan due to his controversial period at FTII, Pune, but still students feel that he should be given a chance to run the varsity for sometime before arriving at any conclusion.

Another student, who is in his final year, told TOI on anonymity that the students are concerned about their creative freedom in film making.

“We have heard his views and seen his tweets about his right wing ideology, which shows that there is narrow space for creative freedom in films,” he said.

He said that the students create films as their project which sometimes are on controversial topics of LGBT community or have issues which are suppressed or silenced by right wingers.

“With Gajendra Chauhan as the head of the institute, the students are worried if their film projects need funding and space would get approvals or not and whether a film promoting government’s interest would only be considered on the VC table,” he questioned.