FTII student says being punished for speaking up against sexual harassment

A final-year student of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) has accused institute Director Bhupendra Kainthola of “creating a hostile work environment for her”, “intimidating her” and “obstructing her work at FTII”, and trying to “destroy her film career” because she consistently raised her voice against sexual harassment at the institute. Kainthola has described the allegations as “wild and imaginary”.

In a four-page complaint letter sent to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, the 2016-batch student has said her harassment started after she testified against a faculty member who was accused of sexual harassment by three women students in September last year. In April this year, the girl had approached the internal complaints committee (ICC) of FTII with her own complaint of sexual misconduct by a male batchmate, who, she alleged, had assaulted her by entering her hotel room in the dead of the night when a group of students was visiting Aurangabad along with a faculty member in April 2018.

The senior faculty member in question has since been removed, while the male student was suspended from the hostel for three months and asked to attend “therapy sessions”. However, in August this year, the complainant herself was punished with expulsion for an entire semester for “professional misconduct” and “academic indiscipline” during the production of an academic project.

The FTII administration had also barred her from working on her diploma film, and from sending her projects for film festivals. In her letter to the ministry, the complainant said the punishment given to her was “unheard of in the history of FTII” and came despite the fact that the issue had been “settled after detailed deliberations held by faculty members of the concerned departments”.

She has written that this action against her had “confirmed her fears” that Kainthola had been targeting her for having raised her voice against sexual harassment consistently. “The order (of her expulsion and other punishments) clearly was meant to destroy my career and I immediately sought legal advice on how to appeal against this. I was told that the appellate authority in this was Kainthola. But when I called him,

he harassed me further. He made accusations against me and refused to inform me the details of the inquiry that was obstructing my work. ‘You don’t have to know that’, he said when it is my right to know these details about the inquiry,” she wrote in her complaint to the ministry.

Kainthola said there was no truth in the allegations.  “It begs credibility. This is an attempt to cover up her act of professional fraud for which she was found guilty by the inquiry committee,” Kainthola said in a written response to questions sent by The Indian Express.

He claimed that there was “no connection whatsoever” between the girl’s complaint against her batchmate and the action against her when it was discovered that she had taken “unauthorised external assistance” while completing her academic project.

He said the three-member inquiry committee had concluded that there was a “serious breach of trust, lack of respect, breaking of norms, and severe disregard for general and academic indiscipline” by the girl student. “Her one-sided statement is highly misleading and entirely at variance with the facts,” Kainthola said.

The girl maintained that the action against her had come because of her complaint of sexual harassment and the fact that she had testified against a “close friend (the senior faculty member)” of the director. She has requested the ministry to ensure that the director is asked to step down from his “position of power” in order to facilitate a fair inquiry into her complaints.

News Source (Indian Express)