A Night of Knowing Nothing (2021) Movie Script
1
Inside a cupboard in room S18
of a hostel in the FTII
a box was found
with several assorted items
newspaper cuttings, dried flowers
and memory cards.
Amongst them were letters written
by a student of the film school
only named by the initial 'L'.
My love,
How are you?
I am thinking of you...
More and more it seems,
as the days stretch on.
I'm getting by...
still not quite able
to get my head around things...
Yesterday Mukul came to the room
to have tea.
He told me these days he's been having
a strange, recurring dream.
He narrated it to me
and I also found it strange.
And listening to him, all I could
think of was of our situation.
I suppose it is always on my mind...
I went to the Dean's office
this morning.
He asked me where you were,
and when you would be back.
I didn't know what to tell him.
How could I tell him
that your parents locked you in a room
and won't let you out...
because you expressed
your desire to marry me?
How could I tell him...
that even if you escaped
and came back,
they would find us
and who knows what they would do?
I just told him you were dealing
with a family problem...
That's the truth, I guess.
Anyway, there is a party tonight.
I don't feel like going,
but maybe I will...
Just to take these thoughts
out of my mind.
I'm thinking of you...
What else can I say...?
Yours, L
Yesterday Mukul came to the room
to have tea.
He told me these days he's been having
a strange, recurring dream.
It was a moonlit night...
I was in love with a girl...
She was petite, so delicate.
We had decided to meet
in the field behind her house,
in the fields
that would hide our love...
I was waiting for my beloved...
waiting to touch her gentle lips
take her in my arms,
kiss her.
I saw a figure crouching in the bushes.
Suddenly...
it started to move towards me...
and I realised that it was her father!
Her father and his men chased me
through the forest...
I saw a river, I recognised it.
If I jumped into it...
I wouldn't remember my past...
I would know nothing.
What choice did I have?
If they caught me...
I would be dead.
I have this dream often..
More often, these days...
Sunday morning,
the campus is still asleep.
There are only the sounds
of birds and faithful dogs.
Here, life goes on.
Tudu!
What's cooking in the Mess?
I really hope it's not pumpkin.
- Pumpkin.
- Dammit!
I have to still take a bath!
They will run out of beer!
We are having a party!
My love,
I am sorry I have not written
in so many days.
I have been trying
to keep myself busy.
That is the only way
I can keep my mind off of things.
I am editing Himu's film.
And I have to admit,
it has not been easy.
He watches me edit
with such intensity,
as if there is some pattern
that only I can see...
But it is not true.
It is a complicated film and I think
neither of us fully understand it.
Did I tell you what it's about?
It is about a girl.
She is having
an existential crisis perhaps.
I know you'd say, she is like me.
- Roll camera!
- Rolling.
Shot 7, take 1.
Shot 4, take 2!
Roll camera!
Today I have a day off
after many days.
And again I find myself thinking of you.
I miss you.
I felt your touch...
as if you were next to me...
It is getting harder to live on campus.
Since you left,
the administration has been
coming at us with more vengeance.
They're passing all kinds of rules
which have nothing to do
with students or cinema.
I am ashamed to admit it...
but sometimes I think that they are
punishing us for going on strike.
Like if we hadn't gone on strike,
would things be better now?
But at the time,
what other choice did we have?
In the monsoon of 2015,
the students
of the state funded film school,
the Film and Television
Institute of India,
called for a strike against appointment
of their new chairman,
Mr. Gajendra Chauhan.
Mr. Chauhan had been appointed
by the newly formed government in India,
headed by the BJP.
He is an actor
whose most popular role
was to play a Hindu
mythological character on a soap-opera
in the 1980s.
The reason for the agitation
was that the students claimed
that Mr. Chauhan had been appointed
to run the film school
because of his affiliation to the BJP
and his support
for the Hindu nationalist organisation
the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh,
the RSS.
Students further claimed
that it was not just FTII
but the government had appointed
many RSS sympathisers
to various public funded institutes.
All the agents of Modi...
Get out of here!
Eisenstein, Pudovkin!
We shall fight! We shall win!
Several students, academics and artists
supported the strike,
and soon news channels
featured it on prime time news.
Our protest is not just
against these few appointees.
Our opposition is towards
all these political appointments
that this government is making
in all Public Institutes
since the past one year
they have come into power.
All these people are associated
with a certain ideology.
If anyone questions their ideology,
they are immediately shut down.
If someone is against their views,
they are beaten!
If anyone makes a film
that doesn't suit their ideology,
it is banned.
Those protesting against the appointment
of Mr. Gajendra Chauhan are anti Hindu.
Gajendra Chauhan has acted
in over 150 films and 600 TV shows.
Those people who are questioning
the appointment
must be joking or must be mentally ill.
It is quite clear
that all they want is to promote
their anti-Hindu agenda.
And that's their goal!
As the weeks turned to months,
the students showed no sign
of backing down.
The Government had to take notice.
First, the students were
threatened with rustication.
When they did not stop,
five students were arrested
in a midnight siege.
If you are going to arrest students
in the middle of the night,
there should be some legal basis!
At least show us an arrest warrant!
What's going on?
Is this now a police state?
Soon the machinery in place
were used to change the narrative.
Students were called
"anti-national" and "anti-Hindu".
Subsequently, the students
lost the public sympathy
and were viewed as freeloaders
living off tax-payer funded subsidies.
In a desperate attempt,
several students went on
a hunger strike, and were hospitalised.
Unable to hold on,
the strike was finally called off
after 139 days.
Do you remember
that night during the strike?
Someone had set up projectors
under the trees.
You were sitting next to me.
I leaned my head on your shoulder
in the pale projector light...
I don't know how it happened...
but soon we were kissing.
I miss you.
Yours, L.
It must be raining outside.
There was this question also,
like during the strike,
if the entire country has supported us
what if someone else
is attacked tomorrow?
If something happens
in a different institute,
is it our responsibility
to stand with them?
It's not just a moral obligation I feel,
it is also because the current scenario
if you guys think that if you are silent
and if we listen to whatever they say,
your life will be better,
absolutely it's a lie!
It is not going to be that.
It actually will get worse.
My dear,
Last night
the Student Union elections began.
Because of the yellow tarpaulin
spread on the floor,
the whole court was ablaze
with yellow light!
Even the leaves on the trees
looked golden.
Anunay, with his gentle voice
spoke about preserving the past.
And Ranjit spoke about
safeguarding the future.
OUR OLD CAR NEEDS A NEW COAT OF PAINLET'S COME TOGETHER TO PAINT IT!
Why did we show the film?
Why are these people coming
and talking to us?
Why is this discussion happening?
It is all happening so that we feed into
the clarity of vision
that is needed to run this place.
Run this place
from the student community's side,
from the administration's side.
What is the need for this place
to exist in today's times?
If in the course
of these three-four or five days,
if we can organically understand
what is this vision that is emerging
not from the burden of history,
not from a legacy
that is being handed to us
and forced upon us,
but, by truly observing,
what is the status today?
Why do we need a film school
like this in our times?
Such a heavily subsidised film school
in today's times?
What are our privileges here?
How many of us could have even
dreamt of making films
if this place did not exist?
Did I tell you I visited Nachi
in his village in Polachi?
We rode around
on his father's motorcycle.
People passed us glances
as we went by...
it was funny...
But Nachi and I were not always friends.
The first time we met,
I found him too excited,
too articulate.
Maybe because we are so different
from one another,
we found in each other
a compassionate friendship.
Out on the basketball court,
I saw all our friends
who have now become so dear to me.
Neel, Shaz, Prabhati...
And amongst them,
were new faces too...
who were listening so sincerely
to everything we were saying.
Those faces were of the new students.
I imagined that in three years
they too might have
the same deep love for one another.
Perhaps,
they might lean
on each other's shoulders
and close their eyes
with the tiredness of being alive.
Perhaps, they might think
of each other as lovers,
as brothers, as parents
or as teachers.
I saw Himu coming to us from afar.
A light shone in his hands,
a small candle,
placed on a cake.
The golden light sparkled
in his shy eyes.
"Whose birthday is it?"
somebody asked.
"Not any of ours"
he replied coyly...
"This cake is for Madhubala's birthday."
Hearing this, we were all overjoyed
and we sang a song
from the late actress' movie:
"When one has loved,
what is there to fear"
and rejoiced for Madhubala,
for cinema and for love!
Because we knew,
after all, they are one and the same!
On the margins of her letters
L often makes drawings.
Doodles, shapes and forms
that are unfamiliar
and quite often appear to be hands.
I believe that the students are
at the frontline of the fight
against this dictatorial government.
I went to the Hyderabad
Central University (HCU).
Over there, women students were
threatened with rape by the police.
The police beat them
and threatened them with rape.
Where there were
Bahujan and Dalit students,
they were called "untouchables".
And where there were Muslim students,
they had the usual word
for them: "terrorists".
My dear,
Do you still keep cuttings
from newspapers like you used to?
When I asked you
why you were doing it,
you said it was because
you didn't want to forget.
Perhaps because I am an editor,
I continued the timeline,
where you left it off.
Your notes from the past
meet mine from the present.
You were right.
Our memory cannot keep up
with these times, it seems.
Trump's shocking victory
was quickly forgotten
when the murder
of journalist Gauri Lankesh took place.
We had hardly any time to process this,
before the lynching
of Pehlu Khan happened.
The image of his helpless face pleading
to an angry mob to allow him to live.
And then the image of flogging
of the young Dalit men in Una.
It was quickly replaced
by the image of a Muslim girl,
who was gang raped and murdered.
And each image vanished as quickly
and horrifically as it had appeared.
A fleeting memory of violence.
But one clipping never leaves me
no matter what I do.
It is from January 2016.
The day Rohith Vemula took his own life.
In his death,
Rohith Vemula has emerged as a symbol
of protest against injustice
and indignity.
The 26 year old PhD student
killed himself on Sunday
inside the campus
of the Hyderabad Central University.
Mr. Vemula was a member
of the Ambedkar Students' Association,
which fights for the rights of Dalits,
formerly known as "untouchables".
Rohith and five other students
allegedly faced discrimination
from the "upper" caste
administration at HCU
when he got into an altercation
with a leader of the student-wing
of the ruling party, the ABVP.
His death sparked protests
on campuses worldwide last week
and prompted a national debate
about the discrimination
of Dalit students and academics
at Indian universities.
The government has launched
a judicial probe into the death
and Prime Minister Modi has said
that "Mother India has lost her son".
Yes, Prime Minister Narendra Modi,
he said that "India has lost her son".
We have another question
to be put before Mr. Modi.
If India has lost her son...
the same son was branded
as anti-national!
The same son was branded
as casteist
because he was first fighting
against casteism!
The same son was branded
as an "extremist"
by your own cabinet minister
who is sitting alongside of you
Union Minister
for Labour and Employment,
Mr. Bandaru Dattatreya.
And you think about it...
As of July,
five students were suspended.
Their research fellowship is stopped!
After 4th January,
they are banned from using the library,
they are thrown out
of their hostel rooms
and they are forced to sleep
on the street in the cold!
The struggle going on
at the Hyderabad Central University,
the martyrdom of Rohith Vemula
and the suicides
of several Dalit students
in universities across the country
have sent out
a strong signal to India.
I think this is going to become
the fulcrum of the anti-caste movement
in this country.
Many of the pages
in L's notebook were blank
and some pages
were also torn out.
Some had the initials of her name
written and the scratched out.
After several of such pages,
more letters appear.
My dear,
Diwali has come again...
A year has passed by...
just like that...
You didn't even try
to speak to me once...
and I still go on...
People might think I'm crazy...
Maybe I am...
I don't know anymore.
Why does 'nostalgia' always remind me
of something good?
While 'memory' is
only about forgetting...
I keep thinking about it...
What if it were me
who had fallen in love
with someone who was of an even
"lower" caste or different religion?
My parents would have had
the same reaction as yours.
What my parents would do
isn't in the least bit important to me.
What is important is what I would do!
I remember in school too...
the "upper" caste kids
always treated us badly.
They had a strange sense
of superiority.
And we did the same with those
who were considered "lower"...
After all, our parents
propagated these thoughts...
I thought that you would fight for us.
I thought you would stand up
to your parents.
But maybe...
I was wrong...
Maybe you were never brave,
the way I thought you were.
I just don't understand.
How could you stand beside me
during the strike,
shouting slogans of freedom
stand up to the government,
but when it came to standing up
to the casteism of your parents,
you did not speak up?
Another Dussehra,
the festival where we celebrate
the victory of "good" over "evil".
But I no longer understand
which is which...
Memory is fragile...
it cannot withstand
the test of 2000 years...
Those who control it,
call it "history".
All those nights...
I spent talking to you
about my childhood..
And you listened to me so patiently.
Maybe I mistook your silence
for understanding...
But maybe we never really
understood each other at all.
I know now that I will never
send these letters to you,
I no longer write to you anymore.
But to someone
I wished you could have been.
In her letters often talks
about the past.
She writes about a particular night,
more than others.
On this night,
in the capital city of New Dehli,
three student leaders were released from
prison and returned to their university,
the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU),
the bastion of left politics in India.
The arrest of these students seem to
have had a deep impact on her
and the fellow students
at the film school
We want freedom
to marry whoever we want
or not to marry!
Freedom to say, "yes"!
We are going to get it!
Freedom from casteism!
Freedom from exploitation!
Freedom from injustice!
Freedom from poverty!
From starvation!
It is our right!
More dear than our life!
Our beloved freedom!
You want to shut down all the voices
that can unite!
Whether it is of a soldier
guarding the border,
or a farmer toiling in the field
or a student
protesting for freedom,
they don't want these voices to unite!
I want to tell you,
Babasaheb (Dr. Ambedkar) has said
political struggle is not enough...
what we need is social change!
This is why we speak about
constitutional rights.
And Lenin tells us,
"Democracy is indispensable
to socialism"
This is why
we are fighting for democracy,
for freedom of expression,
and for equality.
This is why
we are fighting for socialism.
So that the child of a janitor
and the child of a Prime Minister
can study at the same school!
Let me hear you!
We are one!
We shall fight!
We shall win!
Dear
I want to send you images
of people as they gather here
at Jantar Mantar in Delhi.
It is a cold November morning
and people are wearing
shawls and sweaters.
The last time I was here to protest
was during our strike...
It could very well be that protest...
just the banners have changed.
Common education for all!
Demand workers and farmers!
I came to Delhi to edit Shubham's film.
But when the protest erupted,
neither Shubham nor I could
concentrate on our work.
We decided to join in.
WE DEMAND AN END
TO THE HIKE IN FEES
You know, they have increased
the fees here by 300 percent?
THIS FIGHT IS FOR ALL UNIVERSITIES
IT IS A FIGHT FOR OUR SOCIETY
My ancestors broke their backs
tilling fields of landowners.
No one from my family
has even left the village.
EDUCATION IS NOT FOR SALE
Is the purpose of education only to
teach you to work and fill your stomach?
Why can't the poor
dream of getting a degree?
This is what they are afraid of.
If we become educated,
who will work on their fields?
Who will mend their shoes?"
If your father is a taxi driver
or a labourer,
don't you have the right to education?
A part of my scholarship goes
to support my family!
What will I do?
If there's a fee hike,
I'll die or become a labourer.
Why don't you understand that?"
Modi government,
come to your senses!
Stop selling Education Institutions!
Stop the violence on students!
Long live the Revolution!
Long live student unity!
- Student, carry on your struggle!
- We are with you!
I look at a lady cop
who is keeping an eye on us.
She'll go home tonight,
tired from a day of work.
She'll still have to make dinner
for her family.
What will she think of
as she dozes off?
Tomorrow, she'll wake up early
and make lunches for her family.
She'll send her kid off to school
and kiss him goodbye.
I wonder what she thinks of us?
I thought of Pasolini.
In the student protests
in Italy in 1968,
he supported the police...
He said the students were children
of the bourgeoisie,
but the police were the proletariat.
Could these students really cause
a revolution without the workers?
But at the protest today,
are the two sides of the barricade
really so different?
Pressed up against her...
this is the closest she and I will be...
Really, it is just her uniform
that separates us.
I feel for her...
but soon she will raise her baton
and attack my friends.
She'll pull their hair,
grab their arms...
And I am reminded once again
that the police is not here
to protect me.
Grab me all you want!
We will fight till the end!
A souvenir of violence.
A government of sticks and bullets!
We reject you!
Government of lies and deceit!
We reject you!
Hindu nationalist government!
We reject you!
Anti-Dalit government!
We reject you!
And we have taken to the streets
because we want
to tell the people in power
that now the oppressed castes
and the poor
will not tolerate your oppression!
They will no longer mend your shoes,
will no longer clean your filthy sewers,
will no longer burn
your rotting carcasses.
We are recognising our rights!
You say you know poverty?
You have only read about poverty
and caste oppression in books!
But we actually face it
in our daily life!
In this country, the rich man
is already going abroad
to study at Oxford and Cambridge!
And that same rich man will say,
"the government should not
spend on subsidising education."
Hey mister, if you have any shame,
go look at your face in the mirror!
When your kid goes to study at Oxford,
then he too is benefitting
from that country's tax payers
and government subsidies!
When your kid studies
from their subsidies
and when their tax payers pay
for your kid's education
then you strut around proudly!
But when it comes to paying your taxes
for the poor youth of your own country
you can't stomach that, can you?
If you're worried
how your tax money's spent,
then I say, please worry!
Most certainly worry!
But don't ask
"Why is studying at JNU so cheap?"
You should be asking,
"Why is my education so overpriced?"
Dear,
I have become
a feverish prisoner of rhetoric.
Listening to the speeches
gives me a strange rush...
We are only here
to fight for our rights...
and we will keep fighting!
You better make your jails bigger!
You know I have been to jail before!
Only recently you have released me!
And you know very well
what we are made of.
So if you want
to put us back in jail, go ahead!
But know this, if you do arrest us,
we will come in thousands.
So make the walls of your jails taller,
we are ready for the long run!
Some days it feels like
things could not get worse.
How could it?
But soon enough,
something even more sinister
takes place.
The thing is, I am feeling scared.
Any ideology that opposes theirs
is not allowed to exist.
And the sad part is,
so many people are following them.
They are questioning
what it means to be a citizen.
As if it is not just enough
to be born on this land.
Certain people are being declared
less Indian than others.
Protests have erupted
in campuses across India
between last night and this morning.
News of fresh protests is pouring in
almost faster than we can keep track of.
At the moment, several universities
across India are protesting.
Students at New Delhi's
Jamia Milia University
have been protesting
for the last three days
against the Citizenship Amendment Act,
a new law.
Now these were largely
peaceful protests, until last evening,
when police in riot gear
surrounded the campus
and they began to pull out students
and beat them with batons.
They also lobbed tear gas shells
inside the campus,
including inside the central library,
which is a closed room,
where approximately
fifty students were hiding.
It isn't just
Jamia Milia Islamia anymore,
but also reports of violence
on the Aligarh Muslim University campus.
You see the police in riot gear
and there is some stone throwing
happening.
The police is ready with tear gas shells
and some firing as well at this point.
A masked mob has attacked
teachers and students
at an elite university in New Delhi.
The incident is the latest in a series
of violent clashes across India.
We are at the Jawaharlal
Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi.
Around hundred masked men
entered the campus on Sunday night
and brutally beat up
students and teachers.
More than twenty
have been severely injured.
Who were the masked men
who are responsible for this?
That will be a big question
going ahead.
Many members of the students
and the faculty claiming
that they were BJP student wing workers
who went on the rampage
inside the JNU campus.
I have been brutally attacked
by goons who were masked.
I don't know...
I have been bleeding.
I am not even in a condition to talk.
I have been brutally beaten up...
I was there
with one of my activist friends.
Down with ABVP
DOWN! DOWN!
I am a common student of JNU.
I do not belong to any party,
but the kind of videos that
are coming out from JNU today are...
heartbreaking!
There have been videos coming out
where Aishe, who is our President,
has been beaten up.
Her head is bleeding!
There are so many other students
whose heads are bleeding.
There are teachers.
And in all of this,
everyone who is outside of JNU,
who is inside JNU,
are feeling helpless
because there is curfew imposed
right outside of JNU.
So, anybody who is mobilising,
the police is beating them up.
And we all need to somehow be united
not just for this protest,
not because it's fun to shout slogans,
not because it's fun to stand
on the road with fire torches, no!
We have to stand
against Hindu nationalists.
We have to stand against violence.
We have to stand
against their stupidity
in our everyday life.
In our day to day life.
We have to stand up
in front of our parents,
in front of our teachers, professors,
families, extended families
relatives, whoever it may be.
But if we don't do it
and if we keep on giving into this,
people like ABVP
are going to keep happening to us.
And for now it's just JNU,
it's just Jamia (University),
it's just Hyderabad (University)
it's just Assam.
It's going to be all of us someday.
They'll enter your house and beat you.
It's not a threat.
Because it doesn't seem
like one anymore.
The people that have been
calling in from JNU,
their voices are shit scared.
They are so scared
that they are just like,
"Yeah, we are okay, but we don't know
what will happen next."
So, I thank you all for gathering
and showing solidarity
when the entire nation has
this propaganda inside their minds.
Thank you for having
your conscience alive.
And I would just like to say...
Long Live the Revolution!
So, they blindfolded me
and they put me in a car.
I did not resist...
Then, they took me to Lucknow.
I was sitting between two policemen
and I felt their pistols
against my thighs.
I'm a 23 year old student
and I was protesting peacefully.
Why did they send
the Anti-Terrorist Squad to arrest me?
Then I realised that in order to be safe
I had to prove to them
that I was not a devout Muslim,
because they'd try
to pin me down as a terrorist.
And in jail it was so overcrowded,
it felt like we each had
one coffin space to ourselves.
I was in there for four months
and finally they granted me bail.
It's funny because
the court called me a bright student.
Can you tell us
if you were tortured in any way
while you were in custody?
There are some things
I don't want to talk about
because maybe...
they will scare the students.
They might get scared of going to prison
and stop protesting all together.
Maybe I'll write about it one day.
Dear,
I had a horrible dream.
My chest...
it feels so heavy...
I can't go back to sleep...
I am scared...
People are getting arrested everywhere.
One by one...
People are getting arrested.
In my dream
I had gone to a protest.
Many of our friends were there.
Everyone was shouting slogans.
Suddenly...
Suddenly, there was a police van.
They took out large canons of water,
they hosed everyone...
It was very strange...
The water began
to melt away everyone.
Prateek vanished...
then Nachi vanished.
The water fell on Prabhati
and she vanished too...
Shaz...
Himu...
Neel...
Devangana...
Safoora...
Natasha...
Umar...
This appears to be the last
of L's found letters
There is however a note,
written on her last day
at the film school.
Here she has described the feeling
of looking at the early morning sky
after a long night with her friends.
Scribbled behind the note, are the words
of the revolutionary poet Aamir Aziz:
"Everything will be remembered"
We are not just FTII now,
we are a national voice.
You like it or not,
we are a national voice,
and it is very important
to be honest and genuine,
and to be obligated to that
because you are going
to make films for people outside!
Not for this community of 200 people!
So if people have supported you
for some reason,
there should be some genuine reason
people have supported you.
Out of no reason
nobody would have supported you.
People who have nothing to do
with filmmaking have supported you.
Common people!
I'm not telling you to take it
as a moral obligation or a pressure
to behave in a certain way.
Or to be outwardly political, not that.
But at least in a scenario like this
when things are reduced
to black and white.
The current government and throughout
the world what's the problem is that
"Either you are with us
or you don't exist."
This is the problem.
I think we as filmmakers
have to be more nuanced.
We should not be thinking
in black and white.
If there is some kind of sensibility
and ownership.
I think that is actually the crux.
Even I had this feeling,
many might have this feeling that,
FTII is no longer what it was
in the past.
It's okay to be happy about
certain traditions and values
which we had, which was good.
But there is an evolution
which has happened intellectually also.
You can't deny
and go back again and again.
Then we will go back to prehistoric times
and say that everything is a problem!
Filmmaking itself
is a history of 100 years,
if you go back,
then cinema itself will become absurd!
So it is also important
for us to say, "This is the reality".
Trump is the reality,
Modi is the reality.
I am not getting into good or bad,
this is how it is!
Lenin tells that revolution
is the festival of the oppressed.
I am not actually equating us
to people who are really oppressed.
But in a larger sense there is an urge
in everybody for an alternative.
Everybody who is oppressed...
across religions, across countries,
across races, across caste,
creed, colour, class-
Everybody is looking for an alternative.
It might be different,
but there is a genuine need
of people for a change in leadership.
People are just looking for this.
People are really, really looking
for people whom they can look up to.
That's the problem
of our generation, I feel.
I didn't have anyone to look up to.
That's why this leadership has
gained momentum. It's actually the time.
Even if you ask, "Why so much importance
to FTII or this struggle?"
It is not us, it is not Chauhan,
it is not RSS, it is not the government.
It is actually the times.
Time has put us in a certain place
and we reacted in a way, what we could,
and that has gained all the momentum.
Inside a cupboard in room S18
of a hostel in the FTII
a box was found
with several assorted items
newspaper cuttings, dried flowers
and memory cards.
Amongst them were letters written
by a student of the film school
only named by the initial 'L'.
My love,
How are you?
I am thinking of you...
More and more it seems,
as the days stretch on.
I'm getting by...
still not quite able
to get my head around things...
Yesterday Mukul came to the room
to have tea.
He told me these days he's been having
a strange, recurring dream.
He narrated it to me
and I also found it strange.
And listening to him, all I could
think of was of our situation.
I suppose it is always on my mind...
I went to the Dean's office
this morning.
He asked me where you were,
and when you would be back.
I didn't know what to tell him.
How could I tell him
that your parents locked you in a room
and won't let you out...
because you expressed
your desire to marry me?
How could I tell him...
that even if you escaped
and came back,
they would find us
and who knows what they would do?
I just told him you were dealing
with a family problem...
That's the truth, I guess.
Anyway, there is a party tonight.
I don't feel like going,
but maybe I will...
Just to take these thoughts
out of my mind.
I'm thinking of you...
What else can I say...?
Yours, L
Yesterday Mukul came to the room
to have tea.
He told me these days he's been having
a strange, recurring dream.
It was a moonlit night...
I was in love with a girl...
She was petite, so delicate.
We had decided to meet
in the field behind her house,
in the fields
that would hide our love...
I was waiting for my beloved...
waiting to touch her gentle lips
take her in my arms,
kiss her.
I saw a figure crouching in the bushes.
Suddenly...
it started to move towards me...
and I realised that it was her father!
Her father and his men chased me
through the forest...
I saw a river, I recognised it.
If I jumped into it...
I wouldn't remember my past...
I would know nothing.
What choice did I have?
If they caught me...
I would be dead.
I have this dream often..
More often, these days...
Sunday morning,
the campus is still asleep.
There are only the sounds
of birds and faithful dogs.
Here, life goes on.
Tudu!
What's cooking in the Mess?
I really hope it's not pumpkin.
- Pumpkin.
- Dammit!
I have to still take a bath!
They will run out of beer!
We are having a party!
My love,
I am sorry I have not written
in so many days.
I have been trying
to keep myself busy.
That is the only way
I can keep my mind off of things.
I am editing Himu's film.
And I have to admit,
it has not been easy.
He watches me edit
with such intensity,
as if there is some pattern
that only I can see...
But it is not true.
It is a complicated film and I think
neither of us fully understand it.
Did I tell you what it's about?
It is about a girl.
She is having
an existential crisis perhaps.
I know you'd say, she is like me.
- Roll camera!
- Rolling.
Shot 7, take 1.
Shot 4, take 2!
Roll camera!
Today I have a day off
after many days.
And again I find myself thinking of you.
I miss you.
I felt your touch...
as if you were next to me...
It is getting harder to live on campus.
Since you left,
the administration has been
coming at us with more vengeance.
They're passing all kinds of rules
which have nothing to do
with students or cinema.
I am ashamed to admit it...
but sometimes I think that they are
punishing us for going on strike.
Like if we hadn't gone on strike,
would things be better now?
But at the time,
what other choice did we have?
In the monsoon of 2015,
the students
of the state funded film school,
the Film and Television
Institute of India,
called for a strike against appointment
of their new chairman,
Mr. Gajendra Chauhan.
Mr. Chauhan had been appointed
by the newly formed government in India,
headed by the BJP.
He is an actor
whose most popular role
was to play a Hindu
mythological character on a soap-opera
in the 1980s.
The reason for the agitation
was that the students claimed
that Mr. Chauhan had been appointed
to run the film school
because of his affiliation to the BJP
and his support
for the Hindu nationalist organisation
the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh,
the RSS.
Students further claimed
that it was not just FTII
but the government had appointed
many RSS sympathisers
to various public funded institutes.
All the agents of Modi...
Get out of here!
Eisenstein, Pudovkin!
We shall fight! We shall win!
Several students, academics and artists
supported the strike,
and soon news channels
featured it on prime time news.
Our protest is not just
against these few appointees.
Our opposition is towards
all these political appointments
that this government is making
in all Public Institutes
since the past one year
they have come into power.
All these people are associated
with a certain ideology.
If anyone questions their ideology,
they are immediately shut down.
If someone is against their views,
they are beaten!
If anyone makes a film
that doesn't suit their ideology,
it is banned.
Those protesting against the appointment
of Mr. Gajendra Chauhan are anti Hindu.
Gajendra Chauhan has acted
in over 150 films and 600 TV shows.
Those people who are questioning
the appointment
must be joking or must be mentally ill.
It is quite clear
that all they want is to promote
their anti-Hindu agenda.
And that's their goal!
As the weeks turned to months,
the students showed no sign
of backing down.
The Government had to take notice.
First, the students were
threatened with rustication.
When they did not stop,
five students were arrested
in a midnight siege.
If you are going to arrest students
in the middle of the night,
there should be some legal basis!
At least show us an arrest warrant!
What's going on?
Is this now a police state?
Soon the machinery in place
were used to change the narrative.
Students were called
"anti-national" and "anti-Hindu".
Subsequently, the students
lost the public sympathy
and were viewed as freeloaders
living off tax-payer funded subsidies.
In a desperate attempt,
several students went on
a hunger strike, and were hospitalised.
Unable to hold on,
the strike was finally called off
after 139 days.
Do you remember
that night during the strike?
Someone had set up projectors
under the trees.
You were sitting next to me.
I leaned my head on your shoulder
in the pale projector light...
I don't know how it happened...
but soon we were kissing.
I miss you.
Yours, L.
It must be raining outside.
There was this question also,
like during the strike,
if the entire country has supported us
what if someone else
is attacked tomorrow?
If something happens
in a different institute,
is it our responsibility
to stand with them?
It's not just a moral obligation I feel,
it is also because the current scenario
if you guys think that if you are silent
and if we listen to whatever they say,
your life will be better,
absolutely it's a lie!
It is not going to be that.
It actually will get worse.
My dear,
Last night
the Student Union elections began.
Because of the yellow tarpaulin
spread on the floor,
the whole court was ablaze
with yellow light!
Even the leaves on the trees
looked golden.
Anunay, with his gentle voice
spoke about preserving the past.
And Ranjit spoke about
safeguarding the future.
OUR OLD CAR NEEDS A NEW COAT OF PAINLET'S COME TOGETHER TO PAINT IT!
Why did we show the film?
Why are these people coming
and talking to us?
Why is this discussion happening?
It is all happening so that we feed into
the clarity of vision
that is needed to run this place.
Run this place
from the student community's side,
from the administration's side.
What is the need for this place
to exist in today's times?
If in the course
of these three-four or five days,
if we can organically understand
what is this vision that is emerging
not from the burden of history,
not from a legacy
that is being handed to us
and forced upon us,
but, by truly observing,
what is the status today?
Why do we need a film school
like this in our times?
Such a heavily subsidised film school
in today's times?
What are our privileges here?
How many of us could have even
dreamt of making films
if this place did not exist?
Did I tell you I visited Nachi
in his village in Polachi?
We rode around
on his father's motorcycle.
People passed us glances
as we went by...
it was funny...
But Nachi and I were not always friends.
The first time we met,
I found him too excited,
too articulate.
Maybe because we are so different
from one another,
we found in each other
a compassionate friendship.
Out on the basketball court,
I saw all our friends
who have now become so dear to me.
Neel, Shaz, Prabhati...
And amongst them,
were new faces too...
who were listening so sincerely
to everything we were saying.
Those faces were of the new students.
I imagined that in three years
they too might have
the same deep love for one another.
Perhaps,
they might lean
on each other's shoulders
and close their eyes
with the tiredness of being alive.
Perhaps, they might think
of each other as lovers,
as brothers, as parents
or as teachers.
I saw Himu coming to us from afar.
A light shone in his hands,
a small candle,
placed on a cake.
The golden light sparkled
in his shy eyes.
"Whose birthday is it?"
somebody asked.
"Not any of ours"
he replied coyly...
"This cake is for Madhubala's birthday."
Hearing this, we were all overjoyed
and we sang a song
from the late actress' movie:
"When one has loved,
what is there to fear"
and rejoiced for Madhubala,
for cinema and for love!
Because we knew,
after all, they are one and the same!
On the margins of her letters
L often makes drawings.
Doodles, shapes and forms
that are unfamiliar
and quite often appear to be hands.
I believe that the students are
at the frontline of the fight
against this dictatorial government.
I went to the Hyderabad
Central University (HCU).
Over there, women students were
threatened with rape by the police.
The police beat them
and threatened them with rape.
Where there were
Bahujan and Dalit students,
they were called "untouchables".
And where there were Muslim students,
they had the usual word
for them: "terrorists".
My dear,
Do you still keep cuttings
from newspapers like you used to?
When I asked you
why you were doing it,
you said it was because
you didn't want to forget.
Perhaps because I am an editor,
I continued the timeline,
where you left it off.
Your notes from the past
meet mine from the present.
You were right.
Our memory cannot keep up
with these times, it seems.
Trump's shocking victory
was quickly forgotten
when the murder
of journalist Gauri Lankesh took place.
We had hardly any time to process this,
before the lynching
of Pehlu Khan happened.
The image of his helpless face pleading
to an angry mob to allow him to live.
And then the image of flogging
of the young Dalit men in Una.
It was quickly replaced
by the image of a Muslim girl,
who was gang raped and murdered.
And each image vanished as quickly
and horrifically as it had appeared.
A fleeting memory of violence.
But one clipping never leaves me
no matter what I do.
It is from January 2016.
The day Rohith Vemula took his own life.
In his death,
Rohith Vemula has emerged as a symbol
of protest against injustice
and indignity.
The 26 year old PhD student
killed himself on Sunday
inside the campus
of the Hyderabad Central University.
Mr. Vemula was a member
of the Ambedkar Students' Association,
which fights for the rights of Dalits,
formerly known as "untouchables".
Rohith and five other students
allegedly faced discrimination
from the "upper" caste
administration at HCU
when he got into an altercation
with a leader of the student-wing
of the ruling party, the ABVP.
His death sparked protests
on campuses worldwide last week
and prompted a national debate
about the discrimination
of Dalit students and academics
at Indian universities.
The government has launched
a judicial probe into the death
and Prime Minister Modi has said
that "Mother India has lost her son".
Yes, Prime Minister Narendra Modi,
he said that "India has lost her son".
We have another question
to be put before Mr. Modi.
If India has lost her son...
the same son was branded
as anti-national!
The same son was branded
as casteist
because he was first fighting
against casteism!
The same son was branded
as an "extremist"
by your own cabinet minister
who is sitting alongside of you
Union Minister
for Labour and Employment,
Mr. Bandaru Dattatreya.
And you think about it...
As of July,
five students were suspended.
Their research fellowship is stopped!
After 4th January,
they are banned from using the library,
they are thrown out
of their hostel rooms
and they are forced to sleep
on the street in the cold!
The struggle going on
at the Hyderabad Central University,
the martyrdom of Rohith Vemula
and the suicides
of several Dalit students
in universities across the country
have sent out
a strong signal to India.
I think this is going to become
the fulcrum of the anti-caste movement
in this country.
Many of the pages
in L's notebook were blank
and some pages
were also torn out.
Some had the initials of her name
written and the scratched out.
After several of such pages,
more letters appear.
My dear,
Diwali has come again...
A year has passed by...
just like that...
You didn't even try
to speak to me once...
and I still go on...
People might think I'm crazy...
Maybe I am...
I don't know anymore.
Why does 'nostalgia' always remind me
of something good?
While 'memory' is
only about forgetting...
I keep thinking about it...
What if it were me
who had fallen in love
with someone who was of an even
"lower" caste or different religion?
My parents would have had
the same reaction as yours.
What my parents would do
isn't in the least bit important to me.
What is important is what I would do!
I remember in school too...
the "upper" caste kids
always treated us badly.
They had a strange sense
of superiority.
And we did the same with those
who were considered "lower"...
After all, our parents
propagated these thoughts...
I thought that you would fight for us.
I thought you would stand up
to your parents.
But maybe...
I was wrong...
Maybe you were never brave,
the way I thought you were.
I just don't understand.
How could you stand beside me
during the strike,
shouting slogans of freedom
stand up to the government,
but when it came to standing up
to the casteism of your parents,
you did not speak up?
Another Dussehra,
the festival where we celebrate
the victory of "good" over "evil".
But I no longer understand
which is which...
Memory is fragile...
it cannot withstand
the test of 2000 years...
Those who control it,
call it "history".
All those nights...
I spent talking to you
about my childhood..
And you listened to me so patiently.
Maybe I mistook your silence
for understanding...
But maybe we never really
understood each other at all.
I know now that I will never
send these letters to you,
I no longer write to you anymore.
But to someone
I wished you could have been.
In her letters often talks
about the past.
She writes about a particular night,
more than others.
On this night,
in the capital city of New Dehli,
three student leaders were released from
prison and returned to their university,
the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU),
the bastion of left politics in India.
The arrest of these students seem to
have had a deep impact on her
and the fellow students
at the film school
We want freedom
to marry whoever we want
or not to marry!
Freedom to say, "yes"!
We are going to get it!
Freedom from casteism!
Freedom from exploitation!
Freedom from injustice!
Freedom from poverty!
From starvation!
It is our right!
More dear than our life!
Our beloved freedom!
You want to shut down all the voices
that can unite!
Whether it is of a soldier
guarding the border,
or a farmer toiling in the field
or a student
protesting for freedom,
they don't want these voices to unite!
I want to tell you,
Babasaheb (Dr. Ambedkar) has said
political struggle is not enough...
what we need is social change!
This is why we speak about
constitutional rights.
And Lenin tells us,
"Democracy is indispensable
to socialism"
This is why
we are fighting for democracy,
for freedom of expression,
and for equality.
This is why
we are fighting for socialism.
So that the child of a janitor
and the child of a Prime Minister
can study at the same school!
Let me hear you!
We are one!
We shall fight!
We shall win!
Dear
I want to send you images
of people as they gather here
at Jantar Mantar in Delhi.
It is a cold November morning
and people are wearing
shawls and sweaters.
The last time I was here to protest
was during our strike...
It could very well be that protest...
just the banners have changed.
Common education for all!
Demand workers and farmers!
I came to Delhi to edit Shubham's film.
But when the protest erupted,
neither Shubham nor I could
concentrate on our work.
We decided to join in.
WE DEMAND AN END
TO THE HIKE IN FEES
You know, they have increased
the fees here by 300 percent?
THIS FIGHT IS FOR ALL UNIVERSITIES
IT IS A FIGHT FOR OUR SOCIETY
My ancestors broke their backs
tilling fields of landowners.
No one from my family
has even left the village.
EDUCATION IS NOT FOR SALE
Is the purpose of education only to
teach you to work and fill your stomach?
Why can't the poor
dream of getting a degree?
This is what they are afraid of.
If we become educated,
who will work on their fields?
Who will mend their shoes?"
If your father is a taxi driver
or a labourer,
don't you have the right to education?
A part of my scholarship goes
to support my family!
What will I do?
If there's a fee hike,
I'll die or become a labourer.
Why don't you understand that?"
Modi government,
come to your senses!
Stop selling Education Institutions!
Stop the violence on students!
Long live the Revolution!
Long live student unity!
- Student, carry on your struggle!
- We are with you!
I look at a lady cop
who is keeping an eye on us.
She'll go home tonight,
tired from a day of work.
She'll still have to make dinner
for her family.
What will she think of
as she dozes off?
Tomorrow, she'll wake up early
and make lunches for her family.
She'll send her kid off to school
and kiss him goodbye.
I wonder what she thinks of us?
I thought of Pasolini.
In the student protests
in Italy in 1968,
he supported the police...
He said the students were children
of the bourgeoisie,
but the police were the proletariat.
Could these students really cause
a revolution without the workers?
But at the protest today,
are the two sides of the barricade
really so different?
Pressed up against her...
this is the closest she and I will be...
Really, it is just her uniform
that separates us.
I feel for her...
but soon she will raise her baton
and attack my friends.
She'll pull their hair,
grab their arms...
And I am reminded once again
that the police is not here
to protect me.
Grab me all you want!
We will fight till the end!
A souvenir of violence.
A government of sticks and bullets!
We reject you!
Government of lies and deceit!
We reject you!
Hindu nationalist government!
We reject you!
Anti-Dalit government!
We reject you!
And we have taken to the streets
because we want
to tell the people in power
that now the oppressed castes
and the poor
will not tolerate your oppression!
They will no longer mend your shoes,
will no longer clean your filthy sewers,
will no longer burn
your rotting carcasses.
We are recognising our rights!
You say you know poverty?
You have only read about poverty
and caste oppression in books!
But we actually face it
in our daily life!
In this country, the rich man
is already going abroad
to study at Oxford and Cambridge!
And that same rich man will say,
"the government should not
spend on subsidising education."
Hey mister, if you have any shame,
go look at your face in the mirror!
When your kid goes to study at Oxford,
then he too is benefitting
from that country's tax payers
and government subsidies!
When your kid studies
from their subsidies
and when their tax payers pay
for your kid's education
then you strut around proudly!
But when it comes to paying your taxes
for the poor youth of your own country
you can't stomach that, can you?
If you're worried
how your tax money's spent,
then I say, please worry!
Most certainly worry!
But don't ask
"Why is studying at JNU so cheap?"
You should be asking,
"Why is my education so overpriced?"
Dear,
I have become
a feverish prisoner of rhetoric.
Listening to the speeches
gives me a strange rush...
We are only here
to fight for our rights...
and we will keep fighting!
You better make your jails bigger!
You know I have been to jail before!
Only recently you have released me!
And you know very well
what we are made of.
So if you want
to put us back in jail, go ahead!
But know this, if you do arrest us,
we will come in thousands.
So make the walls of your jails taller,
we are ready for the long run!
Some days it feels like
things could not get worse.
How could it?
But soon enough,
something even more sinister
takes place.
The thing is, I am feeling scared.
Any ideology that opposes theirs
is not allowed to exist.
And the sad part is,
so many people are following them.
They are questioning
what it means to be a citizen.
As if it is not just enough
to be born on this land.
Certain people are being declared
less Indian than others.
Protests have erupted
in campuses across India
between last night and this morning.
News of fresh protests is pouring in
almost faster than we can keep track of.
At the moment, several universities
across India are protesting.
Students at New Delhi's
Jamia Milia University
have been protesting
for the last three days
against the Citizenship Amendment Act,
a new law.
Now these were largely
peaceful protests, until last evening,
when police in riot gear
surrounded the campus
and they began to pull out students
and beat them with batons.
They also lobbed tear gas shells
inside the campus,
including inside the central library,
which is a closed room,
where approximately
fifty students were hiding.
It isn't just
Jamia Milia Islamia anymore,
but also reports of violence
on the Aligarh Muslim University campus.
You see the police in riot gear
and there is some stone throwing
happening.
The police is ready with tear gas shells
and some firing as well at this point.
A masked mob has attacked
teachers and students
at an elite university in New Delhi.
The incident is the latest in a series
of violent clashes across India.
We are at the Jawaharlal
Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi.
Around hundred masked men
entered the campus on Sunday night
and brutally beat up
students and teachers.
More than twenty
have been severely injured.
Who were the masked men
who are responsible for this?
That will be a big question
going ahead.
Many members of the students
and the faculty claiming
that they were BJP student wing workers
who went on the rampage
inside the JNU campus.
I have been brutally attacked
by goons who were masked.
I don't know...
I have been bleeding.
I am not even in a condition to talk.
I have been brutally beaten up...
I was there
with one of my activist friends.
Down with ABVP
DOWN! DOWN!
I am a common student of JNU.
I do not belong to any party,
but the kind of videos that
are coming out from JNU today are...
heartbreaking!
There have been videos coming out
where Aishe, who is our President,
has been beaten up.
Her head is bleeding!
There are so many other students
whose heads are bleeding.
There are teachers.
And in all of this,
everyone who is outside of JNU,
who is inside JNU,
are feeling helpless
because there is curfew imposed
right outside of JNU.
So, anybody who is mobilising,
the police is beating them up.
And we all need to somehow be united
not just for this protest,
not because it's fun to shout slogans,
not because it's fun to stand
on the road with fire torches, no!
We have to stand
against Hindu nationalists.
We have to stand against violence.
We have to stand
against their stupidity
in our everyday life.
In our day to day life.
We have to stand up
in front of our parents,
in front of our teachers, professors,
families, extended families
relatives, whoever it may be.
But if we don't do it
and if we keep on giving into this,
people like ABVP
are going to keep happening to us.
And for now it's just JNU,
it's just Jamia (University),
it's just Hyderabad (University)
it's just Assam.
It's going to be all of us someday.
They'll enter your house and beat you.
It's not a threat.
Because it doesn't seem
like one anymore.
The people that have been
calling in from JNU,
their voices are shit scared.
They are so scared
that they are just like,
"Yeah, we are okay, but we don't know
what will happen next."
So, I thank you all for gathering
and showing solidarity
when the entire nation has
this propaganda inside their minds.
Thank you for having
your conscience alive.
And I would just like to say...
Long Live the Revolution!
So, they blindfolded me
and they put me in a car.
I did not resist...
Then, they took me to Lucknow.
I was sitting between two policemen
and I felt their pistols
against my thighs.
I'm a 23 year old student
and I was protesting peacefully.
Why did they send
the Anti-Terrorist Squad to arrest me?
Then I realised that in order to be safe
I had to prove to them
that I was not a devout Muslim,
because they'd try
to pin me down as a terrorist.
And in jail it was so overcrowded,
it felt like we each had
one coffin space to ourselves.
I was in there for four months
and finally they granted me bail.
It's funny because
the court called me a bright student.
Can you tell us
if you were tortured in any way
while you were in custody?
There are some things
I don't want to talk about
because maybe...
they will scare the students.
They might get scared of going to prison
and stop protesting all together.
Maybe I'll write about it one day.
Dear,
I had a horrible dream.
My chest...
it feels so heavy...
I can't go back to sleep...
I am scared...
People are getting arrested everywhere.
One by one...
People are getting arrested.
In my dream
I had gone to a protest.
Many of our friends were there.
Everyone was shouting slogans.
Suddenly...
Suddenly, there was a police van.
They took out large canons of water,
they hosed everyone...
It was very strange...
The water began
to melt away everyone.
Prateek vanished...
then Nachi vanished.
The water fell on Prabhati
and she vanished too...
Shaz...
Himu...
Neel...
Devangana...
Safoora...
Natasha...
Umar...
This appears to be the last
of L's found letters
There is however a note,
written on her last day
at the film school.
Here she has described the feeling
of looking at the early morning sky
after a long night with her friends.
Scribbled behind the note, are the words
of the revolutionary poet Aamir Aziz:
"Everything will be remembered"
We are not just FTII now,
we are a national voice.
You like it or not,
we are a national voice,
and it is very important
to be honest and genuine,
and to be obligated to that
because you are going
to make films for people outside!
Not for this community of 200 people!
So if people have supported you
for some reason,
there should be some genuine reason
people have supported you.
Out of no reason
nobody would have supported you.
People who have nothing to do
with filmmaking have supported you.
Common people!
I'm not telling you to take it
as a moral obligation or a pressure
to behave in a certain way.
Or to be outwardly political, not that.
But at least in a scenario like this
when things are reduced
to black and white.
The current government and throughout
the world what's the problem is that
"Either you are with us
or you don't exist."
This is the problem.
I think we as filmmakers
have to be more nuanced.
We should not be thinking
in black and white.
If there is some kind of sensibility
and ownership.
I think that is actually the crux.
Even I had this feeling,
many might have this feeling that,
FTII is no longer what it was
in the past.
It's okay to be happy about
certain traditions and values
which we had, which was good.
But there is an evolution
which has happened intellectually also.
You can't deny
and go back again and again.
Then we will go back to prehistoric times
and say that everything is a problem!
Filmmaking itself
is a history of 100 years,
if you go back,
then cinema itself will become absurd!
So it is also important
for us to say, "This is the reality".
Trump is the reality,
Modi is the reality.
I am not getting into good or bad,
this is how it is!
Lenin tells that revolution
is the festival of the oppressed.
I am not actually equating us
to people who are really oppressed.
But in a larger sense there is an urge
in everybody for an alternative.
Everybody who is oppressed...
across religions, across countries,
across races, across caste,
creed, colour, class-
Everybody is looking for an alternative.
It might be different,
but there is a genuine need
of people for a change in leadership.
People are just looking for this.
People are really, really looking
for people whom they can look up to.
That's the problem
of our generation, I feel.
I didn't have anyone to look up to.
That's why this leadership has
gained momentum. It's actually the time.
Even if you ask, "Why so much importance
to FTII or this struggle?"
It is not us, it is not Chauhan,
it is not RSS, it is not the government.
It is actually the times.
Time has put us in a certain place
and we reacted in a way, what we could,
and that has gained all the momentum.