I&B Ministry dipped jury in saffron

I&B Ministry dipped jury in saffron
ANURADHA RAMAN

New Delhi, March 28: Forget about the charges that were levelled by national film jury members against each other. Forget for a moment the allegation that the decision to reward the Best Actress award to Raveena Tandon was biased.

The Directorate of Film Festivals, the nodal agency which is asked to recommend the names of jury members is itself kept in the dark when the Information and Broadcasting Ministryunder which the directorate works as an autonomous organisationreleases the final list of jury members.

So when the directorate suggested 100-odd names to the Ministry to pick and choose as jury members this year, it was not surprised to find some new names in the final list put out by the Government.

Names that had little in common with directorate’s choice and names that had very little to do with cinema. Among the names that the ministry added are BJP member from Cuttack Nivedita Pradhan, Panchajanya editor Tarun Vijay, I&B Sushma Swaraj’s Bellary campaign manager Parvati Indusekar and Sashi Ranjan, an associate of Shatrughan Sinha.

Although technically the organiser of film festivals in the country, the directorate enjoys little freedom in the actual decision-making process which is the preserve of the I&B Ministry.

What’s surprising, therefore, is that it took jury members like Pradip Kishen, dancer Madhumita Raut and cinematographer Shashi Anand and Dhritiman Chatterjee nearly a fortnight to get outraged that BJP supporters were doubling up as jury members.

Sources in the directorate said the names they recommended this year were those of cinema professionals representing different parts of India.

‘‘We recommend names of only those people who represent Indian cinema in one way or the other and take care to see there is participation from the North East. We have little to do with the list that the Government furnishes at the end of the day,’’ directorate sources said. ‘‘We are there to facilitate the Ministry’s/Government’s decision-making process.’’

And in that there is very little to distinguish the Congress from the BJP.Five years ago, when Congress man T Subbirami Reddy became the chairperson of the 44th National Film Awards, the decisions made by that jury also attracted attention with two members Vijaya Mulay and Mike Pandey openly stating that the jury was not well-balanced and the decisions taken were unfair. They even wrote to the then I&B Minister Jaipal Reddy pointing out what they called were serious contradictions in the final selection. Nothing came of it. The Congress was then supporting the UF government.

To be fair to the BJP-Government, the jury constituted by then I&B Minister Arun Jaitley, a year ago, attracted little attention to itself or the decisions taken by it. It was headed by Gautam Ghosh (director of Paar, Antarjali Yatra).

This time’s jury, however, has not only been criticised for its composition but also for decisions taken. For the record, here is a resume of the memebers who comprised the 48th National Jury.

* Vyjanthimala Bali chairperson, actress/dancer of repute, a BJP worker after she resigned from the Congress
* Sushanta Mishra - Film Institute graduate and award-winning director of Vishwa Prakash
* Hariharan - Award-winning Malayalam film director
* Pradeep Kishan - director
* MacMohan - actor in Hindi cinema
* Chitra Desai - wife of director Anant Desai
* Parvati Indusekar (I&B Minister Swaraj’s campaign manager)
* Kothandaramaiah (producer/director from Chennai; member South Indian Chamber of Commerce)
* Shashi Anand (cinematographer)
* Nivedita Pradhan (BJP member from Cuttack)
* Pawan Kumar (Mumbai-based producer close to BJP member/actro Shatrughan Sinha)
* R. Lakshaman - (recommended as jury member for his technical expertise)
* Tarun Vijay - editor Panchajanya
* Dhritiman Chatterjee (actor from Bengal)
* Sonali Kotnis - editor Stardust
* Sashi Ranjan (FTII graduate and producer of Shotgun show)
* Madhumita Raut (Odissi dancer/choreographer)