• Was any reason given? Were you told to change your topic?

No reason was given. No cause, and no compensation. There is no appeal process. USEFI later hinted to me that the rejection may have had to do with the religious aspect of my project, and recommended writing a new proposal and purging it of any traces of religiosity. This struck me and the rest of the fellows as a total contradiction of USEFI and IIE’s mission statement, and an obfuscation. As a Muslim, and as someone quite familiar with India, I clearly specified the intended sensitivity of my approach to this topic.

My feeling about what really happened is that when the visa delays were collectively taking too long, it drew the attention of the interior ministry, so our projects were then turned over to a separate committee, which then reviewed them and anytime a red flag in the language of the proposals came up, the project was suspected. So, on paper, the notion of a well-educated, 25 year-old Arab male traveling alone with a bag full of electronic equipment and an interest in Islam made them suspect me enough to want to reverse my acceptance.

• You didn’t re-apply. Why?

Given the choice between either churning out a half-baked proposal just for the sake of getting back on the one-year merry-go-round with still no guarantee of success or just walking away, I chose to walk.

I applied for a Fulbright to make my film, not to spend the next year or two applying and re-applying for something that was already given to me and then taken away for no reason. I spent years researching it and months preparing the proposal and building the contacts and context. Starting over from scratch and handing something in during the space of a few weeks was more than absurd, it was offensive; as if I were writing a thank-you note and not a graduate dissertation due in the time I promised my department.

... contd.