Students of the KR Narayanan National Institute of Visual Science and Arts in Kerala have sent an open letter to the institute's president, renowned filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan, calling his accusations against faculty member MG Jyothish "baseless" and "condemnable." Speaking to TNIE for the Express Dialogues series, Adoor had made critical statements against the acting department professor.
The current batch of acting department students strongly refuted Adoor's claim that Jyothish is a slacker by asserting that Jyothish has trained many of the best actors in Malayalam cinema and that the department's students also achieved good standards under his guidance. According to the students, anyone who hears Adoor speak can comprehend the "sentiment" behind his criticism of Jyothish, as reported by The New Indian Express.
"Thank you very much for making the public understand how caste works in your mind and within the institute by branding such a teacher as a slacker. No matter how good the teacher may be, if he belongs to a backward community, he is cast as unfit and as a bad person, it is the arrogance of the caste tail that has been cut off from your name," the students said in the open letter. According to the students, Adoor was aware that there are instructors in many departments of the institute who are less qualified than Jyothish and have no prior experience teaching. The students claimed that they had frequently voiced complaints about the inexperienced teachers and had protested by skipping their classes.
"Yet, you have not asked the students about it or taken any action against such teachers. Jyotish sir has been a teacher in the institute for the past eight years and no complaint has been raised against his teaching during this period," the students said in the letter.
The students said online practical classes were cancelled during the pandemic period based on a request of the 2019 batch. The matter was informed in writing to the director of the Institute. "It is a pity that you (Adoor) can't understand the limitations of studying acting online, as you have studied in one of the best institutes in the country," the students said in the letter, stated The New Indian Express report.
