KOLKATA: Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) alumnus Adwaita Das who had triggered a storm at an award ceremony by publicly accusing a faculty member of sexual harassment, is preparing a report after speaking to so me former students about their ordeals on the FTII campus.

Adwaita - a Kolkata girl and Jadavpur University alumnus - will submit her 'report' to women's rights activists and lawyers and wants to make a documentary on real-life cases of women who spoke up against harassment. "More value should be given to the women's word. Up until now, a girl has to prove that her complaint is right. I want a system where a guy has to disprove a girl's complaint," she told TOI. "Sexual harassment cases are increasing on campus, and are being hushed up as always," says the doughty Adwaita.

On December 12, when Adwaita went on stage to receive the best editing (student) award for her film 'Doctor Mandela Kaise Pagal Huwa' at the Mumbai Shorts International Film Festival, she found that one of the guests was the faculty member who had sexually harassed her at FTII in 2008. "I switched on my phone camera before going up to take the memento. There, I recalled my harassment and asked him to apologize on stage," Adwaita said.

She says the professor had harassed her on the pretext of ragging. "Ragging is called Satsang in FTII. One night, at 1 am, with two bottles of rum in his system, he sat down to discuss Nagisa Oshima's 'In the Realm of the Senses' with me. During this 'cinematic discussion,' he repeatedly told me to do 'sexual favours' to batchmate," she alleged.

Though Adwaita didn't complain, the administration came to know about the incident. "The next day , FTII's then director Pankaj Rag asked me if I was present at 2am at the Rebel Bench. I said yes, and said I was there to interact with seniors. On being asked if he had sexually harassed me, I said he didn't abuse me physically but had used sexually-loaded comments. That very day , he was dismissed," she recalls.

Adwaita's controversial video on YouTube has registered close to 10,000 views. She is closely following how SRFTI is dealing with the sexual ha rassment complaints. "The scenario is much better now. During our time, we were completely gagged," she said, recalling that some of her seniors had given her a letter to sign. "The letter said that 'we were having a discussion regarding a film. Since it was a sensual film, I had got confused that I was being sexually harassed. Now, I take back my complaint.' I did not sign it but the pressure continued," she said.

Other survivors speak out

Adwaita Das' incident is one of many. A big big reason for my leaving the institute (FTII), was that these incidents were becoming the norm. Worse, there was hardly any support system. It's been two years since I left the institute but there has hardly been any night when I have not thought how horrid it was. Breaking down and crying, too. It is, as one of my friends said, "a misogyny lala land." Period.And if I were to start speaking of the absolute masculinist culture that prevails there, both during and beyond the ragging phase (and I will use the word ragging, instead of the sugar-coated 'satsang') I will break down once again, overpowered by the trauma -PUJITA, IN A FACEBOOK POST

I am from Kolkata but now live in Delhi, doing my PhD at JNU. I was in FTII in 2013. I had joined for the film editing course. I did not know that when you enter the college, you will have to consent to being ragged every night. It was a shock to me. I had studied at Delhi University and JNU, where it was made clear that ragging is a criminal offence. At FTII, if you refused to be a party to these night ragging sessions, called Satsang, there would be tremendous pressure not only from fellow students and seniors but also faculty members. Ours was a batch of 50 students -only three were women. In one of the Satsangs, we were were asked to do an item number. The seniors present totally drunk. After the dance session got over, one of the seniors came up to my group and said: "What kind of dance is this? I didn't even get an erection!" In the editing lab, there was no girl's loo.

I was subjected to corporal punishment to run up and I was subjected to corporal punishment to run up and down the campus because I once turned up late in class.

One of the faculty members took my picture at the editing lab without my consent. I struggled on for six months and then quit. I lodged complaints with UGC, anti-ragging cell as well as the I&B ministry. I was asked to go to I&B ministry to give a statement but to my surprise, I found that there wasn't a single woman in the hearing committee. No follow-up happened. When I spoke out against this on Facebook, I was subjected to victim-blaming and harassment.