Why did this happen?

By discontinuation of the AICTE course approval, J J School of Art has been punished in the in the most terrible way. It is very unfortunate that a 166-year-old educational institution, the most renowned in Asia, has been reduced to this. The result of the CET is out and yet, no one knows if J J will get back its approval or not. There is a big question mark in front of the students and their parents. The situation is worse for the students of second, third, and fourth year who have already paid their fees for the next session. They too do not know whether their education will be considered valid or not. This is the second article in the series exploring what led to the situation at J J reducing to such a mess.

Could there be any conspiracy behind the discontinuation of AICTE course approval of J J School of Art and sparing J J Institute of Applied Art of this? It is obvious that JJ School of Art, a 166-year-old renowned Art college does not have the documents demanded by the AICTE, which are a proof of evidence. It alternatively means that the past authorities at J J have not been able to produce the required documents on time.

For the past many years, ‘Chinha’ has been consistently raising voice against this complete mismanagement at J J. Though we will not be able to reproduce our stories here right now, but if you visit our YouTube channel ‘Chinha Art News’ you will be able to find many videos related to this issue. Many of our readers and art lovers have been calling us to tell how we have been pointing this out from time to time. Art lovers are questioning as to why didn’t Prof (?) Vishwanath Sable, the Dean of J J School understand the situation at the right time what the art lovers could understand despite not being a part of the college administration. ‘Chinha’ would suggest, instead of asking this to us, why not ask Vishwanath Sable himself?

All know everything that has happened to the 166-year-old institute; Vishwanath Sable is the only person responsible for it. It is sad to see the downfall of this great institution. Immediately after his education, he got the job of Associate Professor at the institute and within a few years he became a Professor (?) too. Later, he became the Head of the Department, and, in no time, he was appointed the Dean of J J School of Arts. (Such was his luck!) In fact, he wanted to directly become the Director of the Maharashtra State Directorate of Art, but there was a change of power in Maharashtra and BJP-Shiv Sena alliance came to power. That’s when Education Minister Vinod Tawde stopped Sable’s race for power. Otherwise, Sable too, would have headed the State Art Directorate, just like Mahadev Ingle did and thus, led to its collapse. 

Vinod Tawde did a very good thing by saving the Art Directorate, which led to De-novo status for J J. But with another change in state politics again, Uday Samant became the Education Minister. He wanted to establish an Art University in Maharashtra. Sadly for him, by now the formalities for De-novo had already started. To stop this process, Uday Samant sent Rajiv Mishra, a member of the committee appointed for De-novo, who was the In-charge Art Director – back to the College of Architecture and replaced him with Prof (?) Vishwanath Sable as the In-charge Art Director. The first thing Sable did after being appointed to the position was that he issued a special GR allowing the art colleges to take up assignments outside of college. 

Followed by this, the Principal and Director of an unaided Arts College in Maharashtra came together and planned a felicitation ceremony for Prof (?) Sable. And this grand felicitation took place in the Applied Art College auditorium with a special invitee being the then Education Minister Uday Samant. In fact, such ceremonies do not fit into government protocol. But who would stop Sable? Afterall he was being backed by Minister of Education. What a ceremony it was! The speeches by those present and the guests list, everything was pompous. And to top it all, Sable was showered with choicest accolades by the contributory teachers, the principal and the director at this ceremony. 

The well-educated students and teachers at the campus were laughing at the absurdity of whole thing. Some were afraid that the organizers might conduct a victory procession at the J J campus. But fortunately, that did not happen, and the campus was saved from the embarrassment. 

Prof Sable’s ego soared after this. The fact is that the Directorate of Art was established in the 1960s with an aim to speed up art education in Maharashtra. But Sable was hardly interested in it. If he would have cared, he would have done something in the field of art education. But all he cared was about the government and semi-government works. After becoming the Art Director, he chalked out a plan so that all the works emanating from the Mantralaya should come to J J School only. Actually, it would be wrong to say he chalked out a plan, the plan had started rolling the day he took charge as the Art Director. He only legalized everything. 

He didn’t have to make many efforts to carry out the plan. He had the infrastructure ready. He picked four teachers from the faculty. One was asked to look after the correspondence and management. The second one was assigned to go to various ministries and see which department had which works to be carried out. The third was given the responsibility for the completion of these works and the fourth was asked to arrange for manpower – bright students who are good artists or former students. Such was the division of labour!

All of this was already going on ever since he took charge as the Dean. The only difference being when he became in-charge art director he started doing everything officially. There are many stories about him in the art circles and at the J J campus. The reason to remember all this is because along with his teaching job, Sable had been running a parallel industry sitting at J J and Directorate of Art. It was because of this that he was ruining the name of J J School. He was so busy with all such activities that he forgot the formalities (paperwork) to be done for getting the recognition of AICTE. As a result, J J lost its recognition. Lapse of course approval of a 166-year-old educational institution is not a simple matter. But it has come about because of the shabby management of J J by Sable. 

The teachers there openly allege that Sable’s focus has always been on his business. The fact that he could not add any quality educational activities to the curriculum of J J during his almost two and a half decades of career is proof of this. His focus was always on getting more assignments and completing them. These works were not small ones, they were worth crores of rupees. Naturally, after getting such huge assignments, any person will shift his focus from the paltry art school job. However, that’s where Sable got all his Math wrong. Since there was no one to question him (Sable took advantage of those who were there by using every possible trick – Saam Daam Dand Bheda). ‘Chihna’ has done many stories on this too. But neither the Art Director or the government officials at the Directorate of Art in the Department of Higher and Technical Education in the Ministry took cognizance of this.

It is because of this unpardonable neglect by him that J J is suffering today. How, when, where and why did this happen…We will reveal all of this in a series of stories. ‘Chinha’ has already filed application for Right to Information in this regard. But even after a month and a half, we have not received a reply to our application. Numerous such applications are ready with us, and we will decide upon further course of action depending upon what kind of reply we receive to our RTI application. How and when this series end purely depends upon the response we get from the readers. Until then, we’ll keep writing and you’ll keep reading, right?! 

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Satish Naik, 

Editor, Chinha Art News 

www.chinha.in