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185 TV cameras keep close watch on every movement of the students at a Nagpur school. Filmmaker Avinash Deshpande's documentary questions the impact such surveillance can have on students
 The Mahatma Gandhi Centennial Sindhu High School in Nagpur is like no other. Here, 185 close circuit television cameras keep a hawk’s watch on what’s going on in every classroom, staff room, canteen and playground. The cameras are constantly monitored by the principal. It would seem more like a prison, and Pune-based filmmaker Avinash Deshpande shows how the surveillance affects the psyche of both the students and the teachers.
Titled The Great Indian School Show , the 53-minute film works at the level of satire. There is no narration. There is no background music to create or enhance the mood. What you see is what you get. The visual narrative moves back and forth from the classrooms to the corridors of the school where every student and faculty member is conscious of how to behave because he or she is under constant surveillance. The inter-cuts are to the ‘control’ room from where the principal watches the movements and also takes great delight in communicating with teachers and students, pointing out flaws, making suggestions or issuing directives. Shot with a mini-DV, the film questions whether this kind of monitoring is justified and healthy. Is it also a sign of our times? “The concept of discipline can be easily misrepresented or misinterpreted. There could be hidden agendas behind the creation of these strange circumstances,” says Deshpande. Those on campus have no say in the matter. But the way in which students and teachers falter when describing the advantages of such a system indicates how true feelings have been suppressed. The words ring hollow as they point out how CCTV helps maintain a check on what is going on and can only be of advantage to students. “We are a co-ed school and therefore anything can happen,” says a senior teacher. Really? Does this mean that all the other co-ed schools in the country are functioning in a danger zone? For the principal, the technology that makes this possible is like manna from heaven. “I want to install up to 250 cameras….I always tell the dealer to keep me informed about the latest cameras….I think every school should adopt this method,” he states. The note of pride at being the first school to do so cannot be missed. It does not even cross his mind that the approach smacks of dominance. Deshpande does not miss it though. A few apparently unconnected shots of chained dogs on the premises and statues of a boy and a girl in school uniform displayed in locked glass cases, drive home the point. With its nod at the political overtones that rule the principal’s decisions (he invited Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh to inaugurate the installation, and plans to start a residential wing to train students to become ideal citizens), Deshpande’s film brings out the irony of the situation. The cost of the system, for example, has been more than Rs 900,000, a sum that could have been better spent on improving the facilities available for the students. “The memories of school life for these children will be interspersed with TV monitors, watchful cameras in classrooms and crackling sound boxes. One has also to consider the psychological effect on the minds of the teachers who know that recordings of all the video inputs can be used as evidence by the principal should they ever be hauled up for neglecting their duties,” Deshpande points out. The principal admits, during one of the interviews, that ‘permanent’ teachers become very irresponsible and it becomes difficult for the school management to ask them to leave. “At such times, these recordings can be very useful,” he says. Deshpande, who studied filmmaking at the FTII and even worked there briefly as assistant professor in the direction department, is certain the film will stir a debate. Given the amount of footage he still has with him, there is also the possibility of making a sequel. An idea unheard of in the documentary genre? “There is always a first time,” says Deshpande. -- Huned Contractor Contact details: Avinash Deshpande,
111/27-A, Pradhikaran, Nigdi,
Pune – 411 044
Tel: 022-27656260 / 09890095540 Infochange News and Features, April, 2005
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