Veteran filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan resigned from his post as director of KRNNIVASA on January 31, following the resignation of Shankar Mohan. Shankar’s resignation came in the wake of a massive protest by the institute’s students, who raised serious allegations including caste discrimination. The students launched the protest on December 5, 2022, after sanitation workers in the institute alleged that they were discriminated against on the basis of caste and were forced to clean toilets in the director’s residence with bare hands.
The government constituted a panel to look into the matter, which reportedly found merit in the allegations. Soon after, Shankar Mohan announced his resignation, claiming that it had nothing to do with the controversy, but that his term had come to an end after three years.
In a detailed resignation statement, Adoor heaped praises on Shankar Mohan and claimed that there had been no complaints against him in four decades, but that in Kerala had invited him, raised baseless allegations against him and sent him away in humiliation. "There is no other individual who is as knowledgeable and experienced in films as [Shankar] in India. We invited a Malayali professional of that stature here, then made baseless and untrue allegations against him, insulted him and sent him away," Adoor said.