Some even dressed for the occasion in combat gear. Its impossible for a writer not to be affected by their personal life. Perhaps that offers some protection? 42, Moss Rose Heights, M.M Ali road, WASA Circle, Lalkhan Bazar, Chittogong 4000. What we can do is attempt micro-histories of events, timelines, or local communities. In another essay from 2019, I write about the banality of bearing witness as an excuse to produce extractive work. These questions about documentation practices started long before I started this book project, and I learnt along the way. ( I hate this word, voiceless, by the way). More Buying Choices 1,732.00 (16 Used & New offers) Audible Audiobook 0.00 Free with Audible trial 586.00 ( 9 ) The entire episode is emblematic of a broader trend in Indian media. We perform rituals of freedom in a right-less societywe dont ask if the rules, laws, and policies that are put in place are fair, just, right or equitable. Its a vicious cycle. Suchitra Vijayan's debut book, Midnight's Borders, is a genre-bending book of nonfictionmade of stories, encounters, vignettes, and photographsabout home, belonging, and displacement.The book recounts the author's recent journey across India's land borders covering 9000 miles over a span of seven years. Some of the oldest resistances in our nation are those communities who have been fighting for their own homes from militarisation who seek to exploit their mineral rich home land for mining. Propaganda and poison work in far more sophisticated ways. There was an NDTV programme, where somebody said Should Indias constitution be secularist? There is a lot to learn and unlearn, and a writer and a photographer should respond to a political moment, and the work should be a reflection of those practices. In the middle of significant change, this fraught system cannot exist as it is. With sharp political analyses, dense historical research and lyrical, image-rich prose, Vijayans journalism displays an inspiring ethic, one that is invested in the micro-histories of the small man, the one existing on the fringes of history and the one that most requires urgent representation. B, A book that will enlighten every citizen of every nation. Vijayan: Its a very generous reading, and thanks for that. One feedback I often got was that I had to put more of myself in this book. Suchitra Ramadurai, known by the mononym Suchitra, is an Indian radio jockey, popular playback singer, songwriter, composer, voice artist, dubbing artist and film actress. Worse, we have been disciplined to accept injustice and inequality as given. But Pakistan responded by rejecting these claims and told the Associated Press that the area was mostly deserted wooded area and that there were no casualties or damage on the ground. Instead, the Indian media has ascribed to itself the role of an amplifier of the government propaganda that took two nuclear states to the brink of war. Even as 70% of the border with Bangladesh has been fenced, "smugglers, drug couriers, human traffickers and cattle rustlers continue to cross to ply their. To make matters worse, between 2013 and 2019, editors of channels and publications have been sacked and replaced, primarily because of their criticism of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. Having been trained in law, Suchitra Vijayan initially worked at the United Nations war tribunals in Yugoslavia. Finally, Indias current transformation, the aggressive posturing of an aspiring ethno-nationalist state, will have dire consequences for the people and the region. She was part of a music band at PSG. At the end of it, I felt that I learnt more about myself, more about my home, I had becomeif not a better writer, an infinitely better human being, which is to say that one realises that theres always a Longue dure that one needs to consider, crave out time and space to think, train oneself not to always react. Sometimes the news is the story. Vijayan reserves her own impressions for later, and allows us to know these people intimately. Through these real histories of the people, she gives readers another perspective on old wounds like Partition and new divisionary tactics like the Citizenship (Amendment) Act. Vasundhara Sirnate Drennan is director of research at the Polis Project. Yes, men who act as petty sovereigns are everywhere. In that process, her reportage unravels the cultural and political implicationsof our bordersonour 'collective conscience', as capricious as that might be, and on the lives of those sandwiched between two warring nations. She is currently working on her first novel. A: I dont agree with this kind of framing, because its not that underrepresented people dont have voices. Even as 70% of the border with Bangladesh has been fenced, smugglers, drug couriers, human traffickers and cattle rustlers continue to cross to ply their trades. All along the border, the common refrain is, It feels like Partition is still alive., A story from near Jalpaiguri in north Bengal, that of a man named Ali, is heartbreaking. Barkha Dutt: India has made its point in Pakistan. This is a profoundly alienating place for anyone without the networks of privilege and resources. They are arriving from various cities and people I have never met. Despite the failures in investigation and prosecution related to criminal trials arising out of the pogrom, the judiciary has projected itself as an able and willing neutral arbiter of justice that is not complicit with the deep structures of Hindutvas anti-Muslim prejudice https://t.co/EFf5bxYEBt, True societal change has always emerged from the ground-up, with communities fighting for their own freedom and dignity. We need to think about border practices, policing, and national security policies within the larger historical and political contexts. One of the reasons I kept writing was of course all the people I met: their love and time and generosity. She sang her first song for the movie, Lesa Lesa under the composition of Harris Jayaraj and her co-singer was the legendary, K. S. Chitra. [8] On 7 March 2017, she applied for divorce. [1] Career [ edit] Nine years ago, she began documenting stories from her travels along the borders of India. Especially when you can be charged with sedition for a tweet or arrested for the crime of committing comedy while being Muslim. Modi met with senior police officers and ordered them not to intervene as violence raged. They continue to. It is necessary to speak truth to power through our art. Now imagine how it would be for someone from a Dalit/Bahujan, Muslim, Adivasi, or working community to try to make inroads. The latter is an act of violence against people whose voice you are appropriating. She was part of a music band at PSG. suchitrav. They dont. As Sari Begum's story [in the book] illustrates, 'A life where the violence of the border is not at the fence, or in the trenches, but at the center of 'their' and our 'universe'. How do you think the media ought to responsibly report on peoples lives and experiences? Also, we shouldn't forget that the border making project is central to capitalist and neoliberal logic. The post-Cold War and 90s rhetoric of a borderless world that accompanied globalisation also kick-started massive border fencing projects in India. You can carefully craft a narrative of immigrant success but act tone-deaf about the ongoing refugee crisis. But eventually we need all kinds of stories and arguments to emerge from what is now considered Indian American writing. You can claim to be patriotic but not political, you can claim to support the troops but ignore the ongoing civilian casualty. It took me 8 years to write the book. What it means to photograph, write, report and document is an ongoing process. Why do you think India has gotten away with this so far? Itembodied young Indias grand ambitions and aspired to a nation made of men and women equally protected by the law. NONFICTIONMidnights BordersBy Suchitra VijayanMelville HousePublished May 25, 2021. It seems that they have a different eye for these women, who they describe as cunning, deceitful, and in some cases, prostitutes'. I feel very uncomfortable talking about this, or rather I dont know how to discuss this without centering myself. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, GQ, The Boston Review, The Hindu, and Foreign Policy, and she has appeared on NBC news. Not everyone rejoiced in these new freedoms. Its not sustainable, it fractures who we are, chips away and erodes what it fundamentally means to be human. Also, hope is a discipline. Rumpus: Toni Morrison said that she writes from a place of delight, not disappointment. Husain Haqqani: Pakistan released the Indian pilot. We lift up new voices alongside those of more established writers readers already know and love. Your prose is hopeful there. Nine years ago, she began documenting stories from her travels along the borders of India. This is a profoundly alienating place for anyone without the networks of privilege and resources. And, in many cases, they are children of the literary, cultural, or political elite who have long been the beneficiaries of the Indian state. I now think twice about calling friends, worried if this might put them at risk. The book was originally going to be a photographic body of work, which changed when I started writing. We're back with our flagship podcast 'Intersectional FeminismDesi Style!' All rights reserved. What matters is that the book exists. I was much younger when I took on this project, so I wanted to prove those people wrong. This discrepancy is just one example of the confusion and misinformation spread to the public by deeply flawed media reports. Accompanied by this globally, democracies are becoming more authoritarian and stripping people of their citizenshipreducing them to subjects, entrenching the fault lines of inequality. Because you are constantly thinking about the ethical universe you are bringing this child into What values do you teach this child? According to a new World Health Organization report, we lost as many as 4.7 million people in India. It is also the site of the worlds biggest crisis of statelessness, as it strips citizenship from hundreds of thousands of its peopleespecially those living in disputed border regions. This is not the violent right wing and their siege; its centrist and liberal media that is also relitigating history, deconstructing the core values of the constitution. Suchitra Vijayan talks to FII about Indian politics, communal violence, marginalisation and her book Midnights Borders: A Peoples History of Modern India. Vijayan began her journey in Kolkata. So here, 'Midnight' functions as a moment of violent birth, but also perhaps the foundational violence that becomes codified in various ways, especially in the bodies of people farthest away from power. Commentary Politics. How did you achieve empathy in your writing, without the privileged lens that is common in journalistic canon? Chopra cleverly uses womens empowerment, diversity, and the immigrant story as a facade to parrot and promote deeply problematic ideologies, takes, and stances. A: Writers are very strange creatures. This is the age of erosion of citizenship rights, a kind of ongoing attrition against human rights, civil liberties, and in the case of India, an accelerated dilution of fundamental rights. You become responsible for a human being. Take a look at theseevents: The vast infrastructure of detention centers being built in Assam and outside; a politician from a ruling party incites violence by saying, goli maaro saalon ko, and remains free; a minister, a Harvard educated technocrat, garlands and celebrates men for the grave crime of lynching; Dr Teltumbde and other BK 16 [the 16 arrests made in the Bhima Koregaon case] political prisoners remain incarcerated with little, no or manufactured evidence for being dissenting subjects; and a standup comic is arrested for the crime of existing as a Muslim. 'Suchitra's account of her journeys across the undefinable and ever-shifting borders between India and its neighbours is gripping, frightening, faithful and beautiful. Can any of theTIMEsubscribers who loved that cover tell us now whats happening in South Sudan today? These instances are also about border practices because modern states, especially liberal democracies, expend immense energy in creating and maintaining identity categories: who belongs, and where. All too often, the Indian media portrays Kashmiris as terrorists or human shields, not as a community seeking self-determination. I wrote a book along with it comes love, scorn, and sometimes even ridicule. The controversy surrounding the Rafale deal and allegations of corruption against the government were suddenly sidelined, as was the order for the eviction of more than a million forest dwellers (that was later stayed) and a hearing on the repeal of an important constitutional clause before the Supreme Court. This is the backdrop against which we map how border practices and policies have played out in India. As a lawyer, journalist, and human rights activist who has worked in conflict-ridden territories of Kosovo, Egypt, Rwanda, and elsewhere, she has often met people scrambling for bare existence, caught in a no-mans land. Francesca Recchia, a researcher and writer and former director of the Institute for Afghan Arts and Architecture, is the editor and creative director of The Polis Project.. Suchitra Vijayan is a barrister, researcher and the author of "Midnight's Borders: A People's History of Modern India." She is the executive director of the Polis Project. You need to write what you seethats why you started this project.. That, perhaps, is the only way to avoid further destruction in the region. Suchitra was born in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, as the daughter of Ramadurai and Padmaja. Its a dangerous moment where the figure of the rights-bearing citizen is being reduced to a consuming subject. The people in the text fear statelessness, unknown violence, and being forgotten. In 1971, East Pakistan seceded and became Bangladesh. While that incident had a profound impact on me, my politics, how I think about violence, its relationship to justice, or the lack of it, this is not the same kind of violence Kashmiris have been subjugated to. Suchitra is now a singer-songwriter as well, composing music on her own and in collaboration with Singer Ranjith. The first true peoples history of modern India, told through a seven-year, 9,000-mile journey along its many contested borders. She is not alone. There is no denying that the American media landscape is deeply racist, and while the past few years have seen more brown people take center stage, its nowhere close to where we need to be. More from this author , Tags: Aruni Kashyap, Asian American, bollywood, Brahmanism, caste system, democracy, Hindu, Hinduism, Hinduphobia, Hindutva, immigrants, immigration, India, Indian American, Indian American literature, Leni Riefenstahl, Midnight's Borders, Midnight's Borders: A People's History of Modern India, model minority, Modi, Narendra Damodardas Modi, Narendra Modi, neoliberalism, photographs, photography, Polis Project, Politics, Priyanka Chopra, south asian, South Asian American, South Asian diaspora, Stan Swamy, Suchitra Vijayan, travel writing, Filed Under: Features & Reviews, Rumpus Original. Similarly, motherhood changed me; it radicalised me. In Afghanistan, Kashmir, and India, from one dangerous conflict zone to another, she spoke with people, ate with them, and listened to their stories. Part of this learning was also why photographer Asim Rafiqui and I created the free UN/DO Photography workshops to think about image-making in relationship to power. Firstly, when we talk about violence, we often talk about it only as communal violence, as if both communities have equal strength and power. Her distinct and bold voice made her very popular with the younger crowd. Rumpus: Were you trying to write a hybrid-genre book? So I dont know if it was empathy so much as just building a relationship with people. At Fazilka near the Pakistan border, she ran into Sari Begum, who had a bunker on her land but had a darker story of pain and violence from the days of Partition. The taxi driver who describes the Egyptian revolution in five minutes to an American columnist (who speaks no Arabic) is sadly where the genre is today. So we might never know the true extent of this loss. Vijayan: I would say I am hopeful. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments. Midnight's Borders by Suchitra Vijayan falls in both categories. Vijayan: A writers responsibility above all is to speak the truth and make sense of our social worlds. She's a good friend and kindly agreed to take our City Hall wedding photos. Suchitra is a BSc graduate from Mar Ivanios College (Trivandrum). What do you think the future holds? This was something I had to resist from the get-go. But for me hope is radical; hope is the last bastion of our defense. Tamil Movie Articles Trisha | Vinnaithaandi Varuvaaya | Tamannah | Anniyan | Aishwarya Rai", "Bigg Boss Awards for each contestant in Bigg Boss Tamil 4", Suchitra: I can sound sweet, sexy, bold or sensual, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Suchitra&oldid=1141096550, Crossover episode with Bigg Boss Tamil; Fearless Award, Nominated: Filmfare Award for Best Female Playback Singer Telugu for the song 'Nijamena' from, Nominated: SIIMA Award for Best Female Playback Singer|Best Female Playback Singer for the song 'Sir Osthara' from, This page was last edited on 23 February 2023, at 09:35. In the first season, when he and his team are tasked to thwart the terrorist attack Operation Zulfiqar, the plot moves from Mumbai to Kashmir. What are those ethical, moral, and political lines? The argument put forward was simple: India, like most countries, had its human rights violations, but these were characterized as the growing pains and maturation of the worlds largest democracy. I believe it can teach us to ask these questions again. I think these are fundamental questions of freedom and dignity. Early on, I was very careful to acknowledge this. She never did like my then-husband, which makes her a better judge of character than I was. When Vijayan meets him, he is inside his home with all the windows closed and sealed to snuff out light. Vasundhara Sirnate Drennan is director of research at the Polis Project. By Suchitra Vijayan, Why should I read it? In retaliation, the Indian Air Force carried out an airstrike on an alleged militant training camp in Balakot in Pakistans Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Examining My Caste And Its History Is Eye-Opening: A Personal Essay On Casteism And Ancestry, The History Of The Colonial State And The Unmaking Of The Tawaif, Book Review: Looking Through Dalit Sahitya And Ambedkar, These Are The 15 Women Who Helped Draft The Indian Constitution, Gender Roles And Stereotyping In To Kill A Mockingbird, A Brief Summary Of The Second Wave Of Feminism, A Brief Summary Of The First Wave Of Feminism, Kamala Das The Mother Of Modern Indian English Poetry | #IndianWomenInHistory, A Brief Summary Of The Third Wave Of Feminism, The Life And Times Of Dnyanjyoti Krantijyoti Savitribai Phule | #IndianWomenInHistory, FII Interviews: Charlotte Munch Bengtsen Talks About Women In Filmmaking, FII Interviews: Drag King And Influencer Mx. And this is always at the expense of others. In politics, we will be recognising the principle of one man, one vote, and one vote, one value. She lives in New York. I find that profoundly inspiring. No one can write a book alone. It is the fragility of human lives that remains at the very center of the book. How do you think this shapes climate justice? I was reading a lot of Pessoa when I was in Afghanistan, so another placeholder title was 'Maps/Lines/Cartographies of Disquiet', inspired by the Book of Disquiet. When I finished writing, I had become much richer in many waysnot in a material waybut through a community. I left a few names out in the acknowledgment, worrying if it might direct more trouble towards them. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, GQ, The Boston Review, The Hindu, and Foreign Policy, and she has appeared on NBC news. Chopra is popular because she satisfies a certain need for validationthe trope of brown representation where the mere act of being represented is seen as a singular virtue worth applauding. The writing grew around the images and the visual memory of the encounters. We believe that literature builds communityand if reading The Rumpus makes you feel more connected, please show your support! The two press briefings by the foreign secretary and Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson entertained no questions. She is the executive director of the Polis Project . And join us by becoming a monthly or yearly Member. L.L.B., Law, The University of Leeds, 2004 M.A., International Relation . Theyre screaming all the time, its just that we dont listen to them. They create cleavages of fear, xenophobia, and insecurity. Her writing has appeared in The Citron Review, Dukool Magazine, Cerebration, Feminism in India, Times of India (Spellbound edition), and others. I'mdyslexic, but have visual and episodic memory, which means I dream and relive moments. Excellent interview, brave insights and critical reflections! This is a serious, often funny and deeply revealing book. M, An essential, beautifully written report from the hellish margins of a modern mega-state struggling to be a nation, of people whose lives continue to be shaped by violent political marches across age-old homes and habitats. I had a very stable home to come back to. Ali lived right on the edge of the India-Bangladesh border. The nation-state and its ruling class view borders as very different from the people who inhabit these liminal spaces or communities that have been affected by border making and policing practices. As a Bookshop affiliate, The Rumpus earns a percentage from qualifying purchases. Keywords: LTTE love jihad Beef politics Hindu Nationalism Kashmir Suchitra Vijayan, Newspapers in a Kashmiri home In August 2014 I travelled to the border town of Uri while researching my upcoming book, Borderlands. Beyond the confusion over the death tolls at Balakot, news organizations variously reported that between 25 and 350 kilograms of the explosive RDX was used in the attack, when no such information was officially released. What do these events have in common? I had to cut those out, as my editor felt this might not work. Last edited on 23 February 2023, at 09:35, Filmfare Award for Best Female Playback Singer Telugu, 2nd South Indian International Movie Awards, "Suchitra going through certain emotional condition: Husband Karthik on her tweets", "Will Trisha sound like Trisha in Mankatha? One of the reasons why this book was written was to step back: to say that this violence that you and I listen to and encounter is not new to say that this violence is not new. Suchitras account of her journeys across the undefinable and ever-shifting borders between India and its neighbours is gripping, frightening, faithful and beautiful. Empathy is taught by our communities; we are brought up with it. Part-time Faculty suchitra@thepolisproject.com. It has taken me over a decade to get here. They cannot be abusive or personal. The photographs add another dimension to the book, and could have been used more. That was my starting point. We see that during the journey, in a number of places, people stood in lines to speak with you, to show their paperwork to youhow did you negotiate the weight ofthose expectations, which might not have been explicit, but were still very much present? [1], Suchitra joined Sify for a year, after graduating. A: This is a very loaded question. Later on she moved to Coimbatore for her MBA from PSG Institute of Management. Heartbreaking, and still, something we must all notice and understand. M, Unique and ambitious, Vijayans project gains urgency and significance from our moment of resurgent nationalisms, when borders are being aggressively reasserted, in India and across the globe. G, An intervention like no other when it comes to thinking through not just the history of India but for reflections on borders, migration, the elusory nature of nations. Then my agent said, Suchitra, you know, I think youre hiding behind your academic language. In Afghanistan, Kashmir, and India, from one dangerous conflict zone to another, she spoke with people, ate with them, and listened to their stories. This also decides who gets access, awards and accolades. Early on, the idea of bearing witness as a rhetorical tool and as a literary device became deeply problematic. In addition, she is an award- winning photographer, the founder, and executive director of the Polis Project, a hybrid research and journalism organization. The failure to forget affects how I use images, and texts; my photographic practice and also how I put everything together. Thoughbordersare conventionally recognised as real or artificial lines of spatial and political demarcation, there may also be an arbitrariness to them. Suchitra is a BSc graduate from Mar Ivanios College (Trivandrum). [6], She wrote a short story, a graphic illustration of an episode in the life of a black peppercorn called Kuru-Milaku, called "The Runaway Peppercorn".[7]. Many news channels are not only owned, operated or invested in by politically influential families, but also are sometimes run for the express purpose of advancing party positions. If you want to support the work that goes behind publishing high-quality feminist media content, please consider becoming a FII member. This means that, for the longest time, the depiction of violence and marginalised communities has been problematic. The third thing is: were going back to relitigating everything. ). Who gets to shape these stories, what stories are chosen, what stories then are exiled? Love, passion, anger, the desire to make a point about something. But the number of anonymous sources willing to disclose classified and conflicting information to reporters who cited them without corroboration points to a serious crisis in how information is reported to the public. Q: Since publishing the book last year, what reflections have you hadgiven that its relevance is increasingly ascertained by 2022s interpersonal and geopolitical violence? Midnights Borders is part investigation, part meditation on the lines drawn on land or water that separate India from its neighbours. IWE is a body of work where the voices of Indias marginalized are still kept on the fringes; Midnights Borders is anarrative nonfiction book depicting a world that novels from mainland India have failed to depict. Suchitra Vijayan. In Assam, Vijayan met people devastated by the National Register of Citizens process, with names of long-time residents missing from the final list, and in Kashmir she spent time with a family mourning the loss of their son in an encounter. She lucidly explains the complicated history of the McMahon Line, how the India-China border is the result of a fabrication perpetuated by the British colonial administration. Parts of Pakistan have already been consumed by the water. On Feb. 14, an Indian paramilitary convoy was attacked. by Suchitra Vijayan Hardcover 1,759.00 2,023.00 You Save: 264.00 (13%) Usually dispatched in 1 to 3 weeks. A lot of travel writing is still written by a particular group of people with immense privilege, and they all tend to center themselves. That changes how you write and photograph a place. This article was published more than4 years ago. 582.1K views. Apart from his long-suffering wife, no one else in the family knows that he is a spy. The border runs through him, his friend Jamshed had told Vijayan, He is almost gone, but I dont want his story to be gone too.. Growing up I was surrounded by people who emphasised the community over anything else. I dont want to make this about me. I set out not to give voice to the voiceless, my aim was to put an ear to the ground and listen. The pandemic showed us that crises and recurrent disasters that annihilate our lives are here to stay. First, the escalation in the counterinsurgency war within the Kashmir Valley under which hundreds of activists were arrested and several Kashmiri civilians killed in gun battles was grievously underreported. The pair experience similar situations in their lives: abuse, the death or absence of a husband, and the longing for a better future. These are edited excerpts from the interview: 'Midnight' seems to be a metaphor for multiple things both freeing and frightening. Suchitra Vijayan is the executive director of the Polis Project. As a bedouin who grew up listening to beautiful stories from beautiful storytellers around a fire, I was transported by her storytelling. Updated Date: Each of these subscription programs along with tax-deductible donations made to The Rumpus through our fiscal sponsor, Fractured Atlas, helps keep us going and brings us closer to sustainability. She has sung in multiple languages including Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Telugu. Professor Nandita Sharmas work is an excellent way to engage with this history. Can you write about loss without living? Then you sit in a room with a mother telling you that she has no idea what happened to her son and has no way of knowing if hes ever coming back. Vijayan undertakes a seven-year long, 9,000-mile journey along the borders of India, and interviews people living in these liminal spaces. Such writings have long been implicated in the history of colonial ethnographic practices, where native informants are poised to become the voices of the empire. Q: You had to deal with a lot of ethical considerations as a writer and photographer, which echo throughout your and your fellow journalists work, as evaluated in your book. Who gets to travel, tell stories, and, more importantly, publish them are all deeply connected to questions of access, resources, and privilege.
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