It took a long time to get the voice right. The people in the text fear statelessness, unknown violence, and being forgotten. Vijayans book begins a much-needed conversation on thinking about freedom beyond the idea of nation and its illusory lines. This was something I had to resist from the get-go. Suchitra Vijayan, Newspapers in a Kashmiri home In August 2014 I travelled to the border town of Uri while researching my upcoming book, Borderlands. 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 still does a radio show called Flight983 on Radio Mirchi, on Sunday evenings (79 pm). But your book lays bare how differently India's borders are guarded from southern Bengal to the Line of Control. Thanks to The New India Foundation for sending across a beautiful copy of the Midnights Borders. Her writing has appeared in The Citron Review, Dukool Magazine, Cerebration, Feminism in India, Times of India (Spellbound edition), and others. Suchitra tweets @suchitrav. Vijayan: Chopra and others like her are a reflection of how popular culture and virality inform discourse and shape it. She is the executive director of the Polis Project . Also, I am an unknown and insignificant entity. Is photographing a woman, who was gang-raped by the Sudanese army and put on the cover of TIMEpractically naked, able to stop the war? What connects these messages is deep empathy and a willingness to engage with the books stories, ideas, and arguments. Siaan On Being Queer And Being Online, FII Interviews: Journalist Meena Kotwal On Minority Politics, Journalism Today And The Caste Divide. Zoya, a young female officer, is now confined to her wheelchair, and Milind, who also makes it out alive, is seen at home with drawn curtains, battling trauma. It was not going to be easy as she quickly found out. Its about what people like me should do. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments. The travel, the people they encounter, and the political events they record quickly become cameos.
British India was partitioned into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan on the eve of independence in August, 1947.
Midnight's Borders by Suchitra Vijayan - The Bangalore Review I am repeating what I have said before, "Kashmir is Indias greatest moral and political failure. What moral and political stands we should take in the face of ongoing oppression. Rumpus: What do you think is the value of well-crafted literary nonfiction in sustaining conversations about equality and justice? Many come from immense privileges of caste, class, wealth, access, and resources. Its when we lose hope that we believe that we have lost everything. Suchitra Vijayan.
Unreliable Witnesses - Boston Review ( I hate this word, voiceless, by the way). None of this helps in telling richer, more textured stories. In Midnight's Borders, Suchitra Vijayan meditates on belongingness, freedom and political implications of territorial demarcations 'The border making project is central to the capitalist and neoliberal logic,' Vijayan says. J.G.P. Where India ends and Bangladesh begins is a question confused by history, family and the border pillars themselves. Panitar has a one-foot-high concrete block on the side of the mighty Ichamati river marked Border Pillar No.1. The Author Suchitra Vijayan is an American writer, essayist, activist, and photographer working across oral history, state violence, and visual storytelling. How do you think this inspiration from a variety of genres allowed you to tell underrepresented stories?
Suchitra Vijayan on Twitter: "Excerpts from the #BBC documentary 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. Were there times when you doubted your own ability to record and document these people's stories? In addition, she is an award- winning photographer, the founder, and executive director of the Polis Project, a hybrid research and journalism organization. Midnight's Bordersis an exceptional read, but one that may make some uncomfortable. 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. We are consuming subjects in a surveillance economy, not citizens. Whose Stories Are Told In Indian History? Pushback is such a benign word, isnt it? Why dont people see the ground shifting beneath their feet? Rumpus: The book utilizes more than one medium: photography, narrative nonfiction, journalism. Why is this particular time of the day intrinsic to the book? The writing grew around the images and the visual memory of the encounters. All too often, the Indian media portrays Kashmiris as terrorists or human shields, not as a community seeking self-determination. 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. Required fields are marked *. She lives in New York. As a Bookshop affiliate, The Rumpus earns a percentage from qualifying purchases. How "The Family Man" champions the carceral security state.
How does one think of violence, how does one make sense of all this, how does one retain a sense ofnot exactly humanity, but ratherempathy for the other? I dont have apprehensions. Vijayan: There is an elusive distance between the photographer and the photographed that cant be bridged. Theyre screaming all the time, its just that we dont listen to them. 42, Moss Rose Heights, M.M Ali road, WASA Circle, Lalkhan Bazar, Chittogong 4000. Midnights Borders , Suchitra Vijayan includes a photo of the pillar, which becomes a cricket stump for boys on either side of the border most days. 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. The third thing is: were going back to relitigating everything. The acts of writing, documenting, photographing, and archiving carry privileges of caste and class. Professor Nandita Sharmas work is an excellent way to engage with this history.
How "The Family Man" champions the carceral security state When the book finally came out, India was undergoing the deadly 2nd wave. Our borders had become a spectacle, and we the cheering mob, she says, as she calls for purging hatred for the sake of posterity. I find that profoundly inspiring. Q: What struck me about your work was its immersive style.
A Seven Year, 9,000-Mile Journey Along India's Contested Land Borders How long shall we continue to live this life of contradictions?". Now imagine how it would be for someone from a Dalit/Bahujan, Muslim, Adivasi, or working community to try to make inroads. Vijayan began her journey in Kolkata. And that violence is often abetted by the state and goes unpunished. What changeshave youobserved in the way you treat your subject after finishing your journey and book? What makes these lives so vivid is how Vijayan contextualizes them by placing them in the bigger picture of history. In an interview with Firstpost,Vijayan talks about her book, the militarisation of borders, ethno-nationalism, and the politics of documentation. Updated Date: So lets be very clear that Indias intellectual literary landscape is deeply problematic, feudal, and alienating," says Suchitra Vijayan to FII, Featured Image Source: Propaganda and poison work in far more sophisticated ways. Follow our team of columnists and reporters who write about the media. The interview has been paraphrased and condensed for clarity, at the interviewers discretion. [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].
The mask is off. The arrest of Khurram Parvez shows that India is no Sign in. Where does that leave us? More Buying Choices 1,732.00 (16 Used & New offers) Audible Audiobook 0.00 Free with Audible trial 586.00 ( 9 ) I dont think theres just one emotion that drives a writer to finish writing.
India's Press Crackdown: The Silencing of Journalists in Kashmir And, in many cases, they are children of the literary, cultural, or political elite who have long been the beneficiaries of the Indian state. This is a profoundly alienating place for anyone without the networks of privilege and resources. Commentary Politics. I think these are fundamental questions of freedom and dignity. A: I lost friends, saw my father go through a transplant, and I gave birth. Vijayan undertakes a seven-year long, 9,000-mile journey along the borders of India, and interviews people living in these liminal spaces. Author, lawyer and journalist, Suchitra Vijayan in conversation with Cerebration editor Smita Maitra on her book Midnight's Borders, maps, fragmented identities and postcolonial nation-states. The book is a prelude to what was coming, and is also a impassioned plea to my readers to ask some fundamental questions of what it means to live in a country like Indiawhat is the function of a state when its primary preoccupation is no longer the citizen but a performance of an ideology? Vijayan creates a constellation of micro-histories of people who have lived through the violence . Vijayan reserves her own impressions for later, and allows us to know these people intimately. So we might never know the true extent of this loss. Perhaps that offers some protection? 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. " India's intellectual, journalistic, and literary landscape is profoundly problematic and alienating. In retaliation, the Indian Air Force carried out an airstrike on an alleged militant training camp in Balakot in Pakistans Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. But eventually we need all kinds of stories and arguments to emerge from what is now considered Indian American writing. News organizations such as India Today, NDTV, News 18, the Indian Express, First Post, Mumbai Mirror, ANI and others routinely attributed their information to anonymous government sources, forensic experts, police officers and intelligence officers. No independent investigations were conducted, and serious questions about intelligence failures were left unanswered. While Nehru was still declaring this victory, the slaughter began. It was just a sad moment, and I couldnt celebrate a book when there was so much human tragedy playing out. We must realise that its the grassroots media, who represent themselves, document what mainstream media ignores, and bring to notice what is important. She never did like my then-husband, which makes her a better judge of character than I was. We cant continue to see this in neo-liberal terms like stakeholder. I think the usage of this kind of language is ineffectual; its emptied of imagination. In this stunning work of narrative reportagefeaturing over 40 original photographswe hear from those whose stories are never told: from children playing a cricket match in no-mans-land, to an elderly man living in complete darkness after sealing off his home from the floodlit border; from a woman who fought to keep a military bunker off of her land, to those living abroad who can no longer find their family history in India. For far too long, they and their progeny have held power to shape the political understanding of our social worlds. Many TV newsrooms were transformed into caricatures of military command centers, with anchors assessing military technology and strategy (sometimes incorrectly). 2:16. Especially when you can be charged with sedition for a tweet or arrested for the crime of committing comedy while being Muslim. 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. Her YouTube channel 'Suchislife' has all her updated work. But for me hope is radical; hope is the last bastion of our defense. There are instances when you and some voices in the narrative question their documentation practice. Her writing and award-winning photography culminated in Midnights Borders: A Peoples History of Modern India, which was recently shortlisted for the Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF book prize. How did you arrive at this stylistic juncture where you manage to tell the stories of these people who are radically less privileged than you without appropriating them? There are so many nonfiction books about India published yearly but few are so important and subversive. The events of 9/11 had profound effects on how border security projects and politics played out. 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. After her Twitter page was hacked in 2016, and the pictures and videos released by the hacker went viral under #suchileaks, following a spate of bad press owing to the fact that she only released a statement on Sun News saying she was focused on shutting the page down, Suchitra left for London to pursue culinary arts at Le Cordon Bleu. We are all complicit in upholding and maintaining this fear. 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. We live in a surveillance economy where we are constantly just bearing witness we are record keepers, unwitting spies, and voyeurs. The result is a gripping, urgent dispatch from a modern India in crisis, and the full and vivid portrait of the country weve long been missing. We have migrated to a new commenting platform. Subscribe here. Vijayan began her journey in Kolkata. This is where I believe literary nonfiction becomes a powerful tool. If it does, I have failed. In politics, we will be recognising the principle of one man, one vote, and one vote, one value. Not mine. They both have pregnant daughters, a fact that becomes significant as the novel progresses. She is the founder and executive director of The Polis Project, and the author of Midnight's Borders: A People's History of Modern India, recently published by Context, Westland. I test my practice of writing or being a photographer against this rule. Its a dangerous moment where the figure of the rights-bearing citizen is being reduced to a consuming subject. 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. The Indian media must learn to portray the conflict and human rights violations in the region in a more nuanced way, and not reduce Kashmir to a catalogue of death, destruction and emergency laws. This means that the capacity to see does not automatically become the capacity for action. We need to think about border practices, policing, and national security policies within the larger historical and political contexts. We no longer ask if this will lead to a better society, if it will benefit the vast majority of those farthest away from power. Itembodied young Indias grand ambitions and aspired to a nation made of men and women equally protected by the law. Author In Focus, Celebration, The Literary Journal. Suchitra Vijayan is a barrister-at-law, writer and researcher. How did writing this book affect you? Also, a book is an act of community; it has many midwives. Parts of Pakistan have already been consumed by the water. ", "Documentary photography has amassed mountains of evidenceyetthe genre has simultaneously contributed much to spectacle, to retinal excitation, to voyeurism, to terror, envy, and nostalgia, and only a little to the critical understanding of the social world.". [1] Career [ edit] It is meant to manufacture an underclass of rightless subjects. I feel very uncomfortable talking about this, or rather I dont know how to discuss this without centering myself. There is something deeply flawed in the way we live today. Now, along with the medias legitimization of an ideology that promotes violence including riots and lynchings its performance after Pulwama leaves severe doubts as to whether it is engaged in journalism or the propagation of Hindu majoritarianism. This is the backdrop against which we map how border practices and policies have played out in India. As a bedouin who grew up listening to beautiful stories from beautiful storytellers around a fire, I was transported by her storytelling. Suchitra Vijayan is a barrister at law and the author of Midnight's Borders: A People's History of Modern India. All rights reserved. Even the diasporic experience is often told through this limited lens, without taking into account how diverse the immigrant experience in this country is. She completed her MFA in Writing (Fiction) from the University of San Francisco where she was awarded the Jan Zivic Fellowship and is about to begin her PhD in English with a Creative Dissertation from the University of Georgia, Athens. He writes about how when the Constitution was adopted, "We are going to enter into a life of contradictions. Also read: Whose Stories Are Told In Indian History? What do words like democracy, freedom, and citizenship mean? Her work looks at theories of violence, war, and human nature. One of the ways she upholds the humane in this book is through her interaction with the men in the security forces. Co-founded the Resettlement Legal Aid Project in Cairo, Suchitra is also the founder of the Polis Project, a research and journalism organisation. But, more importantly, I wanted my readers to walk away with a sense of empathy. Suchitra Ramadurai, known by the mononym Suchitra, is an Indian radio jockey, popular playback singer, songwriter, composer, voice artist, dubbing artist and film actress. My role, then, and this books role, is to find in their articulations a critique of the nation-state, its violence and the arbitrariness of territorial sovereignty.". From the epoch of Empire to the nation-state, border making is fundamentally a political project that creates, sustains, and reinforces inequality. I think freedom and dignity enables us to really go beyond in our political imaginationbeyond just electoral politics. In her15,000-kilometre journey, spread over seven years, Vijayan mulls over the meaning of freedom, belongingness in a land of imagined communities, created by territorial demarcations. The entire episode is emblematic of a broader trend in Indian media. We believe that literature builds communityand if reading The Rumpus makes you feel more connected, please show your support! So the question is not: will the future be borderless? This income helps us keep the magazine alive. Vasundhara Sirnate Drennan is director of research at the Polis Project. But it needs to do more for peace. What matters is that the book exists. Some people later chose not to be included because they feared repercussions, especially as the NRC process started playing out. The latter is an act of violence against people whose voice you are appropriating. 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. Subscribe to the Rumpus Book Clubs (poetry, prose, or both) and Letters in the Mail from authors (for adults and kids). That was my starting point. A: Writers are very strange creatures. Gokhale claimed that it struck the biggest camp and that a large number of terrorists were killed. So the first reflection is this idea of where we are right now: as people, as a society, as a community. A:I dont think an ethical or moral compass exists nowI dont know if it ever existed. 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. In an early chapter of the book, you talk about how new worlds are created by the people at Indias borders. NONFICTIONMidnights BordersBy Suchitra VijayanMelville HousePublished May 25, 2021. Suchitra is a sought-after performer at corporate and other such stage shows. It has taken me over a decade to get here. You've mentioned in the text that you've spent your entire adult life thinking about state violence and justice because of a troubling incident in 1994 when your father was attacked. I wrote the book, but those who have lived through this hell continue to live and navigate this hell. She is the founder and executive director of The Polis Project, and the author of Midnight's Borders: A People's History of Modern India, recently published by Context, Westland. Suchitra Vijayan's new book, Midnight's Borders: A People's History of Modern India, takes a deep look at such stories by prioritizing the experiences of the silenced victims as well as lesser-known accounts from victims of state violence. That changes how you write and photograph a place. You need a community of people to support you. When fencing began, he became trapped in a no-mans land, his marriage to a girl from Bangladesh ended with each being stranded on either side and he never got out of the cycle of debt and struggle, finally losing the ability to dream.