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. I dont think theres just one emotion that drives a writer to finish writing. 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. Sayantika Mandal is an Indian writer. Bigotry is also big business. Early on, I was very careful to acknowledge this. 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? I can see how religious Hindu fanaticism has started to spread its tentacles in both the Democratic and the Republican parties, and this is primarily because of an absence of balanced stories about India. I wrote a book along with it comes love, scorn, and sometimes even ridicule. is a barrister-at-law, writer and researcher. This media blitzkrieg resulted in the erasure of two important political trends. A: This geopolitical violence is not new, theres a long bloody, brutal history to thisa cyclical, ongoing and never-ending history. I wrote the book, but those who have lived through this hell continue to live and navigate this hell. Its a dangerous moment where the figure of the rights-bearing citizen is being reduced to a consuming subject. These are edited excerpts from the interview: 'Midnight' seems to be a metaphor for multiple things both freeing and frightening. India and the US are discussing the possibility of jointly developing and manufacturing an extended-range variant of the M777 ultra lightweight howitzer, Qin's first in-person meeting with EAM Jaishankar came on the sidelines of the G20 foreign ministers conclave in New Delhi amid the over 34-month-long border row in eastern Ladakh. Looking Beyond the Lines: Suchitra Vijayan's "Midnight's Borders" How violence against women and girlsand even how sexual violence against men and boys (something we dont even talk about enough) is depictedis all seriously problematic. Chopra cleverly uses womens empowerment, diversity, and the immigrant story as a facade to parrot and promote deeply problematic ideologies, takes, and stances. . 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. Three hundred million people who had been considered less than subjects under the British rule, divided for years by religion, language, class, and caste, would all be united under one book: the revolutionary Constitution given to India by Babasaheb Ambedkar. The revolutionary Constitution not only created a social world made of contradictions, but it very soon became the tool of suppressing dissent, deployed laws like the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), and Public Safety Act (PSA) in Kashmir. 10 books like The Home and the World (picked by 7,000+ authors) But for me hope is radical; hope is the last bastion of our defense. Vijayan: There is an elusive distance between the photographer and the photographed that cant be bridged. Apart from his long-suffering wife, no one else in the family knows that he is a spy. He writes TPS reports for an overbearing boss who calls him the minimum guy. He has replaced eating vada pav at ungodly hours on the streets with overpriced salads. The events in Hathras did not happen at the border; neither did the murder and gang rape of two teenage girls in the Katra village of Budaun district, Uttar Pradesh. And, in many cases, they are children of the literary, cultural, or political elite who have long been the beneficiaries of the Indian state. What we can do is attempt micro-histories of events, timelines, or local communities. 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. In 2020, Suchitra took part in the fourth season of the Tamil reality television show, Bigg Boss Tamil hosted by Kamal Haasan. Midnight's Bordersis an exceptional read, but one that may make some uncomfortable. Suchitra is a sought-after performer at corporate and other such stage shows. No one is a stakeholder herethese are people, humans, citizens, who have been deprived of what the Ambedkarite constitution promised them. The credit goes to my agent Lucy Cleland who suggested this title. The events of 9/11 had profound effects on how border security projects and politics played out. 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. Firstpost - All Rights Reserved. Legislations such as National Register of Citizens and Citizenship Amendment Act threaten to render millions of people, especially Muslims, stateless. 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. Suchitra Vijayan was born and raised in Madras, India. Includes previously unreleased investigation under #JackStraw. The stories were a way to understand how people struggled and survived. It has taken me over a decade to get here. How do you think the media ought to responsibly report on peoples lives and experiences? Suchitra Acharjee - Graduate Assistant - The University of Texas Rio Nonfiction, Travel, Fiction Member Since February 2021 edit data Suchitra Vijayan was born and raised in Madras, India. Nine years ago, she began documenting stories from her travels along the borders of India. We need more writers from Indias Northeast, Kashmir, Indigenous, Dalit, and Muslim communities to tell stories that help complete the canvas of narratives about India. She lives in New York. So I dont know if it was empathy so much as just building a relationship with people. These are stories of massive human rights violations committed by the Indian state in the countrys margins. 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. In season two, a quick flashback resolves the plotline from the previous season. A consistent ethical framework within the media hasnt existed for a long time. The Family Man has found tremendous success as a slick and funny espionage drama, particularly for its treatment of the protagonist, and even for humanising terrorists. Author In Focus, Celebration, The Literary Journal. I want to clarify that what I witnessed or the violence inflicted on my father is not the same as what over eight million Kashmiris have endured. She studied Law, Political Science and International Relations, and was trained as a Barrister-at-Law and called to Bar at the Honourable Society of Inner Temple. There are also those who have previously been tacit, if not active, supporters of the right-wing Hindu nationalist Indian state. As an attorney, she previously worked for the United Nations war crimes tribunals in Yugoslavia and Rwanda before co-founding the Resettlement Legal Aid Project in Cairo, which gives legal aid to Iraqi refugees. In her book, she makes her intention clear at the very beginning, claiming that this endeavor is not to give voice to the voiceless but to critique the nation-state, its violence, and the arbitrariness of territorial sovereignty. She acknowledges that a book in its limited scope cannot really encapsulate the entirety of this journey, and it will remain more of a scrapbook, a collection of images, texts, poetry, and maps. What I was most concerned about and still am are the people in the book and their safety. 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. We see that more clearly when you decide against photographing children at the India-Bangladesh border. This was something I had to resist from the get-go. A: I dont agree with this kind of framing, because its not that underrepresented people dont have voices. Instead, she shows the absurdity of the army apparatus that strives to comply with the narrative of patriotism. Propaganda and poison work in far more sophisticated ways. Suchitra Vijayanis a barrister-at-law, writer and researcher. Her YouTube channel 'Suchislife' has all her updated work. I kept detailed audio notes that I recorded each night when I traveled. (Stay up to date on new book releases, reviews, and more with The Hindu On Books newsletter. Vijayan undertakes a seven-year long, 9,000-mile . You need a community of people to support you. While Nehru was still declaring this victory, the slaughter began. When the book finally came out, India was undergoing the deadly 2nd wave. Her work looks at theories of violence, war, and human nature. [1], Suchitra joined Sify for a year, after graduating. Unreliable Witnesses - Boston Review Indias intellectual, journalistic, and literary landscape is profoundly problematic and alienating. You need to write what you seethats why you started this project.. Vijayan: I would say I am hopeful. The people in this book are eloquent advocates of their history and their struggles. Sari Begum, born of rape during the Partition and married off to a violent, alcoholic man twenty years older than her, is forced to part with her land to make space for an army bunker, while Natasha Javed stumbles upon a piece of family history that reveals her ancestor being killed in the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre of 1919 and the subsequent trauma and loss of having to be forcefully emptied of history when they crossed over to Pakistan, and how talking about this would make them traitors in their homeland. The former is an essential act of dissent, even resistance, especially in these dark times. Its feudal, entitled, and cannibalistic. These are no longer contradictory; instead, even criticism can be converted to views. RT @project_polis: Writing fiction in a dystopian world - @kiccovich in conversation with @mohammedhanif https://thepolisproject.com/listen/writing-fiction-in-a . 42, Moss Rose Heights, M.M Ali road, WASA Circle, Lalkhan Bazar, Chittogong 4000. As she travelled 9000 miles over seven years across Indias borders, some drawn so hastily that they cut across fields, homes and courtyards, she met men, women and children, finishing with endless notebooks, over a thousand images and more than 300 hours of recorded conversations. Her quest took her to the farthest ends of the India-Bangladesh/ China/ Myanmar/ Pakistan borders. 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. 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. Suchitra Vijayan is an American writer, essayist, activist, and photographer working across oral history, state violence, and visual storytelling. 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. 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. You dont need a Leni Riefenstahl today. 'Music I Like', an album of Suchitra's renditions of Mahakavi Bharatiyaar's poetry, set to contemporary tunes and music, released by Universal Music, was a turning point in her career. The emotional cost is something else altogether. She digs deep into colonial history to show how years of violence and consequential suffering has shaped these lives across generations. The entire episode is emblematic of a broader trend in Indian media. But the inclination to still treat India as a democracy remains. Even those who now write about Modis India, will never write about Brahmanism or be critical of how caste works in the diaspora. Its feudal, entitled, and cannibalistic. I had to cut those out, as my editor felt this might not work. I was also trying to tell these stories from a repertoire of skills I had, and some I acquired. One feedback I often got was that I had to put more of myself in this book. As such, very few media establishments in India have been able to stand against the influence of political leaders. Many TV newsrooms were transformed into caricatures of military command centers, with anchors assessing military technology and strategy (sometimes incorrectly). The writing grew around the images and the visual memory of the encounters. 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 | C-SPAN.org 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. I fear we are losing that cosmopolitanism of small places. Suchitra Vijayan Your email address will not be published. Suchitra Vijayan's Midnight's Borders | Youth Ki Awaaz We dont document violence against the privileged like we would report violence against those without power. What is the function of seeing and documenting? She is the founder and executive director of The Polis Project, and the author of. He is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Georgia and is the author of The House With a Thousand Stories, His Fathers Disease, and There Is No Good Time for Bad News. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments. What matters is that the book exists. Professor Nandita Sharmas work is an excellent way to engage with this history. How long shall we continue to live this life of contradictions?". And were there any apprehensions since you began working on this book? There is also a lot of deep-seated misogyny, casteism, and anti-Black racism in our communities that need to be addressed. This income helps us keep the magazine alive. 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. 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. Hope Is the Last Bastion: Talking with Suchitra Vijayan 4 reviews of Suchitra Vijayan Photography "Huge fan of Suchitra Vijayan Photography! This contributed to the long-running, brutal silencing of Kashmiris and their struggle for self-determination. Again, in the India-China border, she finds a young army officer closely referring to a book that contradicts the official version of the Indo-China war of 1962, and concludes that perhaps, he recognizes that most of soldiering involved cynical subordination to ideas that no longer made sense.. I felt the same way when I would prepare legal petitions for my clients. 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. Second, we can no longer have certain conversationsconversations are now impossible. A literary community. Some things are just not discussed anymore. Along the way, we meet the men and women of TASC, dissenting students, ISIS terrorists and Pakistani military officers. I had to write and rewrite this book so many times. 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. Perhaps that offers some protection? O. How do you protect this child? Rumpus: How hard was it to write nonfiction about such a violent contemporary history? @suchitrav. So we might never know the true extent of this loss. Yes, men who act as petty sovereigns are everywhere. Copyright 2023. 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. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, GQ, The Boston Review, The Hindu, and Foreign Policy, and she has appeared on NBC news. We also need a fundamental reframing of language. In politics, we will be recognising the principle of one man, one vote, and one vote, one value. This is where I believe literary nonfiction becomes a powerful tool. The act of recording and documenting cannot be divorced from the inherent question of power. Later on she moved to Coimbatore for her MBA from PSG Institute of Management. We know that the purpose of borders has kept changing for nations. She also embodies the upwardly mobile, privileged sections of the diaspora. Midnight's Borders by Suchitra Vijayan falls in both categories. Where does that leave us? There are enough stories of people parachuting into communities to do human interest stories. As I say in the book, Kashmir changed me, it gave me political and moral clarity to always stand with those fighting for their peoples freedom and dignity. However, at work, Tiwari is in his element. 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. Suchitra Vijayan is a barrister-at-law, writer and researcher. With profound empathy and a novelistic eye for detail, Vijayan brings us face to face with the brutal legacy of colonialism, state violence, and government corruption. Vasundhara Sirnate Drennan is director of research at the Polis Project. Suchitra Ramadurai, known by the mononym Suchitra, is an Indian radio jockey, popular playback singer, songwriter, composer, voice artist, dubbing artist and film actress. When I finished writing, I had become much richer in many waysnot in a material waybut through a community. Suchitra Vijayan. 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. A: I lost friends, saw my father go through a transplant, and I gave birth. 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. She writes about war, conflict . I think this book will change the global conversation about India and shape what gets written in the future about India. Co-founded the Resettlement Legal Aid Project in Cairo, Suchitra is also the founder of the Polis Project, a research and journalism organisation. Stallings, Rumpus Original Fiction: The Litany of Invisible Things. 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. This means that the capacity to see does not automatically become the capacity for action. I can see small cracks beginning to appear. 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. Also, I am an unknown and insignificant entity. Suchitra is now a singer-songwriter as well, composing music on her own and in collaboration with Singer Ranjith. She was part of a music band at PSG. Rumpus: Why do you think the ever-growing canon of Indian American literature has barely tried to engage with these conversations through their stories? Theyre screaming all the time, its just that we dont listen to them. Vasundhara Sirnate Drennan is director of research at the Polis Project. I have no control over what comes next. Who gets to travel, tell stories, and, more importantly, publish them are all deeply connected to questions of access, resources, and privilege. Suchitra was born in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, as the daughter of Ramadurai and Padmaja. The mortality of someone you love affects how you write. Suchitra is a BSc graduate from Mar Ivanios College (Trivandrum). Born and raised in Madras, India, she is the author of the critically acclaimed book Midnight's Borders: A People's History of Modern India (Melville House, New York). Also, a book is an act of community; it has many midwives. I set out not to give voice to the voiceless, my aim was to put an ear to the ground and listen. And this is always at the expense of others. Sign in. As a spy working for TASC, Tiwari has to juggle being an underpaid government employee as well as an absent husband and a perpetually late and distracted father. Subscribe to the Rumpus Book Clubs (poetry, prose, or both) and Letters in the Mail from authors (for adults and kids). More importantly, as Babasaheb would argue, the political revolution was never accompanied by a social revolution. She has a sister named, Sunitha. Follow our team of columnists and reporters who write about the media. Suchitra Vijayan is the executive director of the Polis Project. We have migrated to a new commenting platform. . The complexities of the Naga peace process were apparent on a visit to remote villages of Tuensang district where many of the women remained silent with others admitting they had never encountered an outsider, except Indian soldiers. March 06, 2021 04:50 pm | Updated March 07, 2021 08:05 am IST. The book was originally going to be a photographic body of work, which changed when I started writing. Global Ethics Review: Midnight's Borders, with Suchitra Vijayan I think its the other way round, these communities have always been speaking, writing, documenting, teachingwe must simply listen rather than represent them in any way. In the popular depictions of India circulating in the US, we rarely see the stories that the nations jingoistic governments have shoved under the carpet. Midnight's Borders by Suchitra Vijayan - The Bangalore Review I think these are fundamental questions of freedom and dignity. We live in a profoundly unequal society, where every day brings news of new devastation. When Vijayan meets him, he is inside his home with all the windows closed and sealed to snuff out light. Suchitra Vijayan - KeyWiki During the initial search, the BSF troops recovered a black coloured drone - DJI Matrice (made in China), in partially damaged condition, lying near Dhussi Bundh near Shahjada village. For far too long, they and their progeny have held power to shape the political understanding of our social worlds. The Author Suchitra Vijayan is an American writer, essayist, activist, and photographer working across oral history, state violence, and visual storytelling. Rohini Menon for Feminism in India, FII Interviews: Suchitra Vijayan Talks About Marginalisation, Institutional Violence & Political Imagination, Ananya is a chaotic humanities student with a deep interest in the relationship between art and society, a writing obsession, and way too many bizarre ideas involving their camera. Its a vicious cycle. How do you think this shapes climate justice? In the same chapter of the book, Kamal says, "If I am an Indian, then why am I afraid?" When your investigations in Kashmir came to an end, what changes did you observe in your 'grammar of dissent'? Suchitra Vijayan. What do you think the future holds? Always. Rumpus: Can we please talk about Priyanka Chopra, and how her rise is seen as a marker of brown achievement? In Nellie (Assam) too, where over 3,000 Muslims were killed in 1983, people stared at Vijayan in confusion, no one comes here anymore, she was told. I feel very uncomfortable talking about this, or rather I dont know how to discuss this without centering myself. Pushback is such a benign word, isnt it? 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. I believe it can teach us to ask these questions again. You can speak of confidence and body positivity and defend selling skin-lightening creams. Suchitra Vijayan on Twitter: ""Fighting for justice and human rights in Similarly, motherhood changed me; it radicalised me. I left a few names out in the acknowledgment, worrying if it might direct more trouble towards them.
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