She digs deep into colonial history to show how years of violence and consequential suffering has shaped these lives across generations. 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. She has a sister named, Sunitha. Suchitra Vijayanis a barrister-at-law, writer and researcher. What matters is that the book exists. It is necessary to speak truth to power through our art. This also decides who gets access, awards and accolades. Indias intellectual, journalistic, and literary landscape is profoundly problematic and alienating. But it needs to do more for peace. Instead, she shows the absurdity of the army apparatus that strives to comply with the narrative of patriotism. But who gets to speak for so many of us? What is the function of seeing and documenting? More Buying Choices 1,732.00 (16 Used & New offers) Audible Audiobook 0.00 Free with Audible trial 586.00 ( 9 ) Dear reader, this article is free to read and it will remain free but it isnt free to produce. Vijayan: I wasnt trying to write a hybrid book; I was trying to tell the stories I encountered as a way to think about the moral and political realities of our lives. There are so many nonfiction books about India published yearly but few are so important and subversive. Categories. They dont. Suchitra Vijayan is an American writer, essayist, activist, and photographer working across oral history, state violence, and visual storytelling. Bhawan Singh, who photographed the Nellie massacre, said he had never seen anything like it. He writes about how when the Constitution was adopted, "We are going to enter into a life of contradictions. While Nehru was still declaring this victory, the slaughter began. But who carries the responsibility of that fear? Yes, Chopra does take a huge share of attention, but the real danger is how people like her whitewash Hindutva, and now increasingly co-opt the language of Hinduphobia to counter any critique of Hindutva. Aruni Kashyap writes in English, and his native language Assamese. Author In Focus, Celebration, The Literary Journal. That changes how you write and photograph a place. We live in a surveillance economy where we are constantly just bearing witness we are record keepers, unwitting spies, and voyeurs. This media blitzkrieg resulted in the erasure of two important political trends. But, more importantly, I wanted my readers to walk away with a sense of empathy. You need a community of people to support you. The two press briefings by the foreign secretary and Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson entertained no questions. Say, for instance, do we need a James Nachtwey to fly to war-torn Bosnia? Similarly, motherhood changed me; it radicalised me. 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. No one would put themselves through the agony and pain of writing. 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. Suchitra is a BSc graduate from Mar Ivanios College (Trivandrum). Suchitra Vijayan: The Indian state has always used excessive and extrajudicial violence on communities that resist, whether its the borderlands, peripheries, or mainland Now the international viewfor instance while the Gujarat riots of 2002 brought critical international media attention and criticism, and [current Prime Minister] Modi was banned from entering the US, India was able to effectively manage global public opinion. Stallings, Rumpus Original Fiction: The Litany of Invisible Things. So we might never know the true extent of this loss. The Rumpus: It is shocking how unaware the world is about the violence the Indian government has committed since independence on its border citizens. I left a few names out in the acknowledgment, worrying if it might direct more trouble towards them. One of the reasons I kept writing was of course all the people I met: their love and time and generosity. Our investigation into the Indian medias reporting on the Pulwama attack found that many reports were contradictory, biased, incendiary and uncorroborated. Apart from his long-suffering wife, no one else in the family knows that he is a spy. 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? A lot of travel writing is still written by a particular group of people with immense privilege, and they all tend to center themselves. As a bedouin who grew up listening to beautiful stories from beautiful storytellers around a fire, I was transported by her storytelling. The mortality of someone you love affects how you write. How do you think your book contributes to the larger conversation about India? Its a dangerous moment where the figure of the rights-bearing citizen is being reduced to a consuming subject. Good, honest and non-polemical writing has always forced us to confront the lies we tell ourselves. By looking beyond maps to create a museum of forgotten stories, Vijayan has given voice to those who live on the fringes like Ali or Sari. Commentary Politics. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. By Suchitra Vijayan, Why should I read it? Can you write about loss without living? The Indian State and the people of this Republic. In Afghanistan, Kashmir, and India, from one dangerous conflict zone to another, she spoke with people, ate with them, and listened to their stories. As a Bookshop affiliate, The Rumpus earns a percentage from qualifying purchases. 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. India has consistently warred against its own citizens; this book is about some of these wars. The people whose lives are not just materials for the book, who are, in some ways, your co-conspirators in trying to make sense of the social reality. The pair experience similar situations in their lives: abuse, the death or absence of a husband, and the longing for a better future. In recent years, the narrative of hate has escalated with the reelection of the right-wing Narendra Modi government in 2019. Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. I wrote the book, but those who have lived through this hell continue to live and navigate this hell. 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. The post-Cold War and 90s rhetoric of a borderless world that accompanied globalisation also kick-started massive border fencing projects in India. India and its Borderlands: Suchitra Vijayan in Conversation with Sharjeel Usmani, Book talk with Suchitra Vijayan, author of Midnights Borders, Crisis at the Border: Contestation, Sovereignty, and Statelessness. The show deals with interesting international happenings. The act of recording and documenting cannot be divorced from the inherent question of power. (Stay up to date on new book releases, reviews, and more with The Hindu On Books newsletter. Rumpus: Were you trying to write a hybrid-genre book? 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. That was my starting point. How long shall we continue to live this life of contradictions?". I wanted to make sure that I was writing in a way that was honest and true to my initial reactions, and capture that without centering myself. What we can do is attempt micro-histories of events, timelines, or local communities. In the middle of significant change, this fraught system cannot exist as it is. When I finished writing, I had become much richer in many waysnot in a material waybut through a community. How "The Family Man" champions the carceral security state. Then my agent said, Suchitra, you know, I think youre hiding behind your academic language. Vijayan shows a keen eye for detail as she presents these diverse lives. Suchitra is a sought-after performer at corporate and other such stage shows. There are some brilliant writers writing on these issuesthe problem is always that these voices dont make it to the mainstream. 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. They are also essentially bureaucratic, judicial, and procedural acts of terror. I want to flag two essays where I engage with this in an in-depth manner, Disaster Ruins Everything, on my work in Haiti, and what it means to photograph disaster, especially when it is Brown and Black bodies. 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. Invariably its the writer who is the protagonist. The failure to forget affects how I use images, and texts; my photographic practice and also how I put everything together. Its about what people like me should do. What it means to photograph, write, report and document is an ongoing process. That capacity to be able to go away and then come back profoundly affects how you write because then you are still rooted. 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. 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. More than two weeks after the attack, our analysis finds that no news site had rectified the errors in their reporting, leaving these misleading facts as a matter of public record. This income helps us keep the magazine alive. We are consuming subjects in a surveillance economy, not citizens. 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. In Midnight's Borders (Westland Publications, 2021), author and photographer Suchitra Vijayan travels the 9,000 miles of India's borders to understand what Partition did to individual lives and . It is here that even the most civilised amongst us begin to make excuses for repression, brutality, and violence. The government, of course, denies this. Rumpus: Toni Morrison said that she writes from a place of delight, not disappointment. You can find them onYouTube&Linkedin,and can also check out their websitehere. 1 author picked Midnight's Borders as one of their favorite books, . Suchitra Vijayan (@suchitrav) / Twitter Follow Suchitra Vijayan @suchitrav Author: Midnight's Borders: A People's History of Modern India. Gokhale claimed that it struck the biggest camp and that a large number of terrorists were killed. 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. Thanks to The New India Foundation for sending across a beautiful copy of the Midnights Borders. I came with my privileges, also lets not forget prejudices. Christopher Clary: India and Pakistan resort to the diplomacy of violence and flirt with catastrophe, Hafsa Kanjwal: As India beats its war drums over Pulwama, its occupation of Kashmir is being ignored. Contributions for the charitable purposes ofThe Rumpus must be made payable to Fractured Atlas only and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law. In terms of violence, there is also this tendency to photograph and display the bodies of marginalised communities when they experience violence. 4 reviews of Suchitra Vijayan Photography "Huge fan of Suchitra Vijayan Photography! They all have very specific and carefully curated origin/immigrant stories that cleverly exploit the model minority trope. It was just a sad moment, and I couldnt celebrate a book when there was so much human tragedy playing out. 2:16. Vijayan researches meticulously into official documents and conducts a series of interviews in an effort to uncover the murky truths behind the death of Hilal Ahmed Mir, a supposed militant killed by the military in an encounter in the disputed territory of Kashmir, or Felani Khatun, a 15-year-old girl who was shot when trying to cross the barbed wire at the porous India-Bangladesh border. The second season of The Family Man begins with Srikant Tiwari, a former intelligence officer of TASCa fictitious intelligence agency akin to the Research & Analysis Wingworking at an IT company. I test my practice of writing or being a photographer against this rule. He was arrested based on fabricated evidence in the middle of a global pandemic, and he was denied bail and medical help. I wrote a book along with it comes love, scorn, and sometimes even ridicule. In an early chapter of the book, you talk about how new worlds are created by the people at Indias borders. I was also trying to tell these stories from a repertoire of skills I had, and some I acquired. What are those ethical, moral, and political lines? The people in this book are eloquent advocates of their history and their struggles. Perhaps thats their victory. 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. ""The historical unity of the ruling classes is realized in the state." Antonio Gramsci" The Hindu Centre for Politics and Public Policy, Supreme Court forms expert panel to probe any regulatory failure on Adani issue, India makes renewed push for consensus at G20 Foreign Ministers meeting, Hindenburg Research report on Adani Group | Supreme Court verdict on expert committee on March 2, High debt on Vedanta books puts investors on tenterhooks, Employees Provident Fund: How to activate UAN online, 1947: Madras Devadasis (Prevention of Dedication) Act passed, RMA 0-1 FCB, El Clasico highlights: Barcelona leads on aggregate after beating Real Madrid courtesy of a Militao own goal. Perhaps that offers some protection? We see that more clearly when you decide against photographing children at the India-Bangladesh border. I now think twice about calling friends, worried if this might put them at risk. It is always Bollywood, the ascent of Priyanka Chopra, or the diasporic loneliness. Nine years ago, she began documenting stories from her travels along the borders of India. Feminism In India is an award-winning digital intersectional feminist media organisation to learn, educate and develop a feminist sensibility among the youth. Suchitra Vijayan. We thank her for her time, patience, and illuminating insights into her work. Why do you think India has gotten away with this so far? 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. Part-time Faculty suchitra@thepolisproject.com. If she wasnt real she would be a marriage between a meme and parody. What do these events have in common? Suchitra Vijayan is a barrister-at-law, writer and researcher. 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. One feedback I often got was that I had to put more of myself in this book. 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. Rumpus: Why do you think the ever-growing canon of Indian American literature has barely tried to engage with these conversations through their stories? It has taken me over a decade to get here. No one is a stakeholder herethese are people, humans, citizens, who have been deprived of what the Ambedkarite constitution promised them. In 2020, Suchitra took part in the fourth season of the Tamil reality television show, Bigg Boss Tamil hosted by Kamal Haasan. 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. 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. Its been a little over a week since the book came out, and every day this week, I have woken up to emails, messages, and DMs from readers. I can see small cracks beginning to appear. History and memory is localwhich means its almost impossible to write about India. In her new book Whose Stories Are Told In Indian History? I felt the same way when I would prepare legal petitions for my clients. Suchitra Vijayan is a barrister at law and the author of Midnight's Borders: A People's History of Modern India. Not everyone rejoiced in these new freedoms. 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. This is a profoundly alienating place for anyone without the networks of privilege and resources. As a trained barrister, I used to believe in the concept of justicebut now I simply call this freedom and dignity. I left my 18-month-old daughter to travel and finish this book. 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. Suchitras account of her journeys across the undefinable and ever-shifting borders between India and its neighbours is gripping, frightening, faithful and beautiful. Suchitra Vijayan. To repurpose an old sayingall infamy is now good virality. My friend Ritesh Uttamchandani said this once, the lens that elusive distance between the photographer and the photographed is often impossible to bridge. MacAdam reviews Suchitra Vijayan's book Midnight's Borders: A People's History of Modern India Read More. The travel, the people they encounter, and the political events they record quickly become cameos. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle. Finally, Indias current transformation, the aggressive posturing of an aspiring ethno-nationalist state, will have dire consequences for the people and the region. FII Media Private Limited | All rights reserved, "Imagine how it would be for someone coming from a Dalit/Bahujan, Muslim, Adivasi, working class background, who wants to come into thisit is especially difficult if youre a woman coming from these backgrounds. 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. The first true peoples history of modern India, told through a seven-year, 9,000-mile journey along its many contested borders. Her work looks at theories of violence, war, and human nature. 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? Excellent interview, brave insights and critical reflections! 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. Vijayan reserves her own impressions for later, and allows us to know these people intimately. This idea of responsibility gets obfuscated in many ways. She has also been appreciated for her honest and positive-humour-filled judging at reality shows like Vijay TV's Airtel Super Singer, Sun TV's Sun Singer, Asianet's Music India, and Bol Baby Bol on Gemini TV and Surya TV. 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. The Indian government bears some responsibility for this: Amid this brinkmanship between the two nuclear powers, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not address the nation directly. 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. 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. These may not be perfect worlds or even equal worlds, but they strive to be. This language drums the idea of the fundamental importance of justice, and such language is inalienable: it can easily be defined and empathetically understood. This contributed to the long-running, brutal silencing of Kashmiris and their struggle for self-determination. Rumpus: What do you think is the value of well-crafted literary nonfiction in sustaining conversations about equality and justice? Now imagine how it would be for someone from a Dalit/Bahujan, Muslim, Adivasi, or working community to try to make inroads. What connects these messages is deep empathy and a willingness to engage with the books stories, ideas, and arguments. So I try to learn and listen, and again, as I say in this book, "It is not my goal to 'bear witness' or 'give voice to the voiceless'. 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. How do you think this shapes climate justice? Vijayan: Chopra and others like her are a reflection of how popular culture and virality inform discourse and shape it. Nine years ago, she began documenting stories from her travels along the borders of India. Also read: The History Of The Colonial State And The Unmaking Of The Tawaif. 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. You will see very little critical commentary or public positions on Hindutva, its corrosive role in India, or how RSS works here in the USfunding and now interfering in US elections. This is the backdrop against which we map how border practices and policies have played out in India. Its feudal, entitled, and cannibalistic. 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. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments. 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. Second, there is a clear distinction between speaking against the powerful and claiming to speak on behalf of the "voiceless". Suchitra was born in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, as the daughter of Ramadurai and Padmaja. At a time when right-wing nationalism is crescendoing in India and across the world, Suchitra Vijayans Midnights Borders raises pertinent questions about the very foundations of Indias nationalism the cartography of South Asian nation-states defined by arbitrary lines drawn hastily by the British colonial administration. 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.

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