But the inclination to still treat India as a democracy remains. Suchitra Vijayan was born and raised in Madras, India. Its impossible for a writer not to be affected by their personal life. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, GQ, The Boston Review, The Hindu, and Foreign Policy, and she has appeared on NBC news. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. In this podcast, Vijayan discusses with host Alex Woodson her 9,000-mile journey through India's borderlands, which formed the basis of the book, and she discusses the violent and continuing history of the 1947 partition, the stark differences and similarities along South Asia's various borders, and what "citizenship" mean in India in 2021 and You can find them on, The #GBVinMedia Campaign: Media Reportage Of Gender-Based Violence, #IndianWomenInHistory: Remembering The Untold Legacies of Indian Women, How To Write About Abortion: A Rights-Based Approach, The Crowdsourced List Of Social Justice Collectives Across Indian Campuses. But your book lays bare how differently India's borders are guarded from southern Bengal to the Line of Control. Commentary Politics. The two press briefings by the foreign secretary and Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson entertained no questions. You become responsible for a human being.
Suchitra Vijayan (Author of Midnight's Borders) - Goodreads Because you are constantly thinking about the ethical universe you are bringing this child into What values do you teach this child?
These are edited excerpts from the interview: 'Midnight' seems to be a metaphor for multiple things both freeing and frightening.
In Midnight's Borders, Suchitra Vijayan meditates on belongingness Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. I had to write and rewrite this book so many times. 582.1K views. 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. ", "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.". How do you think the media ought to responsibly report on peoples lives and experiences? The Pakistan-based militant group Jaish-e-Muhammad soon claimed responsibility.
These are stories of massive human rights violations committed by the Indian state in the countrys margins. Categories. 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? They dont. This also decides who gets access, awards and accolades. As such, very few media establishments in India have been able to stand against the influence of political leaders. 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. I have no control over what comes next. 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. Photograph of Suchitra Vijayan courtesy of Suchitra Vijayan. We believe that literature builds communityand if reading The Rumpus makes you feel more connected, please show your support! The images, however, are not all bereft of hope, as children from both India and Bangladesh use a border pillar as a cricket stump, while men on opposing sides of the war on terror in Afghanistan gather around in a cold evening, smoking and sharing stories. That changes how you write and photograph a place. Its not sustainable, it fractures who we are, chips away and erodes what it fundamentally means to be human. 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. 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. How "The Family Man" champions the carceral security state. Already a subscriber? So the question is not: will the future be borderless? The people in this book are eloquent advocates of their history and their struggles. " India's intellectual, journalistic, and literary landscape is profoundly problematic and alienating. In season two, a quick flashback resolves the plotline from the previous season. These are no longer contradictory; instead, even criticism can be converted to views. Our borders had become a spectacle, and we the cheering mob, she says, as she calls for purging hatred for the sake of posterity. 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. 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. 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. Without any official statement on the number of casualties by the Indian government, the Indian news media reported that 300 terrorists were killed, citing government sources. Sayantika Mandal is an Indian writer. MacAdam reviews Suchitra Vijayan's book Midnight's Borders: A People's History of Modern India Read More. The show deals with interesting international happenings. Vijayan: Most Indian American writers, especially many of them who occupy the broad spectrum of literary to punditry, come from immense privilege of caste and class. Fear seems to be a constant motif in the book we see versions and types of it. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, GQ, The Boston Review, The Hindu, and Foreign Policy, and she has appeared on NBC news. Vijayan: There is an elusive distance between the photographer and the photographed that cant be bridged.
Travel to States like Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland in the Northeast which share borders with China and Myanmar required Inner Line Permits, BSF soldiers followed her everywhere on the West Bengal/ Bangladesh border, and in Kashmir she was summoned to meet the local inspector at Uri. India has consistently warred against its own citizens; this book is about some of these wars. Suchitra Vijayans new book, Midnights Borders: A Peoples 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. The Rumpus is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. They both have pregnant daughters, a fact that becomes significant as the novel progresses. March 06, 2021 04:50 pm | Updated March 07, 2021 08:05 am IST. The government, of course, denies this. I have never lived under military occupation, curfew, or a looming threat of violence. But its also important to constantly take account of who is writing about this India to an Indian and global audience. 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. So I dont know if it was empathy so much as just building a relationship with people. On Feb. 14, an Indian paramilitary convoy was attacked. 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). Nonfiction, Travel, Fiction Member Since February 2021 edit data Suchitra Vijayan was born and raised in Madras, India. Speculation and conjecture were repeated ad infinitum, and several journalists even took to Twitter to encourage the Indian army. She also embodies the upwardly mobile, privileged sections of the diaspora. If she wasnt real she would be a marriage between a meme and parody. Along the way, we meet the men and women of TASC, dissenting students, ISIS terrorists and Pakistani military officers. Her writing has appeared in The Citron Review, Dukool Magazine, Cerebration, Feminism in India, Times of India (Spellbound edition), and others. But who carries the responsibility of that fear? Rumpus: Toni Morrison said that she writes from a place of delight, not disappointment. A t a time when right-wing nationalism is crescendoing in India and across the world, Suchitra Vijayan's Midnight's Borders raises pertinent questions about the very foundations of India's nationalism the cartography of South Asian nation-states defined by arbitrary lines drawn hastily by the British colonial administration. 6,253 Followers, 902 Following, 1,165 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from Suchitra Vijayan (@suchitravijayan) I'mdyslexic, but have visual and episodic memory, which means I dream and relive moments. She lives in New York. Can you write about loss without living? Suchitra Vijayan (@suchitrav) / Twitter Follow Suchitra Vijayan @suchitrav Author: Midnight's Borders: A People's History of Modern India. Rumpus: Can we please talk about Priyanka Chopra, and how her rise is seen as a marker of brown achievement? Apart from his long-suffering wife, no one else in the family knows that he is a spy. In an early chapter of the book, you talk about how new worlds are created by the people at Indias borders.
Suchitra - Wikipedia The pandemic showed us that crises and recurrent disasters that annihilate our lives are here to stay. This is a profoundly alienating place for anyone without the networks of privilege and resources. 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.
There are some brilliant writers writing on these issuesthe problem is always that these voices dont make it to the mainstream. My friend Ritesh Uttamchandani said this once, the lens that elusive distance between the photographer and the photographed is often impossible to bridge. The former is an essential act of dissent, even resistance, especially in these dark times. Her YouTube channel 'Suchislife' has all her updated work. Then my agent said, Suchitra, you know, I think youre hiding behind your academic language. Sign in. 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'. But it needs to do more for peace. Excellent interview, brave insights and critical reflections! As I travelled, I was very aware of these inherent power differences. Find him on Twitter at @AruniKashyap. And, in many cases, they are children of the literary, cultural, or political elite who have long been the beneficiaries of the Indian state. In Afghanistan, Kashmir, and India, from one dangerous conflict zone to another, she spoke with people, ate with them, and listened to their stories. Suchitra Vijayan is an American writer, essayist, activist, and photographer working across oral history, state violence, and visual storytelling. Be it the teenager who is offered guns, money, and M&M candies to fight the Taliban in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, or Ali, who seeks solace in darkness as the floodlights installed on his plot of land along the India-Bangladesh border leaves him traumatized, or the nonagenarian Johinder Singh Suj from Sindh (a province in present-day Pakistan), who still cherishes his school geography textbook that shows a map of undivided British India the people are captured with deep empathy and come alive in her narration with the adept use of dialogue. As a spy working for TASC, Srikant Tiwari, played by Manoj Bajpayee, has to juggle being an underpaid government employee as well as an absent husband and a perpetually late and distracted father. They create cleavages of fear, xenophobia, and insecurity. The latter is an act of violence against people whose voice you are appropriating. When I finished writing, I had become much richer in many waysnot in a material waybut through a community. Also, hope is a discipline. The travel, the people they encounter, and the political events they record quickly become cameos. Indias intellectual, journalistic, and literary landscape is profoundly problematic and alienating.
Looking Beyond the Lines: Suchitra Vijayan's "Midnight's Borders" Over the past 15 years, small democratisation through social media has enabled challenging these practices. [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]. When your investigations in Kashmir came to an end, what changes did you observe in your 'grammar of dissent'? She is the founder and executive director of The Polis Project, and the author of Midnights Borders: A Peoples History of Modern India, recently published by Context, Westland. Also read: Whose Stories Are Told In Indian History? Pushback is such a benign word, isnt it? Is that a probable solution? Vijayan: As we have this conversation, Dr. Stan Swamy, the eighty-four-year-old Jesuit priest, Indias oldest political prisoner, was murdered by the Indian state with the complicity of the judiciary.
Suchitra Vijayan on Twitter: ""The historical unity of the ruling 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. 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. 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. Its an immense privilege to be able to write and be published. Midnight's Borders by Suchitra Vijayan falls in both categories. Chopra has long been neoliberalisms reluctant feminist, hawking giving a voice and sisterhood while silencing those who question her. You dont need a Leni Riefenstahl today. In 1971, East Pakistan seceded and became Bangladesh. But for me hope is radical; hope is the last bastion of our defense. 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. This was something I had to resist from the get-go. 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. You can speak of confidence and body positivity and defend selling skin-lightening creams. 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. A poll asked if its OK to be white. Heres why the phrase is loaded. For far too long, they and their progeny have held power to shape the political understanding of our social worlds. When I left him (the first time), I had a one-year-old daughter. We see that more clearly when you decide against photographing children at the India-Bangladesh border. The book was called ``a genre-bending book of nonfictionmade 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. Check posts or bunkers were not part of the landscapes of my home. They all have very specific and carefully curated origin/immigrant stories that cleverly exploit the model minority trope. What moral and political stands we should take in the face of ongoing oppression.
Suchitra Acharjee - Graduate Assistant - The University of Texas Rio Love, passion, anger, the desire to make a point about something. Stallings, Rumpus Original Fiction: The Litany of Invisible Things. Vasundhara Sirnate Drennan is director of research at the Polis Project. 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. Suchitra Vijayan complicates and expands our understanding of the South Asian American experience, urging readers to consider stories that cast dark eyes at India, a strategic ally of many Western nations. Vasundhara Sirnate Drennan is director of research at the Polis Project. This is a profoundly alienating place for anyone without the networks of privilege and resources. Suchitra Vijayan is a barrister-at-law, writer and researcher. Vijayan is no stranger to stories of violence. Professor Nandita Sharmas work is an excellent way to engage with this history. In politics we will have equality, and in social and economic life, we will have inequality. Could you comment on how much our present border security policies have changed in the last few years? The first true peoples history of modern India, told through a seven-year, 9,000-mile journey along its many contested borders. NYU Gallatin School of Individualized Study. Part of this process is a need to turn the lens back at the powerful. How did you respond to that environment being in an extremely challenging position yourself? Firstly, when we talk about violence, we often talk about it only as communal violence, as if both communities have equal strength and power. Co-founded the Resettlement Legal Aid Project in Cairo, Suchitra is also the founder of the Polis Project, a research and journalism organisation. We need to think about border practices, policing, and national security policies within the larger historical and political contexts. @suchitrav. Suchitra Vijayan is a barrister at law and the author of Midnight's Borders: A People's History of Modern India. 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. Nine years ago, she began documenting stories from her travels along the borders of India. I feel very uncomfortable talking about this, or rather I dont know how to discuss this without centering myself. is a barrister-at-law, writer and researcher. 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. I think this book will change the global conversation about India and shape what gets written in the future about India. This is a tightrope that you walk so well. What is the function of seeing and documenting? Suchitra Vijayan. This income helps us keep the magazine alive. 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. 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. Sometimes they are no more, but your storytelling is so invigorating that the reader doesnt forget them. Suchitra Vijayan talks to FII about Indian politics, communal violence, marginalisation and her book Midnights Borders: A Peoples History of Modern India. Vijayan has travelled 9,000 miles over seven 7 across India's borderline remote areas and has collected many bone-chilling, painful, myth-breaking stories of the people caught in between inter-state disputes because of the lines created by colonial powers who ruled over us for . Time to let the diplomats do the hard talk.
Midnight's Borders: A People's History of Modern India: Vijayan How did you achieve empathy in your writing, without the privileged lens that is common in journalistic canon?