Book reviews and author interviews with a Southern focus. Q: You frequently describe certain borders as porous. How do you think this shapes climate justice? The entire episode is emblematic of a broader trend in Indian media. Our investigation into the Indian medias reporting on the Pulwama attack found that many reports were contradictory, biased, incendiary and uncorroborated. She entered the show on day 28 as a new contestant and was evicted on day 49. The stories were a way to understand how people struggled and survived. They all have very specific and carefully curated origin/immigrant stories that cleverly exploit the model minority trope. I spoke with Suchitra by email in July about Midnights Borders, the power of literary nonfiction, new possibilities of Indian American literature, neoliberal politics, and the importance of supporting underrepresented stories. On the C-SPAN Networks: Suchitra Vijayan is a Founder and Executive Director for the Project Polis, The with one video in the C-SPAN Video Library; the first appearance was a . Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. We removed an image just before the printing to make sure the person was protected. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Your email address will not be published. It is meant to manufacture an underclass of rightless subjects. Midnights Borders perhaps also critiques the widely read body of work available as Indian English Writing (IWE), a literary canon that has so far told the story of India but seldom demonstrated social responsibility by acknowledging the atrocities India has committed silently within its borders. A British lawyer, Cyril Radcliffe set foot in India for the first time in July, 1947 to draw the borders and completed the task within seven weeks, engendering communal riots, a heavily militarized border, four wars and seven decades of violence and hatred between the two countries. 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. I kept detailed audio notes that I recorded each night when I traveled. The pandemic showed us that crises and recurrent disasters that annihilate our lives are here to stay. And join us by becoming a monthly or yearly Member. This also decides who gets access, awards and accolades. 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. All rights reserved. We dont document violence against the privileged like we would report violence against those without power. The argument put forward was simple: India, like most countries, had its human rights violations, but these were characterized as the growing pains and maturation of the worlds largest democracy. 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. Our borders had become a spectacle, and we the cheering mob, she says, as she calls for purging hatred for the sake of posterity. She also embodies the upwardly mobile, privileged sections of the diaspora. Q: What was your goal with writing the book in the beginning and how did it change and drive you throughout those 8 years? For far too long, they and their progeny have held power to shape the political understanding of our social worlds. How did you respond to that environment being in an extremely challenging position yourself? Finally, Indias current transformation, the aggressive posturing of an aspiring ethno-nationalist state, will have dire consequences for the people and the region. Those notes were raw and immediate. This media blitzkrieg resulted in the erasure of two important political trends. Suchitra tweets @suchitrav. He drops and picks up his kids from school, pines for his old job and is concerned about the newly-formed government in Pakistanall the while trying to salvage his crumbling marriage. 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. In politics, we will be recognising the principle of one man, one vote, and one vote, one value. Vijayan began her journey in Kolkata. Can you write about loss without living? And, in many cases, they are children of the literary, cultural, or political elite who have long been the beneficiaries of the Indian state. I felt the same way when I would prepare legal petitions for my clients. It is truly the treason of the intellectuals. We could have attributed this to ignorance even a few years back; now its just silence thats deeply complicit in the Hindutva project. Includes previously unreleased investigation under #JackStraw. The government, of course, denies this. He writes about how when the Constitution was adopted, "We are going to enter into a life of contradictions. 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. I cant think in terms of the future being borderless, I can only think in terms of fracturing. There are already about 20 million climate refugees around South Asias borderlands. 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. 582.1K views. [2] She became known as Rj Suchi, with her popular morning show Hello Chennai. 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. Time to let the diplomats do the hard talk. They create cleavages of fear, xenophobia, and insecurity. She was part of a music band at PSG. Suchitra is now a singer-songwriter as well, composing music on her own and in collaboration with Singer Ranjith. We lift up new voices alongside those of more established writers readers already know and love. She was part of a music band at PSG. 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. 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. 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. While Border Pillar No 1 becomes a convenient stump for children playing cricket along the land that India shares with Bangladesh, roughly 2000 kilometers away in Punjab a woman farmer watches on as the army builds a bunker on the few acres of land she owns. When fires burn down large swathes of what were peoples homeswhat borders will you impose when climate change will fundamentally remake them? Rumpus: Toni Morrison said that she writes from a place of delight, not disappointment. Its feudal, entitled, and cannibalistic. I particularly loved the fact that all our couple shots were very natural and came out truly . Bigotry is also big business. @suchitrav. No one can write a book alone. 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. L.L.B., Law, The University of Leeds, 2004 M.A., International Relation . 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. Thank you! Suchitra Vijayan is a writer, photographer, lawyer, political essayist, and a lecturer. Why the Modi government lies. Fearful of the future he asked quietly, Where did all this hate come from, where is it going to take us? echoing what many residents had told her. Francesca Recchia, a researcher and writer and former director of the Institute for Afghan Arts and Architecture, is the editor and creative director of The Polis Project.. Suchitra Vijayan is a barrister, researcher and the author of "Midnight's Borders: A People's History of Modern India." She is the executive director of the Polis Project. What it means to photograph, write, report and document is an ongoing process. The public is sold a lie as the attack is framed as a gas leak. Professor Nandita Sharmas work is an excellent way to engage with this history. 1 author picked Midnight's Borders as one of their favorite books, . The Rumpus: It is shocking how unaware the world is about the violence the Indian government has committed since independence on its border citizens. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Who is expendable, and the manufacturing of rightlessness to render people expendable. Not everyone rejoiced in these new freedoms. In Midnight's Borders, barrister, political analyst, and writer Suchitra Vijayan documentsmany such telling accounts of lives both growing and barely getting by alongIndian borderlands. Good, honest and non-polemical writing has always forced us to confront the lies we tell ourselves. 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. 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. 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. The book arrived in the middle of a pandemic and a devastating second wave [of COVID-19] in India. Lets start with a very simple statement that everyone can agree on: the way were living right now cannot continue. Invariably its the writer who is the protagonist. Vijayan is no stranger to stories of violence. A Barrister by training, 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 . Many of the stories didnt make it to the book because it became dangerous to identify people. This idea of responsibility gets obfuscated in many ways. Q: Speaking about the content of the work, by including under-represented perspectives on the frequently debated partition and border laws you present a novel perspective to journalistic canon. As a lawyer, journalist, and human rights activist who has worked in conflict-ridden territories of Kosovo, Egypt, Rwanda, and elsewhere, she has often met people scrambling for bare existence, caught in a no-mans land. Even the diasporic experience is often told through this limited lens, without taking into account how diverse the immigrant experience in this country is. A lot of travel writing is still written by a particular group of people with immense privilege, and they all tend to center themselves. 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. I feel very uncomfortable talking about this, or rather I dont know how to discuss this without centering myself. What is the emotional and artistic cost that one pays as a writer while crafting these narratives? And this is always at the expense of others. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, GQ, The Boston Review, The Hindu, and Foreign Policy, and she has appeared on NBC news. Ali lived right on the edge of the India-Bangladesh border. Vijayan undertakes a seven-year long, 9,000-mile . 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. Instead, she shows the absurdity of the army apparatus that strives to comply with the narrative of patriotism. My friend Ritesh Uttamchandani said this once, the lens that elusive distance between the photographer and the photographed is often impossible to bridge. What do these events have in common? We have already chosen silence and obfuscation even before the pushback has arrived. The post-Cold War and 90s rhetoric of a borderless world that accompanied globalisation also kick-started massive border fencing projects in India. In her new book Copyright 2023. This contributed to the long-running, brutal silencing of Kashmiris and their struggle for self-determination. Vijayan: Its a very generous reading, and thanks for that. Then my agent said, Suchitra, you know, I think youre hiding behind your academic language. Vijayan reserves her own impressions for later, and allows us to know these people intimately. By Suchitra Vijayan, Why should I read it? The original vision of the book also has newspaper cuttings, and found maps. Suchitra Vijayan and Francesca Recchia In this era when Indian armed forces and the police act with absolute impunity, a handful of local news outlets play an essential role in reporting and. This affects who gets to document, and whom. 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. We believe that literature builds communityand if reading The Rumpus makes you feel more connected, please show your support! 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. I can see small cracks beginning to appear. Also, we shouldn't forget that the border making project is central to capitalist and neoliberal logic. While that incident had a profound impact on me, my politics, how I think about violence, its relationship to justice, or the lack of it, this is not the same kind of violence Kashmiris have been subjugated to. Firstpost - All Rights Reserved. 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. You dont need a Leni Riefenstahl today. I set out not to give voice to the voiceless, my aim was to put an ear to the ground and listen. Vijayan shows a keen eye for detail as she presents these diverse lives. 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? Husain Haqqani: Pakistan released the Indian pilot. So now, how do we respond to this? The constant making and remaking of who is a citizen, who is not, is accompanied by a profoundly dehumanising process. The Rumpus is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. [3], She started singing after a few years as RJ. Along the way, we meet the men and women of TASC, dissenting students, ISIS terrorists and Pakistani military officers. You need to write what you seethats why you started this project.. He was arrested based on fabricated evidence in the middle of a global pandemic, and he was denied bail and medical help. Suchitra Vijayan is a barrister at law and the author of Midnight's Borders: A People's History of Modern India. You become responsible for a human being. Midnight's Borders by Suchitra Vijayan falls in both categories. Second, border policies are about "performance and articulations of citizenship". 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? Part-time Faculty suchitra@thepolisproject.com. Yes, men who act as petty sovereigns are everywhere. ( I hate this word, voiceless, by the way). 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. How did you achieve empathy in your writing, without the privileged lens that is common in journalistic canon? Especially when you can be charged with sedition for a tweet or arrested for the crime of committing comedy while being Muslim. 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. 4 reviews of Suchitra Vijayan Photography "Huge fan of Suchitra Vijayan Photography! As a bedouin who grew up listening to beautiful stories from beautiful storytellers around a fire, I was transported by her storytelling. 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. She has a sister named, Sunitha. 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. One of the ways she upholds the humane in this book is through her interaction with the men in the security forces. Follow our team of columnists and reporters who write about the media. Already a subscriber? Vijayan: Chopra and others like her are a reflection of how popular culture and virality inform discourse and shape it. In Afghanistan, Kashmir, and India, from one dangerous conflict zone to another, she spoke with people, ate with them, and listened to their stories. How do you protect this child? Suchitra Vijayan talks to FII about Indian politics, communal violence, marginalisation and her book Midnights Borders: A Peoples History of Modern India. ). Even those among us who will speak of BLM will not openly challenge Hindutva or the RSS. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. 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. 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. 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). Vijayans book begins a much-needed conversation on thinking about freedom beyond the idea of nation and its illusory lines. NYU Gallatin School of Individualized Study. Vijayan creates a constellation of micro-histories of people who have lived through the violence . Also, hope is a discipline. A relatively small group of people runs it. 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? Q: What struck me about your work was its immersive style. They both have pregnant daughters, a fact that becomes significant as the novel progresses. It is always Bollywood, the ascent of Priyanka Chopra, or the diasporic loneliness. They cannot be abusive or personal. Co-founded the Resettlement Legal Aid Project in Cairo, Suchitra is also the founder of the Polis Project, a research and journalism organisation. So lets be very clear that Indias intellectual literary landscape is deeply problematic, feudal, and alienating," says Suchitra Vijayan to FII, Featured Image Source: Suchitra Ramadurai, known by the mononym Suchitra, is an Indian radio jockey, popular playback singer, songwriter, composer, voice artist, dubbing artist and film actress. Another name that came to my mind was 'An Outline of the Republic', only to discover Siddhartha Debs excellent book by the same name. How did writing this book affect you? 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. The photographs add another dimension to the book, and could have been used more. The people in the text fear statelessness, unknown violence, and being forgotten. 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. IWE is a body of work where the voices of Indias marginalized are still kept on the fringes; Midnights Borders is anarrative nonfiction book depicting a world that novels from mainland India have failed to depict. A:I dont think an ethical or moral compass exists nowI dont know if it ever existed. As the author notes, here, beauty and violence coexist, but never as a binary. A. Midnights Borders is fascinating, eloquent in its insights, and unflinching in its depiction of the dark side of nation-building. Do you think the future is borderless? Many TV newsrooms were transformed into caricatures of military command centers, with anchors assessing military technology and strategy (sometimes incorrectly). It took me 8 years to write the book. A memorable, humane museum of forgotten stories that we must all read and remember. M, What experiences and lives unfold in these pages. The former is an essential act of dissent, even resistance, especially in these dark times. Required fields are marked *. In season two, a quick flashback resolves the plotline from the previous season. Second, we can no longer have certain conversationsconversations are now impossible. On Feb. 14, an Indian paramilitary convoy was attacked. Reports also identified different people as the supposed masterminds of the Pulwama attack at various points without clear sourcing. Check posts or bunkers were not part of the landscapes of my home. In addition, she is an award- winning photographer, the founder, and executive director of the Polis Project, a hybrid research and journalism organization. The Pakistan-based militant group Jaish-e-Muhammad soon claimed responsibility. We still argue if something should be a massacre, a pogrom, or a riot. Early on, the idea of bearing witness as a rhetorical tool and as a literary device became deeply problematic. Indias intellectual, journalistic, and literary landscape is profoundly problematic and alienating. 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. As such, very few media establishments in India have been able to stand against the influence of political leaders. Her distinct and bold voice made her very popular with the younger crowd. But Pakistan responded by rejecting these claims and told the Associated Press that the area was mostly deserted wooded area and that there were no casualties or damage on the ground. Were there times when you doubted your own ability to record and document these people's stories? 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. In retaliation, the Indian Air Force carried out an airstrike on an alleged militant training camp in Balakot in Pakistans Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. In the same chapter of the book, Kamal says, "If I am an Indian, then why am I afraid?" There are some notable exceptions, but they are an exception. What I was most concerned about and still am are the people in the book and their safety. A: I lost friends, saw my father go through a transplant, and I gave birth. Rumpus: How hard was it to write nonfiction about such a violent contemporary history? Its about what people like me should do. Q: Since publishing the book last year, what reflections have you hadgiven that its relevance is increasingly ascertained by 2022s interpersonal and geopolitical violence? Subscribe to the Rumpus Book Clubs (poetry, prose, or both) and Letters in the Mail from authors (for adults and kids). Speculation and conjecture were repeated ad infinitum, and several journalists even took to Twitter to encourage the Indian army. Nonfiction, Travel, Fiction Member Since February 2021 edit data Suchitra Vijayan was born and raised in Madras, India. Why is this particular time of the day intrinsic to the book? They continue to. The book was called ``a genre- bending book of nonfictionmade of stories, encounters, vignettes, and photographsabout home, belonging, and displacement.`` Her essays, photographs, and interviews have appeared in The Washington Post, GQ, The Nation, The Boston Review, Foreign Policy, Lit Hub, Rumpus, Electric literature, NPR, NBC, and BBC. 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. [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]. You can speak of confidence and body positivity and defend selling skin-lightening creams.