Vijayan: A writers responsibility above all is to speak the truth and make sense of our social worlds. But also, to be clear in terms of what I wanted to accomplish: as I say in the book, I wasnt bearing witness or giving voice to the voicelessthe people in this book are eloquent and political voices of their lives and realities. 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. This media blitzkrieg resulted in the erasure of two important political trends. 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. 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. Stallings, Rumpus Original Fiction: The Litany of Invisible Things. 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. This was something I had to resist from the get-go. If you want to support the work that goes behind publishing high-quality feminist media content, please consider becoming a FII member. Rumpus: I believe your book contributes to an important conversation about India we must have right now in the United States, for its own sake. I almost never forget, I remember entire episodes or events since I was six years old. 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. I believe it can teach us to ask these questions again. 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. She lucidly explains the complicated history of the McMahon Line, how the India-China border is the result of a fabrication perpetuated by the British colonial administration. Even those who now write about Modis India, will never write about Brahmanism or be critical of how caste works in the diaspora. Often, we settle comfortably into describing things as communal riots instead of saying that it was a state-abetted violence, a pogrom, or a brutal massacre. [1] Career [ edit] Its a hard book to name, and I kept going back and forth. The two press briefings by the foreign secretary and Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson entertained no questions. Required fields are marked *. All too often, the Indian media portrays Kashmiris as terrorists or human shields, not as a community seeking self-determination. Also, hope is a discipline. I had to write and rewrite this book so many times. Rumpus: The book derives its emotional strength and narrative energy from the stories of people you encounter at the borders. You need a community of people to support you. This article was published more than4 years ago. So lets be very clear that Indias intellectual literary landscape is deeply problematic, feudal, and alienating," says Suchitra Vijayan to FII, Featured Image Source: So now, how do we respond to this? Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments. 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. It took me 8 years to write the book. Indias intellectual, journalistic, and literary landscape is profoundly problematic and alienating. Who is expendable, and the manufacturing of rightlessness to render people expendable. She lives in New York. This is where I believe literary nonfiction becomes a powerful tool. None of this helps in telling richer, more textured stories. Suchitra Vijayan (@suchitrav) / Twitter Follow Suchitra Vijayan @suchitrav Author: Midnight's Borders: A People's History of Modern India. 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'. Speculation and conjecture were repeated ad infinitum, and several journalists even took to Twitter to encourage the Indian army. Similarly, motherhood changed me; it radicalised me. Why do you think India has gotten away with this so far? But who gets to speak for so many of us? 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 . Like most women, I learnt to navigate this toxic misogyny, the threat of sexual violence, and patriarchy by merely existing as a dark-skinned woman in this country. We see that more clearly when you decide against photographing children at the India-Bangladesh border. Second, Indias transformation into a nuclear state and the Kargil War is another critical moment of change. Our investigation into the Indian medias reporting on the Pulwama attack found that many reports were contradictory, biased, incendiary and uncorroborated. So we might never know the true extent of this loss. Her YouTube channel 'Suchislife' has all her updated work. Firstly, when we talk about violence, we often talk about it only as communal violence, as if both communities have equal strength and power. I have no formal training as a writer or a photographer, I taught myself and learnt by doing, failing and creating my own grammar. Even those among us who will speak of BLM will not openly challenge Hindutva or the RSS. 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. 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. It is necessary to speak truth to power through our art. I fear we are losing that cosmopolitanism of small places. 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. 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. 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. These are stories of massive human rights violations committed by the Indian state in the countrys margins. 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). It's a disorienting time when your library or what books you read can become evidence of sedition . She's a good friend and kindly agreed to take our City Hall wedding photos. Some even dressed for the occasion in combat gear. Vijayan reserves her own impressions for later, and allows us to know these people intimately. But its also important to constantly take account of who is writing about this India to an Indian and global audience. 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. We are consuming subjects in a surveillance economy, not citizens. After Pulwama, the Indian media proves it is the BJPs propaganda machine, Sign up for a weekly roundup of thought-provoking ideas and debates, Fox News bosses scolded reporters who challenged false election claims, To fight defamation suit, Fox News cites election conspiracy theories. No one is a stakeholder herethese are people, humans, citizens, who have been deprived of what the Ambedkarite constitution promised them. This contributed to the long-running, brutal silencing of Kashmiris and their struggle for self-determination. Thank you! Atmany points in Midnight's Borders, we see several men in positions of power view the women, who cross over from the 'other' side, as violable. We dont document violence against the privileged like we would report violence against those without power. She never did like my then-husband, which makes her a better judge of character than I was. [3], She started singing after a few years as RJ. Suchitra Vijayan is a barrister at law and the author of Midnight's Borders: A People's History of Modern India. Indias intellectual, journalistic, and literary landscape is profoundly problematic and alienating. In our social and economic life, we shall, by reason of our social and economic structure, continue to deny the principle of one man one value. 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. Early on, the idea of bearing witness as a rhetorical tool and as a literary device became deeply problematic. I wrote the book, but those who have lived through this hell continue to live and navigate this hell. 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 people in this book are eloquent advocates of their history and their struggles. This income helps us keep the magazine alive. The mortality of someone you love affects how you write. 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. They are arriving from various cities and people I have never met. This means that, for the longest time, the depiction of violence and marginalised communities has been problematic. I now think twice about calling friends, worried if this might put them at risk. How did you respond to that environment being in an extremely challenging position yourself? 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. I havent spoken or celebrated with my friends in Kashmir or Assam. For instance, if you went to school with, say, Indias most powerful publisher, or your dad plays golf or socialised at the Gymkhana with the politically powerful and the culturally influential, then that system is built to get you the resources. Rumpus: What do you think is the value of well-crafted literary nonfiction in sustaining conversations about equality and justice? 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? How did you achieve empathy in your writing, without the privileged lens that is common in journalistic canon? A: I lost friends, saw my father go through a transplant, and I gave birth. Midnights Borders is part investigation, part meditation on the lines drawn on land or water that separate India from its neighbours. In season two, a quick flashback resolves the plotline from the previous season. Suchitra Vijayan was born and raised in Madras, India. 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. And this is always at the expense of others. They are also essentially bureaucratic, judicial, and procedural acts of terror. She writes about war, conflict . 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. The book arrived in the middle of a pandemic and a devastating second wave [of COVID-19] in India. No one can write a book alone. Suchitras account of her journeys across the undefinable and ever-shifting borders between India and its neighbours is gripping, frightening, faithful and beautiful. 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. Commentary Politics. The Pakistan-based militant group Jaish-e-Muhammad soon claimed responsibility. Ten years later, you were in Kashmir, where you 'hoped to find answers' by talking to a family that had lost a son. And that violence is often abetted by the state and goes unpunished. What do you think the future holds? 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. By Suchitra Vijayan, Why should I read it? There is something deeply flawed in the way we live today. Finally, Indias current transformation, the aggressive posturing of an aspiring ethno-nationalist state, will have dire consequences for the people and the region. No one would put themselves through the agony and pain of writing. To repurpose an old sayingall infamy is now good virality. Co-founded the Resettlement Legal Aid Project in Cairo, Suchitra is also the founder of the Polis Project, a research and journalism organisation. We thank her for her time, patience, and illuminating insights into her work. The writing grew around the images and the visual memory of the encounters. 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. What matters is that the book exists. Do you think the future is borderless? We play an ever more important role in these times when there is a fascist authoritarian regime in India and a deeply racist police state in the US. The act of recording and documenting cannot be divorced from the inherent question of power. I particularly loved the fact that all our couple shots were very natural and came out truly . Vijayan began her journey in Kolkata. Qin took charge as Chinese foreign minister in December, succeeding Wang Yi. From the epoch of Empire to the nation-state, border making is fundamentally a political project that creates, sustains, and reinforces inequality. Suchitra is a BSc graduate from Mar Ivanios College (Trivandrum). According to a new World Health Organization report, we lost as many as 4.7 million people in India. Nine years ago, she began documenting stories from her travels along the borders of India. She is actively involved in circulating urgent and underrepresented news from the world through her online platform. 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. Also read: Book Review: Looking Through Dalit Sahitya And Ambedkar. Updated Date: It is here that even the most civilised amongst us begin to make excuses for repression, brutality, and violence. Many TV newsrooms were transformed into caricatures of military command centers, with anchors assessing military technology and strategy (sometimes incorrectly). In 2020, Suchitra took part in the fourth season of the Tamil reality television show, Bigg Boss Tamil hosted by Kamal Haasan. 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 The show deals with interesting international happenings. 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. Pushback is such a benign word, isnt it? We removed an image just before the printing to make sure the person was protected. 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. Vijayan: Its a very generous reading, and thanks for that.
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