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There are enough stories of people parachuting into communities to do human interest stories. Heartbreaking, and still, something we must all notice and understand. M, Unique and ambitious, Vijayans project gains urgency and significance from our moment of resurgent nationalisms, when borders are being aggressively reasserted, in India and across the globe. G, An intervention like no other when it comes to thinking through not just the history of India but for reflections on borders, migration, the elusory nature of nations. by Suchitra Vijayan Hardcover 1,759.00 2,023.00 You Save: 264.00 (13%) Usually dispatched in 1 to 3 weeks. 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. Indian Foreign Secretary V.K. The acts of writing, documenting, photographing, and archiving carry privileges of caste and class. The publishing landscape, including Indian publishing, is deeply flawedit is upper class, upper caste, and deeply alienating for anyone who doesnt come from already established and existing networks of privilege. A consistent ethical framework within the media hasnt existed for a long time. Why dont people see the ground shifting beneath their feet? Vijayan: Let me start heregood writing is powerful and political. 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. Photograph of Suchitra Vijayan courtesy of Suchitra Vijayan. A:I dont think an ethical or moral compass exists nowI dont know if it ever existed. As a graduate student at Yale, she researched and documented stories along the Af-Pak border and was embedded with the US forces in Afghanistan. This media blitzkrieg resulted in the erasure of two important political trends. Sometimes they are no more, but your storytelling is so invigorating that the reader doesnt forget them. Professor Nandita Sharmas work is an excellent way to engage with this history. I dont want to make this about me. In recent years, the narrative of hate has escalated with the reelection of the right-wing Narendra Modi government in 2019. 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. Founder & ExecDirector: @project_polis @watchthestate ; Teach @nyugallatin Writer Manhattan, NY linktr.ee/suchitravijayan Born April 14 Joined May 2008 8,013 Following 80.8K Followers Tweets & replies The book arrived in the middle of a pandemic and a devastating second wave [of COVID-19] in India. Thats part of the political imagination that I believe we need for political movements or any sustained acts of resistance. Like you train for a marathon, you train to be hopeful everyday. The word terrorism, for instance, is used almost exclusively to refer to a particular communitybut fails to refer to state-enabled terror or the terror deployed by majority communities. Early on, I was very careful to acknowledge this. 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. 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. Vijayan: I would say I am hopeful. This is the age of erosion of citizenship rights, a kind of ongoing attrition against human rights, civil liberties, and in the case of India, an accelerated dilution of fundamental rights. The public is sold a lie as the attack is framed as a gas leak. This is the backdrop against which we map how border practices and policies have played out in India. 4 reviews of Suchitra Vijayan Photography "Huge fan of Suchitra Vijayan Photography! This means that, for the longest time, the depiction of violence and marginalised communities has been problematic. 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. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, GQ, The Boston Review, The Hindu, and Foreign Policy, and she has appeared on NBC news. 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. It took a long time to get the voice right. How did you achieve empathy in your writing, without the privileged lens that is common in journalistic canon? There are instances when you and some voices in the narrative question their documentation practice. Also, we shouldn't forget that the border making project is central to capitalist and neoliberal logic. Suchitra Vijayan. 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. Vijayan undertakes a seven-year long, 9,000-mile journey along the borders of India, and interviews people living in these liminal spaces. We cant continue to see this in neo-liberal terms like stakeholder. I think the usage of this kind of language is ineffectual; its emptied of imagination. India has consistently warred against its own citizens; this book is about some of these wars. Could you comment on how much our present border security policies have changed in the last few years? Rumpus: Toni Morrison said that she writes from a place of delight, not disappointment. We live in a profoundly unequal society, where every day brings news of new devastation. How do you think this shapes climate justice? If it does, I have failed. I felt the same way when I would prepare legal petitions for my clients. Suchitra Vijayan is a barrister-at-law, writer and researcher. The events of 9/11 had profound effects on how border security projects and politics played out. 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. This was something I had to resist from the get-go. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. From the epoch of Empire to the nation-state, border making is fundamentally a political project that creates, sustains, and reinforces inequality. 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. Where does that leave us? Always. 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 Indian State and the people of this Republic. More importantly, as Babasaheb would argue, the political revolution was never accompanied by a social revolution. Rumpus: Were you trying to write a hybrid-genre book? 42, Moss Rose Heights, M.M Ali road, WASA Circle, Lalkhan Bazar, Chittogong 4000. 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. Firstpost - All Rights Reserved. is a barrister-at-law, writer and researcher. Those notes were raw and immediate. Conversations With Writers Braver Than Me, Midnight's Borders: A People's History of Modern India, FUNNY WOMEN: Excerpts from George Eliots, Rumpus Original Poetry: Two Poems by John A. Nieves, RUMPUS POETRY BOOK CLUB EXCERPT: WHY I WRITE LOVE POETRY IN A BURNING WORLD by Katie Farris, The Freedom of Form & Re-Entering Myths: An interview with A.E. Again, in the India-China border, she finds a young army officer closely referring to a book that contradicts the official version of the Indo-China war of 1962, and concludes that perhaps, he recognizes that most of soldiering involved cynical subordination to ideas that no longer made sense.. I had a very stable home to come back to. He writes TPS reports for an overbearing boss who calls him the minimum guy. He has replaced eating vada pav at ungodly hours on the streets with overpriced salads. Suchitra Vijayan undertook a 9000 mile journey over seven years to India's borderlands to write Midnight's Borders: A People's History of Modern India. [3], She started singing after a few years as RJ. India shares borders with a host of . In the same chapter of the book, Kamal says, "If I am an Indian, then why am I afraid?" For far too long, they and their progeny have held power to shape the political understanding of our social worlds. 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. She is actively involved in circulating urgent and underrepresented news from the world through her online platform. So now, how do we respond to this? Lets start with a very simple statement that everyone can agree on: the way were living right now cannot continue. Her writing and award-winning photography culminated in Midnights Borders: A Peoples History of Modern India, which was recently shortlisted for the Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF book prize. 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. 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. 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. She never did like my then-husband, which makes her a better judge of character than I was. I still do. Includes previously unreleased investigation under #JackStraw. Vijayans lens not only captures the people but also the past through objects, such as the picture of Kotwali Gate, the remains of a medieval fort that serves as a border checkpoint rife with weeds and trees growing on it, symbolic of a state bent on rewriting history rather than preserving it. Last edited on 23 February 2023, at 09:35, Filmfare Award for Best Female Playback Singer Telugu, 2nd South Indian International Movie Awards, "Suchitra going through certain emotional condition: Husband Karthik on her tweets", "Will Trisha sound like Trisha in Mankatha? To repurpose an old sayingall infamy is now good virality. I find that profoundly inspiring. 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. Instead, we need to ask what fate awaits us. Bhawan Singh, who photographed the Nellie massacre, said he had never seen anything like it. Panitars division is as cruel as it is arbitrary: here, the houses on either side of one dusty lane occupy two neighbouring countries. A place to read, on the Internet. 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. Why do you think India has gotten away with this so far? I feel very uncomfortable talking about this, or rather I dont know how to discuss this without centering myself. 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. Suchitra tweets @suchitrav. She digs deep into colonial history to show how years of violence and consequential suffering has shaped these lives across generations. 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. Sign in. Chopra is popular because she satisfies a certain need for validationthe trope of brown representation where the mere act of being represented is seen as a singular virtue worth applauding. Abrogation Of Article 370 Jammu And Kashmir Statehood, BSF foils another Pakistan plot, shoots down drone in Punjab's Amritsar, Light on weight, heavy on damage: India will be able to hit deep inside Pakistan with THIS ultralightweight howitzer, Put issues related to border in 'proper place', work for its early normalisation: Chinese FM Qin to Jaishankar, In Midnight's Borders, Suchitra Vijayan meditates on belongingness, freedom and political implications of territorial demarcations. Its about what people like me should do. We know that the purpose of borders has kept changing for nations. In an interview with Firstpost,Vijayan talks about her book, the militarisation of borders, ethno-nationalism, and the politics of documentation. These may not be perfect worlds or even equal worlds, but they strive to be. 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. Co-founded the Resettlement Legal Aid Project in Cairo, Suchitra is also the founder of the Polis Project, a research and journalism organisation. 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. In politics, we will be recognising the principle of one man, one vote, and one vote, one value. That was my starting point. In retaliation, the Indian Air Force carried out an airstrike on an alleged militant training camp in Balakot in Pakistans Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. At worst, its navel gazing peppered with white guilt, but always politically vacuous. She has sung in multiple languages including Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Telugu. 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. No one would put themselves through the agony and pain of writing. When I left him (the first time), I had a one-year-old daughter. I can see how religious Hindu fanaticism has started to spread its tentacles in both the Democratic and the Republican parties, and this is primarily because of an absence of balanced stories about India. Who is expendable, and the manufacturing of rightlessness to render people expendable. Suchitra Ramadurai, known by the mononym Suchitra, is an Indian radio jockey, popular playback singer, songwriter, composer, voice artist, dubbing artist and film actress. Because you are constantly thinking about the ethical universe you are bringing this child into What values do you teach this child? The Rumpus: It is shocking how unaware the world is about the violence the Indian government has committed since independence on its border citizens. The taxi driver who describes the Egyptian revolution in five minutes to an American columnist (who speaks no Arabic) is sadly where the genre is today. Second, border policies are about "performance and articulations of citizenship". 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.