Could you comment on how much our present border security policies have changed in the last few years? Its a hard book to name, and I kept going back and forth. India shares borders with a host of . 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. She responded to an ad for the post of an RJ in Radio Mirchi. 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. 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. NYU Gallatin School of Individualized Study. They cannot be abusive or personal. We live in a surveillance economy where we are constantly just bearing witness we are record keepers, unwitting spies, and voyeurs. I dont think theres just one emotion that drives a writer to finish writing. She also embodies the upwardly mobile, privileged sections of the diaspora. Also read: Examining My Caste And Its History Is Eye-Opening: A Personal Essay On Casteism And Ancestry. ). We dont document violence against the privileged like we would report violence against those without power. 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. Also, a book is an act of community; it has many midwives. Author In Focus, Celebration, The Literary Journal. suchitrav. Its feudal, entitled, and cannibalistic. 2:16. Pushback is such a benign word, isnt it? Not everyone lived to see its promises. We lift up new voices alongside those of more established writers readers already know and love. You can find them onYouTube&Linkedin,and can also check out their websitehere. Tamil Movie Articles Trisha | Vinnaithaandi Varuvaaya | Tamannah | Anniyan | Aishwarya Rai", "Bigg Boss Awards for each contestant in Bigg Boss Tamil 4", Suchitra: I can sound sweet, sexy, bold or sensual, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Suchitra&oldid=1141096550, Crossover episode with Bigg Boss Tamil; Fearless Award, Nominated: Filmfare Award for Best Female Playback Singer Telugu for the song 'Nijamena' from, Nominated: SIIMA Award for Best Female Playback Singer|Best Female Playback Singer for the song 'Sir Osthara' from, This page was last edited on 23 February 2023, at 09:35. Gokhale claimed that it struck the biggest camp and that a large number of terrorists were killed. Suchitra Ramadurai, known by the mononym Suchitra, is an Indian radio jockey, popular playback singer, songwriter, composer, voice artist, dubbing artist and film actress. 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. 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. Early on, the idea of bearing witness as a rhetorical tool and as a literary device became deeply problematic. She entered the show on day 28 as a new contestant and was evicted on day 49. As such, very few media establishments in India have been able to stand against the influence of political leaders. Aruni Kashyap writes in English, and his native language Assamese. How do you think the media ought to responsibly report on peoples lives and experiences? 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 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. Our investigation into the Indian medias reporting on the Pulwama attack found that many reports were contradictory, biased, incendiary and uncorroborated. The events of 9/11 had profound effects on how border security projects and politics played out. These are edited excerpts from the interview: 'Midnight' seems to be a metaphor for multiple things both freeing and frightening. She's a good friend and kindly agreed to take our City Hall wedding photos. 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. Rumpus: In such a climate, what do you think is the responsibility of the diasporic Indian writer? Anvisha Manral March 20, 2021 09:50:40 IST As Sari Begum's story [in the book] illustrates, 'A life where the violence of the border is not at the fence, or in the trenches, but at the center of 'their' and our 'universe'. 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. 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 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. Its feudal, entitled, and cannibalistic. 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. We are consuming subjects in a surveillance economy, not citizens. We still argue if something should be a massacre, a pogrom, or a riot. Its easy for Indian Americans and diaspora Desis to become tokens who speak of diversity but not equity or representation, talk of caste as culture and whitewash Hindutva. We perform rituals of freedom in a right-less societywe dont ask if the rules, laws, and policies that are put in place are fair, just, right or equitable. If it does, I have failed. I dont have apprehensions. 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. And our language helps us imagine a vision that is truly just, beautiful and ethical. As a trained barrister, I used to believe in the concept of justicebut now I simply call this freedom and dignity. We need more such books. [8] On 7 March 2017, she applied for divorce. 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. My friend Ritesh Uttamchandani said this once, the lens that elusive distance between the photographer and the photographed is often impossible to bridge. Listen to Season 3 on Apple, Spotify and Google podcasts. This discrepancy is just one example of the confusion and misinformation spread to the public by deeply flawed media reports. Parts of Pakistan have already been consumed by the water. In politics, we will be recognising the principle of one man, one vote, and one vote, one value. 4 reviews of Suchitra Vijayan Photography "Huge fan of Suchitra Vijayan Photography! I find that profoundly inspiring. When Vijayan meets him, he is inside his home with all the windows closed and sealed to snuff out light. Even the diasporic experience is often told through this limited lens, without taking into account how diverse the immigrant experience in this country is. Our mostly volunteer-run magazine strives to be a platform for risk-taking voices and writing that might not find a home elsewhere. 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. 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? Second, as the media continued to promote government positions on the crisis, other critical political issues dropped out of public scrutiny. Vijayan reserves her own impressions for later, and allows us to know these people intimately. A relatively small group of people runs it. Sometimes lost. I think these are fundamental questions of freedom and dignity. I almost never forget, I remember entire episodes or events since I was six years old. This Life Draws Attention to Life Behind Bars and the Transcendent Power of Rap, Wrestling with Reality in The Big Door Prize. Second, there were times when I ran out of money, when some said that such a book would not be published, when some declared that such a book could not be written. Who is expendable, and the manufacturing of rightlessness to render people expendable. Suchitra Vijayan. This income helps us keep the magazine alive. The two press briefings by the foreign secretary and Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson entertained no questions. Suchitra Vijayan is a writer, photographer, lawyer, political essayist, and a lecturer. We know that the purpose of borders has kept changing for nations. Fear seems to be a constant motif in the book we see versions and types of it. Where does that leave us? Whose Stories Are Told In Indian History? 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. Finally, Indias current transformation, the aggressive posturing of an aspiring ethno-nationalist state, will have dire consequences for the people and the region. We're back with our flagship podcast 'Intersectional FeminismDesi Style!' What is the emotional and artistic cost that one pays as a writer while crafting these narratives? Professor Nandita Sharmas work is an excellent way to engage with this history. More importantly, as Babasaheb would argue, the political revolution was never accompanied by a social revolution. Your prose is hopeful there. Vijayan is no stranger to stories of violence. Its when we lose hope that we believe that we have lost everything. I had to cut those out, as my editor felt this might not work. Respond to our political present. Her career as a playback singer now spans Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam films and she has several hits in all these languages to her credit. She is the founder and executive director of The Polis Project, and the author of. Founded in 2009, The Rumpus is one of the longest running independent online literary and culture magazines. Beyond the confusion over the death tolls at Balakot, news organizations variously reported that between 25 and 350 kilograms of the explosive RDX was used in the attack, when no such information was officially released. I left my 18-month-old daughter to travel and finish this book. Sometimes they are no more, but your storytelling is so invigorating that the reader doesnt forget them. I was also trying to tell these stories from a repertoire of skills I had, and some I acquired. 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. She is actively involved in circulating urgent and underrepresented news from the world through her online platform. Those notes were raw and immediate. Early on, I was very careful to acknowledge this. We removed an image just before the printing to make sure the person was protected. No one would put themselves through the agony and pain of writing. We thank her for her time, patience, and illuminating insights into her work. If she wasnt real she would be a marriage between a meme and parody. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Indias intellectual, journalistic, and literary landscape is profoundly problematic and alienating. When fires burn down large swathes of what were peoples homeswhat borders will you impose when climate change will fundamentally remake them? Copyright 2023. The book was called ``a genre-bending book of nonfictionmade Over the span of seven years, Suchitra Vijayan interviewed scores of individuals, jotted countless notes, snapped hundreds of photographs, and altogether made herself witness to the manifold absurdities (and atrocities) of who gets to say where one nation ends and another begins. Vijayan shows a keen eye for detail as she presents these diverse lives. The former is an essential act of dissent, even resistance, especially in these dark times. In these circumstances, the lives of people inhabiting the sketchy borderlands has become all the more vulnerable, and fragile. But its also important to constantly take account of who is writing about this India to an Indian and global audience. 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. 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 . I think this book will change the global conversation about India and shape what gets written in the future about India. Book reviews and author interviews with a Southern focus. Rumpus: The book utilizes more than one medium: photography, narrative nonfiction, journalism. Midnights Borders, a work of narrative reportage, is the fruit of this journey. 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. It's a disorienting time when your library or what books you read can become evidence of sedition . They are arriving from various cities and people I have never met. 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. What are those ethical, moral, and political lines? Sign in. 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. They took my land, they stole my life, they stole my future, they took my nightmares and they stole my dreams too. Ali went missing in 2018. A place to read, on the Internet. is a barrister-at-law, writer and researcher. Thanks to The New India Foundation for sending across a beautiful copy of the Midnights Borders. [4] She also worked as a dubbing artist for popular heroines like Shriya Saran and Lakshmi Rai.[5]. "Fighting for justice and human rights in India is a long and lonely battle" Nishrin Jafri Hussain, the daughter of Ehsan Jafri (from 2019) An unprecedented militarisation of these spaces accompanied this. These are no longer contradictory; instead, even criticism can be converted to views. Nonfiction, Travel, Fiction Member Since February 2021 edit data Suchitra Vijayan was born and raised in Madras, India. 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. Sharing borders with six countries and spanning a geography that extends from Pakistan to Myanmar, India is the worlds largest democracy and second most populous country. A: This is a very loaded question. No one can write a book alone. How do you think this shapes climate justice? Second, there is a clear distinction between speaking against the powerful and claiming to speak on behalf of the "voiceless". With the phone armed with a camera, everyone is a photographer; we are all witnesses. One of the reasons why this book was written was to step back: to say that this violence that you and I listen to and encounter is not new to say that this violence is not new. Suchitra Vijayan. How do you think this inspiration from a variety of genres allowed you to tell underrepresented stories? 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. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Second, Indias transformation into a nuclear state and the Kargil War is another critical moment of change. by Suchitra Vijayan Hardcover 1,759.00 2,023.00 You Save: 264.00 (13%) Usually dispatched in 1 to 3 weeks. Some even dressed for the occasion in combat gear. 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. It is the fragility of human lives that remains at the very center of the book. Modi met with senior police officers and ordered them not to intervene as violence raged. The mortality of someone you love affects how you write. 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. It is meant to manufacture an underclass of rightless subjects. What is the function of seeing and documenting? 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. You've mentioned in the text that you've spent your entire adult life thinking about state violence and justice because of a troubling incident in 1994 when your father was attacked. 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. But eventually we need all kinds of stories and arguments to emerge from what is now considered Indian American writing. She writes about war, conflict . Propaganda and poison work in far more sophisticated ways. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle. This article was published more than4 years ago. 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. According to a new World Health Organization report, we lost as many as 4.7 million people in India. Her distinct and bold voice made her very popular with the younger crowd. Once we eliminated the spectacle, we realized that the Indian public got very little information about the Pulwama attack and its aftermath. She has sung in multiple languages including Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Telugu. MacAdam reviews Suchitra Vijayan's book Midnight's Borders: A People's History of Modern India Read More. Some people later chose not to be included because they feared repercussions, especially as the NRC process started playing out. Why is this particular time of the day intrinsic to the book? By Suchitra Vijayan, Why should I read it? He was arrested based on fabricated evidence in the middle of a global pandemic, and he was denied bail and medical help. Apart from his long-suffering wife, no one else in the family knows that he is a spy. Its a vicious cycle. 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. 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. Suchitra Vijayan, Newspapers in a Kashmiri home In August 2014 I travelled to the border town of Uri while researching my upcoming book, Borderlands. Updated Date: What matters is that the book exists. O. 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. Already a subscriber? Do you think the future is borderless? We need to think about border practices, policing, and national security policies within the larger historical and political contexts. A: Writers are very strange creatures. The first true peoples history of modern India, told through a seven-year, 9,000-mile journey along its many contested borders. 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. Time to let the diplomats do the hard talk. Worse, we have been disciplined to accept injustice and inequality as given. (Stay up to date on new book releases, reviews, and more with The Hindu On Books newsletter. Suchitra is a sought-after performer at corporate and other such stage shows. Not mine. Reports also identified different people as the supposed masterminds of the Pulwama attack at various points without clear sourcing. Like you train for a marathon, you train to be hopeful everyday. I had a very stable home to come back to. The Author Suchitra Vijayan is an American writer, essayist, activist, and photographer working across oral history, state violence, and visual storytelling. 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. Q: You frequently describe certain borders as porous. There are enough stories of people parachuting into communities to do human interest stories.. Acted as the General Manager for a day and motivated employees to work for the same purpose to reinforce team . 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. In season two, a quick flashback resolves the plotline from the previous season. 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. Say, for instance, do we need a James Nachtwey to fly to war-torn Bosnia? Instead, we need to ask what fate awaits us. Husain Haqqani: Pakistan released the Indian pilot. I think freedom and dignity enables us to really go beyond in our political imaginationbeyond just electoral politics. 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. What makes these lives so vivid is how Vijayan contextualizes them by placing them in the bigger picture of history. There are some notable exceptions, but they are an exception. Siaan On Being Queer And Being Online, FII Interviews: Journalist Meena Kotwal On Minority Politics, Journalism Today And The Caste Divide. With profound empathy and a novelistic eye for detail, Vijayan brings us face to face with the brutal legacy of colonialism, state violence, and government corruption. Part-time Faculty suchitra@thepolisproject.com. Its a practice. I kept detailed audio notes that I recorded each night when I traveled. 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. Suchitra Vijayan is the executive director of the Polis Project. We see that more clearly when you decide against photographing children at the India-Bangladesh border. It seems that they have a different eye for these women, who they describe as cunning, deceitful, and in some cases, prostitutes'. Barrister. Thoughbordersare conventionally recognised as real or artificial lines of spatial and political demarcation, there may also be an arbitrariness to them. Perhaps thats their victory. To make matters worse, between 2013 and 2019, editors of channels and publications have been sacked and replaced, primarily because of their criticism of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. I wrote a book along with it comes love, scorn, and sometimes even ridicule. Not everyone rejoiced in these new freedoms. NONFICTIONMidnights BordersBy Suchitra VijayanMelville HousePublished May 25, 2021. Such writings have long been implicated in the history of colonial ethnographic practices, where native informants are poised to become the voices of the empire. Now, border security policies are linked to domestic politics. Suchitra was born in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, as the daughter of Ramadurai and Padmaja. You can carefully craft a narrative of immigrant success but act tone-deaf about the ongoing refugee crisis. But it needs to do more for peace. Suchitra Vijayan is a barrister at law and the author of Midnight's Borders: A People's History of Modern India. Midnights Borders: A Peoples History of Modern India ; Suchitra Vijayan, Context/ Westland Books, 699. What connects these messages is deep empathy and a willingness to engage with the books stories, ideas, and arguments. 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. Vijayan undertakes a seven-year long, 9,000-mile . 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..
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