O. What do these events have in common? In these circumstances, the lives of people inhabiting the sketchy borderlands has become all the more vulnerable, and fragile. Is secularism a good thing? This is such an insidious conversation to have; this was even before Adani bought it. Our investigation into the Indian medias reporting on the Pulwama attack found that many reports were contradictory, biased, incendiary and uncorroborated. Rumpus: What do you think is the value of well-crafted literary nonfiction in sustaining conversations about equality and justice? 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 Midnight's Bordersis an exceptional read, but one that may make some uncomfortable. When your investigations in Kashmir came to an end, what changes did you observe in your 'grammar of dissent'? The failure to forget affects how I use images, and texts; my photographic practice and also how I put everything together. 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. SUCHITRA VIJAYAN PHOTOGRAPHY - 42 Photos - Manhatan, NY - Yelp Those notes were raw and immediate. No one can write a book alone. It is always Bollywood, the ascent of Priyanka Chopra, or the diasporic loneliness. 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. And that violence is often abetted by the state and goes unpunished. Where does that leave us? Midnight's Borders by Suchitra Vijayan. I had a very stable home to come back to. But who carries the responsibility of that fear? 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. On Feb. 14, an Indian paramilitary convoy was attacked. This media blitzkrieg resulted in the erasure of two important political trends. Vijayan: A writers responsibility above all is to speak the truth and make sense of our social worlds. British India was partitioned into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan on the eve of independence in August, 1947. 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. Some even dressed for the occasion in combat gear. We still argue if something should be a massacre, a pogrom, or a riot. I am repeating what I have said before, "Kashmir is Indias greatest moral and political failure. Instead, she shows the absurdity of the army apparatus that strives to comply with the narrative of patriotism. In India, that arbitrariness can be seen in how differently we perceive landboundaries with multiple sovereign nations. What it means to photograph, write, report and document is an ongoing process. 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. A: This is a very loaded question. Suchitra Vijayan As such, very few media establishments in India have been able to stand against the influence of political leaders. Gokhale claimed that it struck the biggest camp and that a large number of terrorists were killed. I test my practice of writing or being a photographer against this rule. [2] She became known as Rj Suchi, with her popular morning show Hello Chennai. I fear we are losing that cosmopolitanism of small places. Anvisha Manral March 20, 2021 09:50:40 IST 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. 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 Afghanistan, Kashmir, and India, from one dangerous conflict zone to another, she spoke with people, ate with them, and listened to their stories. These are no longer contradictory; instead, even criticism can be converted to views. ). Thanks to The New India Foundation for sending across a beautiful copy of the Midnights Borders. Suchitra was born in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, as the daughter of Ramadurai and Padmaja. 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. Suchitra Vijayan traveled Indias vast land border to explore how these populations live, and document how even places just a few miles apart can feel like entirely different countries.. In retaliation, the Indian Air Force carried out an airstrike on an alleged militant training camp in Balakot in Pakistans Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. She is actively involved in circulating urgent and underrepresented news from the world through her online platform. He was arrested based on fabricated evidence in the middle of a global pandemic, and he was denied bail and medical help. The Pakistan-based militant group Jaish-e-Muhammad soon claimed responsibility. A poll asked if its OK to be white. Heres why the phrase is loaded. Suchitra Vijayan on Twitter: ""Fighting for justice and human rights in First, does my work aid the powerful? We're back with our flagship podcast 'Intersectional FeminismDesi Style!' Second, border policies are about "performance and articulations of citizenship". Why the Modi government lies. The interview has been paraphrased and condensed for clarity, at the interviewers discretion. We lift up new voices alongside those of more established writers readers already know and love. We are all complicit in upholding and maintaining this fear. Rumpus: In such a climate, what do you think is the responsibility of the diasporic Indian writer? I have no control over what comes next. [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]. To them he is a man who has settled into a job that has no future. 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. 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. 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 . How long shall we continue to live this life of contradictions?". Midnights Borders is part investigation, part meditation on the lines drawn on land or water that separate India from its neighbours. 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. How do you think this shapes climate justice? And yet, the research and the history never overpowers the flow of the narrative. Siaan On Being Queer And Being Online, FII Interviews: Journalist Meena Kotwal On Minority Politics, Journalism Today And The Caste Divide. Also read: The History Of The Colonial State And The Unmaking Of The Tawaif. The two officers who avert the attack narrowly escape death but are left with broken bodies and broken lives. 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. Its when we lose hope that we believe that we have lost everything. The emotional cost is something else altogether. 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. It took me 8 years to write the book. Required fields are marked *. Love, passion, anger, the desire to make a point about something. Its not comparable and should not be compared. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. It has taken me over a decade to get here. 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. Also read: Examining My Caste And Its History Is Eye-Opening: A Personal Essay On Casteism And Ancestry. Our borders had become a spectacle, and we the cheering mob, she says, as she calls for purging hatred for the sake of posterity. It is necessary to speak truth to power through our art. 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. NYU Gallatin School of Individualized Study. In Afghanistan, Kashmir, and India, from one dangerous conflict zone to another, she spoke with people, ate with them, and listened to their stories. If you think about communities in resistance to immense violations, theyre all interconnected to climate justice. What is the emotional and artistic cost that one pays as a writer while crafting these narratives? 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). This is a challenging task for the writer. Co-founded the Resettlement Legal Aid Project in Cairo, Suchitra is also the founder of the Polis Project, a research and journalism organisation. It is here that we subsume all that we otherwise celebrate under the demands of freedom, progress, liberalism, liberty, and secular ideals.". The mortality of someone you love affects how you write. 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. You dont need a Leni Riefenstahl today. Subscribe to the Rumpus Book Clubs (poetry, prose, or both) and Letters in the Mail from authors (for adults and kids). The photographs add another dimension to the book, and could have been used more. You need to write what you seethats why you started this project.. Barkha Dutt: India has made its point in Pakistan. She has sung in multiple languages including Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Telugu. Second, we can no longer have certain conversationsconversations are now impossible. 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. She still does a radio show called Flight983 on Radio Mirchi, on Sunday evenings (79 pm). In Suchitra Vijayan's new book, borders are as arbitrary as history 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. In terms of violence, there is also this tendency to photograph and display the bodies of marginalised communities when they experience violence. 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. 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. Dear reader, this article is free to read and it will remain free but it isnt free to produce. And join us by becoming a monthly or yearly Member. The events of 9/11 had profound effects on how border security projects and politics played out. 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. The people in the text fear statelessness, unknown violence, and being forgotten. She was part of a music band at PSG. 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 trades. All along the border, the common refrain is, It feels like Partition is still alive., A story from near Jalpaiguri in north Bengal, that of a man named Ali, is heartbreaking. What is the function of seeing and documenting? Suchitra Vijayan, Newspapers in a Kashmiri home In August 2014 I travelled to the border town of Uri while researching my upcoming book, Borderlands. 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. These are stories of massive human rights violations committed by the Indian state in the countrys margins. According to a new World Health Organization report, we lost as many as 4.7 million people in India. 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. Categories. Especially when you can be charged with sedition for a tweet or arrested for the crime of committing comedy while being Muslim. There is also a lot of deep-seated misogyny, casteism, and anti-Black racism in our communities that need to be addressed. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle. Its not sustainable, it fractures who we are, chips away and erodes what it fundamentally means to be human. 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? Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. It took a long time to get the voice right. 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. They are arriving from various cities and people I have never met. 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.. Midnight's Borders by Suchitra Vijayan - The Bangalore Review is a barrister-at-law, writer and researcher. 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. That was my starting point. To repurpose an old sayingall infamy is now good virality. More Buying Choices 1,732.00 (16 Used & New offers) Audible Audiobook 0.00 Free with Audible trial 586.00 ( 9 ) L.L.B., Law, The University of Leeds, 2004 M.A., International Relation . Q: What struck me about your work was its immersive style. She perfectly captured the happiness and the intimacy of the occasion, the warmth of all the people present, and the splendor of the venue. Rumpus: Why do you think the ever-growing canon of Indian American literature has barely tried to engage with these conversations through their stories? Suchitra Vijayan (@suchitrav) / Twitter After being detained at one of the checkpoints for over two hours, I made my way to one of the villages closest to the Line of Control. Early on, I was very careful to acknowledge this. For far too long, they and their progeny have held power to shape the political understanding of our social worlds. What I was most concerned about and still am are the people in the book and their safety. As a trained barrister, I used to believe in the concept of justicebut now I simply call this freedom and dignity. Instead, we need to ask what fate awaits us. I wrote a book along with it comes love, scorn, and sometimes even ridicule. There are also those who have previously been tacit, if not active, supporters of the right-wing Hindu nationalist Indian state. As a spy working for TASC, Tiwari has to juggle being an underpaid government employee as well as an absent husband and a perpetually late and distracted father. Why do you think India has gotten away with this so far? 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. 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. Now imagine how it would be for someone from a Dalit/Bahujan, Muslim, Adivasi, or working community to try to make inroads. Her distinct and bold voice made her very popular with the younger crowd. A memorable, humane museum of forgotten stories that we must all read and remember. M, What experiences and lives unfold in these pages. The show deals with interesting international happenings. As a Bookshop affiliate, The Rumpus earns a percentage from qualifying purchases. What matters is that the book exists. India's Press Crackdown: The Silencing of Journalists in Kashmir And what does this mean for on-ground communities, governments, armed forces, and other institutional stakeholders? He writes about how when the Constitution was adopted, "We are going to enter into a life of contradictions. 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. I find that profoundly inspiring. Rumpus: The book derives its emotional strength and narrative energy from the stories of people you encounter at the borders. Each of these subscription programs along with tax-deductible donations made to The Rumpus through our fiscal sponsor, Fractured Atlas, helps keep us going and brings us closer to sustainability. All rights reserved. Some things are just not discussed anymore. The government, of course, denies this. I left a few names out in the acknowledgment, worrying if it might direct more trouble towards them. When Vijayan meets him, he is inside his home with all the windows closed and sealed to snuff out light. 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? " India's intellectual, journalistic, and literary landscape is profoundly problematic and alienating. Were there times when you doubted your own ability to record and document these people's stories? Bigotry is also big business. Who gets to travel, tell stories, and, more importantly, publish them are all deeply connected to questions of access, resources, and privilege. Suchitra Vijayan. 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. 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. 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. 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). 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. When I left him (the first time), I had a one-year-old daughter. 2:16. Suchitra was married to actor Karthik Kumar between 2005 and 2017. In politics we will have equality, and in social and economic life, we will have inequality. What we can do is attempt micro-histories of events, timelines, or local communities. Without a political solution, Kashmir will undoubtedly emerge in upcoming news cycles. None of this helps in telling richer, more textured stories. Includes previously unreleased investigation under #JackStraw. When the book finally came out, India was undergoing the deadly 2nd wave. Book reviews and author interviews with a Southern focus. 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. A: I dont agree with this kind of framing, because its not that underrepresented people dont have voices. Later on she moved to Coimbatore for her MBA from PSG Institute of Management. 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. 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. A place to read, on the Internet. 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. 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 is a profoundly alienating place for anyone without the networks of privilege and resources. Suchitra Vijayan on a journey to find a people's history of modern