She responded to an ad for the post of an RJ in Radio Mirchi. The writing grew around the images and the visual memory of the encounters. There are some brilliant writers writing on these issuesthe problem is always that these voices dont make it to the mainstream. It is here that we subsume all that we otherwise celebrate under the demands of freedom, progress, liberalism, liberty, and secular ideals.". She completed her MFA in Writing (Fiction) from the University of San Francisco where she was awarded the Jan Zivic Fellowship and is about to begin her PhD in English with a Creative Dissertation from the University of Georgia, Athens. What is the emotional and artistic cost that one pays as a writer while crafting these narratives? 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. It was just a sad moment, and I couldnt celebrate a book when there was so much human tragedy playing out. Global Ethics Review: Midnight's Borders, with Suchitra Vijayan What moral and political stands we should take in the face of ongoing oppression. Also, hope is a discipline. This is a challenging task for the writer. Your prose is hopeful there. Were there times when you doubted your own ability to record and document these people's stories? As she travelled 9000 miles over seven years across Indias borders, some drawn so hastily that they cut across fields, homes and courtyards, she met men, women and children, finishing with endless notebooks, over a thousand images and more than 300 hours of recorded conversations. Her quest took her to the farthest ends of the India-Bangladesh/ China/ Myanmar/ Pakistan borders. In terms of violence, there is also this tendency to photograph and display the bodies of marginalised communities when they experience violence. What we can do is attempt micro-histories of events, timelines, or local communities. What it means to photograph, write, report and document is an ongoing process. Suchitra Vijayan is the executive director of the Polis Project. We are all complicit in upholding and maintaining this fear. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, GQ, The Boston Review, The Hindu, and Foreign Policy, and she has appeared on NBC news. The entire episode is emblematic of a broader trend in Indian media. Despite the failures in investigation and prosecution related to criminal trials arising out of the pogrom, the judiciary has projected itself as an able and willing neutral arbiter of justice that is not complicit with the deep structures of Hindutvas anti-Muslim prejudice https://t.co/EFf5bxYEBt, True societal change has always emerged from the ground-up, with communities fighting for their own freedom and dignity. The acts of writing, documenting, photographing, and archiving carry privileges of caste and class. Updated Date: Second, Indias transformation into a nuclear state and the Kargil War is another critical moment of change. A: I lost friends, saw my father go through a transplant, and I gave birth. 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. Vijayan: I would say I am hopeful. I wrote the book, but those who have lived through this hell continue to live and navigate this hell. If you want to support the work that goes behind publishing high-quality feminist media content, please consider becoming a FII member. It is also the site of the worlds biggest crisis of statelessness, as it strips citizenship from hundreds of thousands of its peopleespecially those living in disputed border regions. It is the fragility of human lives that remains at the very center of the book. Ali lived right on the edge of the India-Bangladesh border. Vijayan reserves her own impressions for later, and allows us to know these people intimately. Suchitra Vijayan Suchitras account of her journeys across the undefinable and ever-shifting borders between India and its neighbours is gripping, frightening, faithful and beautiful. Early on, the idea of bearing witness as a rhetorical tool and as a literary device became deeply problematic. Accompanied by this globally, democracies are becoming more authoritarian and stripping people of their citizenshipreducing them to subjects, entrenching the fault lines of inequality. Sometimes the news is the story. Indias intellectual, journalistic, and literary landscape is profoundly problematic and alienating. So I dont know if it was empathy so much as just building a relationship with people. 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. 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. I have no formal training as a writer or a photographer, I taught myself and learnt by doing, failing and creating my own grammar. So the first reflection is this idea of where we are right now: as people, as a society, as a community. Suchitra Vijayan | The Nation The interview has been paraphrased and condensed for clarity, at the interviewers discretion. They continue to. Even those who now write about Modis India, will never write about Brahmanism or be critical of how caste works in the diaspora. I have two tests. The two officers who avert the attack narrowly escape death but are left with broken bodies and broken lives. Its an immense privilege to be able to write and be published. How do you think your book contributes to the larger conversation about India? We see that more clearly when you decide against photographing children at the India-Bangladesh border. There are some notable exceptions, but they are an exception. Lets start with a very simple statement that everyone can agree on: the way were living right now cannot continue. Suchitra - Wikipedia If it does, I have failed. This is a tightrope that you walk so well. 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. 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. Second, as the media continued to promote government positions on the crisis, other critical political issues dropped out of public scrutiny. Many TV newsrooms were transformed into caricatures of military command centers, with anchors assessing military technology and strategy (sometimes incorrectly). Like you train for a marathon, you train to be hopeful everyday. This language drums the idea of the fundamental importance of justice, and such language is inalienable: it can easily be defined and empathetically understood. Midnights Borders: A Peoples History of Modern India ; Suchitra Vijayan, Context/ Westland Books, 699. 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. Suchitra Vijayan on a journey to find a people's history of modern I find that profoundly inspiring. What are those ethical, moral, and political lines? In Suchitra Vijayan's new book, borders are as arbitrary as history This means that the capacity to see does not automatically become the capacity for action. We removed an image just before the printing to make sure the person was protected. As a Bookshop affiliate, The Rumpus earns a percentage from qualifying purchases. Ananya is a chaotic humanities student with a deep interest in the relationship between art and society, a writing obsession, and way too many bizarre ideas involving their camera. 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). A lot of travel writing is still written by a particular group of people with immense privilege, and they all tend to center themselves. This is where I believe literary nonfiction becomes a powerful tool. What is the function of seeing and documenting? [8] On 7 March 2017, she applied for divorce. 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. They all have very specific and carefully curated origin/immigrant stories that cleverly exploit the model minority trope. Itembodied young Indias grand ambitions and aspired to a nation made of men and women equally protected by the law. As I travelled, I was very aware of these inherent power differences. Its a vicious cycle. The travel, the people they encounter, and the political events they record quickly become cameos. 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 mostly volunteer-run magazine strives to be a platform for risk-taking voices and writing that might not find a home elsewhere. The act of recording and documenting cannot be divorced from the inherent question of power. 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. I was also trying to tell these stories from a repertoire of skills I had, and some I acquired. A place to read, on the Internet. We have already chosen silence and obfuscation even before the pushback has arrived. 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. This idea of responsibility gets obfuscated in many ways. So the question is not: will the future be borderless? Q: What was your goal with writing the book in the beginning and how did it change and drive you throughout those 8 years? We need to think about border practices, policing, and national security policies within the larger historical and political contexts. Her YouTube channel 'Suchislife' has all her updated work. We need more such books. Rumpus: The book derives its emotional strength and narrative energy from the stories of people you encounter at the borders. There are enough stories of people parachuting into communities to do human interest stories.. She was part of a music band at PSG. A: I dont agree with this kind of framing, because its not that underrepresented people dont have voices. As a bedouin who grew up listening to beautiful stories from beautiful storytellers around a fire, I was transported by her storytelling. She perfectly captured the happiness and the intimacy of the occasion, the warmth of all the people present, and the splendor of the venue. In these circumstances, the lives of people inhabiting the sketchy borderlands has become all the more vulnerable, and fragile. She has also been appreciated for her honest and positive-humour-filled judging at reality shows like Vijay TV's Airtel Super Singer, Sun TV's Sun Singer, Asianet's Music India, and Bol Baby Bol on Gemini TV and Surya TV. 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. What changeshave youobserved in the way you treat your subject after finishing your journey and book? 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. Vijayan creates a constellation of micro-histories of people who have lived through the violence . How did you achieve empathy in your writing, without the privileged lens that is common in journalistic canon? 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. I feel very uncomfortable talking about this, or rather I dont know how to discuss this without centering myself. 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. [1], Suchitra joined Sify for a year, after graduating. She is the founder and executive director of The Polis Project, and the author of. I dont think theres just one emotion that drives a writer to finish writing. We need more writers from Indias Northeast, Kashmir, Indigenous, Dalit, and Muslim communities to tell stories that help complete the canvas of narratives about India. Our investigation into the Indian medias reporting on the Pulwama attack found that many reports were contradictory, biased, incendiary and uncorroborated. In 2020, Suchitra took part in the fourth season of the Tamil reality television show, Bigg Boss Tamil hosted by Kamal Haasan. Opinion | After Pulwama, the Indian media proves it is the BJP's Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments. Some things are just not discussed anymore. I left my 18-month-old daughter to travel and finish this book. 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 . But the inclination to still treat India as a democracy remains. Along the way, we meet the men and women of TASC, dissenting students, ISIS terrorists and Pakistani military officers. What makes these lives so vivid is how Vijayan contextualizes them by placing them in the bigger picture of history. Suchitra Vijayan is an American writer, essayist, activist, and photographer working across oral history, state violence, and visual storytelling. For instance, a border security personnel tells her how he failed to capture a photograph of a porcupine after spending half an hour trying to fit a helmet on its head, because he is bored and lonely. What do words like democracy, freedom, and citizenship mean? Suchitra Vijayan's Midnight's Borders | Youth Ki Awaaz 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. Chopra has long been neoliberalisms reluctant feminist, hawking giving a voice and sisterhood while silencing those who question her. Whose Stories Are Told In Indian History? Subscribe here. Suchitra Vijayan - New Lines Institute Nonfiction, Travel, Fiction Member Since February 2021 edit data Suchitra Vijayan was born and raised in Madras, India. We once asked these questions, even if there were no clear answers or consensus. These may not be perfect worlds or even equal worlds, but they strive to be. Dear reader, this article is free to read and it will remain free but it isnt free to produce. Firstpost - All Rights Reserved. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. 42, Moss Rose Heights, M.M Ali road, WASA Circle, Lalkhan Bazar, Chittogong 4000. Suchitra Vijayan is a writer, photographer, lawyer, political essayist, and a lecturer. I now think twice about calling friends, worried if this might put them at risk. That was my starting point. [4] She also worked as a dubbing artist for popular heroines like Shriya Saran and Lakshmi Rai.[5]. 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. 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. NYU Gallatin School of Individualized Study. A: This is a very loaded question. Vijayans book begins a much-needed conversation on thinking about freedom beyond the idea of nation and its illusory lines. It seems that they have a different eye for these women, who they describe as cunning, deceitful, and in some cases, prostitutes'. How long shall we continue to live this life of contradictions?". Especially when you can be charged with sedition for a tweet or arrested for the crime of committing comedy while being Muslim. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. And, in many cases, they are children of the literary, cultural, or political elite who have long been the beneficiaries of the Indian state. Suchitra Vijayan | C-SPAN.org Copyright 2023, THG PUBLISHING PVT LTD. or its affiliated companies. I think this book will change the global conversation about India and shape what gets written in the future about India. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. Pushback is such a benign word, isnt it? 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. The first true peoples history of modern India, told through a seven-year, 9,000-mile journey along its many contested borders. We lift up new voices alongside those of more established writers readers already know and love. Suchitra Vijayan on Twitter: "RT @project_polis: Writing fiction in a She was part of a music band at PSG. This Life Draws Attention to Life Behind Bars and the Transcendent Power of Rap, Wrestling with Reality in The Big Door Prize. Nine years ago, she began documenting stories from her travels along the borders of India. She also embodies the upwardly mobile, privileged sections of the diaspora. Vasundhara Sirnate Drennan is director of research at the Polis Project. He was arrested based on fabricated evidence in the middle of a global pandemic, and he was denied bail and medical help. Is that a probable solution? is a barrister-at-law, writer and researcher. Thoughbordersare conventionally recognised as real or artificial lines of spatial and political demarcation, there may also be an arbitrariness to them. This might not seem like much, but it is absolutely essential. Includes previously unreleased investigation under #JackStraw. The book is a prelude to what was coming, and is also a impassioned plea to my readers to ask some fundamental questions of what it means to live in a country like Indiawhat is the function of a state when its primary preoccupation is no longer the citizen but a performance of an ideology? 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. Rumpus: In such a climate, what do you think is the responsibility of the diasporic Indian writer? 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. These are edited excerpts from the interview: 'Midnight' seems to be a metaphor for multiple things both freeing and frightening. I think the way that news and mostly disinformation makes its way to us, we think of violence in very particular waysas disjointed. Founded in 2009, The Rumpus is one of the longest running independent online literary and culture magazines. I'mdyslexic, but have visual and episodic memory, which means I dream and relive moments. The result is a gripping, urgent dispatch from a modern India in crisis, and the full and vivid portrait of the country weve long been missing. 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. 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. 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. 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 One of the ways she upholds the humane in this book is through her interaction with the men in the security forces. 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. Rumpus: The book utilizes more than one medium: photography, narrative nonfiction, journalism. Suchitra Vijayan is a barrister-at-law, writer and researcher. Vijayan: As we have this conversation, Dr. Stan Swamy, the eighty-four-year-old Jesuit priest, Indias oldest political prisoner, was murdered by the Indian state with the complicity of the judiciary. Suchitra Vijayan talks to FII about Indian politics, communal violence, marginalisation and her book Midnights Borders: A Peoples History of Modern India. Q: You frequently describe certain borders as porous. And were there any apprehensions since you began working on this book? 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. 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. 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. Vijayan: Chopra and others like her are a reflection of how popular culture and virality inform discourse and shape it. I came with my privileges, also lets not forget prejudices. Follow our team of columnists and reporters who write about the media. Vijayan: I wasnt trying to write a hybrid book; I was trying to tell the stories I encountered as a way to think about the moral and political realities of our lives. Second, border policies are about "performance and articulations of citizenship". Suchitra Vijayan (@suchitravijayan) Instagram photos and videos 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. March 20, 2021 09:50:40 IST. She entered the show on day 28 as a new contestant and was evicted on day 49. Also read: Book Review: Looking Through Dalit Sahitya And Ambedkar. 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. This is a serious, often funny and deeply revealing book. M, An essential, beautifully written report from the hellish margins of a modern mega-state struggling to be a nation, of people whose lives continue to be shaped by violent political marches across age-old homes and habitats. There is something deeply flawed in the way we live today. 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. I think freedom and dignity enables us to really go beyond in our political imaginationbeyond just electoral politics. 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. Rumpus: Toni Morrison said that she writes from a place of delight, not disappointment. 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). Suchitra Vijayan was born and raised in Madras, India. And join us by becoming a monthly or yearly Member. I havent spoken or celebrated with my friends in Kashmir or Assam. 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. 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. It definitely doesnt help when trying to hold a powerful state accountable. This discrepancy is just one example of the confusion and misinformation spread to the public by deeply flawed media reports. Suchitra Vijayan (@suchitrav) / Twitter Follow Suchitra Vijayan @suchitrav Author: Midnight's Borders: A People's History of Modern India. There was an NDTV programme, where somebody said Should Indias constitution be secularist? The mortality of someone you love affects how you write. 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. Suchitra tweets @suchitrav. The public is sold a lie as the attack is framed as a gas leak. How do you think this inspiration from a variety of genres allowed you to tell underrepresented stories? But who gets to speak for so many of us? Suchitra is a sought-after performer at corporate and other such stage shows. These new worlds are already herethey are maps of survival, maps of resistance. Why the Modi government lies. Travel to States like Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland in the Northeast which share borders with China and Myanmar required Inner Line Permits, BSF soldiers followed her everywhere on the West Bengal/ Bangladesh border, and in Kashmir she was summoned to meet the local inspector at Uri. But who carries the responsibility of that fear? Suchitra Vijayan on Twitter: ""Fighting for justice and human rights in The failure to forget affects how I use images, and texts; my photographic practice and also how I put everything together. Barkha Dutt: India has made its point in Pakistan. 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. It is necessary to speak truth to power through our art. The emotional cost is something else altogether. Suchitra Vijayan - Amazon And our language helps us imagine a vision that is truly just, beautiful and ethical. Empathy is taught by our communities; we are brought up with it. The photographs add another dimension to the book, and could have been used more. I fear we are losing that cosmopolitanism of small places. 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. She is the founder and executive director of The Polis Project, and the author of Midnight's Borders: A People's History of Modern India, recently published by Context, Westland.