Could you comment on how much our present border security policies have changed in the last few years? Suchitra Vijayan: The Indian state has always used excessive and extrajudicial violence on communities that resist, whether its the borderlands, peripheries, or mainland Now the international viewfor instance while the Gujarat riots of 2002 brought critical international media attention and criticism, and [current Prime Minister] Modi was banned from entering the US, India was able to effectively manage global public opinion. She sang her first song for the movie, Lesa Lesa under the composition of Harris Jayaraj and her co-singer was the legendary, K. S. Chitra. I almost never forget, I remember entire episodes or events since I was six years old. 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.. I particularly loved the fact that all our couple shots were very natural and came out truly . 'Midnight's Borders: A People's History of Modern India' review: A It took me 8 years to write the book. She has a sister named, Sunitha. NONFICTIONMidnights BordersBy Suchitra VijayanMelville HousePublished May 25, 2021. 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.. 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. Although Vijayan critiques the state and its complicity in violence and erasure of lives, she refrains from villainizing the men who serve the state. Also read: The History Of The Colonial State And The Unmaking Of The Tawaif. They continue to. The latter is an act of violence against people whose voice you are appropriating. Its not sustainable, it fractures who we are, chips away and erodes what it fundamentally means to be human. Take a look at theseevents: The vast infrastructure of detention centers being built in Assam and outside; a politician from a ruling party incites violence by saying, goli maaro saalon ko, and remains free; a minister, a Harvard educated technocrat, garlands and celebrates men for the grave crime of lynching; Dr Teltumbde and other BK 16 [the 16 arrests made in the Bhima Koregaon case] political prisoners remain incarcerated with little, no or manufactured evidence for being dissenting subjects; and a standup comic is arrested for the crime of existing as a Muslim. Vasundhara Sirnate Drennan is director of research at the Polis Project. A:I dont think an ethical or moral compass exists nowI dont know if it ever existed. The pair experience similar situations in their lives: abuse, the death or absence of a husband, and the longing for a better future. There are so many nonfiction books about India published yearly but few are so important and subversive. If you want to support the work that goes behind publishing high-quality feminist media content, please consider becoming a FII member. This contributed to the long-running, brutal silencing of Kashmiris and their struggle for self-determination. Vijayan creates a constellation of micro-histories of people who have lived through the violence . There was an NDTV programme, where somebody said Should Indias constitution be secularist? MacAdam reviews Suchitra Vijayan's book Midnight's Borders: A People's History of Modern India Read More. The interview has been paraphrased and condensed for clarity, at the interviewers discretion. A memorable, humane museum of forgotten stories that we must all read and remember. M, What experiences and lives unfold in these pages. Looking Beyond the Lines: Suchitra Vijayan's "Midnight's Borders" The mask is off. The arrest of Khurram Parvez shows that India is no Not everyone lived to see its promises. She lucidly explains the complicated history of the McMahon Line, how the India-China border is the result of a fabrication perpetuated by the British colonial administration. A consistent ethical framework within the media hasnt existed for a long time. Not everyone rejoiced in these new freedoms. I test my practice of writing or being a photographer against this rule. Can any of theTIMEsubscribers who loved that cover tell us now whats happening in South Sudan today? However, at work, Tiwari is in his element. This article was published more than4 years ago. Suchitra Vijayan is the executive director of the Polis Project. A lot of travel writing is still written by a particular group of people with immense privilege, and they all tend to center themselves. 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? But for me hope is radical; hope is the last bastion of our defense. 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. This book ate into so much of my life. Rumpus: How hard was it to write nonfiction about such a violent contemporary history? 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. Why is this particular time of the day intrinsic to the book? She also embodies the upwardly mobile, privileged sections of the diaspora. Suchitra Vijayan, Newspapers in a Kashmiri home In August 2014 I travelled to the border town of Uri while researching my upcoming book, Borderlands. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. My friend Ritesh Uttamchandani said this once, the lens that elusive distance between the photographer and the photographed is often impossible to bridge. Second, Indias transformation into a nuclear state and the Kargil War is another critical moment of change. Suchitra - Wikipedia The emotional cost is something else altogether. The people in the text fear statelessness, unknown violence, and being forgotten. He writes about how when the Constitution was adopted, "We are going to enter into a life of contradictions. Firstly, when we talk about violence, we often talk about it only as communal violence, as if both communities have equal strength and power. You can carefully craft a narrative of immigrant success but act tone-deaf about the ongoing refugee crisis. This idea of responsibility gets obfuscated in many ways. 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. We need more such books. Ten years later, you were in Kashmir, where you 'hoped to find answers' by talking to a family that had lost a son. We see that during the journey, in a number of places, people stood in lines to speak with you, to show their paperwork to youhow did you negotiate the weight ofthose expectations, which might not have been explicit, but were still very much present? One feedback I often got was that I had to put more of myself in this book. A British lawyer, Cyril Radcliffe set foot in India for the first time in July, 1947 to draw the borders and completed the task within seven weeks, engendering communal riots, a heavily militarized border, four wars and seven decades of violence and hatred between the two countries. I came with my privileges, also lets not forget prejudices. ""The historical unity of the ruling classes is realized in the state." Antonio Gramsci" In Afghanistan, Kashmir, and India, from one dangerous conflict zone to another, she spoke with people, ate with them, and listened to their stories. Photograph of Suchitra Vijayan courtesy of Suchitra Vijayan. 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. And what does this mean for on-ground communities, governments, armed forces, and other institutional stakeholders? Why do you think India has gotten away with this so far? They create cleavages of fear, xenophobia, and insecurity. Also, a book is an act of community; it has many midwives. These may not be perfect worlds or even equal worlds, but they strive to be. Suchitra Vijayan on a journey to find a people's history of modern Sometimes they are no more, but your storytelling is so invigorating that the reader doesnt forget them. India has consistently warred against its own citizens; this book is about some of these wars. Opinion | After Pulwama, the Indian media proves it is the BJP's If it does, I have failed. Suchitra Vijayan At a time when right-wing nationalism is crescendoing in India and across the world, Suchitra Vijayans Midnights Borders raises pertinent questions about the very foundations of Indias nationalism the cartography of South Asian nation-states defined by arbitrary lines drawn hastily by the British colonial administration. Vijayan: Its a very generous reading, and thanks for that. We thank her for her time, patience, and illuminating insights into her work. 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. Some of the oldest resistances in our nation are those communities who have been fighting for their own homes from militarisation who seek to exploit their mineral rich home land for mining. This language drums the idea of the fundamental importance of justice, and such language is inalienable: it can easily be defined and empathetically understood. In the popular depictions of India circulating in the US, we rarely see the stories that the nations jingoistic governments have shoved under the carpet. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, GQ, The Boston Review, The Hindu, and Foreign Policy, and she has appeared on NBC news. And were there any apprehensions since you began working on this book? Suchitra Vijayan is a writer, photographer, lawyer, political essayist, and a lecturer. Its feudal, entitled, and cannibalistic. I want to flag two essays where I engage with this in an in-depth manner, Disaster Ruins Everything, on my work in Haiti, and what it means to photograph disaster, especially when it is Brown and Black bodies. There is something deeply flawed in the way we live today. 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. They are arriving from various cities and people I have never met. Q: What struck me about your work was its immersive style. Hope Is the Last Bastion: Talking with Suchitra Vijayan Chopra cleverly uses womens empowerment, diversity, and the immigrant story as a facade to parrot and promote deeply problematic ideologies, takes, and stances. So we might never know the true extent of this loss. Rumpus: Why do you think the ever-growing canon of Indian American literature has barely tried to engage with these conversations through their 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. Founded in 2009, The Rumpus is one of the longest running independent online literary and culture magazines. You dont need a Leni Riefenstahl today. I feel very uncomfortable talking about this, or rather I dont know how to discuss this without centering myself. These are edited excerpts from the interview: 'Midnight' seems to be a metaphor for multiple things both freeing and frightening. Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. Perhaps thats their victory. I kept detailed audio notes that I recorded each night when I traveled. Vijayan: A writers responsibility above all is to speak the truth and make sense of our social worlds. 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. Also read: Whose Stories Are Told In Indian History? The people whose lives are not just materials for the book, who are, in some ways, your co-conspirators in trying to make sense of the social reality. If you think about communities in resistance to immense violations, theyre all interconnected to climate justice. In season two, a quick flashback resolves the plotline from the previous season. Rumpus: Toni Morrison said that she writes from a place of delight, not disappointment. She was part of a music band at PSG. Do you think the future is borderless? Whose Stories Are Told In Indian History? Some even dressed for the occasion in combat gear. (Stay up to date on new book releases, reviews, and more with The Hindu On Books newsletter. 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. What I was most concerned about and still am are the people in the book and their safety. They all have very specific and carefully curated origin/immigrant stories that cleverly exploit the model minority trope.
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