Whose Stories Are Told In Indian History? She digs deep into colonial history to show how years of violence and consequential suffering has shaped these lives across generations. Early on, the idea of bearing witness as a rhetorical tool and as a literary device became deeply problematic. When I finished writing, I had become much richer in many waysnot in a material waybut through a community. She has a sister named, Sunitha. And our language helps us imagine a vision that is truly just, beautiful and ethical. The revolutionary Constitution not only created a social world made of contradictions, but it very soon became the tool of suppressing dissent, deployed laws like the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), and Public Safety Act (PSA) in Kashmir. That capacity to be able to go away and then come back profoundly affects how you write because then you are still rooted. The Pakistan-based militant group Jaish-e-Muhammad soon claimed responsibility. We're back with our flagship podcast 'Intersectional FeminismDesi Style!' Excellent interview, brave insights and critical reflections! What do you think the future holds? 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. Fearful of the future he asked quietly, Where did all this hate come from, where is it going to take us? echoing what many residents had told her. Those notes were raw and immediate. Vijayan: A writers responsibility above all is to speak the truth and make sense of our social worlds. 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. 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 . She writes about war, conflict . How did you respond to that environment being in an extremely challenging position yourself? Categories. If you want to support the work that goes behind publishing high-quality feminist media content, please consider becoming a FII member. 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. Suchitra Vijayan | The Caravan I'mdyslexic, but have visual and episodic memory, which means I dream and relive moments. Along the way, we meet the men and women of TASC, dissenting students, ISIS terrorists and Pakistani military officers. Vijayan began her journey in Kolkata. Suchitra Vijayan. She was part of a music band at PSG. 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. Modi met with senior police officers and ordered them not to intervene as violence raged. 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. Is that a probable solution? [3], She started singing after a few years as RJ. For far too long, they and their progeny have held power to shape the political understanding of our social worlds. But the inclination to still treat India as a democracy remains. The writing grew around the images and the visual memory of the encounters. Hope Is the Last Bastion: Talking with Suchitra Vijayan The pandemic showed us that crises and recurrent disasters that annihilate our lives are here to stay. Stallings, Rumpus Original Fiction: The Litany of Invisible Things. The constant making and remaking of who is a citizen, who is not, is accompanied by a profoundly dehumanising process. 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.. Who gets to shape these stories, what stories are chosen, what stories then are exiled? These instances are also about border practices because modern states, especially liberal democracies, expend immense energy in creating and maintaining identity categories: who belongs, and where. So lets be very clear that Indias intellectual literary landscape is deeply problematic, feudal, and alienating," says Suchitra Vijayan to FII, Featured Image Source: Indian Foreign Secretary V.K. This is the backdrop against which we map how border practices and policies have played out in India. 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. The government, of course, denies this. What is the emotional and artistic cost that one pays as a writer while crafting these narratives? In politics, we will be recognising the principle of one man, one vote, and one vote, one value. The original vision of the book also has newspaper cuttings, and found maps. 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. Reports also identified different people as the supposed masterminds of the Pulwama attack at various points without clear sourcing. I particularly loved the fact that all our couple shots were very natural and came out truly . By Suchitra Vijayan, Why should I read it? Suchitra Vijayan (@suchitrav) / Twitter I now think twice about calling friends, worried if this might put them at risk. 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. During the initial search, the BSF troops recovered a black coloured drone - DJI Matrice (made in China), in partially damaged condition, lying near Dhussi Bundh near Shahjada village. Itembodied young Indias grand ambitions and aspired to a nation made of men and women equally protected by the law. Where does that leave us? Copyright 2023, THG PUBLISHING PVT LTD. or its affiliated companies. Rumpus: The book derives its emotional strength and narrative energy from the stories of people you encounter at the borders. Thanks to The New India Foundation for sending across a beautiful copy of the Midnights Borders. She perfectly captured the happiness and the intimacy of the occasion, the warmth of all the people present, and the splendor of the venue. Who is expendable, and the manufacturing of rightlessness to render people expendable. When your investigations in Kashmir came to an end, what changes did you observe in your 'grammar of dissent'? Vijayans book begins a much-needed conversation on thinking about freedom beyond the idea of nation and its illusory lines. She responded to an ad for the post of an RJ in Radio Mirchi. Suchitra is a sought-after performer at corporate and other such stage shows. 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. Suchitra Vijayan talks to FII about Indian politics, communal violence, marginalisation and her book Midnights Borders: A Peoples History of Modern India. Why the Modi government lies. Suchitra Vijayan on Twitter: ""The historical unity of the ruling It is meant to manufacture an underclass of rightless subjects. I was much younger when I took on this project, so I wanted to prove those people wrong. They are also essentially bureaucratic, judicial, and procedural acts of terror. You will see very little critical commentary or public positions on Hindutva, its corrosive role in India, or how RSS works here in the USfunding and now interfering in US elections. We live in a profoundly unequal society, where every day brings news of new devastation. 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. The credit goes to my agent Lucy Cleland who suggested this title. They continue to. Nine years ago, she began documenting stories from her travels along the borders of India. Its an immense privilege to be able to write and be published. 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. Firstpost - All Rights Reserved. Suchitra is a BSc graduate from Mar Ivanios College (Trivandrum). The two press briefings by the foreign secretary and Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson entertained no questions. 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. Her writing has appeared in The Citron Review, Dukool Magazine, Cerebration, Feminism in India, Times of India (Spellbound edition), and others. Now imagine how it would be for someone from a Dalit/Bahujan, Muslim, Adivasi, or working community to try to make inroads. The Rumpus: It is shocking how unaware the world is about the violence the Indian government has committed since independence on its border citizens. More Buying Choices 1,732.00 (16 Used & New offers) Audible Audiobook 0.00 Free with Audible trial 586.00 ( 9 ) document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Your email address will not be published. She lives in New York. 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. Opinion | After Pulwama, the Indian media proves it is the BJP's Suchitra Vijayan is an American writer, essayist, activist, and photographer working across oral history, state violence, and visual storytelling. Also, I am an unknown and insignificant entity. She is the founder and executive director of The Polis Project, and the author of. Rumpus: The book utilizes more than one medium: photography, narrative nonfiction, journalism. Suchitra Vijayan is the executive director of the Polis Project. I havent spoken or celebrated with my friends in Kashmir or Assam. Were there times when you doubted your own ability to record and document these people's stories? Because you are constantly thinking about the ethical universe you are bringing this child into What values do you teach this child? Rumpus: How hard was it to write nonfiction about such a violent contemporary history? ", "Documentary photography has amassed mountains of evidenceyetthe genre has simultaneously contributed much to spectacle, to retinal excitation, to voyeurism, to terror, envy, and nostalgia, and only a little to the critical understanding of the social world.". That changes how you write and photograph a place. Suchitra was born in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, as the daughter of Ramadurai and Padmaja. Pushback is such a benign word, isnt it? Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, GQ, The Boston Review, The Hindu, and Foreign Policy, and she has appeared on NBC news. She has a sister named, Sunitha. Global Ethics Review: Midnight's Borders, with Suchitra Vijayan Even the diasporic experience is often told through this limited lens, without taking into account how diverse the immigrant experience in this country is. is a barrister-at-law, writer and researcher. They are arriving from various cities and people I have never met. He writes about how when the Constitution was adopted, "We are going to enter into a life of contradictions. 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. A: I dont agree with this kind of framing, because its not that underrepresented people dont have voices. 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. As I travelled, I was very aware of these inherent power differences. Your prose is hopeful there. Sign in. Suchitra Vijayan's Midnight's Borders | Youth Ki Awaaz British India was partitioned into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan on the eve of independence in August, 1947. When fires burn down large swathes of what were peoples homeswhat borders will you impose when climate change will fundamentally remake them? 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 > Faculty > People > NYU Gallatin Is secularism a good thing? This is such an insidious conversation to have; this was even before Adani bought it. No one is a stakeholder herethese are people, humans, citizens, who have been deprived of what the Ambedkarite constitution promised them. Looking Beyond the Lines: Suchitra Vijayan's "Midnight's Borders" Anvisha Manral March 20, 2021 09:50:40 IST Thank you! What do words like democracy, freedom, and citizenship mean? Its a vicious cycle. This article was published more than4 years ago. But it needs to do more for peace. What are those ethical, moral, and political lines? Good, honest and non-polemical writing has always forced us to confront the lies we tell ourselves. Fear seems to be a constant motif in the book we see versions and types of it. Always. 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. But also, to be clear in terms of what I wanted to accomplish: as I say in the book, I wasnt bearing witness or giving voice to the voicelessthe people in this book are eloquent and political voices of their lives and realities. Suchitra Vijayan So I try to learn and listen, and again, as I say in this book, "It is not my goal to 'bear witness' or 'give voice to the voiceless'. Our borders had become a spectacle, and we the cheering mob, she says, as she calls for purging hatred for the sake of posterity. So we might never know the true extent of this loss. 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. What I was most concerned about and still am are the people in the book and their safety. A: Writers are very strange creatures. A literary community. You can carefully craft a narrative of immigrant success but act tone-deaf about the ongoing refugee crisis. How did you achieve empathy in your writing, without the privileged lens that is common in journalistic canon? Vijayan undertakes a seven-year long, 9,000-mile . But for me hope is radical; hope is the last bastion of our defense. 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. In Afghanistan, Kashmir, and India, from one dangerous conflict zone to another, she spoke with people, ate with them, and listened to their stories. Even those who now write about Modis India, will never write about Brahmanism or be critical of how caste works in the diaspora. In an interview with Firstpost,Vijayan talks about her book, the militarisation of borders, ethno-nationalism, and the politics of documentation. Suchitra Acharjee - Graduate Assistant - The University of Texas Rio Sometimes they are no more, but your storytelling is so invigorating that the reader doesnt forget them. It is here that even the most civilised amongst us begin to make excuses for repression, brutality, and violence. Rumpus: Why do you think the ever-growing canon of Indian American literature has barely tried to engage with these conversations through their stories? And yet, the research and the history never overpowers the flow of the narrative. Examining My Caste And Its History Is Eye-Opening: A Personal Essay On Casteism And Ancestry, The History Of The Colonial State And The Unmaking Of The Tawaif, Book Review: Looking Through Dalit Sahitya And Ambedkar, These Are The 15 Women Who Helped Draft The Indian Constitution, Gender Roles And Stereotyping In To Kill A Mockingbird, A Brief Summary Of The Second Wave Of Feminism, A Brief Summary Of The First Wave Of Feminism, Kamala Das The Mother Of Modern Indian English Poetry | #IndianWomenInHistory, A Brief Summary Of The Third Wave Of Feminism, The Life And Times Of Dnyanjyoti Krantijyoti Savitribai Phule | #IndianWomenInHistory, FII Interviews: Charlotte Munch Bengtsen Talks About Women In Filmmaking, FII Interviews: Drag King And Influencer Mx. 'Music I Like', an album of Suchitra's renditions of Mahakavi Bharatiyaar's poetry, set to contemporary tunes and music, released by Universal Music, was a turning point in her career. Its not comparable and should not be compared. She has sung in multiple languages including Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Telugu. 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. 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. 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. Suchitra Vijayan. According to a new World Health Organization report, we lost as many as 4.7 million people in India. They all have very specific and carefully curated origin/immigrant stories that cleverly exploit the model minority trope. India's Press Crackdown: The Silencing of Journalists in Kashmir [2] She became known as Rj Suchi, with her popular morning show Hello Chennai. Find him on Twitter at @AruniKashyap. Many come from immense privileges of caste, class, wealth, access, and resources. Vijayan: Most Indian American writers, especially many of them who occupy the broad spectrum of literary to punditry, come from immense privilege of caste and class. ( I hate this word, voiceless, by the way). And that violence is often abetted by the state and goes unpunished. The acts of writing, documenting, photographing, and archiving carry privileges of caste and class. I wanted to make sure that I was writing in a way that was honest and true to my initial reactions, and capture that without centering myself. Love, passion, anger, the desire to make a point about something. Some even dressed for the occasion in combat gear. In Midnight's Borders, Suchitra Vijayan meditates on belongingness, freedom and political implications of territorial demarcations 'The border making project is central to the capitalist and neoliberal logic,' Vijayan says. Also read: Examining My Caste And Its History Is Eye-Opening: A Personal Essay On Casteism And Ancestry. I want to clarify that what I witnessed or the violence inflicted on my father is not the same as what over eight million Kashmiris have endured. She is not alone. The Rumpus is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Suchitra Vijayan is a barrister-at-law, writer and researcher. 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. 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. Indias intellectual, journalistic, and literary landscape is profoundly problematic and alienating. Vijayan: Its a very generous reading, and thanks for that. We removed an image just before the printing to make sure the person was protected. Also read: Book Review: Looking Through Dalit Sahitya And Ambedkar. 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. Suchitra Vijayan on a journey to find a people's history of modern 'Midnight's Borders: A People's History of Modern India' review: A by Suchitra Vijayan Hardcover 1,759.00 2,023.00 You Save: 264.00 (13%) Usually dispatched in 1 to 3 weeks. Suchitra Vijayan - New Lines Institute [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].
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