@suchitrav. Then my agent said, Suchitra, you know, I think youre hiding behind your academic language. History and memory is localwhich means its almost impossible to write about India. What are those ethical, moral, and political lines? Categories. The Rumpus is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. In recent years, the narrative of hate has escalated with the reelection of the right-wing Narendra Modi government in 2019. 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. Some things are just not discussed anymore. Why is this particular time of the day intrinsic to the book? I dont think theres just one emotion that drives a writer to finish writing. Your email address will not be published. Suchitra is a sought-after performer at corporate and other such stage shows. 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. 2:16. Indias intellectual, journalistic, and literary landscape is profoundly problematic and alienating. So now, how do we respond to this? In India, that arbitrariness can be seen in how differently we perceive landboundaries with multiple sovereign nations. 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. Q: Since publishing the book last year, what reflections have you hadgiven that its relevance is increasingly ascertained by 2022s interpersonal and geopolitical violence? More importantly, as Babasaheb would argue, the political revolution was never accompanied by a social revolution. 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. But eventually we need all kinds of stories and arguments to emerge from what is now considered Indian American writing. Can you write about loss without living? 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. 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. This is the age of erosion of citizenship rights, a kind of ongoing attrition against human rights, civil liberties, and in the case of India, an accelerated dilution of fundamental rights. 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. 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. Vijayan creates a constellation of micro-histories of people who have lived through the violence . At the end of it, I felt that I learnt more about myself, more about my home, I had becomeif not a better writer, an infinitely better human being, which is to say that one realises that theres always a Longue dure that one needs to consider, crave out time and space to think, train oneself not to always react. But for me hope is radical; hope is the last bastion of our defense. How do you think the media ought to responsibly report on peoples lives and experiences? Book reviews and author interviews with a Southern focus. And our language helps us imagine a vision that is truly just, beautiful and ethical. It is meant to manufacture an underclass of rightless subjects. And what does this mean for on-ground communities, governments, armed forces, and other institutional stakeholders? 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. 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. You can speak of confidence and body positivity and defend selling skin-lightening creams. " India's intellectual, journalistic, and literary landscape is profoundly problematic and alienating. It took a long time to get the voice right. Aruni Kashyap writes in English, and his native language Assamese. Suchitra Vijayan was born and raised in Madras, India. Vasundhara Sirnate Drennan is director of research at the Polis Project. In the same chapter of the book, Kamal says, "If I am an Indian, then why am I afraid?" In these circumstances, the lives of people inhabiting the sketchy borderlands has become all the more vulnerable, and fragile. I can see small cracks beginning to appear. Suchitra is now a singer-songwriter as well, composing music on her own and in collaboration with Singer Ranjith. You can claim to be patriotic but not political, you can claim to support the troops but ignore the ongoing civilian casualty. Suchitra Vijayan is a writer, photographer, lawyer, political essayist, and a lecturer. 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 set out not to give voice to the voiceless, my aim was to put an ear to the ground and listen. In Afghanistan, Kashmir, and India, from one dangerous conflict zone to another, she spoke with people, ate with them, and listened to their stories. Its not comparable and should not be compared. First, the escalation in the counterinsurgency war within the Kashmir Valley under which hundreds of activists were arrested and several Kashmiri civilians killed in gun battles was grievously underreported. Second, border policies are about "performance and articulations of citizenship". She is currently working on her first novel. In an early chapter of the book, you talk about how new worlds are created by the people at Indias borders. Early on, the idea of bearing witness as a rhetorical tool and as a literary device became deeply problematic. The third thing is: were going back to relitigating everything. Nonfiction, Travel, Fiction Member Since February 2021 edit data Suchitra Vijayan was born and raised in Madras, India. She was part of a music band at PSG. 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. Her YouTube channel 'Suchislife' has all her updated work. Its a vicious cycle. Now imagine how it would be for someone from a Dalit/Bahujan, Muslim, Adivasi, or working community to try to make inroads. You can carefully craft a narrative of immigrant success but act tone-deaf about the ongoing refugee crisis. 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. Conversations With Writers Braver Than Me, Midnight's Borders: A People's History of Modern India, FUNNY WOMEN: Excerpts from George Eliots, Rumpus Original Poetry: Two Poems by John A. Nieves, RUMPUS POETRY BOOK CLUB EXCERPT: WHY I WRITE LOVE POETRY IN A BURNING WORLD by Katie Farris, The Freedom of Form & Re-Entering Myths: An interview with A.E. Rumpus: Can we please talk about Priyanka Chopra, and how her rise is seen as a marker of brown achievement? 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. A: I lost friends, saw my father go through a transplant, and I gave birth. Part of this process is a need to turn the lens back at the powerful. 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. What makes these lives so vivid is how Vijayan contextualizes them by placing them in the bigger picture of history. (Stay up to date on new book releases, reviews, and more with The Hindu On Books newsletter. 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 gets to shape these stories, what stories are chosen, what stories then are exiled? Many come from immense privileges of caste, class, wealth, access, and resources. She responded to an ad for the post of an RJ in Radio Mirchi. Vijayans book begins a much-needed conversation on thinking about freedom beyond the idea of nation and its illusory lines. Thanks to The New India Foundation for sending across a beautiful copy of the Midnights Borders. In the first season, when he and his team are tasked to thwart the terrorist attack Operation Zulfiqar, the plot moves from Mumbai to Kashmir. The Pakistan-based militant group Jaish-e-Muhammad soon claimed responsibility. Copyright 2023, THG PUBLISHING PVT LTD. or its affiliated companies. 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. The Indian media must learn to portray the conflict and human rights violations in the region in a more nuanced way, and not reduce Kashmir to a catalogue of death, destruction and emergency laws. In Nellie (Assam) too, where over 3,000 Muslims were killed in 1983, people stared at Vijayan in confusion, no one comes here anymore, she was told. There was an NDTV programme, where somebody said Should Indias constitution be secularist? NYU Gallatin School of Individualized Study. 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. Indias intellectual, journalistic, and literary landscape is profoundly problematic and alienating. The black and white pictures accompanying the chapters add a thousand words more. Founded in 2009, The Rumpus is one of the longest running independent online literary and culture magazines. 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.. The latter is an act of violence against people whose voice you are appropriating. 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. Excerpts from the #BBC documentary telecast about PM . 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. We live in a profoundly unequal society, where every day brings news of new devastation. I felt the same way when I would prepare legal petitions for my clients. Our investigation into the Indian medias reporting on the Pulwama attack found that many reports were contradictory, biased, incendiary and uncorroborated. 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 The controversy surrounding the Rafale deal and allegations of corruption against the government were suddenly sidelined, as was the order for the eviction of more than a million forest dwellers (that was later stayed) and a hearing on the repeal of an important constitutional clause before the Supreme Court. ( I hate this word, voiceless, by the way). Chopra has long been neoliberalisms reluctant feminist, hawking giving a voice and sisterhood while silencing those who question her. The Author Suchitra Vijayan is an American writer, essayist, activist, and photographer working across oral history, state violence, and visual storytelling. 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. Early on, I was very careful to acknowledge this. When the book finally came out, India was undergoing the deadly 2nd wave. 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. Time to let the diplomats do the hard talk. It is here that even the most civilised amongst us begin to make excuses for repression, brutality, and violence. Over the past 15 years, small democratisation through social media has enabled challenging these practices. This might not seem like much, but it is absolutely essential. 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.
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