I wrote a book along with it comes love, scorn, and sometimes even ridicule. How did writing this book affect you? What is the emotional and artistic cost that one pays as a writer while crafting these narratives? It offers brief historical notes on how the nations current borders came into force alongside accounts of increasing militarisation, disputes, little massacres and forgotten pogroms, no-mans-lands, and the people through whom the border runs like barbed wire. She writes about war, conflict . In another essay from 2019, I write about the banality of bearing witness as an excuse to produce extractive work. These questions about documentation practices started long before I started this book project, and I learnt along the way. 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. Reports also identified different people as the supposed masterminds of the Pulwama attack at various points without clear sourcing. Opinion | After Pulwama, the Indian media proves it is the BJP's 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. But for me hope is radical; hope is the last bastion of our defense. There are enough stories of people parachuting into communities to do human interest stories. Hope Is the Last Bastion: Talking with Suchitra Vijayan We believe that literature builds communityand if reading The Rumpus makes you feel more connected, please show your support! They dont. None of this helps in telling richer, more textured stories. As a Bookshop affiliate, The Rumpus earns a percentage from qualifying purchases. Itembodied young Indias grand ambitions and aspired to a nation made of men and women equally protected by the law. I wrote the book, but those who have lived through this hell continue to live and navigate this hell. Unreliable Witnesses - Boston Review The mask is off. The arrest of Khurram Parvez shows that India is no Vijayan: Its a very generous reading, and thanks for that. Rumpus: In such a climate, what do you think is the responsibility of the diasporic Indian writer? In an interview with Firstpost,Vijayan talks about her book, the militarisation of borders, ethno-nationalism, and the politics of documentation. They both have pregnant daughters, a fact that becomes significant as the novel progresses. The first true peoples history of modern India, told through a seven-year, 9,000-mile journey along its many contested borders. I left my 18-month-old daughter to travel and finish this book. Could you comment on how much our present border security policies have changed in the last few years? 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. Its a vicious cycle. It is here that we subsume all that we otherwise celebrate under the demands of freedom, progress, liberalism, liberty, and secular ideals.". Its been a little over a week since the book came out, and every day this week, I have woken up to emails, messages, and DMs from readers. 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. A: This geopolitical violence is not new, theres a long bloody, brutal history to thisa cyclical, ongoing and never-ending history. This contributed to the long-running, brutal silencing of Kashmiris and their struggle for self-determination. Not mine. In 1971, East Pakistan seceded and became Bangladesh. 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. Author In Focus, Celebration, The Literary Journal. Q: As you wrote this book, you dont hesitate to meditate on how your personal life bidirectionally impacted the book. So now, how do we respond to this? Legislations such as National Register of Citizens and Citizenship Amendment Act threaten to render millions of people, especially Muslims, stateless. The two press briefings by the foreign secretary and Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson entertained no questions. It was just a sad moment, and I couldnt celebrate a book when there was so much human tragedy playing out. 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. The entire episode is emblematic of a broader trend in Indian media. The original vision of the book also has newspaper cuttings, and found maps. by Suchitra Vijayan Hardcover 1,759.00 2,023.00 You Save: 264.00 (13%) Usually dispatched in 1 to 3 weeks. But the number of anonymous sources willing to disclose classified and conflicting information to reporters who cited them without corroboration points to a serious crisis in how information is reported to the public. Keywords: LTTE love jihad Beef politics Hindu Nationalism Kashmir So the question is not: will the future be borderless? We see that more clearly when you decide against photographing children at the India-Bangladesh border. Its a hard book to name, and I kept going back and forth. Listen to Season 3 on Apple, Spotify and Google podcasts. Vijayan: A writers responsibility above all is to speak the truth and make sense of our social worlds. There was an NDTV programme, where somebody said Should Indias constitution be secularist? In season two, a quick flashback resolves the plotline from the previous season. 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? 'Suchitra's account of her journeys across the undefinable and ever-shifting borders between India and its neighbours is gripping, frightening, faithful and beautiful. On Feb. 14, an Indian paramilitary convoy was attacked. I felt the same way when I would prepare legal petitions for my clients. Its an immense privilege to be able to write and be published. Suchitra Vijayan - KeyWiki Sign in. I think this book will change the global conversation about India and shape what gets written in the future about India. If it does, I have failed. We have already chosen silence and obfuscation even before the pushback has arrived. As a trained barrister, I used to believe in the concept of justicebut now I simply call this freedom and dignity. 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. 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. Midnights Borders, a work of narrative reportage, is the fruit of this journey. Dear reader, this article is free to read and it will remain free but it isnt free to produce. 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. 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. @suchitrav. 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. In recent years, the narrative of hate has escalated with the reelection of the right-wing Narendra Modi government in 2019. Vasundhara Sirnate Drennan is director of research at the Polis Project. She entered the show on day 28 as a new contestant and was evicted on day 49. She still does a radio show called Flight983 on Radio Mirchi, on Sunday evenings (79 pm). 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. Many of the stories didnt make it to the book because it became dangerous to identify people. Suchitra Vijayan (Author of Midnight's Borders) - Goodreads But who carries the responsibility of that fear? Worse, we have been disciplined to accept injustice and inequality as given. Ali lived right on the edge of the India-Bangladesh border. She perfectly captured the happiness and the intimacy of the occasion, the warmth of all the people present, and the splendor of the venue. 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. Without a political solution, Kashmir will undoubtedly emerge in upcoming news cycles. Perhaps there are lessons to learn from that. 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. Suchitra Vijayan on a journey to find a people's history of modern 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. I find that profoundly inspiring. Gokhale claimed that it struck the biggest camp and that a large number of terrorists were killed. Yes, Chopra does take a huge share of attention, but the real danger is how people like her whitewash Hindutva, and now increasingly co-opt the language of Hinduphobia to counter any critique of Hindutva. You can find them on, The #GBVinMedia Campaign: Media Reportage Of Gender-Based Violence, #IndianWomenInHistory: Remembering The Untold Legacies of Indian Women, How To Write About Abortion: A Rights-Based Approach, The Crowdsourced List Of Social Justice Collectives Across Indian Campuses. Suchitra Vijayan (@suchitrav) / Twitter This affects who gets to document, and whom. [1], Suchitra joined Sify for a year, after graduating. Yes, men who act as petty sovereigns are everywhere. 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. Suchitra is a sought-after performer at corporate and other such stage shows. So we might never know the true extent of this loss. Similarly, motherhood changed me; it radicalised me. 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. Professor Nandita Sharmas work is an excellent way to engage with this history. Suchitra Vijayan on Twitter: ""The historical unity of the ruling Many come from immense privileges of caste, class, wealth, access, and resources. Some things are just not discussed anymore. A place to read, on the Internet. The people in this book are eloquent advocates of their history and their struggles. Atmany points in Midnight's Borders, we see several men in positions of power view the women, who cross over from the 'other' side, as violable. Suchitra Vijayan was born and raised in Madras, India. One feedback I often got was that I had to put more of myself in this book. 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. These are no longer contradictory; instead, even criticism can be converted to views. 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. 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 She is the founder and executive director of The Polis Project, and the author of. Suchitra Vijayan's debut book, Midnight's Borders, is a genre-bending book of nonfictionmade of stories, encounters, vignettes, and photographsabout home, belonging, and displacement.The book recounts the author's recent journey across India's land borders covering 9000 miles over a span of seven years. So lets be very clear that Indias intellectual literary landscape is deeply problematic, feudal, and alienating," says Suchitra Vijayan to FII, Featured Image Source: The credit goes to my agent Lucy Cleland who suggested this title. My friend Ritesh Uttamchandani said this once, the lens that elusive distance between the photographer and the photographed is often impossible to bridge. Whose Stories Are Told In Indian History? If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. I was reading a lot of Pessoa when I was in Afghanistan, so another placeholder title was 'Maps/Lines/Cartographies of Disquiet', inspired by the Book of Disquiet. What do words like democracy, freedom, and citizenship mean? The photographs add another dimension to the book, and could have been used more. 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. There is something deeply flawed in the way we live today. She has a sister named, Sunitha. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, GQ, The Boston Review, The Hindu, and Foreign Policy, and she has appeared on NBC news. I think freedom and dignity enables us to really go beyond in our political imaginationbeyond just electoral politics. Aruni Kashyap writes in English, and his native language Assamese. He writes about how when the Constitution was adopted, "We are going to enter into a life of contradictions. So the first reflection is this idea of where we are right now: as people, as a society, as a community. 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. Suchitra Vijayan. Suchitra Vijayan, Newspapers in a Kashmiri home In August 2014 I travelled to the border town of Uri while researching my upcoming book, Borderlands. 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. We no longer ask if this will lead to a better society, if it will benefit the vast majority of those farthest away from power. This is a challenging task for the writer. Instead, we need to ask what fate awaits us. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Who is expendable, and the manufacturing of rightlessness to render people expendable. And that violence is often abetted by the state and goes unpunished. Vasundhara Sirnate Drennan is director of research at the Polis Project. We once asked these questions, even if there were no clear answers or consensus. A: I dont agree with this kind of framing, because its not that underrepresented people dont have voices. My job was to make sure that their voices were centered. The pair experience similar situations in their lives: abuse, the death or absence of a husband, and the longing for a better future. Its about what people like me should do. There is no denying that the American media landscape is deeply racist, and while the past few years have seen more brown people take center stage, its nowhere close to where we need to be. 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. 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 am repeating what I have said before, "Kashmir is Indias greatest moral and political failure. As a spy working for TASC, Srikant Tiwari, played by Manoj Bajpayee, has to juggle being an underpaid government employee as well as an absent husband and a perpetually late and distracted father. You can carefully craft a narrative of immigrant success but act tone-deaf about the ongoing refugee crisis. Then you sit in a room with a mother telling you that she has no idea what happened to her son and has no way of knowing if hes ever coming back. There are instances when you and some voices in the narrative question their documentation practice. Now imagine how it would be for someone from a Dalit/Bahujan, Muslim, Adivasi, or working community to try to make inroads. Its when we lose hope that we believe that we have lost everything. How do you protect this child? Even the diasporic experience is often told through this limited lens, without taking into account how diverse the immigrant experience in this country is. 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? 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. Vijayan began her journey in Kolkata. Excerpts from the #BBC documentary telecast about PM . Even those among us who will speak of BLM will not openly challenge Hindutva or the RSS. Author, lawyer and journalist, Suchitra Vijayan in conversation with Cerebration editor Smita Maitra on her book Midnight's Borders, maps, fragmented identities and postcolonial nation-states. They continue to. 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. She lives in New York. Suchitra Vijayan Sometimes they are no more, but your storytelling is so invigorating that the reader doesnt forget them. Already a subscriber? Your prose is hopeful there. Not everyone rejoiced in these new freedoms. ", "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.". If you think about communities in resistance to immense violations, theyre all interconnected to climate justice. Say, for instance, do we need a James Nachtwey to fly to war-torn Bosnia? 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 is a writer, photographer, lawyer, political essayist, and a lecturer. The government, of course, denies this. Barkha Dutt: India has made its point in Pakistan. What connects these messages is deep empathy and a willingness to engage with the books stories, ideas, and arguments. I dont think theres just one emotion that drives a writer to finish writing. What do you think the future holds? How do you think your book contributes to the larger conversation about India? As Sari Begum's story [in the book] illustrates, 'A life where the violence of the border is not at the fence, or in the trenches, but at the center of 'their' and our 'universe'. Vijayan creates a constellation of micro-histories of people who have lived through the violence . 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.