It definitely doesnt help when trying to hold a powerful state accountable. [4] She also worked as a dubbing artist for popular heroines like Shriya Saran and Lakshmi Rai.[5]. 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. 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. Now imagine how it would be for someone from a Dalit/Bahujan, Muslim, Adivasi, or working community to try to make inroads. Chopra has long been neoliberalisms reluctant feminist, hawking giving a voice and sisterhood while silencing those who question her. I have never lived under military occupation, curfew, or a looming threat of violence. That changes how you write and photograph a place. Reports also identified different people as the supposed masterminds of the Pulwama attack at various points without clear sourcing. 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. I kept detailed audio notes that I recorded each night when I traveled. I left a few names out in the acknowledgment, worrying if it might direct more trouble towards them. Who gets to shape these stories, what stories are chosen, what stories then are exiled? If you want to support the work that goes behind publishing high-quality feminist media content, please consider becoming a FII member. How "The Family Man" champions the carceral security state. 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. 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. It is here that even the most civilised amongst us begin to make excuses for repression, brutality, and violence. Vijayan reserves her own impressions for later, and allows us to know these people intimately. Suchitra was born in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, as the daughter of Ramadurai and Padmaja. The two officers who avert the attack narrowly escape death but are left with broken bodies and broken lives. Suchitra Vijayan, Newspapers in a Kashmiri home In August 2014 I travelled to the border town of Uri while researching my upcoming book, Borderlands. That, perhaps, is the only way to avoid further destruction in the region. We see that more clearly when you decide against photographing children at the India-Bangladesh border. 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. We believe that literature builds communityand if reading The Rumpus makes you feel more connected, please show your support! A:I dont think an ethical or moral compass exists nowI dont know if it ever existed. The first true peoples history of modern India, told through a seven-year, 9,000-mile journey along its many contested borders. ( I hate this word, voiceless, by the way). Its a dangerous moment where the figure of the rights-bearing citizen is being reduced to a consuming subject. Already a subscriber? Siaan On Being Queer And Being Online, FII Interviews: Journalist Meena Kotwal On Minority Politics, Journalism Today And The Caste Divide. 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. As a Bookshop affiliate, The Rumpus earns a percentage from qualifying purchases. 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. 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. Fear seems to be a constant motif in the book we see versions and types of it. The government, of course, denies this. There are instances when you and some voices in the narrative question their documentation practice. This is the backdrop against which we map how border practices and policies have played out in India. 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. Acted as the General Manager for a day and motivated employees to work for the same purpose to reinforce team . Excerpts from the #BBC documentary telecast about PM . We are consuming subjects in a surveillance economy, not citizens. Indias intellectual, journalistic, and literary landscape is profoundly problematic and alienating. Panitars division is as cruel as it is arbitrary: here, the houses on either side of one dusty lane occupy two neighbouring countries. O. The interview has been paraphrased and condensed for clarity, at the interviewers discretion. It is meant to manufacture an underclass of rightless subjects. Vijayan: Chopra and others like her are a reflection of how popular culture and virality inform discourse and shape it. These are no longer contradictory; instead, even criticism can be converted to views. You need to write what you seethats why you started this project.. 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. Aruni Kashyap writes in English, and his native language Assamese. It is necessary to speak truth to power through our art. The images, however, are not all bereft of hope, as children from both India and Bangladesh use a border pillar as a cricket stump, while men on opposing sides of the war on terror in Afghanistan gather around in a cold evening, smoking and sharing stories. Vijayan undertakes a seven-year long, 9,000-mile . This also decides who gets access, awards and accolades. 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. Suchitra Vijayan is a barrister-at-law, writer and researcher. They create cleavages of fear, xenophobia, and insecurity. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. In Midnight's Borders (Westland Publications, 2021), author and photographer Suchitra Vijayan travels the 9,000 miles of India's borders to understand what Partition did to individual lives and . This book ate into so much of my life. Midnight's Borders by Suchitra Vijayan falls in both categories. Midnights Borders is part investigation, part meditation on the lines drawn on land or water that separate India from its neighbours. The two press briefings by the foreign secretary and Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson entertained no questions. 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. And join us by becoming a monthly or yearly Member. Its an immense privilege to be able to write and be published. Part of this process is a need to turn the lens back at the powerful. They all have very specific and carefully curated origin/immigrant stories that cleverly exploit the model minority trope. I left my 18-month-old daughter to travel and finish this book. 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. 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. Bhawan Singh, who photographed the Nellie massacre, said he had never seen anything like it. We thank her for her time, patience, and illuminating insights into her work. I have no formal training as a writer or a photographer, I taught myself and learnt by doing, failing and creating my own grammar. The publishing landscape, including Indian publishing, is deeply flawedit is upper class, upper caste, and deeply alienating for anyone who doesnt come from already established and existing networks of privilege. Our borders had become a spectacle, and we the cheering mob, she says, as she calls for purging hatred for the sake of posterity. Second, border policies are about "performance and articulations of citizenship". Are you expecting any pushback at all? He writes about how when the Constitution was adopted, "We are going to enter into a life of contradictions. 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. There are some notable exceptions, but they are an exception. 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. Thats part of the political imagination that I believe we need for political movements or any sustained acts of resistance. Vasundhara Sirnate Drennan is director of research at the Polis Project. They continue to. The Rumpus is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. And our language helps us imagine a vision that is truly just, beautiful and ethical. Suchitra Vijayan is an American writer, essayist, activist, and photographer working across oral history, state violence, and visual storytelling. 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. You can claim to be patriotic but not political, you can claim to support the troops but ignore the ongoing civilian casualty. It took a long time to get the voice right. "Fighting for justice and human rights in India is a long and lonely battle" Nishrin Jafri Hussain, the daughter of Ehsan Jafri (from 2019) When fires burn down large swathes of what were peoples homeswhat borders will you impose when climate change will fundamentally remake them? 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? I still do. Updated Date: The travel, the people they encounter, and the political events they record quickly become cameos. 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? Even the diasporic experience is often told through this limited lens, without taking into account how diverse the immigrant experience in this country is. So we might never know the true extent of this loss. Now imagine how it would be for someone from a Dalit/Bahujan, Muslim, Adivasi, or working community to try to make inroads. Nonfiction, Travel, Fiction Member Since February 2021 edit data Suchitra Vijayan was born and raised in Madras, India. 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. 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. More than two weeks after the attack, our analysis finds that no news site had rectified the errors in their reporting, leaving these misleading facts as a matter of public record.