They both have pregnant daughters, a fact that becomes significant as the novel progresses. I left a few names out in the acknowledgment, worrying if it might direct more trouble towards them. India and the US are discussing the possibility of jointly developing and manufacturing an extended-range variant of the M777 ultra lightweight howitzer, Qin's first in-person meeting with EAM Jaishankar came on the sidelines of the G20 foreign ministers conclave in New Delhi amid the over 34-month-long border row in eastern Ladakh. He drops and picks up his kids from school, pines for his old job and is concerned about the newly-formed government in Pakistanall the while trying to salvage his crumbling marriage. Barkha Dutt: India has made its point in Pakistan. How "The Family Man" champions the carceral security state. He writes about how when the Constitution was adopted, "We are going to enter into a life of contradictions. 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. She has a sister named, Sunitha. Worse, we have been disciplined to accept injustice and inequality as given. First, does my work aid the powerful? Photograph of Suchitra Vijayan courtesy of Suchitra Vijayan. ", "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.". As a Bookshop affiliate, The Rumpus earns a percentage from qualifying purchases. She is currently working on her first novel. [2] She became known as Rj Suchi, with her popular morning show Hello Chennai. Its when we lose hope that we believe that we have lost everything. 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. suchitrav. No one is a stakeholder herethese are people, humans, citizens, who have been deprived of what the Ambedkarite constitution promised them. Rumpus: Can we please talk about Priyanka Chopra, and how her rise is seen as a marker of brown achievement? Also, I am an unknown and insignificant entity. What connects these messages is deep empathy and a willingness to engage with the books stories, ideas, and arguments. Finally, Indias current transformation, the aggressive posturing of an aspiring ethno-nationalist state, will have dire consequences for the people and the region. 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. This book ate into so much of my life. We must realise that its the grassroots media, who represent themselves, document what mainstream media ignores, and bring to notice what is important. As a trained barrister, I used to believe in the concept of justicebut now I simply call this freedom and dignity. Q: What was your goal with writing the book in the beginning and how did it change and drive you throughout those 8 years? The first true peoples history of modern India, told through a seven-year, 9,000-mile journey along its many contested borders. I came with my privileges, also lets not forget prejudices. There are instances when you and some voices in the narrative question their documentation practice. More importantly, as Babasaheb would argue, the political revolution was never accompanied by a social revolution. 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. She is the executive director of the Polis Project . It definitely doesnt help when trying to hold a powerful state accountable. I have two tests. Parts of Pakistan have already been consumed by the water. 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. 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. She entered the show on day 28 as a new contestant and was evicted on day 49. Second, as the media continued to promote government positions on the crisis, other critical political issues dropped out of public scrutiny. But it needs to do more for peace. Barrister. Even the diasporic experience is often told through this limited lens, without taking into account how diverse the immigrant experience in this country is. Vijayan: A writers responsibility above all is to speak the truth and make sense of our social worlds. If it does, I have failed. And this is always at the expense of others. A: I dont agree with this kind of framing, because its not that underrepresented people dont have voices. The writing grew around the images and the visual memory of the encounters. Why dont people see the ground shifting beneath their feet? We dont document violence against the privileged like we would report violence against those without power. 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. Whose Stories Are Told In Indian History? Is that a probable solution? Vijayan shows a keen eye for detail as she presents these diverse lives. 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The Rumpus: It is shocking how unaware the world is about the violence the Indian government has committed since independence on its border citizens. 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. Second, border policies are about "performance and articulations of citizenship". The acts of writing, documenting, photographing, and archiving carry privileges of caste and class. A memorable, humane museum of forgotten stories that we must all read and remember. M, What experiences and lives unfold in these pages. It is always Bollywood, the ascent of Priyanka Chopra, or the diasporic loneliness. She was part of a music band at PSG. How violence against women and girlsand even how sexual violence against men and boys (something we dont even talk about enough) is depictedis all seriously problematic. 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. No one can write a book alone. 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. Rumpus: What do you think is the value of well-crafted literary nonfiction in sustaining conversations about equality and justice? This might not seem like much, but it is absolutely essential. There is something deeply flawed in the way we live today. It's a disorienting time when your library or what books you read can become evidence of sedition . Francesca Recchia, a researcher and writer and former director of the Institute for Afghan Arts and Architecture, is the editor and creative director of The Polis Project.. Suchitra Vijayan is a barrister, researcher and the author of "Midnight's Borders: A People's History of Modern India." She is the executive director of the Polis Project. Vijayan: As we have this conversation, Dr. Stan Swamy, the eighty-four-year-old Jesuit priest, Indias oldest political prisoner, was murdered by the Indian state with the complicity of the judiciary. If you think about communities in resistance to immense violations, theyre all interconnected to climate justice. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, GQ, The Boston Review, The Hindu, and Foreign Policy, and she has appeared on NBC news. We perform rituals of freedom in a right-less societywe dont ask if the rules, laws, and policies that are put in place are fair, just, right or equitable. 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. In an interview with Firstpost,Vijayan talks about her book, the militarisation of borders, ethno-nationalism, and the politics of documentation. Our mostly volunteer-run magazine strives to be a platform for risk-taking voices and writing that might not find a home elsewhere. For far too long, they and their progeny have held power to shape the political understanding of our social worlds. Who gets to travel, tell stories, and, more importantly, publish them are all deeply connected to questions of access, resources, and privilege. It is necessary to speak truth to power through our art. How do you protect this child? Were there times when you doubted your own ability to record and document these people's stories? After her Twitter page was hacked in 2016, and the pictures and videos released by the hacker went viral under #suchileaks, following a spate of bad press owing to the fact that she only released a statement on Sun News saying she was focused on shutting the page down, Suchitra left for London to pursue culinary arts at Le Cordon Bleu. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments. 'Suchitra's account of her journeys across the undefinable and ever-shifting borders between India and its neighbours is gripping, frightening, faithful and beautiful. A: This geopolitical violence is not new, theres a long bloody, brutal history to thisa cyclical, ongoing and never-ending history. Time to let the diplomats do the hard talk. Panitars division is as cruel as it is arbitrary: here, the houses on either side of one dusty lane occupy two neighbouring countries. A lot of travel writing is still written by a particular group of people with immense privilege, and they all tend to center themselves. Suchitra Vijayan is a barrister-at-law, writer and researcher. Indias intellectual, journalistic, and literary landscape is profoundly problematic and alienating. Her distinct and bold voice made her very popular with the younger crowd. Always. Reports also identified different people as the supposed masterminds of the Pulwama attack at various points without clear sourcing. 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. Midnight's Borders by Suchitra Vijayan. 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? Suchitra Vijayan was born and raised in Madras, India. Instead, she shows the absurdity of the army apparatus that strives to comply with the narrative of patriotism. You can claim to be patriotic but not political, you can claim to support the troops but ignore the ongoing civilian casualty. Dear reader, this article is free to read and it will remain free but it isnt free to produce. Later on she moved to Coimbatore for her MBA from PSG Institute of Management. They are also essentially bureaucratic, judicial, and procedural acts of terror. 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. Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. A: I lost friends, saw my father go through a transplant, and I gave birth. So now, how do we respond to this? Vijayans book begins a much-needed conversation on thinking about freedom beyond the idea of nation and its illusory lines. British India was partitioned into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan on the eve of independence in August, 1947. There are also those who have previously been tacit, if not active, supporters of the right-wing Hindu nationalist Indian state. We lift up new voices alongside those of more established writers readers already know and love. There are some notable exceptions, but they are an exception. Abrogation Of Article 370 Jammu And Kashmir Statehood, BSF foils another Pakistan plot, shoots down drone in Punjab's Amritsar, Light on weight, heavy on damage: India will be able to hit deep inside Pakistan with THIS ultralightweight howitzer, Put issues related to border in 'proper place', work for its early normalisation: Chinese FM Qin to Jaishankar, In Midnight's Borders, Suchitra Vijayan meditates on belongingness, freedom and political implications of territorial demarcations. Sometimes the news is the story. In 1971, East Pakistan seceded and became Bangladesh. Rumpus: In such a climate, what do you think is the responsibility of the diasporic Indian writer? NYU Gallatin School of Individualized Study. What moral and political stands we should take in the face of ongoing oppression. The events of 9/11 had profound effects on how border security projects and politics played out. I think the way that news and mostly disinformation makes its way to us, we think of violence in very particular waysas disjointed. 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. Especially when you can be charged with sedition for a tweet or arrested for the crime of committing comedy while being Muslim. 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. ). 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. When the book finally came out, India was undergoing the deadly 2nd wave. Vasundhara Sirnate Drennan is director of research at the Polis Project. 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. There are so many nonfiction books about India published yearly but few are so important and subversive. Already a subscriber? You become responsible for a human being. To them he is a man who has settled into a job that has no future. My role, then, and this books role, is to find in their articulations a critique of the nation-state, its violence and the arbitrariness of territorial sovereignty.". We once asked these questions, even if there were no clear answers or consensus. Often, we settle comfortably into describing things as communal riots instead of saying that it was a state-abetted violence, a pogrom, or a brutal massacre. But eventually we need all kinds of stories and arguments to emerge from what is now considered Indian American writing. Some people later chose not to be included because they feared repercussions, especially as the NRC process started playing out. It is here that we subsume all that we otherwise celebrate under the demands of freedom, progress, liberalism, liberty, and secular ideals.". She is the founder and executive director of The Polis Project, and the author of Midnights Borders: A Peoples History of Modern India, recently published by Context, Westland. . Born and raised in Madras, India, she is the author of the critically acclaimed book Midnight's Borders: A People's History of Modern India (Melville House, New York). Subscribe to the Rumpus Book Clubs (poetry, prose, or both) and Letters in the Mail from authors (for adults and kids). On Feb. 14, an Indian paramilitary convoy was attacked in Pulwama in India-administered Kashmir, resulting in the death of 40 Indian officers. The former is an essential act of dissent, even resistance, especially in these dark times.
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