If you want to support the work that goes behind publishing high-quality feminist media content, please consider becoming a FII member. Q: You had to deal with a lot of ethical considerations as a writer and photographer, which echo throughout your and your fellow journalists work, as evaluated in your book. [8] On 7 March 2017, she applied for divorce. 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. Not mine. Subscribe here. That changes how you write and photograph a place. But, more importantly, I wanted my readers to walk away with a sense of empathy. The book was originally going to be a photographic body of work, which changed when I started writing. So the first reflection is this idea of where we are right now: as people, as a society, as a community. News organizations such as India Today, NDTV, News 18, the Indian Express, First Post, Mumbai Mirror, ANI and others routinely attributed their information to anonymous government sources, forensic experts, police officers and intelligence officers. No independent investigations were conducted, and serious questions about intelligence failures were left unanswered. What changeshave youobserved in the way you treat your subject after finishing your journey and book? Midnights Borders is part investigation, part meditation on the lines drawn on land or water that separate India from its neighbours. 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. What do you think the future holds? Qin took charge as Chinese foreign minister in December, succeeding Wang Yi. The events of 9/11 had profound effects on how border security projects and politics played out. Also read: Book Review: Looking Through Dalit Sahitya And Ambedkar. NONFICTIONMidnights BordersBy Suchitra VijayanMelville HousePublished May 25, 2021. Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. A literary community. You dont need a Leni Riefenstahl today. To repurpose an old sayingall infamy is now good virality. 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. When your investigations in Kashmir came to an end, what changes did you observe in your 'grammar of dissent'? Christopher Clary: India and Pakistan resort to the diplomacy of violence and flirt with catastrophe, Hafsa Kanjwal: As India beats its war drums over Pulwama, its occupation of Kashmir is being ignored. This idea of responsibility gets obfuscated in many ways. He writes TPS reports for an overbearing boss who calls him the minimum guy. He has replaced eating vada pav at ungodly hours on the streets with overpriced salads. Rumpus: In such a climate, what do you think is the responsibility of the diasporic Indian writer? Many come from immense privileges of caste, class, wealth, access, and resources. Rumpus: How hard was it to write nonfiction about such a violent contemporary history? 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? 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. Although Vijayan critiques the state and its complicity in violence and erasure of lives, she refrains from villainizing the men who serve the state. 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. The writing grew around the images and the visual memory of the encounters. Rumpus: Can we please talk about Priyanka Chopra, and how her rise is seen as a marker of brown achievement? How did writing this book affect you? I was much younger when I took on this project, so I wanted to prove those people wrong. Midnights Borders , Suchitra Vijayan includes a photo of the pillar, which becomes a cricket stump for boys on either side of the border most days. is a barrister-at-law, writer and researcher. Sharing borders with six countries and spanning a geography that extends from Pakistan to Myanmar, India is the worlds largest democracy and second most populous country. They cannot be abusive or personal. Where does that leave us? Rumpus: What do you think is the value of well-crafted literary nonfiction in sustaining conversations about equality and justice? Some even dressed for the occasion in combat gear. Vijayan: I would say I am hopeful. '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. The two press briefings by the foreign secretary and Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson entertained no questions. 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. Similarly, motherhood changed me; it radicalised me. 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. As a Bookshop affiliate, The Rumpus earns a percentage from qualifying purchases. Co-founded the Resettlement Legal Aid Project in Cairo, Suchitra is also the founder of the Polis Project, a research and journalism organisation. 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. The pandemic showed us that crises and recurrent disasters that annihilate our lives are here to stay. I test my practice of writing or being a photographer against this rule. This also decides who gets access, awards and accolades. A consistent ethical framework within the media hasnt existed for a long time. She studied Law, Political Science and International Relations, and was trained as a Barrister-at-Law and called to Bar at the Honourable Society of Inner Temple. Were there times when you doubted your own ability to record and document these people's stories? 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.. To make matters worse, between 2013 and 2019, editors of channels and publications have been sacked and replaced, primarily because of their criticism of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. Panitars division is as cruel as it is arbitrary: here, the houses on either side of one dusty lane occupy two neighbouring countries. The post-Cold War and 90s rhetoric of a borderless world that accompanied globalisation also kick-started massive border fencing projects in India. Vasundhara Sirnate Drennan is director of research at the Polis Project. We still argue if something should be a massacre, a pogrom, or a riot. The two officers who avert the attack narrowly escape death but are left with broken bodies and broken lives. 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. I wrote a book along with it comes love, scorn, and sometimes even ridicule. Many of the stories didnt make it to the book because it became dangerous to identify people. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. 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? That, perhaps, is the only way to avoid further destruction in the region. As a lawyer, journalist, and human rights activist who has worked in conflict-ridden territories of Kosovo, Egypt, Rwanda, and elsewhere, she has often met people scrambling for bare existence, caught in a no-mans land. Siaan On Being Queer And Being Online, FII Interviews: Journalist Meena Kotwal On Minority Politics, Journalism Today And The Caste Divide. Thank you! The events in Hathras did not happen at the border; neither did the murder and gang rape of two teenage girls in the Katra village of Budaun district, Uttar Pradesh. Vijayan: There is an elusive distance between the photographer and the photographed that cant be bridged. For far too long, they and their progeny have held power to shape the political understanding of our social worlds. And that violence is often abetted by the state and goes unpunished. The result is a gripping, urgent dispatch from a modern India in crisis, and the full and vivid portrait of the country weve long been missing. One feedback I often got was that I had to put more of myself in this book. We have already chosen silence and obfuscation even before the pushback has arrived. Worse, we have been disciplined to accept injustice and inequality as given. This is a challenging task for the writer. Professor Nandita Sharmas work is an excellent way to engage with this history. March 06, 2021 04:50 pm | Updated March 07, 2021 08:05 am IST. She still does a radio show called Flight983 on Radio Mirchi, on Sunday evenings (79 pm). A:I dont think an ethical or moral compass exists nowI dont know if it ever existed. (Stay up to date on new book releases, reviews, and more with The Hindu On Books newsletter. A relatively small group of people runs it. March 20, 2021 09:50:40 IST. What connects these messages is deep empathy and a willingness to engage with the books stories, ideas, and arguments. 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. RT @project_polis: Writing fiction in a dystopian world - @kiccovich in conversation with @mohammedhanif https://thepolisproject.com/listen/writing-fiction-in-a . History and memory is localwhich means its almost impossible to write about India. 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. She has a sister named, Sunitha. We must realise that its the grassroots media, who represent themselves, document what mainstream media ignores, and bring to notice what is important. Why the Modi government lies. But who gets to speak for so many of us? Categories. 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. Itembodied young Indias grand ambitions and aspired to a nation made of men and women equally protected by the law. There is a lot to learn and unlearn, and a writer and a photographer should respond to a political moment, and the work should be a reflection of those practices. We need more such books. Many TV newsrooms were transformed into caricatures of military command centers, with anchors assessing military technology and strategy (sometimes incorrectly). The complexities of the Naga peace process were apparent on a visit to remote villages of Tuensang district where many of the women remained silent with others admitting they had never encountered an outsider, except Indian soldiers. 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. However, at work, Tiwari is in his element. How "The Family Man" champions the carceral security state. And join us by becoming a monthly or yearly Member. Excerpts from the #BBC documentary telecast about PM . 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. Vijayan is no stranger to stories of violence. 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. And, in many cases, they are children of the literary, cultural, or political elite who have long been the beneficiaries of the Indian state. 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. Your prose is hopeful there. In Midnight's Borders, barrister, political analyst, and writer Suchitra Vijayan documentsmany such telling accounts of lives both growing and barely getting by alongIndian borderlands. Her YouTube channel 'Suchislife' has all her updated work. Its feudal, entitled, and cannibalistic. By Suchitra Vijayan, Why should I read it? She never did like my then-husband, which makes her a better judge of character than I was. I left my 18-month-old daughter to travel and finish this book. In that process, her reportage unravels the cultural and political implicationsof our bordersonour 'collective conscience', as capricious as that might be, and on the lives of those sandwiched between two warring nations. Sometimes lost. Instead, we need to ask what fate awaits us. 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. Firstly, when we talk about violence, we often talk about it only as communal violence, as if both communities have equal strength and power. Why dont people see the ground shifting beneath their feet? All too often, the Indian media portrays Kashmiris as terrorists or human shields, not as a community seeking self-determination. 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. Suchitra Vijayan is a barrister-at-law, writer and researcher. 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. 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. How did you achieve empathy in your writing, without the privileged lens that is common in journalistic canon? Is that a probable solution? Are you expecting any pushback at all? The people in the text fear statelessness, unknown violence, and being forgotten. 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. I particularly loved the fact that all our couple shots were very natural and came out truly . Vijayan reserves her own impressions for later, and allows us to know these people intimately. A place to read, on the Internet. What do these events have in common? As I travelled, I was very aware of these inherent power differences. This affects who gets to document, and whom. These are no longer contradictory; instead, even criticism can be converted to views. I believe it can teach us to ask these questions again. The book was called ``a genre- bending book of nonfictionmade of stories, encounters, vignettes, and photographsabout home, belonging, and displacement.`` Her essays, photographs, and interviews have appeared in The Washington Post, GQ, The Nation, The Boston Review, Foreign Policy, Lit Hub, Rumpus, Electric literature, NPR, NBC, and BBC. 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. This Life Draws Attention to Life Behind Bars and the Transcendent Power of Rap, Wrestling with Reality in The Big Door Prize. Updated Date: 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 . Lets start with a very simple statement that everyone can agree on: the way were living right now cannot continue. 2:16. Her work looks at theories of violence, war, and human nature. Why is this particular time of the day intrinsic to the book? Travel to States like Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland in the Northeast which share borders with China and Myanmar required Inner Line Permits, BSF soldiers followed her everywhere on the West Bengal/ Bangladesh border, and in Kashmir she was summoned to meet the local inspector at Uri. But eventually we need all kinds of stories and arguments to emerge from what is now considered Indian American writing. She is actively involved in circulating urgent and underrepresented news from the world through her online platform. If she wasnt real she would be a marriage between a meme and parody. It definitely doesnt help when trying to hold a powerful state accountable. And this is always at the expense of others. From the epoch of Empire to the nation-state, border making is fundamentally a political project that creates, sustains, and reinforces inequality. It is the fragility of human lives that remains at the very center of the book. Reports also identified different people as the supposed masterminds of the Pulwama attack at various points without clear sourcing. In season two, a quick flashback resolves the plotline from the previous season. A: I dont agree with this kind of framing, because its not that underrepresented people dont have voices. I almost never forget, I remember entire episodes or events since I was six years old. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, GQ, The Boston Review, The Hindu, and Foreign Policy, and she has appeared on NBC news. Excellent interview, brave insights and critical reflections! As such, very few media establishments in India have been able to stand against the influence of political leaders. Aruni Kashyap writes in English, and his native language Assamese. Now imagine how it would be for someone from a Dalit/Bahujan, Muslim, Adivasi, or working community to try to make inroads. In terms of violence, there is also this tendency to photograph and display the bodies of marginalised communities when they experience violence. I have no control over what comes next. Could you comment on how much our present border security policies have changed in the last few years? Growing up I was surrounded by people who emphasised the community over anything else. Jawaharlal Nehrus 'Tryst with Destiny'is a speech I have returned to over the past 20 years. She writes about war, conflict . Who is expendable, and the manufacturing of rightlessness to render people expendable. That capacity to be able to go away and then come back profoundly affects how you write because then you are still rooted. The stories were a way to understand how people struggled and survived. Gokhale claimed that it struck the biggest camp and that a large number of terrorists were killed.
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