Many TV newsrooms were transformed into caricatures of military command centers, with anchors assessing military technology and strategy (sometimes incorrectly). I now think twice about calling friends, worried if this might put them at risk. Ten years later, you were in Kashmir, where you 'hoped to find answers' by talking to a family that had lost a son. It's a disorienting time when your library or what books you read can become evidence of sedition . We see that more clearly when you decide against photographing children at the India-Bangladesh border. You can find them onYouTube&Linkedin,and can also check out their websitehere. Suchitra was born in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, as the daughter of Ramadurai and Padmaja. Suchitra is a BSc graduate from Mar Ivanios College (Trivandrum). [1], Suchitra joined Sify for a year, after graduating. You can claim to be patriotic but not political, you can claim to support the troops but ignore the ongoing civilian casualty. So we might never know the true extent of this loss. 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. When fires burn down large swathes of what were peoples homeswhat borders will you impose when climate change will fundamentally remake them? And this is always at the expense of others. Vijayan reserves her own impressions for later, and allows us to know these people intimately. How do you think this inspiration from a variety of genres allowed you to tell underrepresented stories? As such, very few media establishments in India have been able to stand against the influence of political leaders. Early on, the idea of bearing witness as a rhetorical tool and as a literary device became deeply problematic. 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. As a bedouin who grew up listening to beautiful stories from beautiful storytellers around a fire, I was transported by her storytelling. By Suchitra Vijayan, Why should I read it? Q: What struck me about your work was its immersive style. Also, a book is an act of community; it has many midwives. 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 . Gokhale claimed that it struck the biggest camp and that a large number of terrorists were killed. Q: What was your goal with writing the book in the beginning and how did it change and drive you throughout those 8 years? Our mostly volunteer-run magazine strives to be a platform for risk-taking voices and writing that might not find a home elsewhere. 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. Instead, we need to ask what fate awaits us. NONFICTIONMidnights BordersBy Suchitra VijayanMelville HousePublished May 25, 2021. Early on, I was very careful to acknowledge this. The Hindu Centre for Politics and Public Policy, Supreme Court forms expert panel to probe any regulatory failure on Adani issue, India makes renewed push for consensus at G20 Foreign Ministers meeting, Hindenburg Research report on Adani Group | Supreme Court verdict on expert committee on March 2, High debt on Vedanta books puts investors on tenterhooks, Employees Provident Fund: How to activate UAN online, 1947: Madras Devadasis (Prevention of Dedication) Act passed, RMA 0-1 FCB, El Clasico highlights: Barcelona leads on aggregate after beating Real Madrid courtesy of a Militao own goal. 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. 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. Some even dressed for the occasion in combat gear. Is photographing a woman, who was gang-raped by the Sudanese army and put on the cover of TIMEpractically naked, able to stop the war? They are arriving from various cities and people I have never met. Keywords: LTTE love jihad Beef politics Hindu Nationalism Kashmir Suchitra Vijayan is a barrister at law and the author of Midnight's Borders: A People's History of Modern India. So lets be very clear that Indias intellectual literary landscape is deeply problematic, feudal, and alienating," says Suchitra Vijayan to FII, Featured Image Source: Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Yes, men who act as petty sovereigns are everywhere. This is a profoundly alienating place for anyone without the networks of privilege and resources. Sometimes lost. The latter is an act of violence against people whose voice you are appropriating. A poll asked if its OK to be white. Heres why the phrase is loaded. Were there times when you doubted your own ability to record and document these people's stories? We once asked these questions, even if there were no clear answers or consensus. 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. After being detained at one of the checkpoints for over two hours, I made my way to one of the villages closest to the Line of Control. 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. Speculation and conjecture were repeated ad infinitum, and several journalists even took to Twitter to encourage the Indian army. 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. 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. 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. Thank you! 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? We're back with our flagship podcast 'Intersectional FeminismDesi Style!' [1] Career [ edit] 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. 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. This also decides who gets access, awards and accolades. 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. Even those among us who will speak of BLM will not openly challenge Hindutva or the RSS. Vijayan began her journey in Kolkata. L.L.B., Law, The University of Leeds, 2004 M.A., International Relation . These are stories of massive human rights violations committed by the Indian state in the countrys margins. 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. This is a profoundly alienating place for anyone without the networks of privilege and resources. There was an NDTV programme, where somebody said Should Indias constitution be secularist? 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. So I dont know if it was empathy so much as just building a relationship with people. 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 came with my privileges, also lets not forget prejudices. She digs deep into colonial history to show how years of violence and consequential suffering has shaped these lives across generations. She has sung in multiple languages including Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Telugu. Ananya is a chaotic humanities student with a deep interest in the relationship between art and society, a writing obsession, and way too many bizarre ideas involving their camera. 42, Moss Rose Heights, M.M Ali road, WASA Circle, Lalkhan Bazar, Chittogong 4000. How long shall we continue to live this life of contradictions?". I fear we are losing that cosmopolitanism of small places. Vijayan shows a keen eye for detail as she presents these diverse lives. Can any of theTIMEsubscribers who loved that cover tell us now whats happening in South Sudan today? Now, along with the medias legitimization of an ideology that promotes violence including riots and lynchings its performance after Pulwama leaves severe doubts as to whether it is engaged in journalism or the propagation of Hindu majoritarianism. When I finished writing, I had become much richer in many waysnot in a material waybut through a community. You can speak of confidence and body positivity and defend selling skin-lightening creams. That changes how you write and photograph a place. 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. Accompanied by this globally, democracies are becoming more authoritarian and stripping people of their citizenshipreducing them to subjects, entrenching the fault lines of inequality. Not everyone lived to see its promises. Chopra is popular because she satisfies a certain need for validationthe trope of brown representation where the mere act of being represented is seen as a singular virtue worth applauding. British India was partitioned into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan on the eve of independence in August, 1947. The public is sold a lie as the attack is framed as a gas leak. Suchitra Vijayan. I want to flag two essays where I engage with this in an in-depth manner, Disaster Ruins Everything, on my work in Haiti, and what it means to photograph disaster, especially when it is Brown and Black bodies.
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