She perfectly captured the happiness and the intimacy of the occasion, the warmth of all the people present, and the splendor of the venue. Indian Foreign Secretary V.K. Are you expecting any pushback at all? This income helps us keep the magazine alive. Instead, we need to ask what fate awaits us. 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. Founded in 2009, The Rumpus is one of the longest running independent online literary and culture magazines. L.L.B., Law, The University of Leeds, 2004 M.A., International Relation . What we can do is attempt micro-histories of events, timelines, or local communities. I want to clarify that what I witnessed or the violence inflicted on my father is not the same as what over eight million Kashmiris have endured. Dear reader, this article is free to read and it will remain free but it isnt free to produce. This discrepancy is just one example of the confusion and misinformation spread to the public by deeply flawed media reports. In recent years, the narrative of hate has escalated with the reelection of the right-wing Narendra Modi government in 2019. 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. You need a community of people to support you. We need to think about border practices, policing, and national security policies within the larger historical and political contexts. No one is a stakeholder herethese are people, humans, citizens, who have been deprived of what the Ambedkarite constitution promised them. Lets start with a very simple statement that everyone can agree on: the way were living right now cannot continue. More importantly, as Babasaheb would argue, the political revolution was never accompanied by a social revolution. . Empathy is taught by our communities; we are brought up with it. They create cleavages of fear, xenophobia, and insecurity. We still argue if something should be a massacre, a pogrom, or a riot. 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. 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). Chopra has long been neoliberalisms reluctant feminist, hawking giving a voice and sisterhood while silencing those who question her. 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. With the phone armed with a camera, everyone is a photographer; we are all witnesses. Instead, she shows the absurdity of the army apparatus that strives to comply with the narrative of patriotism. We once asked these questions, even if there were no clear answers or consensus. Rumpus: Why do you think the ever-growing canon of Indian American literature has barely tried to engage with these conversations through their stories? The show deals with interesting international happenings. This contributed to the long-running, brutal silencing of Kashmiris and their struggle for self-determination. The interview has been paraphrased and condensed for clarity, at the interviewers discretion. There are some notable exceptions, but they are an exception. She is not alone. How did writing this book affect you? But your book lays bare how differently India's borders are guarded from southern Bengal to the Line of Control. Can any of theTIMEsubscribers who loved that cover tell us now whats happening in South Sudan today? Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, GQ, The Boston Review, The Hindu, and Foreign Policy, and she has appeared on NBC news. Copyright 2023. The credit goes to my agent Lucy Cleland who suggested this title. Also, a book is an act of community; it has many midwives. Excerpts from the #BBC documentary telecast about PM . Vijayan creates a constellation of micro-histories of people who have lived through the violence that India has committed in its borderlandsinjustice that has irrigated the glamour and prosperity we witness in what some of us in those borderlands call mainland India. Vijayan, a barrister by profession, is a founding director of Polis Project, a hybrid research and journalism organization in New York. But the inclination to still treat India as a democracy remains. In an interview with Firstpost,Vijayan talks about her book, the militarisation of borders, ethno-nationalism, and the politics of documentation. Some of the oldest resistances in our nation are those communities who have been fighting for their own homes from militarisation who seek to exploit their mineral rich home land for mining. Vijayan: The photographs were the heart of this project. As a bedouin who grew up listening to beautiful stories from beautiful storytellers around a fire, I was transported by her storytelling. 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. 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. Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. 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. She also embodies the upwardly mobile, privileged sections of the diaspora. 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. More Buying Choices 1,732.00 (16 Used & New offers) Audible Audiobook 0.00 Free with Audible trial 586.00 ( 9 ) 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. Many TV newsrooms were transformed into caricatures of military command centers, with anchors assessing military technology and strategy (sometimes incorrectly). Second, there were times when I ran out of money, when some said that such a book would not be published, when some declared that such a book could not be written. She lives in New York. Accompanied by this globally, democracies are becoming more authoritarian and stripping people of their citizenshipreducing them to subjects, entrenching the fault lines of inequality. Professor Nandita Sharmas work is an excellent way to engage with this history. But eventually we need all kinds of stories and arguments to emerge from what is now considered Indian American writing. A Barrister by training, 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 . Its feudal, entitled, and cannibalistic. These are stories of massive human rights violations committed by the Indian state in the countrys margins. This also decides who gets access, awards and accolades. Her writing has appeared in The Citron Review, Dukool Magazine, Cerebration, Feminism in India, Times of India (Spellbound edition), and others. So I dont know if it was empathy so much as just building a relationship with people. But who carries the responsibility of that fear? Also read: Whose Stories Are Told In Indian History? Firstly, when we talk about violence, we often talk about it only as communal violence, as if both communities have equal strength and power. What it means to photograph, write, report and document is an ongoing process. Gokhale claimed that it struck the biggest camp and that a large number of terrorists were killed. Yes, men who act as petty sovereigns are everywhere. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, GQ, The Boston Review, The Hindu, and Foreign Policy, and she has appeared on NBC news. In retaliation, the Indian Air Force carried out an airstrike on an alleged militant training camp in Balakot in Pakistans Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. We're back with our flagship podcast 'Intersectional FeminismDesi Style!' NONFICTIONMidnights BordersBy Suchitra VijayanMelville HousePublished May 25, 2021. These new worlds are already herethey are maps of survival, maps of resistance. 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. I wrote the book, but those who have lived through this hell continue to live and navigate this hell. It has taken me over a decade to get here. Suchitra was born in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, as the daughter of Ramadurai and Padmaja. The constant making and remaking of who is a citizen, who is not, is accompanied by a profoundly dehumanising process. Rohini Menon for Feminism in India, FII Interviews: Suchitra Vijayan Talks About Marginalisation, Institutional Violence & Political Imagination, 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. A poll asked if its OK to be white. Heres why the phrase is loaded. What do these events have in common? Suchitra was married to actor Karthik Kumar between 2005 and 2017. Parts of Pakistan have already been consumed by the water. Bhawan Singh, who photographed the Nellie massacre, said he had never seen anything like it. I can see small cracks beginning to appear. Part-time Faculty suchitra@thepolisproject.com. I havent spoken or celebrated with my friends in Kashmir or Assam. Suchitra Vijayan (@suchitrav) / Twitter Follow Suchitra Vijayan @suchitrav Author: Midnight's Borders: A People's History of Modern India. This language drums the idea of the fundamental importance of justice, and such language is inalienable: it can easily be defined and empathetically understood. Its a vicious cycle. I think the way that news and mostly disinformation makes its way to us, we think of violence in very particular waysas disjointed. Whose Stories Are Told In Indian History? She is currently working on her first novel. Some people later chose not to be included because they feared repercussions, especially as the NRC process started playing out. I felt the same way when I would prepare legal petitions for my clients. March 06, 2021 04:50 pm | Updated March 07, 2021 08:05 am IST. Also, I am an unknown and insignificant entity. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. 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. As she travelled 9000 miles over seven years across Indias borders, some drawn so hastily that they cut across fields, homes and courtyards, she met men, women and children, finishing with endless notebooks, over a thousand images and more than 300 hours of recorded conversations. Her quest took her to the farthest ends of the India-Bangladesh/ China/ Myanmar/ Pakistan borders. Commentary Politics. Suchitra Vijayan. 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 Second, as the media continued to promote government positions on the crisis, other critical political issues dropped out of public scrutiny. What makes these lives so vivid is how Vijayan contextualizes them by placing them in the bigger picture of history. This is a profoundly alienating place for anyone without the networks of privilege and resources. It is always Bollywood, the ascent of Priyanka Chopra, or the diasporic loneliness. But its also important to constantly take account of who is writing about this India to an Indian and global audience. I set out not to give voice to the voiceless, my aim was to put an ear to the ground and listen. 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.