The stories were a way to understand how people struggled and survived. Suchitra Vijayan, Newspapers in a Kashmiri home In August 2014 I travelled to the border town of Uri while researching my upcoming book, Borderlands. They cannot be abusive or personal. 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. 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 is a tightrope that you walk so well. Categories. And join us by becoming a monthly or yearly Member. I particularly loved the fact that all our couple shots were very natural and came out truly . But it needs to do more for peace. A: I dont agree with this kind of framing, because its not that underrepresented people dont have voices. 1 author picked Midnight's Borders as one of their favorite books, . I find that profoundly inspiring. Reports also identified different people as the supposed masterminds of the Pulwama attack at various points without clear sourcing. Legislations such as National Register of Citizens and Citizenship Amendment Act threaten to render millions of people, especially Muslims, stateless. What makes these lives so vivid is how Vijayan contextualizes them by placing them in the bigger picture of history. 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 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? The second season of The Family Man begins with Srikant Tiwari, a former intelligence officer of TASCa fictitious intelligence agency akin to the Research & Analysis Wingworking at an IT company. Its not sustainable, it fractures who we are, chips away and erodes what it fundamentally means to be human. Indias intellectual, journalistic, and literary landscape is profoundly problematic and alienating. This is the age of erosion of citizenship rights, a kind of ongoing attrition against human rights, civil liberties, and in the case of India, an accelerated dilution of fundamental rights. As I travelled, I was very aware of these inherent power differences. Bigotry is also big business. I had a very stable home to come back to. That changes how you write and photograph a place. Second, Indias transformation into a nuclear state and the Kargil War is another critical moment of change. In these circumstances, the lives of people inhabiting the sketchy borderlands has become all the more vulnerable, and fragile. 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. It took me 8 years to write the book. Propaganda and poison work in far more sophisticated ways. 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. The controversy surrounding the Rafale deal and allegations of corruption against the government were suddenly sidelined, as was the order for the eviction of more than a million forest dwellers (that was later stayed) and a hearing on the repeal of an important constitutional clause before the Supreme Court. The two officers who avert the attack narrowly escape death but are left with broken bodies and broken lives. Parts of Pakistan have already been consumed by the water. The first true peoples history of modern India, told through a seven-year, 9,000-mile journey along its many contested borders. Can any of theTIMEsubscribers who loved that cover tell us now whats happening in South Sudan today? Suchitra Vijayans new book, Midnights Borders: A Peoples 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. In her book, she makes her intention clear at the very beginning, claiming that this endeavor is not to give voice to the voiceless but to critique the nation-state, its violence, and the arbitrariness of territorial sovereignty. She acknowledges that a book in its limited scope cannot really encapsulate the entirety of this journey, and it will remain more of a scrapbook, a collection of images, texts, poetry, and maps. For instance, a border security personnel tells her how he failed to capture a photograph of a porcupine after spending half an hour trying to fit a helmet on its head, because he is bored and lonely. 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.. 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. Do you think the future is borderless? Fear seems to be a constant motif in the book we see versions and types of it. Over the span of seven years, Suchitra Vijayan interviewed scores of individuals, jotted countless notes, snapped hundreds of photographs, and altogether made herself witness to the manifold absurdities (and atrocities) of who gets to say where one nation ends and another begins. Vijayan undertakes a seven-year long, 9,000-mile . British India was partitioned into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan on the eve of independence in August, 1947. In addition, she is an award- winning photographer, the founder, and executive director of the Polis Project, a hybrid research and journalism organization. 42, Moss Rose Heights, M.M Ali road, WASA Circle, Lalkhan Bazar, Chittogong 4000. It is always Bollywood, the ascent of Priyanka Chopra, or the diasporic loneliness. A relatively small group of people runs it. Rumpus: I believe your book contributes to an important conversation about India we must have right now in the United States, for its own sake. 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. When the book finally came out, India was undergoing the deadly 2nd wave. One of the reasons I kept writing was of course all the people I met: their love and time and generosity. Lets take Indias English language media, cultural-artistic elite, and publishing. They are also essentially bureaucratic, judicial, and procedural acts of terror. Thoughbordersare conventionally recognised as real or artificial lines of spatial and political demarcation, there may also be an arbitrariness to them. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. So now, how do we respond to this? Even the diasporic experience is often told through this limited lens, without taking into account how diverse the immigrant experience in this country is. Second, border policies are about "performance and articulations of citizenship". The Rumpus: It is shocking how unaware the world is about the violence the Indian government has committed since independence on its border citizens. Subscribe here. There are two quotes I regularly use by Allan Sekula when I teach: "The making of a human likeness on film is a political act. She entered the show on day 28 as a new contestant and was evicted on day 49. Updated Date: But its also important to constantly take account of who is writing about this India to an Indian and global audience. If you think about communities in resistance to immense violations, theyre all interconnected to climate justice. And were there any apprehensions since you began working on this book? As a graduate student at Yale, she researched and documented stories along the Af-Pak border and was embedded with the US forces in Afghanistan. When fires burn down large swathes of what were peoples homeswhat borders will you impose when climate change will fundamentally remake them? These are no longer contradictory; instead, even criticism can be converted to views. She lives in New York. 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. The revolutionary Constitution not only created a social world made of contradictions, but it very soon became the tool of suppressing dissent, deployed laws like the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), and Public Safety Act (PSA) in Kashmir. The Rumpus is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Even those who now write about Modis India, will never write about Brahmanism or be critical of how caste works in the diaspora. Some people later chose not to be included because they feared repercussions, especially as the NRC process started playing out. Despite the failures in investigation and prosecution related to criminal trials arising out of the pogrom, the judiciary has projected itself as an able and willing neutral arbiter of justice that is not complicit with the deep structures of Hindutvas anti-Muslim prejudice https://t.co/EFf5bxYEBt, True societal change has always emerged from the ground-up, with communities fighting for their own freedom and dignity. But also, to be clear in terms of what I wanted to accomplish: as I say in the book, I wasnt bearing witness or giving voice to the voicelessthe people in this book are eloquent and political voices of their lives and realities. Suchitra Vijayan is an American writer, essayist, activist, and photographer working across oral history, state violence, and visual storytelling. I think the way that news and mostly disinformation makes its way to us, we think of violence in very particular waysas disjointed. Midnight's Borders by Suchitra Vijayan. In an early chapter of the book, you talk about how new worlds are created by the people at Indias borders. Second, as the media continued to promote government positions on the crisis, other critical political issues dropped out of public scrutiny. I feel very uncomfortable talking about this, or rather I dont know how to discuss this without centering myself. '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. To them he is a man who has settled into a job that has no future. 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. Vijayan: I wasnt trying to write a hybrid book; I was trying to tell the stories I encountered as a way to think about the moral and political realities of our lives. 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. 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. But who carries the responsibility of that fear? 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. For instance, if you went to school with, say, Indias most powerful publisher, or your dad plays golf or socialised at the Gymkhana with the politically powerful and the culturally influential, then that system is built to get you the resources. After Pulwama, the Indian media proves it is the BJPs propaganda machine, Sign up for a weekly roundup of thought-provoking ideas and debates, Fox News bosses scolded reporters who challenged false election claims, To fight defamation suit, Fox News cites election conspiracy theories.
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