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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. There are enough stories of people parachuting into communities to do human interest stories.. Growing up I was surrounded by people who emphasised the community over anything else. Vasundhara Sirnate Drennan is director of research at the Polis Project. Thanks to The New India Foundation for sending across a beautiful copy of the Midnights Borders. We thank her for her time, patience, and illuminating insights into her work. How did you achieve empathy in your writing, without the privileged lens that is common in journalistic canon? So I dont know if it was empathy so much as just building a relationship with people. Ali lived right on the edge of the India-Bangladesh border. Acted as the General Manager for a day and motivated employees to work for the same purpose to reinforce team . First, the escalation in the counterinsurgency war within the Kashmir Valley under which hundreds of activists were arrested and several Kashmiri civilians killed in gun battles was grievously underreported. When Vijayan meets him, he is inside his home with all the windows closed and sealed to snuff out light. One of the ways she upholds the humane in this book is through her interaction with the men in the security forces. This is a profoundly alienating place for anyone without the networks of privilege and resources. I almost never forget, I remember entire episodes or events since I was six years old. 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. Professor Nandita Sharmas work is an excellent way to engage with this history. 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. Vijayan creates a constellation of micro-histories of people who have lived through the violence . Vijayan: A writers responsibility above all is to speak the truth and make sense of our social worlds. 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. Vijayan: Its a very generous reading, and thanks for that. When I left him (the first time), I had a one-year-old daughter. 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. Co-founded the Resettlement Legal Aid Project in Cairo, Suchitra is also the founder of the Polis Project, a research and journalism organisation. 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. There are enough stories of people parachuting into communities to do human interest stories. Early on, the idea of bearing witness as a rhetorical tool and as a literary device became deeply problematic. When the book finally came out, India was undergoing the deadly 2nd wave. We lift up new voices alongside those of more established writers readers already know and love. 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. Later on she moved to Coimbatore for her MBA from PSG Institute of Management. What connects these messages is deep empathy and a willingness to engage with the books stories, ideas, and arguments. Vijayan: Let me start heregood writing is powerful and political. Thoughbordersare conventionally recognised as real or artificial lines of spatial and political demarcation, there may also be an arbitrariness to them. Author In Focus, Celebration, The Literary Journal. In retaliation, the Indian Air Force carried out an airstrike on an alleged militant training camp in Balakot in Pakistans Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. We still argue if something should be a massacre, a pogrom, or a riot. Even those among us who will speak of BLM will not openly challenge Hindutva or the RSS. 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. 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. As I say in the book, Kashmir changed me, it gave me political and moral clarity to always stand with those fighting for their peoples freedom and dignity. Can you write about loss without living? Husain Haqqani: Pakistan released the Indian pilot. She is the founder and executive director of The Polis Project, and the author of. Also read: Examining My Caste And Its History Is Eye-Opening: A Personal Essay On Casteism And Ancestry. Later on she moved to Coimbatore for her MBA from PSG Institute of Management. And yet, the research and the history never overpowers the flow of the narrative. There are some brilliant writers writing on these issuesthe problem is always that these voices dont make it to the mainstream. 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. We need more such books. Such writings have long been implicated in the history of colonial ethnographic practices, where native informants are poised to become the voices of the empire. by Suchitra Vijayan Hardcover 1,759.00 2,023.00 You Save: 264.00 (13%) Usually dispatched in 1 to 3 weeks. In Assam, Vijayan met people devastated by the National Register of Citizens process, with names of long-time residents missing from the final list, and in Kashmir she spent time with a family mourning the loss of their son in an encounter. A place to read, on the Internet. J.G.P. We also need a fundamental reframing of language. 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. "Fighting for justice and human rights in India is a long and lonely battle" Nishrin Jafri Hussain, the daughter of Ehsan Jafri (from 2019) India and its Borderlands: Suchitra Vijayan in Conversation with Sharjeel Usmani, Book talk with Suchitra Vijayan, author of Midnights Borders, Crisis at the Border: Contestation, Sovereignty, and Statelessness. ", "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.". Her writing has appeared in The Citron Review, Dukool Magazine, Cerebration, Feminism in India, Times of India (Spellbound edition), and others. Sometimes lost. A: I dont agree with this kind of framing, because its not that underrepresented people dont have voices. Vijayan reserves her own impressions for later, and allows us to know these people intimately. This income helps us keep the magazine alive. Rumpus: Toni Morrison said that she writes from a place of delight, not disappointment. Not everyone rejoiced in these new freedoms. Even the diasporic experience is often told through this limited lens, without taking into account how diverse the immigrant experience in this country is. Its not sustainable, it fractures who we are, chips away and erodes what it fundamentally means to be human. Perhaps thats their victory. The people in the text fear statelessness, unknown violence, and being forgotten. We see that during the journey, in a number of places, people stood in lines to speak with you, to show their paperwork to youhow did you negotiate the weight ofthose expectations, which might not have been explicit, but were still very much present? 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? 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. The third thing is: were going back to relitigating everything. Thats part of the political imagination that I believe we need for political movements or any sustained acts of resistance. We play an ever more important role in these times when there is a fascist authoritarian regime in India and a deeply racist police state in the US. Having been trained in law, Suchitra Vijayan initially worked at the United Nations war tribunals in Yugoslavia. Also, I am an unknown and insignificant entity. We have migrated to a new commenting platform. These are stories of massive human rights violations committed by the Indian state in the countrys margins. FII Media Private Limited | All rights reserved, "Imagine how it would be for someone coming from a Dalit/Bahujan, Muslim, Adivasi, working class background, who wants to come into thisit is especially difficult if youre a woman coming from these backgrounds. 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. Respond to our political present. Copyright 2023, THG PUBLISHING PVT LTD. or its affiliated companies. Sometimes they are no more, but your storytelling is so invigorating that the reader doesnt forget them. The post-Cold War and 90s rhetoric of a borderless world that accompanied globalisation also kick-started massive border fencing projects in India. Itembodied young Indias grand ambitions and aspired to a nation made of men and women equally protected by the law. I had to write and rewrite this book so many times. What are those ethical, moral, and political lines? 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. Early on, I was very careful to acknowledge this. The pair experience similar situations in their lives: abuse, the death or absence of a husband, and the longing for a better future. We know that the purpose of borders has kept changing for nations. Some even dressed for the occasion in combat gear. 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. 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. Our borders had become a spectacle, and we the cheering mob, she says, as she calls for purging hatred for the sake of posterity. With sharp political analyses, dense historical research and lyrical, image-rich prose, Vijayans journalism displays an inspiring ethic, one that is invested in the micro-histories of the small man, the one existing on the fringes of history and the one that most requires urgent representation. B, A book that will enlighten every citizen of every nation. 42, Moss Rose Heights, M.M Ali road, WASA Circle, Lalkhan Bazar, Chittogong 4000. We believe that literature builds communityand if reading The Rumpus makes you feel more connected, please show your support! Includes previously unreleased investigation under #JackStraw. 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. Suchitra Vijayan is a barrister-at-law, writer and researcher. Its when we lose hope that we believe that we have lost everything. I have no formal training as a writer or a photographer, I taught myself and learnt by doing, failing and creating my own grammar. 1 author picked Midnight's Borders as one of their favorite books, . And, in many cases, they are children of the literary, cultural, or political elite who have long been the beneficiaries of the Indian state. And what does this mean for on-ground communities, governments, armed forces, and other institutional stakeholders? 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. A consistent ethical framework within the media hasnt existed for a long time. Who gets to travel, tell stories, and, more importantly, publish them are all deeply connected to questions of access, resources, and privilege. 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. The border runs through him, his friend Jamshed had told Vijayan, He is almost gone, but I dont want his story to be gone too.. It was just a sad moment, and I couldnt celebrate a book when there was so much human tragedy playing out. Its impossible for a writer not to be affected by their personal life. Midnight's Borders by Suchitra Vijayan falls in both categories. Legislations such as National Register of Citizens and Citizenship Amendment Act threaten to render millions of people, especially Muslims, stateless. Many come from immense privileges of caste, class, wealth, access, and resources. Stallings, Rumpus Original Fiction: The Litany of Invisible Things. . 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. There are instances when you and some voices in the narrative question their documentation practice. Suchitra Vijayan is the executive director of the Polis Project. Also read: The History Of The Colonial State And The Unmaking Of The Tawaif. You need to write what you seethats why you started this project.. While Border Pillar No 1 becomes a convenient stump for children playing cricket along the land that India shares with Bangladesh, roughly 2000 kilometers away in Punjab a woman farmer watches on as the army builds a bunker on the few acres of land she owns. More importantly, as Babasaheb would argue, the political revolution was never accompanied by a social revolution. No one is a stakeholder herethese are people, humans, citizens, who have been deprived of what the Ambedkarite constitution promised them. We're back with our flagship podcast 'Intersectional FeminismDesi Style!' The photographs add another dimension to the book, and could have been used more. I left my 18-month-old daughter to travel and finish this book. You can carefully craft a narrative of immigrant success but act tone-deaf about the ongoing refugee crisis. As such, very few media establishments in India have been able to stand against the influence of political leaders. Rumpus: The book derives its emotional strength and narrative energy from the stories of people you encounter at the borders. At a time when right-wing nationalism is crescendoing in India and across the world, Suchitra Vijayans Midnights Borders raises pertinent questions about the very foundations of Indias nationalism the cartography of South Asian nation-states defined by arbitrary lines drawn hastily by the British colonial administration. This book ate into so much of my life. More Buying Choices 1,732.00 (16 Used & New offers) Audible Audiobook 0.00 Free with Audible trial 586.00 ( 9 )