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By Suchitra Vijayan, Why should I read it? What we can do is attempt micro-histories of events, timelines, or local communities. I was also trying to tell these stories from a repertoire of skills I had, and some I acquired. 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. It took me 8 years to write the book. From the epoch of Empire to the nation-state, border making is fundamentally a political project that creates, sustains, and reinforces inequality. She lucidly explains the complicated history of the McMahon Line, how the India-China border is the result of a fabrication perpetuated by the British colonial administration. Whose Stories Are Told In Indian History? Suchitra Vijayan's Midnight's Borders | Youth Ki Awaaz Founded in 2009, The Rumpus is one of the longest running independent online literary and culture magazines. Co-founded the Resettlement Legal Aid Project in Cairo, Suchitra is also the founder of the Polis Project, a research and journalism organisation. It was not going to be easy as she quickly found out. When the book finally came out, India was undergoing the deadly 2nd wave. The first true peoples history of modern India, told through a seven-year, 9,000-mile journey along its many contested borders. She completed her MFA in Writing (Fiction) from the University of San Francisco where she was awarded the Jan Zivic Fellowship and is about to begin her PhD in English with a Creative Dissertation from the University of Georgia, Athens. It has taken me over a decade to get here. '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. But who carries the responsibility of that fear? They continue to. Suchitra Vijayan (Author of Midnight's Borders) - Goodreads I dont think theres just one emotion that drives a writer to finish writing. I spoke with Suchitra by email in July about Midnights Borders, the power of literary nonfiction, new possibilities of Indian American literature, neoliberal politics, and the importance of supporting underrepresented stories. Looking Beyond the Lines: Suchitra Vijayan's "Midnight's Borders" 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. 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. How long shall we continue to live this life of contradictions?". In retaliation, the Indian Air Force carried out an airstrike on an alleged militant training camp in Balakot in Pakistans Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. This also decides who gets access, awards and accolades. Our borders had become a spectacle, and we the cheering mob, she says, as she calls for purging hatred for the sake of posterity. 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. March 06, 2021 04:50 pm | Updated March 07, 2021 08:05 am IST. Midnight's Borders: A People's History of Modern India: Vijayan is a barrister-at-law, writer and researcher. Through these real histories of the people, she gives readers another perspective on old wounds like Partition and new divisionary tactics like the Citizenship (Amendment) Act. We have already chosen silence and obfuscation even before the pushback has arrived. FII Interviews: Suchitra Vijayan Talks About Marginalisation What are those ethical, moral, and political lines? We need more such books. Suchitra Vijayan is the executive director of the Polis Project. This was something I had to resist from the get-go. What it means to photograph, write, report and document is an ongoing process. Lets take Indias English language media, cultural-artistic elite, and publishing. Beyond the confusion over the death tolls at Balakot, news organizations variously reported that between 25 and 350 kilograms of the explosive RDX was used in the attack, when no such information was officially released. 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. Suchitra Vijayan on Twitter: ""Fighting for justice and human rights in What matters is that the book exists. These are stories of massive human rights violations committed by the Indian state in the countrys margins. Suchitra Vijayan (@suchitrav) / Twitter A: This is a very loaded question. Midnight's Bordersis an exceptional read, but one that may make some uncomfortable. So the first reflection is this idea of where we are right now: as people, as a society, as a community. 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. I think its the other way round, these communities have always been speaking, writing, documenting, teachingwe must simply listen rather than represent them in any way. There was an NDTV programme, where somebody said Should Indias constitution be secularist? 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. The photographs add another dimension to the book, and could have been used more. Suchitra Vijayanis a barrister-at-law, writer and researcher. The people in this book are eloquent advocates of their history and their struggles. This is the backdrop against which we map how border practices and policies have played out in India. 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? Are you expecting any pushback at all? ""The historical unity of the ruling classes is realized in the state." Antonio Gramsci" 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. Sometimes lost. The people whose lives are not just materials for the book, who are, in some ways, your co-conspirators in trying to make sense of the social reality. Copyright 2023. I left a few names out in the acknowledgment, worrying if it might direct more trouble towards them. 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. 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. What makes these lives so vivid is how Vijayan contextualizes them by placing them in the bigger picture of history. It is also the site of the worlds biggest crisis of statelessness, as it strips citizenship from hundreds of thousands of its peopleespecially those living in disputed border regions. 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? No one would put themselves through the agony and pain of writing. I still do. I wrote the book, but those who have lived through this hell continue to live and navigate this hell. She is the executive director of the Polis Project . 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. I came with my privileges, also lets not forget prejudices. I test my practice of writing or being a photographer against this rule. Instead, we need to ask what fate awaits us. Modi met with senior police officers and ordered them not to intervene as violence raged. O. Thanks to The New India Foundation for sending across a beautiful copy of the Midnights Borders. Why dont people see the ground shifting beneath their feet? Commentary Politics. Nine years ago, she began documenting stories from her travels along the borders of India. One of the reasons I kept writing was of course all the people I met: their love and time and generosity. Suchitra Vijayan | C-SPAN.org 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. I had a very stable home to come back to. I have never lived under military occupation, curfew, or a looming threat of violence. Sometimes the news is the story. These may not be perfect worlds or even equal worlds, but they strive to be. I can see small cracks beginning to appear. 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. Copyright 2023, THG PUBLISHING PVT LTD. or its affiliated companies. 1 author picked Midnight's Borders as one of their favorite books, . Suchitra Vijayan on Twitter: ""The historical unity of the ruling Who gets to shape these stories, what stories are chosen, what stories then are exiled? Its a practice. 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. Suchitra Vijayan: The Indian state has always used excessive and extrajudicial violence on communities that resist, whether its the borderlands, peripheries, or mainland Now the international viewfor instance while the Gujarat riots of 2002 brought critical international media attention and criticism, and [current Prime Minister] Modi was banned from entering the US, India was able to effectively manage global public opinion. Rumpus: Why do you think the ever-growing canon of Indian American literature has barely tried to engage with these conversations through their stories? More importantly, reporters need to engage with what it means to administer what has been called the worlds most militarized zone. Only then can the country answer a more fundamental question: Just what should be done to create conditions that allow Kashmiris to choose their destiny?