Its easy for Indian Americans and diaspora Desis to become tokens who speak of diversity but not equity or representation, talk of caste as culture and whitewash Hindutva. A lot of travel writing is still written by a particular group of people with immense privilege, and they all tend to center themselves. Panitars division is as cruel as it is arbitrary: here, the houses on either side of one dusty lane occupy two neighbouring countries. I test my practice of writing or being a photographer against this rule. In recent years, the narrative of hate has escalated with the reelection of the right-wing Narendra Modi government in 2019. Acted as the General Manager for a day and motivated employees to work for the same purpose to reinforce team . In politics we will have equality, and in social and economic life, we will have inequality. So I dont know if it was empathy so much as just building a relationship with people. They cannot be abusive or personal. That was my starting point. We know that the purpose of borders has kept changing for nations. This is not the violent right wing and their siege; its centrist and liberal media that is also relitigating history, deconstructing the core values of the constitution. 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. One feedback I often got was that I had to put more of myself in this book. Thanks to The New India Foundation for sending across a beautiful copy of the Midnights Borders. Vijayans lens not only captures the people but also the past through objects, such as the picture of Kotwali Gate, the remains of a medieval fort that serves as a border checkpoint rife with weeds and trees growing on it, symbolic of a state bent on rewriting history rather than preserving it. Professor Nandita Sharmas work is an excellent way to engage with this history. Over the past 15 years, small democratisation through social media has enabled challenging these practices. In 2020, Suchitra took part in the fourth season of the Tamil reality television show, Bigg Boss Tamil hosted by Kamal Haasan. 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. More Buying Choices 1,732.00 (16 Used & New offers) Audible Audiobook 0.00 Free with Audible trial 586.00 ( 9 ) The nation-state and its ruling class view borders as very different from the people who inhabit these liminal spaces or communities that have been affected by border making and policing practices. But Pakistan responded by rejecting these claims and told the Associated Press that the area was mostly deserted wooded area and that there were no casualties or damage on the ground. All rights reserved. The former is an essential act of dissent, even resistance, especially in these dark times. That changes how you write and photograph a place. ""The historical unity of the ruling classes is realized in the state." Antonio Gramsci" Whose Stories Are Told In Indian History? In an interview with Firstpost,Vijayan talks about her book, the militarisation of borders, ethno-nationalism, and the politics of documentation. I can see how religious Hindu fanaticism has started to spread its tentacles in both the Democratic and the Republican parties, and this is primarily because of an absence of balanced stories about India. Check posts or bunkers were not part of the landscapes of my home. Copyright 2023. 582.1K views. Why the Modi government lies. She digs deep into colonial history to show how years of violence and consequential suffering has shaped these lives across generations. 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. Do you think the future is borderless? The Indian government bears some responsibility for this: Amid this brinkmanship between the two nuclear powers, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not address the nation directly. From the epoch of Empire to the nation-state, border making is fundamentally a political project that creates, sustains, and reinforces inequality. The travel, the people they encounter, and the political events they record quickly become cameos. Also read: Examining My Caste And Its History Is Eye-Opening: A Personal Essay On Casteism And Ancestry. And what does this mean for on-ground communities, governments, armed forces, and other institutional stakeholders? If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Vijayan: There is an elusive distance between the photographer and the photographed that cant be bridged. This media blitzkrieg resulted in the erasure of two important political trends. 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. We believe that literature builds communityand if reading The Rumpus makes you feel more connected, please show your support! She entered the show on day 28 as a new contestant and was evicted on day 49. 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. 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. is a barrister-at-law, writer and researcher. Yes, men who act as petty sovereigns are everywhere. With the phone armed with a camera, everyone is a photographer; we are all witnesses. Midnights Borders is part investigation, part meditation on the lines drawn on land or water that separate India from its neighbours. Barkha Dutt: India has made its point in Pakistan. Chopra cleverly uses womens empowerment, diversity, and the immigrant story as a facade to parrot and promote deeply problematic ideologies, takes, and stances. I was also trying to tell these stories from a repertoire of skills I had, and some I acquired. 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? 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. Her writing and award-winning photography culminated in Midnights Borders: A Peoples History of Modern India, which was recently shortlisted for the Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF book prize. Suchitra was born in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, as the daughter of Ramadurai and Padmaja. Second, there is a clear distinction between speaking against the powerful and claiming to speak on behalf of the "voiceless". 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. Even those who now write about Modis India, will never write about Brahmanism or be critical of how caste works in the diaspora. I fear we are losing that cosmopolitanism of small places. Also, we shouldn't forget that the border making project is central to capitalist and neoliberal logic. The people in this book are eloquent advocates of their history and their struggles. In 1971, East Pakistan seceded and became Bangladesh. How do you think the media ought to responsibly report on peoples lives and experiences? My friend Ritesh Uttamchandani said this once, the lens that elusive distance between the photographer and the photographed is often impossible to bridge. Some people later chose not to be included because they feared repercussions, especially as the NRC process started playing out. You can find them onYouTube&Linkedin,and can also check out their websitehere. Lets take Indias English language media, cultural-artistic elite, and publishing. The book was called ``a genre-bending book of nonfictionmade 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. I think this book will change the global conversation about India and shape what gets written in the future about India. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle. 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. Even as 70% of the border with Bangladesh has been fenced, smugglers, drug couriers, human traffickers and cattle rustlers continue to cross to ply their trades. All along the border, the common refrain is, It feels like Partition is still alive., A story from near Jalpaiguri in north Bengal, that of a man named Ali, is heartbreaking. Sayantika Mandal is an Indian writer. "Fighting for justice and human rights in India is a long and lonely battle" Nishrin Jafri Hussain, the daughter of Ehsan Jafri (from 2019) Firstpost - All Rights Reserved. Always. 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. 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. Suchitra Vijayan's debut book, Midnight's Borders, is a genre-bending book of nonfictionmade of stories, encounters, vignettes, and photographsabout home, belonging, and displacement.The book recounts the author's recent journey across India's land borders covering 9000 miles over a span of seven years. Nine years ago, she began documenting stories from her travels along the borders of India. 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. Her distinct and bold voice made her very popular with the younger crowd. Our mostly volunteer-run magazine strives to be a platform for risk-taking voices and writing that might not find a home elsewhere. This was something I had to resist from the get-go. She also embodies the upwardly mobile, privileged sections of the diaspora. 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? 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. Suchitra is a BSc graduate from Mar Ivanios College (Trivandrum). Many news channels are not only owned, operated or invested in by politically influential families, but also are sometimes run for the express purpose of advancing party positions. Our investigation into the Indian medias reporting on the Pulwama attack found that many reports were contradictory, biased, incendiary and uncorroborated.
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