She has a sister named, Sunitha. Some things are just not discussed anymore. 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. 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. And yet, the research and the history never overpowers the flow of the narrative. 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. Examining My Caste And Its History Is Eye-Opening: A Personal Essay On Casteism And Ancestry, The History Of The Colonial State And The Unmaking Of The Tawaif, Book Review: Looking Through Dalit Sahitya And Ambedkar, These Are The 15 Women Who Helped Draft The Indian Constitution, Gender Roles And Stereotyping In To Kill A Mockingbird, A Brief Summary Of The Second Wave Of Feminism, A Brief Summary Of The First Wave Of Feminism, Kamala Das The Mother Of Modern Indian English Poetry | #IndianWomenInHistory, A Brief Summary Of The Third Wave Of Feminism, The Life And Times Of Dnyanjyoti Krantijyoti Savitribai Phule | #IndianWomenInHistory, FII Interviews: Charlotte Munch Bengtsen Talks About Women In Filmmaking, FII Interviews: Drag King And Influencer Mx. 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. Where does that leave us? She writes about war, conflict . We live in a profoundly unequal society, where every day brings news of new devastation. 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. Vijayan has travelled 9,000 miles over seven 7 across India's borderline remote areas and has collected many bone-chilling, painful, myth-breaking stories of the people caught in between inter-state disputes because of the lines created by colonial powers who ruled over us for . Vijayan undertakes a seven-year long, 9,000-mile . To make matters worse, between 2013 and 2019, editors of channels and publications have been sacked and replaced, primarily because of their criticism of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. 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. If you want to support the work that goes behind publishing high-quality feminist media content, please consider becoming a FII member. 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. I felt the same way when I would prepare legal petitions for my clients. This discrepancy is just one example of the confusion and misinformation spread to the public by deeply flawed media reports. Our mostly volunteer-run magazine strives to be a platform for risk-taking voices and writing that might not find a home elsewhere. Instead, the Indian media has ascribed to itself the role of an amplifier of the government propaganda that took two nuclear states to the brink of war. The act of recording and documenting cannot be divorced from the inherent question of power. In our social and economic life, we shall, by reason of our social and economic structure, continue to deny the principle of one man one value. There are instances when you and some voices in the narrative question their documentation practice. India has consistently warred against its own citizens; this book is about some of these wars. Then you sit in a room with a mother telling you that she has no idea what happened to her son and has no way of knowing if hes ever coming back. Suchitra Vijayan. Part of this learning was also why photographer Asim Rafiqui and I created the free UN/DO Photography workshops to think about image-making in relationship to power. Suchitra Vijayan, Newspapers in a Kashmiri home In August 2014 I travelled to the border town of Uri while researching my upcoming book, Borderlands. Barrister. Over the past 15 years, small democratisation through social media has enabled challenging these practices. Vijayan researches meticulously into official documents and conducts a series of interviews in an effort to uncover the murky truths behind the death of Hilal Ahmed Mir, a supposed militant killed by the military in an encounter in the disputed territory of Kashmir, or Felani Khatun, a 15-year-old girl who was shot when trying to cross the barbed wire at the porous India-Bangladesh border. They continue to. 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. These are edited excerpts from the interview: 'Midnight' seems to be a metaphor for multiple things both freeing and frightening. Vijayan: A writers responsibility above all is to speak the truth and make sense of our social worlds. I still do. Our investigation into the Indian medias reporting on the Pulwama attack found that many reports were contradictory, biased, incendiary and uncorroborated. Finally, Indias current transformation, the aggressive posturing of an aspiring ethno-nationalist state, will have dire consequences for the people and the region. These may not be perfect worlds or even equal worlds, but they strive to be. Why do you think India has gotten away with this so far? Even those among us who will speak of BLM will not openly challenge Hindutva or the RSS. [4] She also worked as a dubbing artist for popular heroines like Shriya Saran and Lakshmi Rai.[5]. Author In Focus, Celebration, The Literary Journal. 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. 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 politics, we will be recognising the principle of one man, one vote, and one vote, one value. Suchitra Vijayan (@suchitrav) / Twitter Follow Suchitra Vijayan @suchitrav Author: Midnight's Borders: A People's History of Modern India. Reports also identified different people as the supposed masterminds of the Pulwama attack at various points without clear sourcing. We are all complicit in upholding and maintaining this fear. Copyright 2023, THG PUBLISHING PVT LTD. or its affiliated companies. Even those who now write about Modis India, will never write about Brahmanism or be critical of how caste works in the diaspora. Suchitra is a sought-after performer at corporate and other such stage shows. No one can write a book alone. Instead, we need to ask what fate awaits us. Good, honest and non-polemical writing has always forced us to confront the lies we tell ourselves. 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. Thank you! At the end of it, I felt that I learnt more about myself, more about my home, I had becomeif not a better writer, an infinitely better human being, which is to say that one realises that theres always a Longue dure that one needs to consider, crave out time and space to think, train oneself not to always react. You can speak of confidence and body positivity and defend selling skin-lightening creams. More importantly, as Babasaheb would argue, the political revolution was never accompanied by a social revolution. After being detained at one of the checkpoints for over two hours, I made my way to one of the villages closest to the Line of Control. We dont document violence against the privileged like we would report violence against those without power. 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. I dont have apprehensions. 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. Her writing has appeared in The Citron Review, Dukool Magazine, Cerebration, Feminism in India, Times of India (Spellbound edition), and others. This is where I believe literary nonfiction becomes a powerful tool. I was also trying to tell these stories from a repertoire of skills I had, and some I acquired. Sometimes the news is the story. 1 author picked Midnight's Borders as one of their favorite books, . She responded to an ad for the post of an RJ in Radio Mirchi. A: Writers are very strange creatures. Suchitra Ramadurai, known by the mononym Suchitra, is an Indian radio jockey, popular playback singer, songwriter, composer, voice artist, dubbing artist and film actress. But who gets to speak for so many of us? In Afghanistan, Kashmir, and India, from one dangerous conflict zone to another, she spoke with people, ate with them, and listened to their stories. suchitrav. Excellent interview, brave insights and critical reflections! Take a look at theseevents: The vast infrastructure of detention centers being built in Assam and outside; a politician from a ruling party incites violence by saying, goli maaro saalon ko, and remains free; a minister, a Harvard educated technocrat, garlands and celebrates men for the grave crime of lynching; Dr Teltumbde and other BK 16 [the 16 arrests made in the Bhima Koregaon case] political prisoners remain incarcerated with little, no or manufactured evidence for being dissenting subjects; and a standup comic is arrested for the crime of existing as a Muslim. Who gets to shape these stories, what stories are chosen, what stories then are exiled? The post-Cold War and 90s rhetoric of a borderless world that accompanied globalisation also kick-started massive border fencing projects in India. We believe that literature builds communityand if reading The Rumpus makes you feel more connected, please show your support! It has taken me over a decade to get here. In India, that arbitrariness can be seen in how differently we perceive landboundaries with multiple sovereign nations. 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? The writing grew around the images and the visual memory of the encounters. 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. 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. 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. Suchitra is now a singer-songwriter as well, composing music on her own and in collaboration with Singer Ranjith. Rumpus: Can we please talk about Priyanka Chopra, and how her rise is seen as a marker of brown achievement? Not everyone lived to see its promises. What are those ethical, moral, and political lines? Vijayan: Chopra and others like her are a reflection of how popular culture and virality inform discourse and shape it. Her work looks at theories of violence, war, and human nature. She lives in New York. Professor Nandita Sharmas work is an excellent way to engage with this history. We lift up new voices alongside those of more established writers readers already know and love. Many TV newsrooms were transformed into caricatures of military command centers, with anchors assessing military technology and strategy (sometimes incorrectly). As the author notes, here, beauty and violence coexist, but never as a binary. A. Midnights Borders is fascinating, eloquent in its insights, and unflinching in its depiction of the dark side of nation-building. Fearful of the future he asked quietly, Where did all this hate come from, where is it going to take us? echoing what many residents had told her. That, perhaps, is the only way to avoid further destruction in the region. 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. What do you think the future holds? In terms of violence, there is also this tendency to photograph and display the bodies of marginalised communities when they experience violence. Vijayan began her journey in Kolkata. 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. History and memory is localwhich means its almost impossible to write about India. 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. Yes, men who act as petty sovereigns are everywhere. A relatively small group of people runs it. 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. Later on she moved to Coimbatore for her MBA from PSG Institute of Management. There is something deeply flawed in the way we live today. A British lawyer, Cyril Radcliffe set foot in India for the first time in July, 1947 to draw the borders and completed the task within seven weeks, engendering communal riots, a heavily militarized border, four wars and seven decades of violence and hatred between the two countries. Co-founded the Resettlement Legal Aid Project in Cairo, Suchitra is also the founder of the Polis Project, a research and journalism organisation. Suchitra Vijayan complicates and expands our understanding of the South Asian American experience, urging readers to consider stories that cast dark eyes at India, a strategic ally of many Western nations. This income helps us keep the magazine alive. When your investigations in Kashmir came to an end, what changes did you observe in your 'grammar of dissent'? Suchitra was born in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, as the daughter of Ramadurai and Padmaja. 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. From the epoch of Empire to the nation-state, border making is fundamentally a political project that creates, sustains, and reinforces inequality. If she wasnt real she would be a marriage between a meme and parody. 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. 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. The book was originally going to be a photographic body of work, which changed when I started writing. In her new book What changeshave youobserved in the way you treat your subject after finishing your journey and book? 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. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. Can you write about loss without living? [1], Suchitra joined Sify for a year, after graduating. She is actively involved in circulating urgent and underrepresented news from the world through her online platform. A: This geopolitical violence is not new, theres a long bloody, brutal history to thisa cyclical, ongoing and never-ending history. Vijayan began her journey in Kolkata. Suchitra Vijayan was born and raised in Madras, India. 582.1K views. Its a vicious cycle. It seems that they have a different eye for these women, who they describe as cunning, deceitful, and in some cases, prostitutes'. It is here that even the most civilised amongst us begin to make excuses for repression, brutality, and violence. As I travelled, I was very aware of these inherent power differences. She digs deep into colonial history to show how years of violence and consequential suffering has shaped these lives across generations. Sharing borders with six countries and spanning a geography that extends from Pakistan to Myanmar, India is the worlds largest democracy and second most populous country. And were there any apprehensions since you began working on this book? The events in Hathras did not happen at the border; neither did the murder and gang rape of two teenage girls in the Katra village of Budaun district, Uttar Pradesh. Suchitra Vijayan was born and raised in Madras, India. Abrogation Of Article 370 Jammu And Kashmir Statehood, BSF foils another Pakistan plot, shoots down drone in Punjab's Amritsar, Light on weight, heavy on damage: India will be able to hit deep inside Pakistan with THIS ultralightweight howitzer, Put issues related to border in 'proper place', work for its early normalisation: Chinese FM Qin to Jaishankar, In Midnight's Borders, Suchitra Vijayan meditates on belongingness, freedom and political implications of territorial demarcations. Pushback is such a benign word, isnt it? I almost never forget, I remember entire episodes or events since I was six years old. Instead, she shows the absurdity of the army apparatus that strives to comply with the narrative of patriotism. Bhawan Singh, who photographed the Nellie massacre, said he had never seen anything like it. All rights reserved. So now, how do we respond to this? The third thing is: were going back to relitigating everything. Suchitra Vijayan talks to FII about Indian politics, communal violence, marginalisation and her book Midnights Borders: A Peoples History of Modern India. Sometimes they are no more, but your storytelling is so invigorating that the reader doesnt forget them. Suchitra Vijayan is a writer, photographer, lawyer, political essayist, and a lecturer. 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. Siaan On Being Queer And Being Online, FII Interviews: Journalist Meena Kotwal On Minority Politics, Journalism Today And The Caste Divide. Vasundhara Sirnate Drennan is director of research at the Polis Project. Its about what people like me should do. Propaganda and poison work in far more sophisticated ways. 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. Thoughbordersare conventionally recognised as real or artificial lines of spatial and political demarcation, there may also be an arbitrariness to them. 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). L.L.B., Law, The University of Leeds, 2004 M.A., International Relation . News organizations such as India Today, NDTV, News 18, the Indian Express, First Post, Mumbai Mirror, ANI and others routinely attributed their information to anonymous government sources, forensic experts, police officers and intelligence officers. No independent investigations were conducted, and serious questions about intelligence failures were left unanswered. I dont think theres just one emotion that drives a writer to finish writing. This is a profoundly alienating place for anyone without the networks of privilege and resources. The mortality of someone you love affects how you write. We still argue if something should be a massacre, a pogrom, or a riot. And join us by becoming a monthly or yearly Member. I set out not to give voice to the voiceless, my aim was to put an ear to the ground and listen. You can claim to be patriotic but not political, you can claim to support the troops but ignore the ongoing civilian casualty. Three hundred million people who had been considered less than subjects under the British rule, divided for years by religion, language, class, and caste, would all be united under one book: the revolutionary Constitution given to India by Babasaheb Ambedkar. Aruni Kashyap writes in English, and his native language Assamese. 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. My friend Ritesh Uttamchandani said this once, the lens that elusive distance between the photographer and the photographed is often impossible to bridge. 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?
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