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Syeda’s Many Lives Juxtaposes the life of Syeda, a Muslim migrant worker, with transformative moments in India’s politics and history, a complex and narrow narrative.
After a thirty-year adventure through the cities and neighborhoods of northern India, Dixit describes the endless war of a community against the instability of urban poverty. He paints a portrait not only of the titular figure himself, but also of the new India as we know it. Following the times of Syeda and her family through events ranging from the Babri Masjid demolition in 1992 to the CAA-NRC protests of 2020, Dixit sheds light on the invisible toil and sectarian violence that shaped ‘today’. of India.
In a verbal exchange with Scroll, Dixit explained how his experience as a journalist influenced his writing process and what he learned from his numerous interviews with migrant workers in Delhi. Excerpts from the verbal exchange:
You talked about The Many Lives of Syeda X lasting nine years. Can you hint at its beginnings in a specific incident, moment, or memory? I’m curious to know where it all started. I worked for a television news channel. I spent two years there and learned what I didn’t need to do in life. Because there has been a kind of corporatization of the newsroom. We were constantly told that we deserved to write about the urban rich and not the stories of the center. Don’t write about the poor. If you need to sell pressure cookers, fireplaces or kitchen appliances in prime time, you can’t talk about malnutrition. This was also in 2012, and that was when, of course, the anti-rape movement began in Delhi. I have been – needless to say – interested in seeing other types of voices within the mainstream media. Because you regularly hear this male point of view. And that has been a challenge for me. Secondly, after the anti-rape movement, there was suddenly hope to write about sexual violence, something that didn’t exist before. Something has fundamentally changed thanks to this movement.
So at that time I was doing a lot of stories about sexual violence, because now it was imaginable to publish them. Many other people have told me that perhaps I deserve to expand on this in the form of an e-book, writing about sexual violence. But what I wasn’t convinced of was that when we covered sexual violence as journalists, the intention was to communicate it in a very formal way. For example, there was a case of sexual violence in Bhagana, Haryana, where four Dalit women were raped by members of the dominant Jat network in that village. And the dominant narrative globally was that in India women did not have bathrooms and that is why they were raped. Because these women had gone out in the morning to do their ablutions, and so it was reported. But when I went to the village, I discovered that the Dalit network of that village had actually demanded a percentage of the public lands. So the Jat network tried to teach Dalits a lesson about their station. And that is why the rapes occurred. I’ve reported many similar stories.
For example, in the Muzaffarnagar riots, all the raped women were Muslim agricultural employees on the land of others who had abused them. And after the incident, they had to return to their own lands and look for work. Even when you’re doing a report, you’re talking about a person. There is a story and after something happens, another life awaits him. It doesn’t count on how you set it up as a result of a specific incident.
And in this case I am talking about sexual violence. The same is true when it comes to caste-based atrocities or any form of sectarian or communal violence, as everything reported and written generally focuses on such occasions: This user existed. This occasion has occurred. And now that’s where that user is.
But what’s the full story? For me, what interests me the most are the elegant women who run in Delhi. So I started visiting some upscale neighborhoods, where there are a number of what employees call factories, although legally they don’t. Possibly he would also come with women who painted from home. Then I learned that because Delhi itself has a gigantic unorganized sector, it also has the most gigantic wholesale market. It has one of the largest numbers of small and medium-sized commercial units. Multinational corporations don’t rent to those women directly, but they subcontract the paintings: they go to a subcontractor, they can go to a subcontractor, and then they pass on to those women. So I started meeting with those other people and there were a lot of deaths, so much migration and urban poverty.
Often, at first, when I talked to these women, they refused to admit that they were hardworking. Then they would say kaam toh nahi karte, through spices ka paisa nikal jata hai (we earn enough cash to buy food) or bachho ka paisa. Nikal Jata Hai (We earn money for the children). And it also comes from a very patriarchal area because women are conditioned to say, “Oh, we’re not workers, we’re expected to do it, we’re just doing it for the sake of the kids. “family. This vision makes it difficult to claim the rights of self-employed workers. Around 2014, I started actively working on the book proposal and found that this was the story I wanted to tell.
Why Syeda? I think there may be a thousand other books about a thousand more Syedas with other stories. How did you know you wanted to write about this one? I stayed with Syeda because, as she told me about her life non-chronologically, I knew that this was also the story of India for the last thirty years. An India where we see appallingly high degrees of urban poverty, with the kind of source of income inequality that exists, the kind of migration and internal displacement that is decreasing: internal movements not only for work, but also influenced by a form of violence. . It is also the fact that we are witnessing the rise of majoritarianism in India: an unapologetic and unchecked Hindu supremacy. And, of course, I also learned that Delhi’s story is told in terms of power brokers, whether in new politics or in the romantic, nostalgic afterlife featuring the Mughals and others. The story of Syeda over the last thirty years is truly the story of Delhi as we have the largest number of migrants coming to the city every day and never returning. That’s why I made the decision to stay with Syeda.
Of course, I made sure that everyone I spoke to is in the ebook and through them I can communicate about their express lives and what they are dealing with. For example, Radiowali. Thanks to her, I was able to tell the story of the electronics factory and how a woman like her creates her space, trains her will, is judged but continues to do her task, and also creates a space where women can meet up. This is similar to the story of Lalita, for example, who faced so many caste atrocities in her country. What are the complexities of caste when you come to another place? As Ambedkar said, other people from villages move to urban areas. He wrote: “The love of the Indian intellectual for the network of villages is, of course, infinite, even pathetic. »He also said: “What is a town but an abyss of localism, a cave of ignorance, narrow-mindedness and communitarianism? And through the character of Lalita, you understand how other people negotiate what they need in life, what their priorities are, and how they struggle at the same time.
The concept of place really caught my attention in this book. As a migrant worker, we see Syeda seeking to adapt to her new surroundings. After quitting ‘Banarasi fursat’ and getting to work on ‘Dilli ki behudi’, we see Syeda becoming a ‘Delhi-type’ user who is slowly rediscovering hobbies. We also see her traveling from community to community for her work, encountering various difficulties. In her work, how does geographic location intersect with marginalized identities? Much of it is in northern India and we are hunting in states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, which have the highest number of migrants. These states have very low capita income source and very poor socio-economic denominators. So that’s one thing. And the other thing is that Delhi is a country in itself. I grew up in Lucknow and my mother calls me and tells me that one of my uncles is coming to Delhi soon. And I tell him, you know, it takes two hours to get somewhere. So it’s not like Lucknow, where part of an hour is really a lot. This coherent conception of time and distance therefore changes.
Also, places like Chandni Chowk are noted for their cuisine and hitale, and for other people migrating to Delhi, this is their first stop. Since it is the largest spice market in Asia and also a giant total sales center, it is the first position. Other people find a task when they arrive. But how do other people live in those same areas that are romanticized as anything else? Or the fact that Begum Samru’s palace is now a position in the electronics market. Who would have imagined it? When I walk through Bhagirathi Palace, I think about the once-grand architecture and the fact that there is no walking area. After the whole story of Begum Samru, nothing of her exists, because there are other people who paint there.
Another example is northeast Delhi, as it borders the UP and has many small and medium-sized production units. Similarly, Gandhinagar, for example, is a denim wholesale market, and one million pieces of denim are sold every day. For me, as I didn’t grow up in Delhi either, understanding Delhi was helpful through this report. The only other popular narratives we hear are that Delhi is competitive and that it is the capital of the country, but very little about other people. who run the city.
Absolutely. In fact, I am surprised by what you say about Begum Samru’s palace. And I’m thinking about when (spoiler alert) Salman dies, right? You write about how, in 2020, all the mosques we associate, as readers, with Salman, have been destroyed, how their sanctity has been somewhat stripped away. In fact, it gives you a sense of the city as an area where the culture is constantly developing and changing through those who live there. I also understood devotional monuments in a different way. I grew up in a very devout environment, so I ended up hating anything resembling faith. I do not practice any faith and am not a believer, but I perceive that many religious monuments of all religions (be it a gurudwara, a temple, a mosque or a church) become areas that offer other people from marginalized categories the opportunity to come together and find comforts or resources that other people from privileged categories can find elsewhere. They manage to bring their own communities into discussion and offer help, a type of infrastructure that cannot be obtained from the state or the government. That’s why they keep returning to those areas.
You faced a lot of harassment and abuse from right-wing trolls, as well as legal institutions, because of your paintings, as you discuss in the book. I wonder if this has affected his writing procedure in any way. How to get around self-censorship? For me, unfortunately, in the last ten years there has been a lot of harassment. It all started with online trolling. I also have judicial processes that oppose me because of my paintings, then there were physical aggressions with attempts to raid my house. This is the eighth year of my trial. But the fact is that despite all that I am not in prison, right?I may be in jail, but I’m not. I need to say that the kind of harassment that I’ve faced is — I’m not invalidating it — but I do say that it has its own repercussions and weighs on me in various ways, a lot of people deal with it in different ways, depending on social class, caste, and gender.
And that has been the environment, not just for the last ten years, but also for the last thirty years, for someone like Syeda. And, of course, self-censorship comes into play; Of course, I think about what I’m going to write, but let me explain that I have never stopped writing the pieces I want. But I repeat, I say this from a privileged position because I have the support of my family, my friends and my journalist colleagues. But if I look at someone like Syeda, or other people like her, or even other people who are recently in prison, I don’t think – and I don’t mean this in a derogatory spirit – that I deserve to allow myself to think. Array But of course I think about it. I’m scared too. For several months after the attempted robbery, every time I walked down the street and saw someone walking with a bottle, I was actually afraid someone was going to throw acid at me. They helped me and I worked on myself. These tough things happen, but my space didn’t burn down. I’m not in prison. Umar Khalid, Khalid Saifi, Rupesh Kumar Singh and many others are.
I wanted to ask a few questions about the process of writing this book. With an ebook assignment like this, what do you think of the relationship between storytelling and factual presentation? I’m interested in the ambitious epigraphs that separate the sections of his e-book: they refer to legal adjustments in Indian history, and we hint at Syeda’s life throughout those broader structural adjustments. Why did you decide this form for the e-book? I am a journalist, before being a teacher or writer. So I did what I knew how to do: locate anything, communicate with other people and get interviews. Every time I mention an occasion in the e-book, I implemented the fundamental rule of journalism which is to corroborate it 3 times. So if Syeda told me that she was in a safe position and something happened, then I would locate at least two other tactics to corroborate that information. This is how I proceeded to check everything as productively as I could. This is also why I mentioned in the author’s note that because many of those stories involve violence and trauma, when they were told to me, they were not chronological. For a long time, I didn’t know that Syeda had another son who ran away, nor did I know that she had any cases of terrorism before that. And not only Syeda, but all the women of Karaval Nagar were also watching me. Some of them chose not to communicate with me, some talked to me, and some talked to me selectively. So, as a journalist, it took me a long time to corroborate what was happening. If the police arrest young people for interrogation and torture, there is probably no evidence of this. Not even in the station newspaper. So there are things that I cannot corroborate with documents. And then at least 3 other people tell me it happened.
I chose narrative taste because I learned that for a story in which so many things happen, the only way to tell it well is through a narrative. I sought to tell the story in a more lucid way that would make it more available in the public domain for readers. I’m not an academic, I’m just a journalist. That’s what I know and that’s how I did it.
How is this ebook commission different from your other work? What are the practical considerations of the procedure for a longer assignment compared to a shorter one? I don’t think I’m the right user to answer because it took me nine years! First I made all my reports. I did 70 percent of the story before I started writing. Then, as I was writing, events happened.
For example, the riots of 2020. So I researched again. It took me quite a while to organize all my reports chronologically. And I kept going back to other people to ask them questions. For example, how do I know all the videos that have been noticed? It’s because one day I found out that they had those posters in their house. Then I started telling them about Bollywood and Salman Khan. And then I asked Syeda if she liked the videos. And she said, “I’ve noticed everything, I’ve even noticed Pakeezah,” recalling how her first house in Old Delhi reminded her of the film. I asked her if she had seen those movies before getting married and she said that she had and that Tezaab had gone to the movies. A lot of it was just going back and asking questions. I asked Syeda what her interaction with the women of Sabhapur was like, and she said that some women asked her where she was from, and when she said that she was from Banaras, they didn’t know what Banarasi sarees were. And Syeda was surprised. She commented, “How dare you not know about the Banarasi saree. » Then some questions came after the fact and I asked them to other people.
In fact, I’m glad you mentioned cultural references. Just as film, functionality and music seem to be an integral component of Syeda’s life and her community. We see them make meaning of their lives through popular culture and Bollywood, and it turns out that there is an expressed fascination with the Khans in his community. How is Bollywood connected to the new Muslim identity in India? I wouldn’t say it, only for the Muslim community. Popular culture and Bollywood are the most accessible, it’s what helps keep people alive on a daily basis. Because when you look at every day, what is the only source of dopamine? Rubbish like that. I call it trash, but I also indulge in trash and that’s what keeps me going. Therefore, I wouldn’t say that the Khans are only vital to the Muslim community. They are for everyone. I also write about how, previously, Muslim actors would replace their names. The Khans did not. And fortunately, for the last thirty years, they have been popular across castes and communities. I also specifically went to ask those questions because it was very important for me to understand what other people did in their free time. You spend 16 hours in check and then what do you do? What is the rest of your life? What happens around the paintings? That’s why I went, asked those questions and discovered that they were intrinsic to other people of all social classes.
It’s actually attractive because in the book we see that recreation becomes vital for Syeda, where she discovers a kind of female sanctuary and network in Radiowali’s house. How did leisure emerge as a political force in Syeda history? I believe that the type of politicization we hear or praise is very masculine in nature. This is a very masculine way of communicating about your non-public politics, because it has to sound deep, articulate and serious; It’s not meant to communicate frivolous things, just about saving the world and converting lives. And none of those conversations deserve to be diluted into probably frivolous things. But, for example, in psychotherapy, other people are now invited to knit and crochet. And it is the same thing that women were demonized when they sat down in the afternoons to knit and communicate. This was called gossip. Through reporting and things like that, I’ve found that the most productive replacements, or the most productive efforts to achieve a replacement, come from that relaxed, comfortable area where you feel safe with the people around you and where you can talk freely about what you do. what are you doing. afflicts you Only when you feel like you have a safe enough space will you feel safe to move forward and replace anything in the outside world. The gendered nature of conversations about politics becomes very evident.
I’m also struck by the way you write about the masculine nature of unions, that the concept of a union is also largely based on action and autonomy to access the global outside in a safe way and in a few cases. In this book, the manifestation position also becomes an area of transformation and self-acceptance. I wonder if you have any intention of making a point about how and why protest sites become such transformative areas? I think a protest venue is, first and foremost, a place to meet other like-minded people, especially those who don’t protest regularly. And only when you meet other like-minded people can you have debates and discussions where you can disagree and still be with each other. Then they collectivize, they combine, they locate other people from other origins interested or concerned about the same things as you. And that’s when you open up and even think about the option that anything can be repositioned in your life. For example, the CAA-NRC protests. It was the fact that women could just pass out in a public area and sit down, which wasn’t really allowed before. Despite the farmers’ protests, the fact that so many men, women, young and old came to sit outdoors in Delhi for so many months. The fact that they are cooking together on the road, looking for paintings with the same comforts, figuring out how to help each other, because they are in the same thing. To me, this is why protests are transformative for anyone who is a part of them.
I have an anecdote for you. In 2012 or 2013, I took my mom, who had never participated in a protest before, to a protest against DU’s 4-year program. At some point, they arrested me and my mom at the police station. so excited. She told all the police: “This is replaced by 4 years of university. How difficult it will be for women to study!” And then she went to tell my long circle of relatives – who are incredibly patriarchal – that the police had arrested us. And she is very satisfied! At an event, you feel that you are part of something and suddenly you feel that you can also contribute in a positive way. You can also find the confidence to help.
I wonder what component of Syeda’s story has been the most difficult to write, to tell, complicated in some way. I ask about the logistical problems because you said that you have to put all the data into a readable narrative. I would also like to know the emotional effects of such initiatives. First, Syeda said to me, “Why are you writing about me?So convincing her and proceeding to ask her about various things and accept them as true was complicated.
After a year and a half, we either opened up. She asked me questions about myself and I answered her honestly, and she started to open up too. The component about Shahzeb, her ex-son, is very confusing because she still holds a grudge against Shahzeb, whom she hasn’t seen in all these years. There is a lot of patriarchal resentment against this guy because he ran off with a woman he was looking to live his life with. There is also a lot of inflammation in his part, for example, why am I asking him about the agarbatti that he prepared with cow urine. For her it’s not that serious. When I asked her about all the jobs she had ever had in her life, she got angry and asked me, “Would you ask a businessman for all the addresses she worked at?” She felt that I was asking unnecessary questions and asked me to pay attention to the story she was telling. So the small main points were harder to understand. For example, when Syeda told me about her father’s involvement in nautanki, she did not understand why I asked her about her meeting Gulab Bai and whether she had already met her second family. The main points that interested me as a storyteller did not interest her.
What have you read and seen recently? I saw in the author’s note that he had indexed some eBooks that were particularly influential in the project. The Other Side of Silence through Urvashi Butalia was also a very vital e-book in my life!The e-book really helped me in terms of perceiving oral history. Because education as a journalist is about locating the document and locating the evidence. So, The Other Side of Silence actually helped me perceive that there are facets that are relatively unknown in terms of documentation or history.
I read the other book recently, Coolie Woguy, through Gaiutra Bahadur. On board those ships were single pregnant women, sexual personnel, women seeking to escape abusive husbands, or kidnapped women. And once they arrived in the Caribbean, they were assigned a man so they wouldn’t be left alone.
The one I’m reading right now is The Great Nicobar Betrayal, curated by Pankaj Sekhsaria, and it’s about what’s currently happening in terms of displacement in the Nicobar Islands.