Suchitra Vijayan

Suchitra Vijayan is a Barrister, Political Analyst, Writer and Photographer.

She previously worked for the UN war crimes tribunal for Yugoslavia and Rwanda. She co-founded and was the Legal Director of Resettlement LegaSuchitra Vijayan is a writer, photographer, lawyer and a political theorist. She studied law, political science and international relations, and was trained as a barrister-at-law. She regularly writes about war, conflict, politics, literature and photography. Her work looks at theories of violence, war and human nature. She previously worked for the United Nations War Crimes Tribunal for Yugoslavia and Rwanda. She co-founded and was the legal director for Resettlement Legal Aid Project in Cairo. At Yale, she worked on researching and documenting stories along the contentious Durand Line. She was embedded with the ISAF forces (172 Infantry Brigade) in Paktika Province, Afghanistan, conducting research on key kinetic terrains along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Suchitra is also a bonafide trouble maker. She backpacked through Sudan in 2009, had her first encounter with tear gas in Nilin, Palestine, and left Egypt because the revolution took too long to materialize.

She is currently working on her longer term research project, “Borderlands,” traveling the whole of India’s borders. The project is conceived as a travelogue chronicling stories along India’s borderlands, covering six of India’s border with Pakistan, China, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, and Burma. A part visual anthropology and part an attempt at understanding the Indian state, its pathologies and the fringes it governs.