24/07/2026
CSPS organised an online talk on “Indo-Muslim Nostalgia, Memory, Modernity, and Nation,” on 24th July 2026, presented by Dr Zehra Kazmi, chaired by Dr Sumaira Nawaz, and moderated by Anshika Singh, Intern at CSPS.
Dr Kazmi discussed how nostalgia and cultural memory function in South Asian Muslim literature, drawing on political moments such as the 2019–2020 anti-CAA/NRC protests and the 1857 rebellion. She explored how Indo-Muslim literary traditions mobilise nostalgia to challenge present-day politics and articulate alternative visions of community and nationhood, situating her scholarship within the study of post-Partition Muslim voices in literature particularly novels exploring the experiences of Muslims who remained in India after Partition.
Dr Nawaz provided context on how this research contributes to emerging Partition scholarship, highlighting the role of fiction as an archive for documenting Muslim experience during and after Partition. The discussion examined the tension between traditional literary forms, such as the ghazal as used by progressive writers, and modernist novelistic forms, and considered how nostalgia operates both as a literary aesthetic and as a trope for representing cultural loss and displacement.
To conclude the session, Anshika Singh expressed gratitude to the speaker and chair for an insightful discussion and the attendees for their participation, adding that the talk had deepened her own understanding of the subject and left her keen to explore it further.
