Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the post-partition re-negotiation of culture and history among Indian Muslims. It focuses on debates about the concept of Minority and its re-construction among Muslim intellectuals.

Paper long abstract:

Following recent calls to understand the "Long Partition" of South Asia, this paper examines the Partitioning of culture and memory.It also explores the diverse responses to question of Nationalism and Minority identity among Indian Muslims. It does so by focusing on the debates about "Muslim culture" in post-partition India.The debates on nationalism and "Muslim culture" characterized the newly created nation states of Pakistan and India but with striking differences in their content and purpose: while in Pakistan "Muslim culture" was integral to the construction of national culture, its trajectory in India was one of minoritization through state institutions and government cultural policies. In India, therefore, "Muslim culture" had to be re-imagined to accommodate its perceived political shift to the margins. Moving beyond the statist discourse,I argue that the re-negotiation of these concepts among Indian Muslim intellectuals was also done through engagement with history and emotions.The paper focusses on nostalgic remembrance as an emotional practice to come to terms with the partition. Moreover, it argues for the recognition of nostalgic writing as a literary strategy that serves to critique the minority status placed on Muslims in post-partition India. Nostalgic writings therefore emerge as a crucial space for not just re-visiting bygone past but as a site of political critique of contemporary lived experience. Thus, the paper hopes to map this changing cultural landscape and illustrate the role of literature in understanding the political and aesthetic sensibilities of Muslims in post-partition India.