On 24th July 2026, Dr Zehra Kazmi, Research Associate at South Asian Studies, IIS, presented an online public lecture on ‘Nostalgia and Memory in South Asian Muslim Writing’ organised by the Centre for Studies of Plural Societies (CSPS) based in Delhi. The event was chaired by Dr Sumaira Nawaz (PhD, McGill University). Dr Kazmi joined the South Asian Studies Unit at IIS in July 2026.
Drawing on political moments as diverse as the 1857 rebellion, the Khilafat Movement and the 2019–2020 anti-CAA/NRC protests, Dr Kazmi discussed the cultural function that nostalgia and grief perform for South Asian Muslims. She explored how Indo-Muslim literary traditions mobilise nostalgia to challenge present-day politics and articulate alternative visions of community and nationhood. Dr Kazmi situates her scholarship within the study of post-Partition Muslim voices in literature exploring the experiences of Muslims who remained in India after Partition.
Dr Nawaz provided the context for the way this research contributes to the field of South Asian Studies, highlighting the role of fiction as a means of documenting Muslim experience during and after the partition of the Indian Subcontinent into India and Pakistan. The discussion examined the tension between traditional literary forms, such as the ghazal as used by progressive writers, and modernist forms such as the novel, and considered how nostalgia operates both as a literary aesthetic and as a trope for representing cultural loss and displacement. This was followed by a lively Q and A session with the audience.
