ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the legacies of this 'fatal dilemma' in the context of India's contemporary crisis in secularism, the rise of militant Hindu nationalism, and the ongoing minoritization of Muslim identity and culture. It explores how writers turn to music to think through these legacies. From Salman Rushdie's painters, authors, and photographers, to Anita Desai's poets and singers, to the performers of Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy, artists and their creative work have been central to Anglophone Indian authors' efforts. This effort to excavate the subcontinent's past in resistance to the reduction of complex and intertwined cultures into the categories of 'Hindu', 'Muslim', 'Indian', 'Pakistani', 'religious', and 'secular'. Focusing on Shashi Desphande's Small Remedies the chapter considers the relationship between music, memory, and national identity. It explores what imaginative resources music history, and the interaction between music and fiction, might offer to people understanding of the minoritization of Muslim subjectivities.
