Writer, literary historian Rakhshanda Jalil on being Muslim in modern India

Jalil shares her thoughts on interfaith sensitivity versus appeasement politics, the onus of secularism, a gender-just nikahnama and more

She’s a literary historian, writer and translator who’s equally at ease with baking sourdough and quilting. As founder of Hindustani Awaaz, she’s often regarded as the voice of the intellectual, “modern” Muslim in India today. Rakhshanda Jalil is a woman who wears many hats but the one that rests particularly heavily on her head is that of being “secular”.

In her book, But You Don’t Look Like a Muslim (2019), as well as in her other prolific writings, Jalil has questioned why the onus of secularism has been placed so squarely on the shoulders of the Indian Muslim.

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