This article examines Mani Ratnam's film Dil Se (India, 1998, Tamil and Hindi), as an allegory of the relationship between dominant and dominated groups within the Indian nation-state. By reading its narrative of doomed love against its counter-narratives of cinematography and soundtrack, I argue that Dil Se exposes the libidinal economy of the federal democratic framework, urging groups currently alienated within that framework to work towards a successful politics of bargaining in order to claim their rightful place within the nation, and initiates processes of mourning for cultural losses sustained through homogenising majoritarian discourses, including those of Bollywood itself. By invoking Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari's theory of 'minor literatures', I reveal the minority subjectivities of those involved in the film's making as the key unlocking the therapeutic, even redemptive potential of its radical political messages, that, despite the film's commercial failure, circulate subliminally through its popular soundtrack.