The Role of Translation in a multilingual society

Knitting India: Through Translation

Indra Nath Choudhuri

India is a multilingual and multicultural country and has been

in the forefront of translation for many many centuries. This being
the reason it is known to be a linguistic as well as a translation
area. We use more than one language while speaking or even
thinking. This trait of polyglottism, says Suniti Kumar Chatterjee
was responsible in the development of translating consciousness
among the Indians. Vatsyayanas phrase lokepichanuvada which
means translatability explains the historical length of existence of
Indias translating consciousness.
But when I say India which India, which nation do I mean?

We have an age old idea of India which is the continuing

India with its pluralistic structure of a multilingual, multicultural,
multiracial and multi-religious society. It is an integrative
framework of a nation displaying a unity in diversity. The real
tradition of India is to work for an adjustment of races,
acknowledge the dual differences between them and yet seek some
basis of unity.
The idea of other India was initially created by the British
Imperial rule for the development of a homogenous, unified India
in order to perpetuate the colonial rule.
This is the imagined India that the Western -oriented English
educated class still nurtures even after independence with their
overriding interest to construct a modern India and an identity by

1
itself on the western civilizational lines.
In the last few years the process is vigourously pursued by
the players of the global consumer culture who by appropriating,
and co-opting all our cultural diversities are bent on creating an
analogous, homogenized and monolithic Indian culture with the
help of mostly American inputs.

Surprisingly Translation, Anuvada, has been an inextricable

part of these two India.
The modernists tried to construct an imagined modern
nation by deploying different kind of discourses from the West
philosophy, historiography, education and literature - to
perpetuate the western civilizational values for the development of
a modern Indian nation and rapidly westernize the Indian mind. It
translated all and sundry works of English literature to place
England and the West well above the colonized cultures.
But at the same time translation activity from English into
other Indian languages growing in huge proportion facilitated
enormously the fashioning of the Bhashas. There is no doubt that
British colonialism and its new present day avatars created a desire
for rapid westernization but in the process shaping of the identities
of modern India languages became a reality. Though it will be a
travesty of truth if one denies the role played by Indian writers in
shaping and growing a tradition of Indian languages.
During the freedom movement the magnitude and frequency
of translations from Sanskrit into different Indian languages by the
other multicultural and multilingual India could be explained as
the assertion of the indigenous literary tradition against rapid
westernization. These translations also became a means of

2
liberating the scriptures from the monopoly of a restricted class of
people and also reorganizing the society.
At the same time inter-lingual translations especially from
different Indian languages into Hindi commenced in a big way.
Translation into Hindi that time was considered to be a national act
and also a part of anti-colonial struggle.

The fervour for substituting an Indian language for imperial

English was built on nationalist aspirations. Mahatma Gandhi
clearly saw that English could under no circumstances be the
national language of India, and that it would have to he replaced
by Hindustani, if the movement was to evoke the support of the
masses. Learning Hindi/Hindustani became a nationalist act, and it
became the target language for the largest number of translation
from different Indian Languages and thus acted as a binding force
for national integration.

By the end of the First World War, the Indian cultural scene
was changing very rapidly. A large number of Indian soldiers had
returned home after getting an exposure to European Culture other
than the British. The newly instituted Nobel Prizes seem to have
afforded non-English writers a level of visibility and circulation
which they otherwise might not have achieved. The Indian regard
for the Nobel Prize was considerably reinforced after Tagore
received the prize in 1913 for his book Gitanjali, which a
translation done by him of his Bengali songs in English. As a
result Indian translators began to go beyond in order to reach out to
works from other languages. Premachand translated into Urdu two
Nobel Prize winners, Belgian writer Maurice Maeterlinck and
English writer John Galsworthy. It now seemed to be part of a new

3
sprit of literary independence to welcome, through translation non-
English writers into the Indian languages. It was during that time
Mahatma Gandhi had entered the political scene in India creating a
new national awareness.

A result of these changes was that Indian translators turned

now not only to European literature but to literature in other Indian
languages. The translators interested in nationalising literature in
modern Indian languages were more concerned about the unity of
the country. That is how, during the three decades of the Gandhian
freedom struggle inter-lingual exchange within Indian languages
multiplied. Tagore, Bamkim Chandra and Sharata Chandra
Chattajees works were translated into all Indian languages. So
were the works of Premchand, K.M. Munshi, V.S. Khandekar,
Subramanium Bharati and others. In a multilingual community like
ours the age-old tradition is that of linkage and during the freedom
movement we came to realize that translation is the most effective
way of linking diverse languages. It became one of the most potent
means of providing us a fresh view about the oneness, unity and
commonality as well as the wonderful diversities, which indicate
the expansive richness of the culture of the continuing perennial
India.

Inter-lingual translation into different bhashas as an

inseperable part of the discourse of nationalism owes its origin
surprisingly also to the English-educated Indians and the concept
of an imagined nation that transcends linguistic divisions
emerged as complementary notions. As a result in the 19th and the
beginning of the 20th century in all the Indian languages one can

4
find a unified approach emerging because of this idea of India and
translations were done for the promotion either of the colonial
hegemony or for dramatization of a certain kind of resistance
against colonialism of which the best examples are original or
inter-lingual translated novels, a new genre borrowed from the
West. Unlike the western novel, which had for its dominant theme
the rapture between individual and society, the Indian novel-
authored by the newly educated class dealt on the recasting of
social identity in the confrontation with a colonizing power.
Translation here acts as a part of anti-colonial struggle.

This is the unique feature of that India which creates the

concept of an imagined nation, which stands at the conjuncture
of English-which provides modern knowledge-and helps in the
growth of modern Indian bhasas and which recasts this knowledge
into regional forms. However, translation activity in these
languages creates a sub-system of language which affects the
natural growth of language and the prose style in modern Indian
languages and as a result the prose style in modern Indian
languages acquired an inevitable tenor and tone of translation
language.

The struggle against colonialism created a longing for

national unity to develop and foster the feeling of community by
strengthening the composite culture and languages of India and not
by neglecting them and revive the continuing India of many
religions, many races, many languages and many cultures.
Literature and its translations in various Indian languages created a
space for the emergence of the idea of national identity and turned
the literary voice into the voice of enlightenment.

5
 In fact, it was a continuation of what was started in the
medieval time by the translator-writers like Tulasi, Jnandev,
Krittivasa and others who rendered the original Sanskrit texts into
their languages without any inhibitions as they rarely maintained a
word-for-word, line-for-line discipline. The poets and writers who
attempted a trans-created rendering of Sanskrit texts into Indian
languages treated both the languages as their own languages.
They had a sense of possession in respect of the Sanskrit heritage.
But in translating Sanskrit texts they sought to liberate the
scriptures, as said earlier, from the monopoly of a restricted class
of people. Hence, these translations became a means of liberating
and reorganizing the society.

Translation of the novels of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee or

his essay Krishna Charita and Liberty of John Stuart Mill into
Hindi by Mahavir Prasad Dwivedi and many other texts from
English to Indian languages acted as catalyst for the development
of the idea of India by subverting the western notion of
nationalism.

The myopic Euro-centric view that anything worthy of

emulation originated in Greece was challenged and the orient lists
authority to speak of India was contested. In fact, the first
significant challenge to orientalised India came with the rise of
nationalism based on Indias age-old pluralistic cultural tradition.
Being pluralistic, it welcomed the idea to obtain new elements of
contemporary civilization for the nation to define its place and role
in a fast-changing world. To fulfill this end many Indian
intellectuals of the 19th century believed that science was culture

6
and that it should be taught in the bhasas, in Indian languages.

The translation of science was to serve to articulate a counter

colonial political stance, and became a way to oppose the cultural
and intellectual erosion, which had taken place under colonial rule.
In 1843, a vernacular translation society was set up at the Delhi
College, Delhi. Its task was to translate books from English into
regional languages. Sir Syed Ahmad Khan expressed the need for
translation on massive scale and said:

Those who are bent on improving and bettering India must

remember that the only way of encompassing this is by having the
whole of Arts and Sciences translated into their own languages. I
should like to have this written in gigantic letters on the Himalayas
for the remembrance of future generation.

Tagore introduced the study of science in Viswa Bharati the

university formed by him. The Bihar Science Society, which was
founded in 1868 by Maulana Imdad Ali, and other organizations in
different part of the country, started translating books on a wide
range of scientific subjects, and it served as a force for national
unity and for developing national consciousness.

Translation in general asserted itself as an act of resistance to

the imperialist process. But we all know that this could not be
sustained and during colonial times English as the medium of
instruction was introduced in all the universities to promote the
hegemony of colonial powers which became a barrier in the path
of the civilizational creativity of the vast majority of Indians.

7
 To fully comprehend and appreciate the function of
translations in post-independence India, it is imperative that we
accept translation as a socio-political necessity in the context of
cultural pluralism and the multilingual situation in India. We need
not emphasize that multilingualism is an all-pervading element in
the Indian atmosphere, affecting every aspect of the countrys life.
From the Western point of view, a multiplicity of languages,
regions and races is regarded as leading to fragmentation, even
though, in fact, such multiplicity gives importance to every part of
the whole. It is rather the monolithic structures that may create
fragmentation of life, of man and of knowledge undermining the
unity of living.

Nehru was extremely sure of his assertion that languages by

themselves are not a destructive factor. Hs created the National
Academy of letters for developing the concepts of Indian literature
as one literature, by allowing all the languages to grow together,
and by extensive use of translation. He was of the firm opinion that
the growth of bhasas did not tend at all towards disunity. But this
unity of Indian literature emerges only when one understands it in
the pluralistic context or in the context of cultural diversity. Indian
literature demonstrates unity through acknowledgement of
differences and this becomes possible because there is a pan-
Indian thinking underlying the civilization unity that we have in
spite of the subaltern and protestant elements in the Indian
civilizational life and hence unity and diversity, concurrence and
protest are found together at every level of our existence. The unity
of literary ex-pressions, despite, their linguistic varities like
Kalidasas famous play Shakuntala written in Sanskrit,

8
Saursheni, Maharastri and Magadhi Prakrits, indicates that a
literary text could be produced in a complex multilingual situation,
where different languages did not drive people into exclusive
groups, but could encourage people to interact with one another,
and to transcend linguistic barriers. Experience shows that it is not
the recognition, but the non-recognition of languages that has led
to divisive movements. Translation is accepted as one of the ways
of reconciling the interests of various groups.

In the post-Independence era we still find two India are

present sometime confronting each other or acting as
complimentary notions knitting two India into a civilizational
whole.

We still find translation from the various Indian languages

into English, whether done by foreigners or by Indian themselves
have attained a hegemonic ascendancy. In this post-colonial phase
most Indian writers seem to vie with each other to get their works
translated into English. The number of such translations from
Indian languages into English has been constantly growing getting
translated into English has at present become a kind of status
symbol for the average writer in Indian languages.

The use of English as a meta narrative, the idea that only

English is a solution for our complex language problem is false.
The politics of link language has allowed English to gain in
strength more than Hindi or other languages as a job-selection
language, and as language of power and control. Other languages,
including the second link language Hindi, are institutionally
constrained and negatively treated in public domains. All of this

9
has created a crisis relating to the preservation of multilinguality in
this post-colonial era, because colonialism still survives in a new
avatara in an altered form.

It is necessary to point out that while nation-states, national

ideologies and government policies may require the use of a single
common language, such as English or Hindi, for administrative
and political reasons, the centralizing language of the imagined
India can neither be representative of a multilingual ethos and a
mosaic of cultures and ethnicities nor expressive of peoples
creativity and vitality.

The homogenizing force of a single dominant or master

language aiming at presenting the heterogeneous character of
ancient, medieval and contemporary India is not feasible and can
easily be contested. The time has come now to reconstruct the
meta-narrative and justify the other narratives for political and
social justice. Only then the continuing India with its civilizational
complexity is in a position to knit herself as one India with its
diversity of cultural practices through several means and one of
them is multilingual translation exercise.

Already an urge for self-assertion is quite conspicuous which

in a large measure accounts for the multilingual translation boom
from one Indian bhasa to another bhasa. Greater mobility among
castes and sub-castes in different parts of the country has made the
enlarging of the language of that area a reality, displacing English
language elites by regional language elites, who represent for the
most part, the cast aspirations of non-Brahnins, and also the
hegemonic role of English, which is a barrier to civilizational

10
creativity for the vast majority of Indians.

The rapid use of bilingualism-Hindi English, Bengali-

English and like this-in the contemporary times is providing
opportunities to subvert hierarchies, and contesting all forms of
domination in a multilingual society to create mutual
interdependence and inter signification between languages.

A similar urge for self-assertion is also quite visible among

the large number of Indians who have taken upon themselves to
translate works of Indian literature, both ancient and modern into
English to show primarily to the world that such works do exist
with all their rich variety. A.K. Ramanujan, probably the most
outstanding Indian translator of the last four-five decades, set an
example of using English for not creating the universalist mode of
supremacy of the elite Indian literature of world class but as a
counter-force of resistance working to produce original forms of
the local variety like Tamil Bhakti poetry, Kannada Virasaiva
Vacanas to present the other tradition of the people with its
abounding diversity.

Now the interest of Indian translators is to explore ways in

which the English language can be stretched to contain authetic
Indian ex-pression. At the same time, there is an attempt to view
the English language as one of the Indian languages. It is for this
reason that many Indian writing in English have also taken to
translating from Indian languages. Thus, the imagined Indian
nation in its new post-colonial form is projecting the continuing
India to the world outside and also to the people of India and in
this way the two India are coming close to each other as

11
complementary nations and domesticating the work either into pan
Indian or into a universalist mode for identifying a plurality of
linguistic ex-pressions and cultural experience and also for
understanding the remarkable unity underlying them.

12