Is There An 'Indian School' Of Translation Studies ?
Rebirth of a text in another
language is the birth in a different yoni— in a different
vagina, a different species. The translated text is a different
animal altogether. But the way of looking at this different animal
in relation to earlier one in addition to its place and function in
the territory it inhabits in the present birth depends greatly on
frames through it is perceived. This framework is usually specific
to culture, metaphysics, history, politics, and social institutions
of the linguistic community that produces or receives translation.
One wonders then, whether there are certain themes and concerns
which recur in writings on translation in India, or more
fashionably, whether there is some sort of `Indian School' of
Translation Studies. As there seems to be a sudden upsurge of
interest in translation in English Studies in India, I have
attempted in this paper a brief critical survey of major theoretical
positions of Indian scholars regarding translation and tried to
understand them in the context of Indian cultural history. I have
sought to discover shared areas of emphasis and differences in order
to find out whether any such school exists. I have also compared
major theorists writing in English and those writing in the modern
Indian languages in order to highlight the difference rather than
similarity between them.
The increased interest seems to be symptomatic of a certain dramatic
shift in academic values, concerns, and mindset associated with
English Studies in India. This shift has been from uncritical
acceptance of literatures in dominant Western languages, their
canons, as well as their critical vocabulary, to historical and
political contexts in which they are produced, circulated and
consumed. There is a distinct attempt to de-colonize its outlook.
The emphasis on translation, I feel is one of the cultural
strategies for the agenda of decolonialization.
Closely allied with English Studies establishment in India are the
Indian writers writing in English, many of them have traditionally
been accomplished translators. English Studies has been one of the
chief patrons of this species of writing in India. In the case of
the earlier generation of writers like Sri Aurobindo or P.Lal, the
source language was chiefly Sanskrit and later on, in the case of
modernist bilingual poets like Dilip Chitre, A.K.Ramanujan, R.
Parthashastry, and Arun Kolatkar, the source language is primarily
their first language. The focus of these translators has been
largely on medieval bhakti literature. Rabindranath Tagore's
translation of Kabir and Sri Aurobindo's translation of Vidyapati
are the antecedents of these type of translations. The bilingual
poet translators deploy translation as a strategy to de-colonize
their souls by translating what is considered as `truly Indian'. A
noted poet and translator P. Lal has made a very significant comment
about this strategic function of translation :
`I soon realized that an excessive absorption in the milieu and
tradition of English was divorcing me from the values that I found
all round me as an experiencing Indian, so I undertook the
translation of Indian-in practice, mostly Hindu-sacred texts, in the
hope that the intimacy that only translation can give would enable
me to know better what the Indian "myth" was, how it invigorated
Indian literature, and what values one would pick up from it that
would be of use to me as an " Indian" human being and as an Indian
using a so called foreign language, English, for the purposes of
writing poetry. (Cited by St.Pierre, 1997:143-144)'.
In this light one can understand Dilip Chitre's remark, ` Why I felt
compelled to translate his (Tukaram’s) poetry: as a bilingual poet,
I had little choice, if any. There were two parts of me, like two
linguistic and cultural hemispheres, and, as per theory, they were
not destined to cohere..(2003:307)’ and ` I have been working in a
haunted workshop rattled and shaken by the spirits of other
literatures unknown to my ancestors….I have to build a bridge within
myself between India or Europe or else I become a fragmented person
(2003:311-312).’
Many of these writer and translators grapple with the issue of
identity and Indianness in their works and these themes very
naturally emerge in their translation theory and practice. AK
Ramanujan, who holds a unique place as a poet, translator, and a
theorist, had announced the great ambition to translate non-native
reader into a native one as one of the main motivation behind
translation. Yet he too acknowledged that ` Every one's own
tradition is not one' birthright; it has to be earned, repossessed.
The old bards earned it by apprenticing themselves to the masters.
One chooses and translates a part of one's past to make it present
to oneself and may be to others.' (Cited by Dharwadkar,
1999:122-123) Translation becomes a strategy to give oneself one's
roots. St. Pierre aptly observes that such an attitude ` arises out
of a desire to ground oneself more fully into the Indian source
culture.' (1997:143-144) Comparable to what is happening in English
Studies, its alienated by products also have desire to de-colonize
themselves. However, a significant point is that of shifting notion
of what is meant by `truly Indian'. In case of the older
generations, Indianness meant pan-Indian Sanskritic heritage and in
case of modernists, Indianness means pre-colonial heritage in modern
Indian languages. Translation becomes one of the inevitable and
creative contrivances of giving oneself the sense of belonging and a
nationality.
The main theorists from the English Studies establishment are the
reputed scholars like Harish Trivedi, G.N.Devy, Dilip Chitre,
Tejaswini Niranjana, and Sujit Mukherjee. They are concerned with
colonial history and its impact on practice and reflection on
translation in India. They are chiefly concerned about what is
called Indian Literature in English Translation, or Indo-English
Literature. The English Studies connection of these scholars is
reflected in the theorizing and the sorts of concerns typical to
this church emerge everywhere in their thinking.
Harish Trivedi (1996) has provided a fourfold division of Indian
literature translated into English: i) Indic and Indological works,
mainly translations of the ancient and medieval Sanskrit or Pali
texts into English, ii) the translations of late ancient and
medieval works, largely to do with bhakti, for instance, A K
Ramanujan's translations or Rabindranath Tagore's translation of
Kabir. Trivedi calls these two trends as neo-Orientalist or post
Orientalist trends, iii) fictional works depicting various aspects
of modern India realistically like the work of Tagore or Premchand.
Trivedi remarks that this category broadly conforms to Fredric
Jameson's inadequate description of the Third World national
allegory and iv) Modernist or High modernist writers translated into
English, a category which Trivedi believes is contrary to Jameson's
thesis as it shows that internationalism/universalism
cosmopolitanism can flourish in the Third World as well (52)
In Trivedi’s first category can be put works of brilliant
Indologists and Sanskrit scholars like Wendy Donniger O Flatthery,
Barbara Stoller-Miller, or Lee Siegel who have produced excellent
translations of Sanskrit classical texts with erudite and insightful
commentaries, forewords, and appendices. Indian scholars like Sri
Aurobindo, CC Mehta, and P Lal who have translated from Sanskrit
classics into English also can be put under this heading. The list
is quite long, but shadow of Orientalism looms large over these
translations and so does desire to indulge in the `glories of past'.
AK Ramanujan's translations from South Indian saint-singers and of
ancient Sangam classics, and many other works more or less well
received belong to the second category described by Trivedi. It is
unfair to label these translations as neo- or post- Orientalist as
these are by the translators who belong to the colonized cultures
and they translate into language of colonizers rather than the
colonial translator translating into their first language. Besides,
Orientalism worked in tandem with the colonizing project.
Nevertheless, the colonial history does play a crucial role in
production and reception of these types of translations as mentioned
earlier. The desire to relate the East and the West in `positive'
manner springs from English educated Indian's conscious or
unconscious fear of alienation and of not belonging to the very
country he or she is born in. This crisis may be due to historical,
or (to use a more fashionable word) `post-colonial' condition, but
then this should definitely separate it from translations of
orientalists.
The third category as pointed out by Trivedi, and is very well
documented by Sujit Mukherjee (1994) who gives an excellent list of
various Indo-English realistic fictional works translated into
English in his appendix which depict various aspects of modern
Indian life. Mukherjee makes a strong case for inclusion of these
works in academic study of what is called `Eng.Lit.' The fourth
category, that of the Modernist and high modernist poets and writers
translated into English features in Mukherjee’s list too. He also
provides a list of Indian dramas translated into English.
Mukherjee's list is not complete, but it reveals what a great help
this kind of effort provides to scholars. Trivedi's schema is useful
but the last two categories of his four-fold framework seem to have
only polemical relevance in the context of his argument against
Jameson's view. The division between the works that deal
realistically with India and the more modernist and experimental
fiction is controversial. He seems to imply that the latter type of
fiction is more `international' and having `universal/global' appeal
while the former has only local, regional or national appeal.
Like Trivedi, Devy (1993) is interested in the historical context of
translation activity in India. He divides the history of translating
Indian literature into English into four phases, namely: the
colonial phase (1776-1910), the revivalist phase (1876-1950), the
nationalist phase (1902-1929), and the formalist phase (1912- )
(120). Commenting on contribution of emergence and growth of
Indian-English literature in growth of Indian literature in English
Translation, he remarks that the creative writers writing in English
have created `a ready language for the translators' as they have
invented modes of ` representing Indian turns of speech, shades of
sentiments, ways of feeling and social manners.' Besides, many
Indian creative writers in English, who are bilinguals, are
translators. This fact also contributes to development of this
category (124). However, one wonders whether growth and development
of something like German Writing in English (if there is any such
thing) is necessary and important for development of German
literature in English Translation!
Tejaswini Niranjana's excellent book, apart from a rather unjust
attack on Ramanujan, Siting Translation, History,
Post-Structuralism, and the Colonial Context (1995) is concerned
with complex interrelationship between colonialism, post-structuralist
philosophy, and translation. This concern for colonial past and
Western theories also characterize most of the contemporary
theoretical writing on translation in English in India. One wonders
why only the scholars associated with English Studies are so
seriously concerned with colonial history and Western critical
theory.
" In a post-colonial context the problematic of translation becomes
a significant site for raising questions of representation, power,
and historicity," she maintains," the context is one of contesting
and contested stories attempting to account for, to recount, the
asymmetry and inequality of relations between peoples, races,
languages". In translation, the relationship between the two
languages is hardly on equal terms. Niranjana draws attention to a
rather overlooked fact that translation is between languages that
are hierarchically related, and that it is a mode of representation
in another culture. When the relationship between the cultures and
languages is that of colonizer and colonized,
"translation...produces strategies of containment. By employing
certain modes of representing the other-which it thereby also brings
into being--translation reinforces hegemonic versions of the
colonized, helping them acquire the status of what Edward Said calls
representations or objects without history '(p.3). She points out in
the introduction that her concern is to probe `the absence, lack, or
repression of an awareness of asymmetry and historicity in several
kinds of writing on translation' (p.9). Her theoretical position
seems to be more relevant to translations into English and
orientalist translations, but the point she has raised about
asymmetry and hierarchy very well applies to translations between
Indian languages. The lack of systematic theorization about the
problems raised by translation between bhashas or modern Indian
languages will be dealt later in the paper.
Harish Trivedi (1997) demonstrates how translation of Anatole
France's Thais by Premchand was distinctly a political act in the
sense that the very selection of a text was that of a one which was
not part of literature of colonial power and that it attempted a
sort of liberation of Indian literature from the tutelage of the
imperially-inducted master literature, English (407).
The postcolonial theory has, indeed, provided a powerful analytical
framework for translation studies. Bassnett and Trivedi (1999)
believe that the hierarchic opposition between the original work and
translation reflects the hierarchic opposition between the European
colonizer culture and the colonized culture. This hierarchy, they
observe, is Eurocentric, and its spread is associated with the
history of colonialization, imperialism, and proselytization (1-4).
Because of these historical reasons, many radical theories of
translation have come up in the former colonies.
G.N.Devy has formulated a credible Indian perspective to translation
theory by contrasting the ways in which translation is perceived in
India and in the West. Devy rightly notes that the metaphysical
status of translation determines how it is perceived in a culture.
Contrasting Western metaphysics with that of East, Devy states, ` in
Western metaphysics, translation is an exile and an exile is a
metaphorical translation- a post-Babel crisis. The multilingual,
eclectic Hindu spirit, ensconced in the belief in the soul's
perpetual transition from form to form, may find it difficult to
subscribe to the Western metaphysics of translation (135). He points
out that Western linguistics is essentially monolingual and rules
out the very possibility of interlingual synonymy. It also overlooks
that fact that languages are `open' to one another's influence in
linguistic, social and historical sense. Devy is of opinion that
Indian consciousness is `translating consciousness' and it exploits
the `potential openness of language systems'. He believes ` if we
take lead from Phenomenology and conceptualize a whole community of
`translating consciousness', it should be possible to develop a
theory of inter-lingual synonymy '(139-141). Devy is optimistic that
an acceptable theoretical perspective on translation can emerge from
India because it has ` a culture that accepts metamorphosis as the
basic principle of existence' and its metaphysics is not haunted by
the fear of exile. He notes that the whole bhakti movement of
poetry in India had the `desire of translating the language of
spirituality from Sanskrit to the languages of people.'
Devy's call for indigenous and native theory of translation based on
local context and local social, literary and cultural traditions is
also found in Ayyapaa K Paniker's `The Anxiety of Authenticity:
Reflection on Literary Translation' (1996:36-45). He points out that
the fear of being unfaithful and the anxiety of being true to the
original in letter in spirit did not haunt the medieval Indian
translators. He notes, ` All through the Middle Ages, throughout the
length and breadth of India, Sanskrit classics like the epics and
puranas continued to be retold, adapted, subverted and
`translated' without worrying about the exactness and accuracy of
formal equivalence.'(37). He speculates that it was with beginning
of attempts to translate the Bible into Indian languages that this
question of authenticity became a bugbear. He points out that the
politics of medieval Indian translations could perhaps be understood
and interpreted in terms of the visible absence of the anxiety of
authenticity on the part of these `translators'. He also notes that
the absence of an exact equivalent for the modern sense of`
translation ' in medieval Indian languages probably suggests that
the Indian practice tolerated a great deal of creative deviance in
retelling or adaptation of a literary text and that the prestige of
the source text did not haunt or frighten the reader (1998). Paniker
is no doubt right in pointing out this fact but it should also be
kept in mind that translation is an inseparable part of any
proselytizing movement. Spread of Buddhism in the first millenium
across Asia also utilized practice of systematic and very accurate
translations which have contributed not only to spread of variety of
secular and religious Indian texts but also development of Asian
languages. Sunitikumar Pathak (1978) furnishes an interesting
account of spread of Buddhist religion in Tibet, Mangolia, and
Siberia. He notes that thousands of highly accurate renderings of
Buddhist and Brahminical texts were produced under royal patronage
in Tibet and that in the ninth century AD there was a conference to
standardize techniques of translation in accordance with Tibetan
language and prosody. Several secular texts like the plays of
Kalidasa or famous Amarkosha were translated. The stress was on high
fidelity to source texts and translations had to get approval from
council of editors. They were so accurate, says Pathak, that
scholars could reconstruct many Mahayana Buddhist texts missing in
their original languages by translating the Tibetan translation back
into Sanskrit and Prakrit. These translated texts also later served
the role of source texts for many other languages of Asia. Fidelity,
it seems, is not an invention of Bible translators, but seems to be
associated with the project of proselytization.
What is interesting to note is that search for `authentic' or truly
native India seems to take modern Indian English translators as well
as theorists to pre-colonial, medieval India. Colonial history is
something of a nightmare that one should try to forget. One notes
that like the Indian writers writing in English, the increasing
interest in translation reflects the increased awareness in English
Literary Studies in India about its own alienation from the Indian
social context. This sense of alienation will play a decisive role
in the new directions in English studies in India will take.
While all this theorization is no doubt very important, the
obsession with colonial history, western theories, and the
problematic of the place of English in India is typical of the
scholars associated with English Studies. This obsession with
post-colonial theorization is often taken to dogmatic extremities in
India these days. These concerns reflect certain self-awareness,
which, one wonders, may be a form of repressed guilt among the
erudite scholars in English Studies regarding its political
underpinnings and history of its role in colonial times. This has
led to the neglect of problems of translating from one Indian
language to another as mentioned earlier and theoretical writings in
Indian languages.
In contrast to the perspectives mentioned, some of the well-known
critics of the earlier generation like R B Patankar (1969:61-72) had
some profound things to say about translation. He speculates on the
possibility of translation from an aesthetic and philosophical point
of view. He says that translations of literary works are said to be
logically impossible but not empirically so. He points out the
contradiction in the arguments of the critics who deny the
possibility of translation. He says that the most fundamental
assumption, which underlies in the activity of translation, is that
meaning can be separated from its verbal expression and the critics
who deny the possibility of translation are those who believe that
in a literary work the verbal expression and the meanings are unique
and cannot be separated from one another. However, Patankar says
that this later thesis will also have to deny the existence of
literary criticism and aesthetics since these disciplines are based
on the assumption that meaning of work of art can be abstracted in
order to be understood and analyzed. Therefore, if criticism is
possible, translation too, to an extent must be possible. He
maintains, `there is no reason why the translator should feel uneasy
about this procedure (of abstraction). He is in good company; for
the process of abstraction which underlies his activity also
underlies the activity of all practical criticism which is engaged
in classifying, grading and rationally judging works of art' (71).
This refreshing perspective anticipates Andre Lefevere' s position
by at least a decade or two by affiliating translation to all other
forms of `rewriting' and `refraction' like criticism.
One more domain of study that is rather neglected by the scholars in
English Studies is the theoretical writings on translation in Indian
languages. One of the oldest examples of such writing is by a noted
essayist, scholar, and translator Vishnushashtri Chiploonkar
(1850-1882) in Marathi. His essay` Bhashantar' appeared in
Nibandhmala, book 1, and twelfth issue in December 1874. His essay
would be of great interest to the scholars of English Studies as he
too is writing about translation from the point of view of
colonialism and place of English.
In present times, writers such as Umashankar Joshi, Harivallabh
Bhayani in Gujarati, Bhalchandra Nemade in Marathi and Bholanath
Tiwari in Hindi have produced many scholarly writings, which can be
of great use to anyone studying translation theory in the Indian
context. Translation theory is being gradually recognized as a
significant area of study in regional languages and greater numbers
of writings on translation are appearing in these languages.
The noted Gujarati poet and critic Umashankar Joshi has perceptively
commented on use of terms like bhashantar and anuvad for
translation. Contrasting the use of bhashantar with anuvad, he says
that bhashantar implies change of language and hence is only change
of formal properties of expression, while anuvad implies an attempt
to recapture the content and the voice once again. He has also
discussed problems of samshloki or verse translations in identical
stanza form.
In a very dense and comprehensive essay, the noted Marathi novelist
and critic Bhalchandra Nemade (1987) has lamented the lack of
significant development in translation studies. (78-85). He laments
the fact that even if original work is bad, it gets more importance
than an excellent translation. He also indicates that while in the
West, the great writers-translators like Ezra Pound, and Dryden have
theoretically discussed various aspects of translation, great
Marathi translators have stayed away from theorizing. He comments on
interdisciplinary nature of translation studies. His view on the
notion of `equivalence' is rather interesting. He believes that that
it is easier to find approximate equivalence in genealogically and
geographically closer languages like Marathi and Gujarati or Marathi
and Kannada. This is a commonly held view by the translators working
between Indian languages. Being a trained linguist, Nemade goes on
to discuss what is termed as ` problems of translation' from
linguistics approach. Elaborating on often repeated statement that
the foundation of the modern age was laid by translators, he
stresses the need for analysis of linguistic impact of English on
Marathi syntax, lexis, and phonology along with stylistic aspects of
literary Marathi using methodology of comparative linguistics. He
has extensively discussed cultural and sub-cultural aspects of
translation and problems of evaluation of translation. Essays like
these are of great value to the student of translation studies in
India. In comparison to the scholars writing in English, these
scholars seem to be less concerned about post-colonial perspective
on translation or producing an `Indian theory' of translation and
tend to focus more on pragmatic aspects of translation. These essays
usually tend to summarize theoretical position of well-known Western
translation theorists, as if to introduce them to the reader of
regional languages, while their counterparts writing in English many
times seems to take such things for granted.
None of these theoretical writings, whether in English or in
regional Indian languages can be called representative of a truly
`Indian' school of translation studies as both these type of
theorizing mainly reflect their own specific problems and concerns.
If a truly `Indian' school of translation studies is to emerge, it
should not limit itself to translations into English or be merely
introductory or language specific like those in regional Indian
languages. It should explore the relationships between the
multiplicities of Indian languages. Such relationships are
historical, political, social and literary. It should also focus on
the issues like the challenges of translating from regional language
to another. Paul St. Pierre makes the best advancement in the
direction of a really Indian school of translation studies.
The essay, `Translation in a Plurilingual Post-colonial context:
India' by Paul St.Pierre (1997) is an illuminating analysis into the
problems of translating from one Indian language to another and
which offers some interesting insights into the complexities of this
area. He discusses various projects like Aadan Pradan (lit.
interexchange) run by National Book Trust, and Sahitya Akademi
projects for translating a major literary work from one language
into another. He points out that these projects aim at `forging
national integration through the exchange of creative literature'.
However, he is more interested in the disparity and asymmetrical
relation between various languages due to political and social
reasons. He indicates that more translations are published in the
northern and central Indian languages than in the south Indian
languages, when one considers the ratio of the population of
speakers and the number of books published by the NBT.
These, he believes,
` Do not simply represent what one might suspect to be an
underlying north
south bias....' but this requires
interpretation, if one takes into account
local contexts- availability of translators, for
example, and cultural traditions —
as well as historical relations between languages and
communities in India. Such
relations and contexts continue to exist in Modern India and they
influence cultural productions, such as translations. They are as
much a result of colonial policy-the formation of a unitary states
out of a plurality of princedoms, feudatory states, etc., - as of
decisions to maintain the divisions in modern India along linguistic
lines. Thus India is not only a state in which linguistic divisions
are maintained, but it is also a nation in which such divisions can
lead to new rivalries or continue the old ones.'(142).
As an illustration, he examines the case of Bengali texts translated
into Orissa and evinces how far greater number of Bengali texts in
Oriya translations reflects near hegemonic status of Bengali in
Orissa. Indeed, the unequal relations among Indian languages deeply
affect traffic of translated texts between the languages. One has
only to consider number of Gujarati books translated into Marathi or
Bengali and vice versa to realize that translation hardly takes
between languages having equal footing and there is a distinct
imbalance between them. An interesting picture emerges when we
consider the number of books from Indian languages translated into
other Indian languages. Bengali and Marathi have the least amount of
translations from Indian languages (Anuvadaat Tarzanchi Bhartiya
Bhashat Hanuman Udi, Maharastra Times 5 April 1996). Does this
number reflect some sort of regionalist arrogance these languages
have vis-a-vis other literatures in Indian languages? There is
indeed such a thing as hierarchy among the literary languages of
India. Apart from this, one also needs to ask that though there are
better days coming for translations from Indian languages into
English, are there better days in store for translations from one
Indian language into another Indian language? Questions like these
need to be examined more thoroughly.
St. Pierre ends his essay by underscoring the need to contextualize
practice of translation in India and says that, ` Translation...
underscores the connection of translation to power: relations
between languages and between communities are actualized and
transformed through translation; translation strategies reproduce
more than mere meaning. The close examination of such relations and
strategies makes it possible to elucidate the locations of powers
within and between cultures in a concrete fashion, and this should,
it seems to be one the goals of translation studies. ' (145). It
seems that a sound theoretical framework for studying a crucial, yet
neglected area of translation studies in India has come from someone
who is not an Indian. It is interesting to consider the fact that
while Western orientalist and Indian scholars following their
example the nineteenth century were giving most of their attention
to pan-Indian and privileged languages like Sanskrit, Christian
missionaries were doing a great service to the bhashas. So today,
while most of the critics are focussing mainly on translation into
or from English, people like St-Pierre has produced a major
statement on problems of translation between Indian languages. An
extensive and intensive study on basis of such a theoretical
framework can yield excellent results.
The study of translation practice and theory in the context of
globalization is crucial significance for a multilingual,
post-colonial nation like India. Paul St.-Pierre (2002) and Lawrence
Venuti (1998) have made some insightful reflections on the
relationship between translation practices and the processes of
globalization. St.-Pierre points out the problems of making
generalized observations regarding the relationship between
globalization and translation. As against Venuti’s generalized
observation that globalization results in more capital being spent
on translation into the regional languages, Paul St.-Pierre calls
attention to the fact of increasing emphasis on translations from
Indian languages like Oriya into English. This is says is due to the
place of English in a multilingual, post-colonial society like
India. He notes the important contradiction in the situation like
this where the processes of globalization are threatening the local
languages and cultures on the one hand and at the same time it also
valorizes the regional and the local by considering it worthy of
translation and publication by important publishers.
One can sum up the characteristic concerns of existing `Indian
School ' of translation studies: colonial history, the ambivalent
place of English in multilingual Indian society, translation as
quest for identity and a quest for `true' `authentic' India, Indian
literature in English translation, search for indigenous or native
theory of translation, contrast between Western culture and
metaphysics and Indian culture and metaphysics, all these seem to be
recurring concerns of the theorists associated with English studies.
These concerns as well as the growing attention to translation are
an attempt to decolonize itself. Their neglect of theoretical
writings in regional languages is typical of certain vanity and
snobbishness associated with departments of English. In general,
historical study of translation as a process, product and as a
notion in India is hardly undertaken. Dr. Bholanath Tiwari (1972)
has discussed the notion and practice of translation in ancient
India in some detail. I have in my own humble way, attempted to
piece together several writings that analyze diachronically the
notion and practice of translation and have tried to narrate briefly
the story of translation in India. (Sachin Ketkar, 2002). The
translators who are practicing writers in English also translate in
order to overcome their own feeling of alienation. The question of
identity and `roots' lie at the base of intention behind
translations, especially English. Though what is meant by `truly'
Indian has changed over a period for these translators, the purpose
behind the translation activity remains the same. The writings in
English as well as those in regional languages have a limited
relevance, if some sort of strong Indian school of translation
studies is to emerge. They are usually narcissistic and
self-obsessed as they deal only with the problems and issues
specific to their domains. It can emerge only after intensive and
extensive study of historical, political, social cultural and
literary relationships between the plurality of Indian languages.
The essay of St. Pierre can be considered as a step in right
direction.
Works cited :
—AK Singh ed. Translation: Its theory and Practice, New Delhi: Creative Books 1996
—Anuvadaat Tarzanchi Bhartiya Bhashat Hanumanudi! Maharastra Times, 5 April 1996.
—Ayyapaa K Paniker, `The Anxiety of Authenticity: Reflections on Literary translations ' in A.K.Singh (ed.) Translation Its Theory and Practice, 1996,
—Ayyappa Paniker, Towards an Indian Theory of Literary Translation, in Tutun Mukherjee ed. Translation: From Periphery to Centrestage, 1998
—Bassnett and Trivedi eds. Post Colonial Translation: Theory and Practice. Post-Colonial, London and NY: Routledge 1999
—Bhalchandra Nemade, Sahityachi Bhasha, Aurangabad: Saket Prakashan, 1987 78-85
—Bholanath Tiwari, Anuwad Vigyan, Delhi: Shabdakar, 1972
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Dr Sachin C. Ketkar, who teaches English in a college in Gujarat, is a critic, translator and poet. He has specialised on Translation studies. This article appeared in New Quest, Mumbai.