Flesh and Fish Blood Postcolonialism, Translation, and the Vernacular S. Shankar university of california press Berkeley • Los Angeles • London Flesh and Fish Blood flashpoints The series solicits books that consider literature beyond strictly national and disciplin- ary frameworks, distinguished both by their historical grounding and their theoretical and conceptual strength. We seek studies that engage theory without losing touch with history and work historically without falling into uncritical positivism. FlashPoints aims for a broad audience within the humanities and the social sciences concerned with moments of cultural emergence and transformation. In a Benjaminian mode, FlashPoints is interested in how literature contributes to forming new constellations of culture and history and in how such formations function critically and politically in the present. Available online at http://repositories.cdlib.org/ucpress. Series Editors: Ali Behdad (Comparative Literature and English, UCLA); Judith Butler (Rhetoric and Comparative Literature, UC Berkeley), Founding Editor; Edward Dimendberg (Film & Media Studies, UC Irvine), Coordinator; Catherine Gallagher (English, UC Berkeley), Founding Editor; Jody Greene (Literature, UC Santa Cruz); Susan Gillman (Literature, UC Santa Cruz); Richard Terdiman (Literature, UC Santa Cruz) 1. On Pain of Speech: Fantasies of the First Order and the Literary Rant, by Dina Al-Kassim 2. Moses and Multiculturalism, by Barbara Johnson, with a foreword by Barbara Rietveld 3. The Cosmic Time of Empire: Modern Britain and World Literature, by Adam Barrows 4. Poetry in Pieces: César Vallejo and Lyric Modernity, by Michelle Clayton 5. Disarming Words: Empire and the Seductions of Translation in Egypt, by Shaden M. Tageldin 6. Wings for Our Courage: Gender, Erudition, and Republican Thought, by Stephanie H. Jed 7. The Cultural Return, by Susan Hegeman 8. English Heart, Hindi Heartland: The Political Life of Literature in India, by Rashmi Sadana 9. The Cylinder: Kinematics of the Nineteenth Century, by Helmut Müller-Sievers 10. Polymorphous Domesticities: Pets, Bodies, and Desire in Four Modern Writers, by Juliana Schiesari 11. Flesh and Fish Blood: Postcolonialism, Translation, and the Vernacular, by S. Shankar Flesh and Fish Blood Postcolonialism, Translation, and the Vernacular S. Shankar university of california press Berkeley • Los Angeles • London this book is made possible by a collaborative grant from the andrew w. mellon foundation. University of California Press, one of the most distin- guished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www .ucpress.edu. University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England © 2012 by The Regents of the University of California Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Shankar, Subramanian, 1962– Flesh and fish blood : postcolonialism, translation, and the vernacular / S. Shankar. p. cm. — (Flashpoints ; 11) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-520-27252-1 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Indic literature—20th century—History and criticism. 2. Postmodernism (Literature)—India. 3. Indic literature—Translations—History and criticism. 4. Postcolonialism in motion pictures— India. I. Title. PK5420.S53 2012 891'.1—dc23 2011052441 Manufactured in the United States of America 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 In keeping with a commitment to support environmen- tally responsible and sustainable printing practices, UC Press has printed this book on 50-pound Enterprise, a 30% post-consumer-waste, recycled, deinked fiber that is processed chlorine-free. It is acid-free and meets all ansi/niso (z 39.48) requirements. for my father K. S. Subramanian my first and best guide to all things Tamil This page intentionally left blank யா�ம் ஊேர, யாவ�ம் ேக�ர் [Everywhere is my home, everyone my kin.] —Kanian Poongundranar (my translation) This page intentionally left blank Contents Acknowledgments xi Preface xv 1. Midnight’s Orphans, or the Postcolonial and the Vernacular 1 2. Lovers and Renouncers, or Caste and the Vernacular 27 3. Pariahs, or the Human and the Vernacular 65 4. The “Problem” of Translation 103 Conclusion: Postcolonialism and Comparatism 143 Notes 159 Works Cited 167 Index 181 This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgments Much of the material that makes up this book was presented at vari- ous forums over the course of a decade. I am grateful to audiences at the following institutions and meetings for questions and comments: American University, Cairo; Asian Studies Development Program of the East West Center (workshop held at Johnson Community Col- lege); Center for the Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi; Central Institute for English and Foreign Languages (now UEFL), Hyderabad, India; Central University of Tamil Nadu (Tiruvarur); Columbia Uni- versity; Cornell University; Forum on Contemporary Theory (both at the offices of the Forum in Baroda and at annual conventions); Interna- tional Auto/Biography Association Biennial Conference (2008); Inter- national Cultural Studies Program Lecture Series, East-West Center, Honolulu; Madras University; Middlebury College; National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore; Modern Language Association (sev- eral annual conventions); University of California, Davis; University of California, Irvine; University of Hawai’i at Manoa; University of Houston; University of Texas, Austin; University of Texas, San Anto- nio; University of Washington, Seattle; University of Western Ontario; University of Wisconsin, Madison; Annual South Asian Literature Association Conference (2001); Roehampton University, London; Rut- gers University; School of Oriental and African Studies, London. Chapter 1 is a revised version of “Midnight’s Orphans, or a Post- colonialism Worth Its Name,” first appearing in the journal Cultural xi xii | Acknowledgments Critique (vol. 56, no. 1), published by the University of Minnesota Press (copyright 2004 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota). Sec- tions of chapter 4 were originally published in an earlier version under the title “Postcolonialism and the Problem of Translation” in New Bearings in English Studies, edited by R. Azhagarasan, Bruce Bennett, Mohan Ramanan, R. Palanivel, T. Sriraman, and C. Vijayasree. These sections are published here by permission of Orient Blackswan Private Limited, Hyderabad, India. I thank the editors of Cultural Critique as well as the anthology for the opportunity to present my prelimi- nary thoughts on vernacular postcolonialism and translation, and the respective presses for permission to reproduce them here in revised form. Various individuals contributed to my developing arguments by gen- erously reading and responding to them in draft. I especially acknowl- edge Cynthia Franklin for reading the entire manuscript at a crucial stage and making suggestions with her customary keen insight. The anonymous readings of the manuscript commissioned by Richard Ter- diman and Ed Dimendberg, former and present coordinating editors of the FlashPoints series of the University of California Press, were thoughtful, rigorous, and enormously helpful in sharpening the argu- ment and bringing it to its proper potential. I am grateful for the pointed criticisms as well as the enthusiastic support expressed in them. The process of revision was aided in no small measure by the thorough care with which Dick and Ed managed the manuscript through the various stages of review. I am confident Flesh and Fish Blood is a better book because of their exacting but committed support. I am grateful too to Mary Francis, Kim Hogeland, Elisabeth Magnus, Caitlin O’Hara, Sandy Drooker, and Tim Roberts for their able assistance through the production process. More generally, an intellectual community spread out across several continents has played a significant role in helping me think through problems and answers in pursuing this project. In Hawai’i, Cristina Bacchilega, Arindam Chakraborty, Vrinda Dalmiya, Monisha Das- gupta, Keala Francis, Vili Hereniko, Laura Lyons, Paul Lyons, Cheryl Naruse, Jon Osorio, John Zuern, and, again, Cynthia Franklin have been valued readers/interlocutors of my work, or collaborators in the organization of two symposia on translation and humanism that related germanely to the subject of this book, or indeed both. Cynthia Franklin has been an especially important resource in multiple ways over the years and deserves special mention for her fabulous support Acknowledgments | xiii and generosity with her time. I also want to acknowledge the vari- ous participants of the Comparatism and Translation in Literary and Cultural Studies interest group, too many to list individually, and the students in my Translation and Comparatism graduate seminar. I am especially grateful to my students for their enthusiasm and for a stimu- lating semester of discussions. Elsewhere, I value the friendship and/or scholarly dialogue provided by Hosam Aboul-Ela, S. Anandhi, Fran Bartkowski, Purnima Bose, Tim Brennan, S. Charusheela, Kanishka Chowdhury, Sheila Contre- ras, Gaurav Desai, Ayman El-Dessouky, Dermot Dix, Barbara Foley, Keya Ganguly, V. Geetha, Ferial Ghazoul, Bishnupriya Ghosh, Bar- bara Harlow, Salah Hassan, Andy