Culture of Translation Gulammohammed Sheikh Most literature, whether classical or modern, eastern or western, comes to us through translations. We have read our Ibsen and Dostoyevsky, Sartre and Marquez in English translations. To many of us Takazhi or Tagore are accessible only in English. Those who read translations, in for instance Kannada or Kashmiri, might find that these were made from English translations of the original. It brings to the fore a couple of important observations. First, that the text you read is twice removed from the original both linguistically and culturally, and second, that no language other than English cuts across the linguistic barriers between the north and the south. So, the questions of inter-language translation remain somewhat vexed. I understand a vast body of translations exists published in regional languages. In the absence of available data, it is difficult to know whether these were made directly from the language in which the book was written or through the mediation of English (I am told that no survey of this kind has been conducted so far!*). Most of such books are published by the central and regional Sahitya Akademis, the National Book Trust and a few private publishing houses on a regular basis, after being selected for annual awards or as classics. Translations of these into English serves the dual purpose of addressing the English audience and simultaneously facilitation their translations into other Indian languages. Of course it is more than likely that in some languages translations are made directly from the original or through mediatory languages other than English (again, no data is available). With nearly two dozen language literatures of diverse cultural origins and orientations, the nomenclature of ‘Indian Literature’ is akin to ‘European literature’ covering the literatures of a sub-continent. The only forum – the Sahitya Akademi and its regional branches – that serve to provide for a for links or networking between these literatures have a formidable task on their hands. The two journals ‘Indian Literature’ and ‘Samakaleen Bharatiya Sahitya’ cater in their limited capacity, only touching the scale and complexity of problems. It appears that most language literatures function in relative isolation, within the clearly defined orbits of their concerns and with little interaction with each other. Curiously, the links that bind them are visible only in their responses to international literary trends. For instance, Dalit and feminist concerns expresses in different language literatures rarely forge common platforms. Whereas internationally acclaimed books may get translated and published in regional languages, the translations of books winning national awards need to be supported by the Sahitya Akademi funds. Very few books by Indian writers writing in English are found in regional translation circuits. In fact unseemly controversies may erupt over the territoriality of what used to be called ‘Indo-Anglian’ literature and literatures in regional Indian languages. Rushdies privileging new writers in English angered many, yet claims of ‘better literature’ in regional languages have not fructified in better translations, in English or in other Indian languages. In fact the distance that exists between two or more Indian language literatures is often equal, whether it is Gujarati and English or Kannada and Kashmiri. The question of translating regional literature into English and into other Indian languages need not be viewed in isolation or in terms of polarized positions. Notwithstanding the dissimilarities of their respective cultural circuits, both serve a similar purpose for their intended audiences. In metropolitan centres there are overlaps of these audiences. English translations have a sure audience in India in addition to international readership. English as a language has amply demonstrated its resilience and credibility for translation from languages culturally as diverse as Chinese and Arabic, or for that matter, medieval Kannada and old Marathi.1 High professional skills of translation have been achieved because of the competitive standards initiated by the market economy of English language publications with their vast international networks for distribution. We know that when we read a Marquez or a Kundera, we hardly ask if we are reading a translation or an original. The question then is of the quality of translation. Most of the English translations published in India before the entry of more professionally commissioned translations by private publishing houses in recent years, carried neither the spirit and substance of the original nor possessed intrinsic, literary merit of their own. (Some of the English translations of Russian classics published during the Soviet regime suffered from similar problems). Translations in regional languages made through these amateurish English translations – were further removed from the original. I remember being terribly disappointed about literature in Malayalam after reading a laboured translation of Takazhi in Gujarati. I also remember that most of these were considered ‘official’ or ‘sarkari’ translations, not to be taken seriously. On the other hand, in my school days – during the first decade of independence – we devoured Gujarati translations of Saratchandra Chattopadhyay and V.S. Khandekar made directly from Bengali and Marathi feeling we were reading the originals. Through knowledge of Hindi – a newly introduced language learnt partly in school and most from Hindi cinema, especially from film songs – other worlds opened up. Cheap books with transliteration of Urdu into Devanagri script, appended with meanings of difficult words, made Ghalib, Majaz and Manto accessible to many of us. Private publishing houses had little interest in translating regional language literatures into English as these did not form part of the corpus of text-book literature they depended upon. Regional Indian literature did not form part of university courses or curricula until about a couple of decades ago. Courses are offered in the literature of a particular language but not on Indian literature as a whole. The situation changed somewhat in the ensuing decades. Jadavpur University in Calcutta was arguably the first institution to have introduced a course in comparative (Indian) literature and subsequently a few other universities may have followed suit. (The M.S. University of Baroda where I taught for nearly three decades did not have such a course; I learn however that there is a paper in ‘Indian Literature’). Publishing house like Macmillan, OUP, Penguin India have turned their attention to translations of fiction from regional languages. A smaller publishing house Katha was conceived with translation of regional literatures as its agenda. In other words, the private publishing houses seem to have found an audience (read ‘market’) for translations of fiction from regional Indian languages into English. So you have a Basheer, a Nemade or a Kambat available in English, but hardly any poetry and still less any work of criticism. These genres of literature survive in the secluded culture of a few anthologies or journals whose number can be counted on your finger tips. In the early eighties, Gujarati littérateur Suresh Joshi initiated a unique experiment in the form of a journal of translation ‘Setu’, published alternately in Gujarati and English. It folded up however after his death in 1986. I am not aware of the apparatus of evaluation of translated works that the Sahitya Akademi and National Book Trust have evolved over the years. It must be a mammoth task for the Sahitya Akademi to deal with translations from nearly two dozen ‘official’ languages. A book in every language very may win an award and then has to be translated in all ‘official’ languages! National Book Trust, I understand, selects classics and other books from different languages for publication in translation. Sahitya Akademi leaves it to their regional branches to ensure the quality of translation. Considering a dearth of translators one author may be asked to translate from different languages. To my knowledge, Gujarati has a translator each from Malayalam (Kamal Jasapara), all southern languages (Navneet Madrasi), Asamiya and Oriya (Bholabhai Patel. Presumably, there are several from Marathi and Hindi but very few from Urdu. With the passing away of some of the stalwarts the number of translators from Bengali has dwindled. So, often a work is translated by someone who does not know the language of the original and takes recourse to a mediatory translation, often English, if it happens to be in a language remote to Gujarati. So, it would be difficult to evaluate a translation if the reviewer did not know the original language and depended only upon the English translation. The only option then would be to see if the translation reads well per se. If translated literature remains somewhat secondary to the original in almost all literatures, it would appear that the literary criteria of excellence applied are not stringent enough. The steady market for Sahitya Akademi and National Book Trust publications in the state run libraries and such institutions, fosters complacency not conducive to quality. These books are read by a very small audience and criticism if any, of the merit of the translation, takes place within constrained literary pockets with no impact on the national circuit. The nationalist cultural renaissance in Gujarat looked towards Bengal for inspiration