‘Justice’ in Translation

Abstract

The story of Kausalya Baisantry’s life of anti-caste activism is featured in Urmila Pawar and Meenakshi Moon’s Amhihi Itihasa Ghadavala (We Also Made History) in Marathi, and in her own book-length work of ‘autobiography literature’ written in Hindi as Dohra Abhishap (Doubly Cursed), but it is a speech Baisantry delivered in English as a college student activist that Pawar and Moon discuss as an example of ‘Sahityatun Prabodhan (Enlightenment through Literature)’. I trace connections between Pawar and Baisantry to show how multilingual these activist networks of ‘Sahityatun Prabodhan’ are, focusing specifically on Baisantry’s translation from Marathi of Pawar’s short story ‘Nyay (Justice)’, published in the leading Hindi literary journal Hans in 1991.

Keywords:

• Gendered translation
• Hans
• Kausalya Baisantry
• Marathi–Hindi translation
• Urmila Pawar

Acknowledgments

This article is part of a larger project I am currently writing on genres of literary non-fiction in translation. A senior fellowship from the American Institute of Indian Studies and the National Endowment for the Humanities enabled me to do the necessary research; I gratefully acknowledge this support, along with that of the University of Michigan. I also want to thank the editor of South Asia and the anonymous reviewers, along with the guest editors of this special issue in particular for their ongoing encouragement and helpful feedback, especially Laura Brueck, whose work on Dalit writers in Hindi inspired this project from the start.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Urmila Pawar and Meenakshi Moon, Amhihi Itihasa Ghadavala: Ambedkari Calavita Striyanca Sahabhaga (Mumbai: Sparrow, 1998 [1989]); and Urmila Pawar and Meenakshi Moon, We Also Made History: Women in the Ambedkarite Movement, Wandana Sonalkar (trans.) (New Delhi: Zubaan, 2008).

2. Urmila Pawar, Sahav Bot (Mumbai: Sambodhi Prakashan, 1988); Urmila Pawar, Chauti Bhint (Mumbai: Sambodhi Prakashan, 1990); Urmila Pawar, Udan (Pune: Sugava Prakashan, 1989); Kausalya Baisantry, Dohra Abhishap (New Delhi: Parameshwari Prakashan, 2012 [1999]); Urmila Pawar, Aaydan (Mumbai: Granthali, 2003); Urmila Pawar, Aaydan, Sau. Madhavi Pra. Deshpandey (trans.) (New Delhi: Vani Prakashan, 2010); Urmila Pawar, The Weave of My Life: A Dalit Woman’s Memoirs, Maya Pandit (trans.) (Kolkata: Stree, 2008); and Urmila Pawar, ‘Nyay’, Kausalya Baisantry (trans.), in Hans, Year 5, no. 7 (Feb. 1991), pp. 57–60. See also Veena Deo (trans.), Motherwit (New Delhi: Zubaan: 2013), pp. 24–39.

3. Hans, Vol. 19, no. 1 (Aug. 2004).

4. For a well-researched account of the ways in which grass-roots, small-press publishing was integral to the anti-caste movement, see Sarah Beth Hunt, ‘The Beginnings of Dalit Literature in Hindi: The Field of Dalit Pamphlets’, in Hindi Dalit Literature and the Politics of Representation (New Delhi: Routledge, 2014), pp. 25–82.

5. Pawar, The Weave of My Life, p. 293.

6. Ibid., pp. 293–4. Chhaya Datar herself is a short-story writer and activist who has published widely, including a book-length autobiography in Marathi, and has edited volumes in English on eco-feminism. Significantly, the title of the journal, Stree Awacha, means ‘She Said’ or ‘Women’s Voice’ and brings together women from a range of backgrounds. The first instalment of this project was published in the journal, Stree Awacha, before being published as a book through Stree Awacha.

7. Pawar, The Weave of My Life, p. 294.

8. Ibid.

9. Datar’s thesis went on to be published as Waging Change: Women Tobacco Workers in Nipani Organize (New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1989). In the Marathi source text, the title of Datar’s thesis is transliterated—not translated—from the English-language title. In the English translation, it is specified that they read Dr. Ambedkar’s famous undelivered 1946 speech, The Annihilation of Caste, in Vasant Moon’s Marathi translation. There is a single text accessed in Hindi: Sohanlal Shastri, Babasaheb Doktor Ambedkar ke Sampark Mein 25 Varsh (New Delhi: Siddharth Sahitya Sadan, 1981).

10. B.R. Ambedkar, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches, Vasant Moon (ed.) (Bombay: Education Department, Government of Maharashtra, 1979.) See, for example, Vasant Moon’s careful discussion in the preface to Volume 11 of the translation of the ‘Dhammapada’ from Hindi into English, with attention paid also to translations of the Pali sources, pp. ix–xi.

11. Narendra Jadhav (ed.), Ambedkar Speaks (New Delhi/Seattle, WA: Konark Publishers, 2013).

12. Kausalya Baisantry, Dohra Abhishap (New Delhi: Parameshwari Prakashan, 2012 [1999]), p. 6. I explore elsewhere the differences in nomenclature and, therefore, of the effect of first-person genres in translation like life story, memoir and testimonio. See, for example, Christi Merrill, ‘Crafting a Feminist Dalit Consciousness in Translation’, in World Literature Today, Special Issue on ‘Translation and World Literature’ (May 2014), pp. 52–6; and Christi A. Merrill, ‘“The Wrath of the Goddess” and Other Acts of Doktori: Exorcising Colonial Possession in Translation’, in Testimony: Between History and Memory, Special Issue on ‘Translating Testimony’, Tom Toremons and Anneleen Spiessens (eds), no. 123 (Oct. 2016), pp. 130–42.

13. Baisantry, Dohra Abhishap, p. 8. All translations of Baisantry’s work are my own unless otherwise noted.

14. Pawar and Moon, We Also Made History, p. 169, quoting the speech, ‘My Sisters, Think, Decide and Act’, published in Jaibheem (Madras) (16 July 1947). I would like to thank Shalmali Jadhav for her help in understanding specific nuances in the Marathi as compared to the English translation, and also to the University of Michigan’s Center for South Asian Studies for supporting this research in the summer of 2018.

15. Pawar and Moon, We Also Made History, p. 41.

16. For instance, Baisantry dedicates Dohra Abhishaap to ‘…Ma and Baba, who fought against poverty, superstition and caste discrimination to educate all of us sisters and show us the way to live…’. Baisantry, Dohra Abhishap, p. 5.

17. Vanam Shivaram Apte, The Practical Sanskrit–English Dictionary, Vols. 1–3 (Poona: Prasad Prakashan, 1957–59) [https://dsalsrv04.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/app/apte_query.py?qs=%E0%A4%B8%E0%A4%B9%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%A4&searchhws=yes, accessed 14 Nov. 2018].

18. Ibid.

19. Urmila Pawar, ‘Nyay’, in Sahav Bot (Mumbai: Sambodhi Prakashan, 1988), pp. 18–27; and Pawar, ‘Nyay’, in Hans, pp. 57–60. See also Deo (trans.), Motherwit, pp. 24–39. I thank Veena Deo for her help in finding the Marathi source text.

20. Anupama Rao, The Caste Question: Dalits and the Politics of Modern India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009), p. 31. For a brief discussion of Dalit Sahitya, see ibid.,, ‘Dalit Language, Space, Identity and Violence’, pp. 194–9.

21. Pawar, The Weave of My Life, p. 281.

22. Ibid., pp. 280, 281.

23. Ibid., p. 282.

24. Ibid.

25. Ibid., p. 283.

26. Ibid. See also the Mauritius Marathi Mandali Federation website for more about the history of this historic conference, and ‘the importance of the preservation and propagation of the Marathi Language’ beyond India [http://www.marathi.mu/pages/about_us.php, accessed 26 July 2020].

27. Ibid.

28. C.S. Lakshmi et al., Amhihi Itihasa Ghadavala: Urmila Pawar and the Making of History: Excerpts from a Dialogue with Urmila Pawar at the Oral History Workshop—January 18, 1998 (Mumbai: Sparrow Press, 1998).

29. ‘The Dalit Woman Speaks Up: Amhihi Itihas Ghadwala, Excerpts from a Dialogue with Urmila Pawar’, in Tapan Basu (ed.), Translating Caste (New Delhi: Katha Press, 2002), pp. 234–41.

30. Urmila Pawar, ‘A Childhood Tale’, Jahnavi Phalkey and Keerti Ramachandra (trans.), in Tapan Basu (ed.), Translating Caste (New Delhi: Katha Press, 2002), pp. 43–56.

31. Urmila Pawar and Meenakshi Moon, ‘We Made History, Too: Women in the Early Untouchable Liberation Movement’, in Anupama Rao (ed.), Gender & Caste (London/New York: Zed Books, 2003; repr. from New Delhi: Kali for Women, 2003), pp. 48–56.

32. Ibid., p. 376.

33. In the chapter, ‘Debating the Consumption of Dalit “Autobiographies”’, Sharmila Rege argues that we call these ‘dalit life narratives…testimonios’ because they are ‘acts of testifying or bearing witness legally or religiously’. See Sharmila Rege, Writing Caste/Writing Gender: Narrating Dalit Women’s Testimonios (New Delhi: Zubaan, 2006), p. 13.

34. Pawar, The Weave of My Life, p. 251.

35. Urmila Pawar, Aaydan, Sau. Madhavi Pra. Deshpandey (trans.) (New Delhi: Vani Prakashan, 2010), pp. 191–2.

36. Deo, Motherwit, pp. xxv–xxvi.

37. Ibid, p. xiii.

38. Ibid.

39. Ibid.

40. Ibid., p. xxvi.

41. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, ‘The Politics of Translation’, in Lawrence Venuti (ed.), The Translation Studies Reader (London: Routledge, 2nd ed., 2004), p. 375.

42. Pawar, The Weave of My Life, p. x.

43. Rege, Writing Caste/Writing Gender, p. 256.

44. See my discussion of the role of the translator in helping to create a sense of ‘ironic recognition’ as moral judgement in Christi A. Merrill, Riddles of Belonging (New York: Fordham University Press, 2009), p. 188.

45. I use the word ‘heterolinguality’ in contradistinction to ‘homolinguality’. Naoki Sakai discusses the politics of address in Translation and Subjectivity: On ‘Japan’ and Cultural Nationalism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997), pp. 3–11. Sakai writes: ‘In order to function as a translator, she must listen, read, speak, or write in the multiplicity of languages, so that the representation of translation as a transfer from one language to another is possible only as long as the translator acts as a heterolingual agent and addresses herself from a position of linguistic multiplicity: she necessarily occupies a position in which multiple languages are implicated within one another’ (p. 9).

46. Sharankumar Limbale, Towards an Aesthetics of Dalit Literature: History, Controversies and Considerations, Alok Mukherjee (trans.) (Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 2004), p. 35. See further discussion of Limbale’s point in Christi Merrill, ‘Dalit Consciousness and Translating Consciousness: Narrating Trauma as Cultural Translation’, in Translation: A Transdisciplinary Journal, Vol. 5 (2017), p. 47.

47. Pawar, The Weave of My Life, p. 156.

48. These are the feudal associations Pawar was reacting to in the scene from Aaydan discussed above. The pronoun ‘aap’ carries the same associations.

49. Urmila Pawar, ‘Justice’, in Motherwit, Veena Deo (trans.) (New Delhi: Zubaan, 2013), p. 36.

50. Ibid., p. 37.

51. Urmila Pawar, ‘Nyay (Justice)’, from Kausalya Baisantry’s Hindi translation of Urmila Pawar’s Marathi story published in Hans, Year 5, no. 7 (Feb. 1991), pp. 57–60.

52. Pawar, ‘Nyay’, in Sahav Bot, pp. 18–27.

53. Pawar, ‘Nyay’, in Hans, pp. 57–60.

54. Daniel Weissbort and Astradur Eysteinsson, Translation—Theory and Practice: A Historical Reader (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). See, for example, the translations into English of noteworthy translations of the story of the ‘Tower of Babel’, including the Ancient Greek Septuagint, pp. 13–4, and Martin Luther’s German, pp. 66–7.

55. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, ‘Translator’s Note’, in Mahasweta Devi, Imaginary Maps: Three Stories (New York: Routledge, 1995), p. xxxi.