INDIAN LITERATURE(S) IN ENGLISH TRANSLATION

Abstract

This paper discusses issues of resistance and representation with reference to Indian texts and their English translations. Although Indian literatures have been widely translated in the past, translating Indian literature has become a serious academic engagement only in recent decades. Considering this tradition of translation, this paper argues that the contextualization, theorization and canonization of Indian literature in English translation need attention in today’s fast‐changing literary scene, and all the more so since postcolonial writing represents a new literary culture.

Keywords:

• resistance
• representation
• contextualization
• theorization
• canonization

Notes

1 For a detailed discussion of the paradigms of empowerment, construction of knowledge, the College of Fort William, texts, authors and translators see Rahman.

2 A checklist of the titles in translation from publishing houses such as Penguin India, Permanent Black, Ravi Dayal, Stree, Kali for Women, Macmillan, Oxford University Press, Orient Longman, Katha, Seagull and Manas would bear this out. The number of publishers with an interest in translation has grown, as has the number of titles.

3 The question of English and English studies in India has been widely debated. Seminars include: (a) “The Study of English Literature in India: History, Ideology, Practice”, Department of English, Miranda House, University of Delhi, April 1988; (b) “Perspectives on the Teaching of English Literature in Indian Universities”, British Council and Centre for Linguistics and English, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, 29 March–3 April 1990; (c) “Teaching of English Literature in India”, British Council and Department of English, University of Hyderabad, March 1991; (d) “New Directions in Language and Literature Teaching”, Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata, 28–29 November 2003; and (e) English Studies, Indian Perspective, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, 23–25 March 2004.

Publications that focus on these issues include: C.D. Narasimhaiah, Moving Frontiers of English studies in India (New Delhi: S. Chand, 1977); M. Manuel and K. Ayappa Paniker, eds., English and India: Essays Presented to Professor Samuel Mathai on his Seventieth Birthday (Madras: Macmillan, 1978); Svati Joshi, ed., Rethinking English: Essays in Literature, Language, History (New Delhi: Trianka, 1991); Rajeshwari Sunder Rajan, ed., The Lie of the Land: English Literary Studies in India (Delhi: Oxford UP, 1992); Sudhakar Marathe, Mohan Ramanan, and Robert Bellarmine, eds., Provocations: The Teaching of English Literature in India (Madras: Orient Longman in association with the British Council, India, 1993); Harish Trivedi, “Panchadhatu: Teaching English Literature in the Indian Literary Context”, Colonial Transactions: English Literature and India (Manchester: Manchester UP, 1995); Report of the Curriculum Development Centre in English (New Delhi: University Grants Commission, 1989); Susie Tharu, ed., Subject to Change: Teaching Literature in the Nineties (New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1998); UGC Model Curriculum: English and Other Western Languages (New Delhi: University Grants Commission, 2001).

4 In the “Nativist Criticism” sense used in India today this means Indian languages. Marg or mainstream in the Indian classical period referred to Sanskrit. Today the Marg or Power language is English, and the bhashas are the underprivileged Indian languages.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anisur Rahman

Anisur Rahman is Professor in the Department of English and Modern European Languages, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. He works on the postcolonial literatures of India, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and literary translation, including translations of poetry from Urdu into English and vice versa. His publications include Form and Value in the Poetry of Nissim Ezekiel (1981), Expressive Form in the Poetry of Kamala Das (1981), New Literatures in English: Tradition and Modernity in the Literatures of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand (1996), and Fire and the Rose (1995), an anthology of modern Urdu poetry in English translation. He has edited Translation: Poetics and Practice (2001), essays on the Indian text and context.