The inaugural Bhashavaad: National Translation Conference, held on 23rd and 24th, August at the India International Centre (IIC) in New Delhi, brought a much-needed focus to the pedagogical and theoretical aspects of translation in India. Hosted by the Ashoka Centre for Translation (ACT) in collaboration with the New India Foundation (NIF), the two-day conference marked a radical step towards networking in the translation landscape in India.
Manish Sabharwal, Managing Trustee of the NIF, opened Day One by emphasising the need for Indian translations in the context of Chinua Achebe’s truism that “until lions hire their own historians the story of the hunt will always glorify the hunter”. Dr. Rita Kothari, Professor of English, Ashoka University, took this forward by framing the act of translation (and thereby the conference) as “constituted by but also an outcome of multilingualism”. She spoke of the aim of Bhashavaad to glorify translation as a serious act and one not separate from the linguistic economy of language.
Professor Sundar Sarukkai’s keynote speech highlighted the complexities of translation as “no word can capture the world”. However, though language is inherently limited a panel later on Day one, Kabir: Walking With the Word, reminded us that while this may be true, we need language to mediate interaction with this complexity. Vighnesh Hampapura, Teaching Fellow of English, Ashoka University and a singer, spoke of the value of experimenting with form and multilingualism to bridge this inherent gap. Vidya Shah, classical singer, musician, and writer, carried this forward by emphasising the need for musical translations as a method of capturing depth across and within languages. Kamalakar Bhat, Professor and Head of the Department of Postgraduate Studies and Research Centre for English, Ahmednagar College and a bilingual translator, and Anisur Rahman, former professor of English, Jamia Millia Islamia and bilingual poet and translator, drew attention to the academic side of Kabir’s translations, enforcing the idea of mystic verses as an alive and dynamic tradition. This panel’s perfect collusion between the written and the sung, the thinking and the feeling demonstrated the need for a multilateral approach to language.
The panel ‘Translating Knowledge’ brought attention to the underserved landscape of non-fiction translation. Professor Kothari opened by expanding on Professor Sarukkai’s claim that language is preceded by translation to say that knowledge is preceded by translation. That is, if we leave certain languages untouched, then we are missing out on the subjective translation of experience and localised lived realities. Dr. Rahul Sarwate, Assistant Professor of Humanities and Languages, Ahmedabad University, exemplified this as he described his translation of Sharad Patil’s interpretation of Marxism. In Patil’s consideration of the “intangible omnipresence of caste in Indian society”, Dr. Sarwate explored a unique focus on an idea of caste with a lowercase ‘c’, that is the lived realities of the caste system, as opposed to the more anthropological ‘Caste’.
Dr. Sowmya Dechamma, Professor and Head of Centre for Comparative Literature, University of Hyderabad, expanded on this specificity to speak of the distinction between a Bhasha and a Bholi; the former being the more institutionalized, networked, and developed language while the latter is a much less tangible but presenting a much more real idea of local lived realities. Dr. Peggy Mohan intervened from the audience to affirm her idea of diglossia, the coexistence of a formal, prestigious language alongside an informal, everyday language. Her interjection also led us to think about what it means to contact both of these strata. She encouraged a view of these not as distinct languages or lifestyles but instead as fluid members of the same ecosystem.
This leads well into another key point of Professor Sarukkai’s keynote as he defined true engagement with this fluidity. Drawing attention to the common phrase “these words touched me” he distinguished simply contacting a language from truly touching it: “a great translation is a product of transgression as touches the body of a language that it is not supposed to touch” i.e. the bholi, the unseen, the everyday. Yogesh Maitreya, poet, writer, and publisher at Panther's Paw Publication, specified this as he “never felt seen by Savarna writing” and therefore, needed translation that truly worked to touch ‘his’ linguistic ecosystem. This point gained further urgency as Dr. G. Kanato Chopy, Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology, Dibrugarh University, equated translation to survival. His study of the Naga Baptists and ethnic groups of the Indo–Myanmar frontier proved the need to broaden their ecosystems of language, ensuring longevity and attention.
Jatin Nayak, former Professor of English, Utkal University, and bilingual translator, complicated this by questioning the role of English. He recognised the value of English as a national lingua franca yet said that this should only serve as a “link language”, yet it “is increasingly replacing the chain” of translation. This leaves Bhashas underserved but also undervalued in the mainstream contributing to, as Professor Kothari put it, the “condescension that is thinking that the regional only becomes global once we translate it into English”. Nayak closed by saying that we need to reform our conceptions of “languages of knowledge” as we aim to foster other languages “alongside English, not in place of it”.
Additionally to the panels, Bhashavaad marked the launch of the Indian translation search engine, In Quest of Indian Translations. This radical resource democratises access to Indian translations while also filling the massive vacuum of data deficits in translation. The system is free and open access, unique to preceding counterparts and as highlighted by Yauvanika Chopra in her interview with The Edict last week allows the expansion of translation networks beyond just urban and academic settings.
The inaugural Bhashavaad: National Translation Conference was a significant milestone in India's translation landscape, emphasizing the nodal role of translation for India’s history and future. In his introduction, Manish Sabharwal distinguished between baby and dwarf organizations, claiming the ACT to be the former, small but with “unlimited capacity and the right people”. There is much to be desired in India’s translation landscape but the collaboration of the ACT and NIF through this event catalyse the partnerships between technology, philanthropy, and academia in pursuit of a much overdue translation revolution.
(Edited by Srijana Siri and Giya Sood)
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