Indian Translation Traditions: Perspectives from Sujit

Mukherjee
ANJALI CHAUBEY
Abstract
This paper revisits Sujit Mukherjee’s seminal work Translation
as Discovery and Other Essays on Indian Literature in English
Translation (1981) to analyze his contribution in
foregrounding the translation traditions of India. In the book,
he uses the term ‘transcreation’ to refer to translation as a
practice in the Indian literary scenario and cites examples
from the ancient to modern times, to show how we have
perceived and practiced translation. He centers this process in
contrast to the western practice of the same, which makes
translation a postcolonial exercise. He emphasizes the need to
focus on the pragmatic analysis of the process of translation
and looking at the ‘Indo-English literature’, as ‘a limb of the
body, the purusha, that is Indian literature’ which would help
in decolonizing literary studies.
Keywords: Sujit Mukherjee, Translation, Transcreation, India,
Indo-English, Postcolonial, Literary Studies.
As latter-day Calibans we were taught English and our profit
on it has been that we learned how to translate into English.
Out of such remembering and recording will come India’s
theories of translation especially of translating into English
(Mukherjee 2004: 37).
It is soon going to be forty years since the first publication of
the book Translation as Discovery. One keeps coming back to
Sujit Mukherjee as a guiding star when one seeks to
understand various entry points in the area of translation
studies in the Indian context. His words have been prescient in
wresting translation as an effective tool of decolonization of
literary studies as well as connecting Indian languages with

DOI: 10.46623/tt/2021.15.1.no2 Translation Today, Volume 15, Issue 1

Anjali Chaubey

each other. In his exemplary career, Muherjee has looked at

various contours of Indian Literary traditions but his interest in
translation supersedes everything else. In his doctoral thesis
titled, “A passage to America: Reception of Tagore in the
United States”, he has looked at how Tagore is received in
English translation. The book under discussion is a collection
of his intellectual ponderings of over a decade. The importance
of this volume can be gauged from the limited amount of
Indian archives (in English) on this field till date: R. S. Gupta’s
Literary Translation (1999), Tejaswini Niranjan’s Siting
Translation: History, Post-Structuralism, and the Colonial
Context (1992), Susan Bassnett and Harish Trivedi’s Post -
Colonial Translation: Theory and Practice (1999), Sujit
Mukherjee’s Translation as Recovery (2003), Rita Kothari’s
Translating India: The Cultural Politics of English and
Decentering Translation (2009) and GJV Prasad’s India in
Translation, Translation in India (2019). But Mukherjee in a
way has paved the way for others to trudge over as this was
one of the first books to look at the changing translation
practices in India from the precolonial to postcolonial times.
Significance of Translation as Discovery: The two seminal
texts by Mukherjee cover a gap of two decades,
complementing and completing the intellectual journey of the
author in this area. Yet, Discovery holds a lot of more merit
than its sequel, for it was an epoch-making text of the time
where somebody gave such a sustained analysis of Indo-
English writing (a term he uses to refer to Indian literature in
English translation, after Gokak), discussing the ethics and
ideals of translation, assessing its existing scene and analyzing
the possibility of extending its territory in a meaningful way
etc. Mukherjee says that the theories dealing with the cultural
aspects of translation are helpful in as far as, they lay out the
politics involved in the process, the role of the translator, and
in developing insights into the ways in which this activity has

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been put to use over the ages and across continents. However,
he says these theories do not help in the actual process of
translation. In the ‘Preface’ to the edition of this volume, he
says: "No attempt has been made here to propound any theory
of translation; this may be left to those who do not actually
translate” (ix), which goes on to indicate that such theories are
of not much avail when it comes to practice. Translation is a
practical exercise; every time a translator sets down to a text
s/he has to negotiate her/his own terms and priorities to render
the text into another language. Taking the stand that no general
theorization is possible on this aspect, he focuses on the
pragmatic analysis. In this volume, he has also attempted to
carve a niche for ‘Indo-English literature’, which in his words
is ‘a limb of the body, the purusha that is Indian literature’. In
doing so, he has successfully attempted to define the
boundaries of Indo-English Writing and has been able to trace
briefly the translation practice in the Indian literary scene from
the ancient to the modern times showing how the way we have
perceived and practiced translation (as transcreation) is
different from the western practice of the same. He analyses
the beginning of the trend of translation into English from
Indian languages and underlines the need for promoting it in
the post-colonial times:
Underlying this recommendation is the belief that we
cannot do without the English language in the
foreseeable future. If this prospect is accepted, then we
must ensure that the labor of learning English is fully
exploited in the development of our literary culture. The
proverbial brace of birds can be killed by the same stone
if we direct the learning of English towards the discovery
not of England’s literature but of the literature written in
the many Indian languages (Mukherjee 1981: 38).

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Clearly, Discovery attempts to give a push to the learning and

‘discovery’ of Indian literature through promoting translations.
This is a way of dealing with post-coloniality without being
rueful of the encounter that had taken place in the past. It is a
part of the ideological stand of critics and theorists who look at
post-colonialism as an ‘emancipatory concept’ that aims at
looking at ‘the continuities and ruptures in the (native)
civilization’. Paranjape in ‘Coping with Post-colonialism’ says:
Postcolonialism like most things of western origin can
neither be rejected nor accepted fully. We have each to
work out our own adjustment and compromise with it.
We may try to use it against the grain, subvert it to our
advantage, or deploy it to our own benefit all the while
endeavoring to safeguard ourselves from the distorting
tendencies (Trivedi & Mukherjee 84: 1996).
Despite using the language, which is a part of the colonial
legacy, the efforts are in the direction of developing and
encouraging the native culture through translation. India’s
multilingualism comes in the way of establishing a common
platform where different bhasha writers can interact with each
other, which prohibits them from looking at the sameness or
the differences of each other. This interaction and
communication are very essential in the development of a
healthy literary tradition and criticism, to which Mukherjee
refers to in Recovery. However, he realizes that translation into
English may inhibit the growth of other translations (into
Indian languages) and the language may not be the best
language to translate Indian literature: “The discovery that
awaits to be made – and will be easier to make when every
Indian language has acquired in translation, a large enough
number of literary texts from all the other Indian languages – is
that there may be like Indian music or painting or sculpture an
Indian literature after all” (viii). But the fact remains that the

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English language is indispensable in modern times and through

Indo-English Writing an Indian would:
...be in a position to reach beyond his region to a larger
world. Since he has to learn English anyway, he will use
this training primarily for learning more about his
country’s literature; secondarily, he is enabled to reach
farther out beyond the borders of his country. Indo-
English literature is therefore the most practical link
literature of today’s India (Mukherjee 1981: 39).
Mukherjee’s methodology is geared toward creating a niche
for Indo-English Writing as distinct from Indian Writing in
English, as part of Indian literature. He emphasizes the need to
develop native translation culture, which would give a push to
the growth of Indian literature through English translation. In
Discovery, he holds the steadfast view that the English
language has the possibility of creating link literature for India,
which is otherwise not possible in our multilingual culture.
This proposal is based on his assumption that the English
language is the common possession of all Indians. Even if he is
referring to educated Indians who are engaged in reading and
writing literature, still one has certain reservations in accepting
his assumption. Back in the 1980s there was a considerably
limited number of elite Indians who had the privilege of being
educated in the English language. The sizeable amount coming
out of government school education was not in the position of
appreciating literature in English (translation or otherwise), for
the compulsory English paper did not equip them sufficiently.
But this assumption is valid in today’s time when the equations
have reversed and English medium instruction has become the
norm even in many government schools (which are only being
joined by the lesser privileged, even a lower-middle-class
Indian strives hard to carry on the education of her/his child
enrolled in public schools).

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Notwithstanding the enriching aspect of translation, it is worth

analyzing the need for link literature for India. The
multilingualism of India is not a new phenomenon; we were
comfortable with it for a long till the advent of English (people
and the language) and their departure (only the people, the
language was here to stay). The anxiety was to reunite the
fragmented Bharat (in this case by translating it as India). But
there never was a united Bharat and we never felt the need for
it. However, postcolonialism entails unification and solidarity.
Of the many accusations an Indian writer in English is charged
with is that it is “babu fictions” (to borrow the title of a Tabish
Khair’s insightful text), that s/he does not share the issues and
concerns of bhasha writers. Thus, translations from regional
literature into English would at least help remove this charge
and bring writers together. The writer is defending the stance
of the translators who are engaged in English translations, by
virtue of being more at home in this language than any other
regional language. The project of the writer is to channel this
command over the language in translating from bhashas and
not merely from European and American texts. In the journey
between the two texts, the author also analyzes the changing
contours of Indian translation practice:
Quite significantly, we do not have a word in any Indian
language that would be the equivalent of the term
‘translation’… (which) suggests that the concept itself
was not familiar to us. Instead, when we admired a
literary text in one language, we used it as a take-off
point and composed a similar text in another language
(Mukherjee 2004: 45).
What happens when two opposing practices of translation i.e.,
Indian tradition of looking at the original as merely the starting
point and the western practice of utter fidelity to the original,
confluence? And besides this juggling, Indian translating into

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English adds another twist to the western ‘translation’ practice:

that the language of the translation is no longer the first
language of the translator. As a result of this peculiar
phenomenon, he says that good translations continue to be
rare, passable translations are our usual fare while bad
translations proliferate. The author indicates at the sordid state
not to discourage translations but to highlight the need for
setting and pursuing standards of translation, which is another
important project of this book. At length, he deals with
questions such as who should translate, how he should go
about it, who is the proper judge/reviewer of translation: one
who can read the original and the translation both or one who
does not know the language of the original text, etc. Thus, an
ideal translator for Mukherjee is one who is proficient in both
the languages (the source and the target languages), should be
a practiced reader and meaning maker (teacher, editor, or
critic) of literature, and must habitually write in English.
Therefore, not anybody can and should bake her/his cake in the
name of rendering a piece of literature into another language.
The task requires consistent and honest efforts along with
talent and a knack for translation. He sees that the problem
with Indo-English Writing is that it has been carried on in an
unplanned manner; there is no mechanism to ensure the quality
of translations and also what gets translated. It is the writers
and literati who have defined the contours and set the
standards of Indian English Writing, likewise for Indo-English
Writing to carve a niche of its own the onus again lies on those
who are engaged with the language or as Mukherjee puts it,
who earn their living through the language i.e., scholars,
critics, teachers and students of English language. In no
uncertain terms the author is encouraging and promoting the
Indo-English practitioner to come up with more and more
quality translations. Even the second edition of Discovery
which came out in 1990 did not show any shift in the writer’s

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ideology. Significantly, the author does not offer the same

support to this project in Recovery, with which I would deal in
the subsequent portion.
In Discovery he has attempted to remove some of the
prejudices associated with translated texts and wants to assign
the translator a rightful place in the literary scene. S/he should
not be placed next to the thief and the seller, “the thief, the
translator, and the seller were necessary for nineteenth-century
European colonial enterprise” (125). At the same time, he also
reminds the translator of the responsibility s/he carries when
s/he undertakes work for translation, “not anything can be
swaddled to the unsuspecting readers. Underlining the
importance of ethics in translation, he discusses at length how
a text can be approached, depending upon the level of
interpretation and dedication of the translator. Citing the
translations of similar passages from Bibhutibhusan
Bandopadhya’s Pather Panchali (1922) from three different
translators, he instructs the aspiring translator about the
intricacies of the field: sustained in-depth understanding and
interpretation of the original. The author does not give ideal
theorizations, rather he hints subtly at the disappointing
renderings of several texts. His usage of secondary sources is
remarkable in the sense that it forwards his arguments and
brings his point home effortlessly. He practically tries to cover
all the aspects of this field. From the way courses can be
designed on Indo-English Writing, the method and criteria of
selection of texts: author-specific study or period-specific
(ancient, medieval, and modern texts), theme-specific (for
example literature on nationalist movement, partition,
women’s issues, etc.) or simply by genre.
In some ways, Mukherjee’s efforts in Discovery are directed at
validating the field of Indo-English Writing, which would
include translations into English during his time. Although

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translations into English were proliferating in the 1970s and

80s and this body had grown substantially, it was not getting its
due attention among theoretical discourses. Mukhherjee has
drawn attention toward this ‘limb’ of Indian literature-
describing its significance and its various aspects: ‘…odd
things did happen in the colonial period which must be
affecting our postcolonial outlook on translation without our
realizing it, and this needs to be studied’ (Mukherjee 2004: 36).
Mukherjee is his own critic in Translation as Recovery where
he revisits his own formulation after two decades. He is
disappointed that ‘translation’ invariably means, into English.
Translations into English have clearly overtaken and affected
translations between bhashas. In Recovery the author is no
longer as enthusiastic about this project as he was in
Discovery. For how long should bhasha literature be read only
in English translations? If reading and studying literature help
in the development and growth of that language, it must be
read in the language of its composition. English being a global
language, Indo-English literature would always find a
readership, within the continent and beyond. In order to
develop the native literary sensibility, a room must be created
for bhasha language and its literature, mere incorporation of a
few texts into the syllabi of English literature would not
suffice. He does carry on his project of setting standards of
translational practice and ethics but no longer promotes and
encourages translations into English with the same vigor. One
wonders what the title essay ‘translation as recovery’ would
have been on. Perhaps the need to ‘recover’ the Indo-English
texts in bhasha languages might have been a part of this essay
if had lived to complete the book. Thus, translations into
English can merely be a part of the larger project of creating
and developing a native tradition of translation and the need of
the time is to give a push to the practice of translations among
bhasha literature.

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References
BASSNETT, SUSAN & HARISH TRIVEDI. 1998. Post-Colonial
Translation: Theory and Practice. London: Routledge.
BANDYOPADHYAY, BIBHUTI BHUSHAN. 1922. Pather Panchali.
Calcutta: Writers Workshop.
GUPTA, R. S. Literary Translation. 1999. New Delhi: Creative
Books.
KHAIR, TABISH. 2001. Babu Fictions: Alienation in
Contemporary Indian Novels. New Delhi: Oxford UP.
KOTHARI, RITA. 2003. Translating India: The Cultural Politics
of English. Revised 2006. New Delhi: Foundation Books.
MUKHERJEE, SUJIT. 1981. Translation as Discovery and Other
Essays on Indian Literature in English Translation. New
Delhi: Allied Publishers.
MUKHERJEE, SUJIT & MEENAKSHI MUKHERJEE. 2004.
Translation as Recovery. New Delhi: Pencraft International.
NIRANJAN, TEJASWINI. 1992. Siting Translation: History, Post-
Structuralism, and the Colonial Context. California:
University of California Press.
PARANJAPE, MAKARAND. 1996. Coping with Post-Colonialism.
In Harish Trivedi & Meenakshi Mukherjee (eds.), Post-
Colonialism: Theory, Text and Context. Shimla: Institute of
Advanced Studies.

***

Cite This Work:

CHAUBEY, ANJALI. 2021. Indian Translation Traditions:
Perspectives from Sujit Mukherjee. Translation Today, Vol.
15(1). 181-190. DOI:10.46623/tt/2021.15.1.no2

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