Silence as a Decision: The Tropes of Silence in Gujarati Literature in English Translation: Viraj Desai

“Translation is the wandering existence of a text in a perpetual exile.”
(qtd. in Devy 182)

The above quote from Hans J. Miller alludes to the Biblical myth of Satan’s fall from heaven. In this sense, translation has been understood as a fall from original, an inferior copy of the original. For a long time, translation was charged for coming into existence after the original, and was thus garnered a secondary status. As Ganesh Devy rightly notes, “western literary criticism provides for the guilt of translations for coming into being after the original; the temporal sequentiality is held as a proof of diminution of literary authenticity of translations.” (Devy 182) Thus, it can be argued that translation, though a very common practice across languages and cultures, has been a rather shadowed and silenced one for centuries. This silence has an almost negative connotation to it. For in the West, translation was not considered important or meritorious enough an activity for it to come to the foreground of the literary discourse up until the later part of the twentieth century. On the contrary, the silence surrounding the translation practices in the Indian context had a more positive connotation attached to it; where translation is seen as a subsequent discourse- anuvad (anu: following and vad: discourse) which means a ‘subsequent discourse’ (Singh 206) to the original text, something that is additional to the original discourse and not as something secondary or subsidiary to the original text as in the western context. 

However, in a multilingual nation like India, the need for a critical discourse surrounding translation in order to theorize it was barely felt. As Rita Kothari observes, “a continuous straddling of different languages by its multilingual citizens has made translation in India a family and everyday affair, hardly worth theorizing. Very little thought has been expended by Indian scholars on the aesthetics of translation or the place of translated texts in literary systems” (38). Owing to this somewhat casual approach of the Indian subcontinent towards the theorization of a  very frequent and inherent cultural practice of translation, the need for a critical discourse surrounding translation was barely felt. And barring a few instances of sporadic attention paid towards practice, theory, and criticism of translation in the last few decades, much of it still remains in the background, in abyss, especially in the context of translation from Gujarati into English and Vice Versa.  This ‘silence’ in terms of translation between Gujarati and English can be interpreted in different ways in terms of different literary and socio-cultural contexts. The present paper intends to focus on how the ‘untranslated’ (to be understood differently from the ‘untranslatable’) creates a silent discourse of its own and attempts to problematize the various aspects of this silence in the realm of Gujarati-English translation, focusing especially on the translation practices of 20th century onwards. 

The Tropes of Silence in Gujarati Literature in English Translation:

A lot of deliberation has been made upon the translated literature and its effects on the literary system(s). However, what remains untranslated also raises certain poignant questions about the choices made by the translators, the tropes of reception in the target culture, and the unequal relationships between languages largely influenced by the socio-cultural and political lingual and regional discourses at large. As rightly noted by Serena Talento,

Silence is performative, in that it has the power to communicate by virtue of a parallel between it and what is voiced. What was available but not selected, and therefore silenced, still has the power to communicate and elucidate the contingencies of translation practices. ( 56–57)

In the case of Gujarati-English translation, this performative silence becomes noteworthy as the flow of translation has been somewhat uni-directional, with most of translation activities being exclusively conducted from Gujarati into English. While a lot of works from English as well as other Indian and European languages have enriched Gujarati literature, it has not been able to reach other languages in similar measure. To substantiate this argument, certain statistics have been presented with regards to Gujarati-English translation. According to the Bibliography of Indian Literature in English Translation compiled by Jatindra Mohan Mohanty in the year 1984, a total of 23 works have been translated from Gujarati into English. In comparison, the number of translations from Bengali into English are 345, from Hindi 119, from Tamil 109, and from Marathi 48. More recently, in her 2006 publication titled Translating India, Dr. Rita Kothari too provides a bibliography of Gujarati literary works translated into English which is a sum total of just 51 Gujarati works into English translation till date. These include 14 poetry collections, 24 works of Fiction (including all forms such as novels, short-stories etc.), 05 in the genre of Drama, and 08 non-fiction works. In a survey of the translation from and into Gujarati for the years 1998-1999; conducted by Sanjay Shripad Bhave, the number of translations from Gujarati into English is 08 which seems quite meagre in comparison to the translation from English into Gujarati which is more than thrice in number, i.e. 26. Not only English but also the number of translations from Gujarati into Hindi during these two years is only 02. Although the figures provided by these surveys do not provide a comprehensive picture of the state of translations from Gujarati into English and other languages, they are certainly indicative of its despondent state Thus, Bhagwatikumar Sharma is absolutely right in noting that, 

It is a reality that excellent works of Gujarati Literature have not reached other languages to the extent that they should have. Owing to that, not only the readers of other languages have remained deprived of Gujarati Literature but also there seems to be a lacuna in the degree to which Gujarati Literature must have been recognised at the national level.” ( 02)

This lacuna mentioned by Sharma manifests itself not only in terms of the absence of Gujarati works in English translations but also in the form of critical discourses surrounding it at the National level. To cite certain examples, An Illustrated History of Indian literature in English by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra does not touch upon any Gujarati work or author apart from Govardhanram Tripathi. The chapter titled ‘Translations into English’ by Arshia Sattar, too, does not have any mentions of Gujarati-English translation. Similarly, The Picador Book of Modern Indian Literature edited by Amit Chaudhuri, which is a selection of fictional and non-fictional works from Indian writing in English/ in Translation, does not include a single work from Gujarati. Additionally, the History of Translation in India, edited by Tariq Khan and published by National Translation Mission, CIIL, Mysuru, that sets out to “answer the question of what has happened so far in translation in India” (Rao V), does not mention anything about history of translation from and into Gujarati. Hence, making the absence of the discourse surrounding translation in Gujarati extremely evident. It is rightly said that,

What is translated is always profiled against what is left untranslated. But silence can also communicate: it may communicate an inability or an unwillingness to translate. (Hermans 70)

The question that needs to be asked is what does this lacuna, absence, or silence communicate in relation to Gujarati literature in English Translation? Firstly, it communicates the rather startling apathy of translators towards translating from Gujarati into English. There can be certain reasons behind this indifference. The first being the scale of scrutiny a translation into English usually comes under. English undoubtedly has a wider readership than any other Indian language. Thus, translating into English exposes the work to a wider scope for criticism. “Because of the growing power of English as a global lingua franca, the responsibility of the translator into English is increasingly complicated”. (Spivak 94) 

Also, in the case of Indian literature in English Translation, the uncertainty regarding the probable target reader can also be intimidating for translators. This uncertainty poses an invigorating challenge to translators regarding the choices related to style, cultural nuances and references; as the translator translating from Gujarati into English is often unsure about the degree of their target reader’s familiarity with Gujarati language and culture. Indian literature in English translation, thus, often suffers from “the nervous uncertainty about decoding culture” (Mukherjee 190). This uncertainty reflects two kinds of choices that a translator makes in translation: how to translate and what to translate. Thus, the increasing ambivalence regarding the target reader and the scale of scrutiny that a work in English translation can attract could be among the many reasons behind the lesser number of translators plunging into translating Gujarati works into English. 

Thirdly, Translations coming into a language also play an integral role in shaping the sensibilities of that particular language/culture. However, in the case of Gujarati-English translation, the questions of reception of such translations are hardly pondered upon. For example, the radical change brought by Mahadev Desai’s English translation of Mahatma Gandhi’s autobiography to the ideological apparatus of the non-Gujarati readership is never studied from the lens of translation studies. This concern intensifies when the text from a lesser dominant language is translated into a more dominant one. For example, the seminal texts of Gujarati language such as Govardhanram Tripathi’s Saraswatichandra, K.M. Munshi’s Patan Trilogy among others have been translated into English but rarely have there been any inquiries surrounding their reception in terms of the quality of these translations. Similarly, when texts from English and other Indian languages such as Hindi, Bengali, Marathi are translated into Gujarati, not much critical attention is paid towards receiving and discussing these translations as translations.  Thus, a lack of critical approach towards translation also contributes towards silencing the translational discourse evenfurther. 

Another reason behind ‘silence’ in terms of Gujarati-English translation is a somewhat unilateral approach where on one hand Gujarati has been extremely receptive of the translations from English, other European languages, and several Indian languages, it has been quite passive regarding translating its own literature into these languages. It is not that Gujarati literature has not been translated into English at all. Right from Niranjan Bhagat’s English translation of Narsinh Mehta’s Padās, to Jenny Bhatt’s translation of the selected short stories by Dhumketu, and Rita Kothari’s translation of selected Gujarati short stories as recently as in the year 2021- there have been numerous isolated efforts of translating Gujarati literature into English. However, the number of such translations is rather insufficient. The number of Gujarati texts into English translation is a miniscule number in comparison to the vast, rich literature of Gujarati spanning through centuries, and also in comparison to the translations into Gujarati from English and other European and Indian languages. Several Gujarati critics and litterateurs have taken note of this unequal transaction when it comes to Gujarati-English translations. Dhiruben Patel addressed this issue in her Presidential Address in the 42nd Annual Convention of Gujarati Sahitya Parishad in the year 2003. She noted that,

We are often identified as a business-oriented populace. There is a ring of taunt to it. We know that but we still accept this identity. Now tell me, would we consider a businessman clever if they are only enterprising in import but completely indifferent towards export? Yet see how we have done the same thing with regards to literature. In comparison to the literature from other languages that has been made available to us through translation, the excellent writers from our language have not been made available in other Indian or foreign languages to that extent. (Patel 2010)

The silence pertaining to translations from Gujarati also has a direct relation with a noticeably less attention paid towards Gujarati literature at the national level and leads to the “marginalisation of Gujarati literature in the national consciousness” (Ramanathan et al. xvii). It is debatable whether the lack of translation from Gujarati is the reason or its consequence. However, it can also be argued that in the act of translating more from other languages and less from their own language, translators of Gujarati language accepted the recipient status of Gujarati in the transaction of languages over a period of time. Kapil Kapoor rightly notes that,

There is in each act of translation, an attitude towards the source language and a certain assessment of the target language- it is a recognition of the intellectual strength of the source and of a vacuum or gap in the target/language culture. ( 153)

English and certain Indian languages, thus, took up a nurturing role that sustained Gujarati by filling certain literary or cultural gaps. While translations from other languages did enrich Gujarati literature by introducing it to various writers, literary forms, and literary traditions of the world; this transaction between Gujarati and other languages became unequal as it “hardly ever served as a donor language in any translation interaction despite its long-standing literary tradition” (50). An eminent Gujarati critic, Bholabhai Patel notes that, 

The nation’s readers know about the writer of ‘Aanandmath’- Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay, but they don’t know the author of ‘Saraswatichandra- Govardhanram Tripathi. The person well-versed with the novels written during the era can authoritatively say that there is no other novel in that era’s India which can be compared with ‘Saraswatichandra’, not even Bankimchandra’s. However, due to the lack of the interliterary exchange, Govardharman could not reach India’s readers. If he had been able to, he would have placed right next to the author of philosophical novels- Shri Rabindranath Tagore. ( 21)

Whether Govardharnram Tripathi was as great as Tagore or Chattopadhyay demands a different kind of deliberation. However, what is evident is the fact that a Govardharam Tripathi was not provided an equivalent national platform as Tagore or Chattopadhyay partly because of the silence that prevails in the realm of translation of Gujarati literature into English. This silence must be questioned and problematised as “silence exists as a decision” (Sontag 1969). The decision to not translate the best of Gujarati literature into English or other Indian languages. Also, “silence exists as a punishment” (ibid.). By deciding not to translate more of Gujarati literature into English, it is not only disabling the state and its literature at large to own the multiplicity of its culture and existence, but also depriving the non-Gujarati readers from discovering literature and culture of Gujarat in all its glory.