ILET

Tagore seems to have set the example for much of the translation of regional Indian literature into English today. Regional writing does not have the prestige of Indian writing in English. An M. T. Vasudevan Nair is not so well known as Chetan Bhagat, despite the obvious superiority of the former in terms of literary merit. The aspiration of most regional writers is to get translated into English, the motivation being the same as Tagore's more than a century back. But if we look at the history of translation into English, we find that it lacked the institutional support that independent India bestowed on translations into other Indian languages. Sahitya Akademi and National Book Trust encouraged translations between Indian languages, but not into English.

Very few publishers were willing to publish the English translations, and these lacked in quality. P. Lal's Writer's Workshop (established in 1958) was one of the pioneering publishing houses to encourage the publication of translations into English. UNESCO's publication of Representative Works also helped in the translation of a few Indian works into English. However the scene today is totally different. Macmillan, Penguin and Katha are but a prominent few who publish superior quality translations in English. These translations have managed to make their way to the shortlists of prestigious literary awards.

What is the reason for this change? It cannot surely be that regional Indian writing has gained in quality and is getting recognition for that. The spurt in the activity of translation into English is an indicator of a larger socio-cultural phenomenon which is globalization. The world is getting to be one large marketplace where the driving ideal is to sell at a profit. Currently the most selling ‘product' in the literary marketplace is anything that caters to the west (primarily the Anglo-American world) in its own language. Hence the zeal that we see in translating and selling works in English.