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Translation and Indian Literature: Some Reflections 11Jainendra Kumar thinks his contributions towards the creation andpreservation of cultural India are second, perhaps, only to those ofGandhi’s. He sums up the role of translation and inter-literaryrelationship by asking the rhetorical question – “Saratchandra was awriter in Bengali; but where is that Indian language in which he didnot become the most popular when he reached it?” (Kumar1977:51). The enthusiasm for Bengali literature, some might rathercall it ‘hegemony’ today, only increased when Tagore was awardedthe Nobel prize in 1913, and later, writers from different parts ofIndia gathered at Santiniketan to read Tagore in Bangla, and then,when they returned to their own language habitat, introduced him intheir own languages. Tagore indeed strode like a colossus on theIndian literary horizon in the early decades of the twentieth century,but there were lesser writers too who had been freely translated intomany regional languages. Dwijendralal Ray’s plays which recreatedthe glories of the Mughal and the Rajput past were also verypopular. Bhisma, a play based on the Mahabharata hero wastranslated into Gujarati in 1919, followed by Mebar Patan in thefollowing year. At least six of his plays were translated into Gujaratiduring the independence movement. No less than thirteen plays weretranslated into Telugu. Translations did take place also fromSubramanya Bharati, Premchand and other writers. In fact the firsthalf of the twentieth century may be said to be the golden period oftranslation within Indian languages. Though the translations weredone largely in the fluent tradition and the translators displayed asureness of touch and a kind of confidence which emanates fromsharing, more or less, the same cultural values and the samemythological universe, there is no room for complacency even here.Even if both the source and target texts are Indian language texts acomparison of the original and the translation often revealsasymmetry and a fair amount of cultural ignorance. 2***