24 Dalit and Tribal Literature in English Translations

Dr. Mrinmoy Pramanick

About the chapter:

Here we will learn about the idea of New Literature in English and its relation with post- colonial literature. In this context we situate Dalit and Tribal literature and their English translation. We focuses on the very basic question such as why Dalit and Tribal literature are considered as new literature. We tried to make it clear about what is the purpose of  translation of Dalit and tribal literature into English. How Dalit and tribal literature opens new field of knowledge and we also discuss growing interest of the Indian academics towards Dalit and Tribal literature and English translation of these. We talks also about the pedagogic challenges.

Besides these abovementioned issues, we also focus on how translation of Dalit and Tribal literature becomes activism and a political act. Dalit and Tribal literature are produced into several languages, when we talk about English translation of those, we should always keep it in mind that this category actually is vignette in their sources. This module also focuses on the aesthetics of Dalit and tribal literature what can play role as methodology of reading and criticizing. We have divided this module into few parts and provided sub headings of each part to make the module easy to understand to the students across the class.

Introduction

Translation, in my understanding is a claim, especially when it is about a marginal text. Claim of one’s right, one’s identity, one’s voice and one’s existence. Translation always helps to form a new space in another culture, another world, other than the culture or world of origin of source text. India has more than a century old Dalit literature in different language and tribal literature which is older than the history of Indian civilization.

Translation always opens a new scope, a wider spectrum for the author to fulfill her/his objective of writing. Dalit and tribal literature from the perspective of translation is quite complex issue to be studied. Because of these two categories of literature are remarkably different than any other category of mainstream literature. Translation of Dalit and tribal literature is not for mere communication or cultural interaction. Rather this is very much political. This translation is party of wider movement to reestablish the claim of the communities in the mainstream hegemony in the cultural, social and economic system.

Dalit literature is a chronicle of Dalit life as a whole, it is a wide, inclusive and complex documentary of Dalit oppression, anger, struggle, sorrow and about their rights etc. as we know the writing itself is a political act and it is a part of greater activism continuously approached by the Dalits in India.

Similarly, tribal literature is also chronicle of tribal life, oppression, history, their culture and about their rights. Most of the tribal communities in India do not have their own script, so they have to adapt scripts from other languages for writing their words and to let the world know. Tribal literature is mainly oral since thousands of years. Few communities among the adivasis/tribal have made their own script, like the Santalis made Olchiki, others write in the scripts they are comfortable with. In this sense the term ‘tribal literature’ by its nature is a translation, because in most of the cases the oral traditions are getting documented, recorded through writing. And we know, when we say ‘literature’, it is necessarily written.

There are large number of tribal communities in India. Sometimes, we find different lingua franca for inter-community communication. Like the Nagamese, which is used as lingua-franca among different tribal communities in North-East India. So, when, we talk about Tribal Literature in a single literature department, it has tend to be adapted as a monolithic cultural/ literary practice in our psyche. However, this happens because of age old distance among the tribal and non-tribal communities. There is huge gap in literary communication between tribal and non-tribal communities. Now, question may arise, if the Tribal literature is not understood as monolithic then why we call it ‘Tribal Literature’. This is a categorization of literary creation according to the nature of creative expression or according to the similarity in different degree among the literary creations. So, ‘Tribal Literature’ is an umbrella term which includes different tribal, Adivasi, indigenous, native literature of the country written in different languages.

Why Dalit and Tribal Literature?

This module talks about Dalit and Tribal literature together. Why do we choose Dalit and Tribal literature together here? We choose these two categories of literature together there because these two are most powerful category of Indian Literature and these two are most original Indian Literature. The mainstream Indian Literature what are written either in English or in different Bhasha and translated into English are mainly the result of generic and aesthetic adaptation of colonialism in India. Original Indian Literary genre, narrative, styles may be found mostly from the Tribal Literature of India and then from the Dalit Literature, along with the literature written in pre-colonial India. So, in this module, we try to understand a literary category which is understood as an original Indian Literature and through the study of translation of these categories of literature we try to understand India’s most original contribution to the literary world.

English translation of Indian Bhasha literature finds an inclusive category of Indian Literature which can be reached to all the linguistic communities and also can contribute to the category of World Literature. In this regard translation of Dalit and Tribal Literature is also very much important to understand India’s contribution to the World of Literature. We try to understand not only the social, political or cultural aspects of these two literary category but also the aesthetic contribution of these two in formation of Indian Literature in English and World Literature too.

New Literature in English and Dalit and Tribal Literature

New literature or New Literature in English has overlaps with different literary categories already practiced in academics. Indigenous Literature, Aboriginal Literature, Tribal or Adivasi Literature, Commonwealth Literature, Post-Colonial Literature etc. Until unless we translate literature produced in different languages other than English, we cannot include those in the category of New Literature. And this is why, we talk about literature translated into English. Literature translated into English is also claimed today as English literature but different adjectives and new categorization says that these newly translated literature into English as a category are different than the literature written in English what is talked by the History of English literature. So the term ‘New Literature’ is a marker to differentiate the English literature from thousands of literature translated into English and widely studied in English literature departments across the world. ‘New Literature in English’, necessarily means that the literature is not originally English but adapted into English through translation or produced by the non-English speaking people.

‘New Literature in English’, is also an umbrella term which includes literature translated from different languages and different categories or the literature originally written in English by the non-mainstream English writers. ‘New Literature in English’ is also complex to be understood as it is a confluence of literature from different trends, traditions and motives. Each literary traditions has its own cultural and political complexities. Hence, we understand ‘New Literature in English’ as an approach, as a method of reading literature from different parts of the World and written in different languages but translated into in English.

Warwick University, department of English and Comparative Literary Studies says,

“Through the medium of English, writers from Africa and Asia today confront a (prospectively) global audience. This module aims to introduce students to the emergent body of literature being produced by writers (and film-makers) from South Africa, sub-Saharan Africa generally, and South Asia, and to situate it in terms of the historical circumstances that have engendered it and  to which it constitutes a response”.

(EN251 New Literatures in English)

Description on the site very clearly mention about the area of the new literary study. The concept of ‘new’ implies the literature which is new to the so called Western World and therefore also ‘new’ to the rest of the World. Indian literature in English or in English translation is also adapted as ‘new’ in New Literature in English. But this literary zones like, ‘South Africa, sub-Saharan Africa generally, and South Asia’, is also new from the Indian position because African or sub-Saharan literature is appeared to India when these are discovered by the Western academics or by the Western publishing houses. From India, we read New Literature in English as the Western academics theories it and shapes it. We are privileged, in the sense, we are within or close to the concept of ‘new’ in literature in practical term. Recently, we can find several publishing houses in India or Indian branches of the International houses to publish Indian Tribal and Dalit literature in English translation in large number along with the translations of Indian bhasha literature into English. Being the readers or writers or the translators of the Indian Dalit and Tribal literature we are participatory agent of the New Literature in English.

The website of the department of English and American Studies of the Augsburg University says,

“The term New English Literatures (NEL) refers to the Anglophone literatures of Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, Oceania, and Canada. The field has direct overlaps with English Studies, for instance by including Black and Asian British literatures as well as travel writing; via Canadian literatures, it is also closely linked to the field of North American studies, a special focus in the Augsburg NEL”.

(New English Literatures and Cultural Studies)

The site further says about the methodology about studying New Literature in English. It does not read literature as the literature of any particular country but read it as “transnational and transcultural exchange processes and developments (historical and contemporary)”. The issues which are focused here are the cultural plurality, hybridity, migration, diaspora, social inequality, ‘literary negotiations of colonization and decolonization’, etc. Thus through literature it is tried to understand the larger  social, cultural, economic and political conditions across the world. Translation of Dalit and tribal literature into English is actually contribution to this grand narrative of different themes to understand the problems of the contemporary world. When India represents it with the translation of Dalit and Tribal literature it enhances its plurality and cultural diversity to the grand narrative of Indian Literature and also to the category of World Literature.

Literary study in New Literature in English is necessarily comparative. Because it tends to understand the diverse and similar socio-political and cultural problems of different communities and those problems are hybrid, transnational and transcultural by nature in today’s world. As Comparative Literature does, in same way, New Literature in English tries to situate the literary texts within larger cultural complexities and productions like music, films, photography etc. to understand the particular national and cultural problems reflected in literature.

Post-Colonial and / or New Literature

It is another debate whether we call new literature in English as post-colonial literature. But more specifically what is important here whether this Dalit and tribal literature is post-

colonial literature. Post-Colonialism as a school of thoughts and a pattern of thinking is much debated. Many scholars, worldwide, claims for the end of post-colonialism. Many scholars emphasize on the limitation of the thought, as it by nature cannot be objective critique of colonialism. The texts what are referred in the post-colonialism were written mostly during colonial rule, as the protest/ resistance against colonial power. Post-colonialism offers new interpretation and historicises those texts.

All the tribal literatures of India were not under the direct influence of colonialism. The colonial institutions did not influence many of the communities and their cultures. So, something indigenous, something truly new, original actually emerges from the practice of tribal literature. Moreover tribal and Dalit literature, in their history talks about colonial era, and colonial policies, but their main agenda are focusing on the issues related with the Indian state and complexities in Indian politics, society and culture what have been observed since Independence. Because the problems of Dalits and tribal are not the problems which have originated during colonial rule but it has its roots in the prehistoric period.

The critique of colonialism is indigenous, folk, tribal culture of colonized subject. Because such, not-influenced, uninterrupted cultures only can provide the critique of colonialism and can propose alternative of European cultures and other subject through what hegemony has been shadowed.

So the voices which are heard from the Dalits and tribal are actually emerging voices in literature to re-establish their claims, rights and raise the question of socio-cultural and political equality. In that sense this category may be understood as Emergent Literature in English also.

The basic tenants of post-colonialism are orientalism and subaltern studies. And alternative of colonial knowledge and practice can be foregrounded in the study of tribal and Dalit literature and philosophy. However it should be considered that the generic forms of writing literature in Dalit space also adapted from the genres received from the colonial practice, like novel, short story, lyric poetry, play etc. but the themes and the problems dealt by the Dalit literature and philosophy are from the Indian society and these are pre-colonial.

Many of the tribal issues, like tribal movements, their resistances, tribal testimonies, and any other tribal subject in history since colonial time either with the contacts and conflicts happened with the British/colonisers or with the mainstream Indian. Moreover, many of the British rules and laws imposed upon the tribals to civilize them or to rule them are kept to be continued in independent India too. Hence, there has been continuous resistance to reestablish the tribal claim to their own land since the British period and the contemporary reality is no exception. Tribal literature translated into English talks about such realities and offers alternative ways against the colonial rule, culture, knowledge and history. In that sense such literary practices can be recognized as post-colonial practices.

Translation, Pedagogy and Teaching

When anything is translated, it is translated because of some purpose. When Dalit and Tribal literature is translated, the intention is to form such a literary category which is polyphonic and inclusivei. The intention is to build such a sphere of knowledge which includes more verities sources of knowledge and this is also extended solidarity to the people of different caste, culture, race, region and community in to some extent. Hence, translation does a lot, as Dalit and Tribal literature from various and multilingual sources are translated into such a language what does not have caste identity or which is not originally language of any tribal community. The texts are translated for a wide group of readers who are scattered across the globe and those translated texts are studied in such a discipline which academically wide and plural in the sense of focusing on the subjects of study.

In his edited book Translating Casteii, Tapan Basu commented, “…the translation of caste as a social institution into an assortment of cultural discourses”. And why that book is made, because they wanted to get a “Treatment of caste theme in all India literary arena”iii. These two statements show very significant two aspects of translating Dalit literature into English especially. As I mentioned above that English is casteless language. So translation of Dalit literature from one Indian language to another other than English is quite different in  the sense of purpose of translating. In the first statement quoted here, translation of Dalit literature brings a social problem into a cultural problem which needs a cultural aspect or methodology of reading. And the second statement hints to a sociological study of Indian society through the lens of literature, literature of such group of writers who have lived experience of being oppressed by the caste system. It also shows that the caste is one of the most common denominators of Indian society, therefore Indian Literature. Representation of Dalit literature into English through translation is actually another side of strong age old reality of Indian society and addressing this social problem from another point of view, which is cultural. Such translation also introduces a marginal social problem into a polished, elite academic sphere.

Basu very eruditely describes the function of translation of Dalit literature into English. When Dalit literature is translated into English it targets mainly the academicians and greater audience affiliated with the academics. He commented, “Translating Caste is,  first and foremost, intended to fulfill a pedagogical function. It proposes to bring the issue of caste and its textual representation in contemporary Indian literature into the classrooms of universities in India and Abroad”. It implies a beginning of new knowledge and study of new social, cultural and political reality in the academic disciplines. Dilip Chavaniv, also observe English translation of Dalit literature as a contribution to curriculum. If we see the 19th century history of translation and printing, we can observe the texts which were translated and published, were mainly to fulfill the pedagogical purpose. Translating Dalit literature into English serves almost same purpose.

Meena Kandaswamy, a renowned poet of contemporary Indian English poetry writes that the Dalit literature in English translation is a field of growing interest for the students of Indian universities. But it is difficult as well as challenging to teach Dalit literature in the classrooms of the Indian universities to the Indian students. Kandaswamy focuses on this teaching related issues here in her article, titled, “Translating and Teaching Dalit Texts”. She believes that the casteist attitude which is inherited and deeply rooted in Indian psyche makes the job difficult. Moreover she raises two important points regarding the translation itself.  She says as the translation of Dalit literature mostly is done by the caste-Hindu translators whose ‘right of selecting the text to be translated is vested’ and it ‘vitiates the liberating power of the Dalit literature’. And the second point is “the ideas of caste, pollution, untouchability and atrocities against Dalits are native to India, but how effective are the translations when rendered into English?” These two are parts and parcel of translating Dalit or Tribal literature what hardly can be avoided in present condition. But if we see the condition of translation of tribal literature, we can observe that this problem is more real in case of tribal literature. As most of tribal language does not have own script and a negligible number from the tribal communities are educated or have higher education in the modern institutions. So tribal communities are mostly depended on the greatness of the so called civilized and educated people of other races who invade the tribal area and culture to explore their cultural practices and creative expressions.

Writing or Translating Aesthetic

Towards Aesthetics of Dalit Literature, is a translation of Dalit Sahityache Soundarya Shashtra, by Marathi author, poet and critical thinker Sharan Kumar Limbale. It is translated by Arun Kumar Mukherjee, with critical introduction and notes. Such critical works are guide to read Dalit literature and also offers a methodology of how to read Dalit literature and how to write about Dalit literature. This book is very much comparative in nature. This book shows how to understand the Dalit contexts and how to historicise the Dalit life and literature. Epistemological ground of Dalit literature also critically approached here in this book. Arun Mukherjee engaged himself in furthering the study in his English translation.

Translation of such book offers a new and original aesthetic, literary or critical thought and may be considered as most original contribution of India in the world of literary thought. Limbale shows how Dalit Panther movement in Maharastra was influenced by the Black Panther movement organized by the Afro-American people in America. This book is significant in bridging the gaps of knowledge and life of different marginal communities like Dalits and Tribal communities. Such books are epistemological bridging between Dalits and tribal communities in academic and cultural discourse.

Tribal Aesthetics is multilayered. As the idea of literature is quite different to the tribal communities the idea of aesthetic is also different here. There cannot be something which may be considered solely aesthetics of tribal literature. Because literature is not so alienated in the tribal culture, it is intriguing with other cultural expressions of the communities. Hence, if anything can be framed as tribal aesthetic with the survey and reading of tribal literature, oral tradition, painting, sculpture, dance and theatrical forms will be adequately enough to read the tribal literature in academic discipline. There are few works, have been done on this area, based on the study of local tribal art and culture. One among such works is Art and Aesthetics in Tribes of Gujarat by Om Prakash Joshi.

Dalit and Tribal Literature: Activism and Creative Expression

To a Dalit or a tribal their literature is not mere literature, it is not merely a creative expression. Their creative expression is their resistance, it is part of their political, social and cultural activism. Literature acts very much purposefully with the activism made by Dalits and tribal communities. Many publishing houses also are established to extend this activism in publishing culture. Navayana for Dalit literature, Adivaani for tribal literature are such publishing houses what extends social and political activism made by Dalits and tribal communities extends as the cultural activism which leads to the epistemological activism. Hence, the creative expression of the Dalits and tribal communities is one side their creative expression and in other side this is activism.

Tribal literature by nature is oral, as most of the communities do not have their own script. When such oral texts are documented as written text and translated into English, actually texts go through several processes and serve different purposes in different layers. Because each transformation of original oral text is very much purposive. Finally, when such text is translated into English, it contributes to the radical political discourse and also contributes in existing cultural discourse. Indian English literature as a category appears as more polyphonic with such translations.

Dalit and tribal literature brings ‘new social reality into literary discussion’ (7)v. K. Satyanarayana and Susie Tharu in their introduction to The Exercise of Freedom: An Introduction to Dalit Writing, comments, “The Canonical writers of Indian literatures generally did not discuss caste, class, gender and other inequalities in radical way” (8). Here is the importance of Dalit and tribal literature to be written. And the translation of such texts contribute to from different and unconventional categories of Indian literature.

Ghanashyam Meena in his “Tribal Literature: Challenges and Possibilities”vi, briefly describes the post 1991 economic reform and its consequences what make tribal life more threaten. He points out how tribal communities in India reacted to this political and economic change and how such contexts help new tribal voices to be emerged. English translation of tribal literature is one of the results of this incident.

Tribal activist and writer C.K. Janu writes her Mother Forest, as a part of her activism and this text is nice example of collaborative authorship, a testimony of tribal life of Kerala. This book shows how tribal community reacts against the state what exploits the tribal and their property and even civil society what has lack of good wishes to save tribal right. This book, when appeared in English as Mother Forest, actually introduces an indigenous movement and radical voice about the darken reality of Indian society and people.

When we imagine Dalit and Tribal literature in English language, it does not necessarily mean that the texts are translated into English only but some texts are written directly in English. Though our focus in this module is on the translation of Dalit and tribal literature but the point of writing tribal literature directly into English is also a point which is noteworthy. When I asked Sowvendra Shekhar Hansda, a renowned Indian English writer writes on Santali life, in a personal conversation with him, that why he choose English as his language of writing, he comments

“Yes, a claim on language, yes. Also, my stories are thought in Santhali. I think my stories in Santhali or Hindi (Merely A Whore was thought in Hindi) then write those in English. You can call my stories Santhali stories written in English. Yes, English gives me freedom. Also, English works as a great equalizer. It really is our link language. Had I written in Santhali or in any other Indian language, my stories would have been limited to readers in that particular language. But because I write in English – which so many people can write, read and speak now – my stories are being read across languages and communities and regions”.

(Interview dated 4th December, 2016 through Face Book)

This response shows that such kind of writings do not have need of looking for translators who are mostly from the so called civilized or upper caste background, for translating their texts. Moreover, there are lack of translators who are very much efficient in English and tribal languages simultaneously. Though, it is also true that the texts are generally not meant for those who are the characters of the texts, as these texts are written in English. But noteworthy is, writing directly into English is contributing new words, language and concepts in the sphere of knowledge practiced in English. It is indeed one’s claim on other language which is English.

Publication of Dalit and Tribal Literature in English

Adivaani, Oxford University Press, Orient Black Swan, Navayana, Katha, Speaking Tiger, Stree-Samya, Zuban – all these are leading houses publishing Dalit and Tribal literature into English translationvii. The number of total book published in English translation of Dalit and tribal literature is quite large and the books are well circulated. Field of Dalit and tribal literature is of growing interest to the greater audience engaged with university and the academicians. Translation of such literary texts are also of great interest of the publishing houses. Many publication houses are there, as I mentioned earlier also, are established to publish Dalit and/or tribal literatures. As they observe publishing as an activism and establishing one’s voice. They believes circulation of such knowledge as sacred. Many of the foreign universities and publishing houses along with Indian universities and publishing houses are interested very much to explore new areas of Indian literature, South Asian literature, and reshape the map of World literature, like to redefine the literary canon.

The objective of the publishing house, Adivaani is important to note down to understand that the tribal literature is not only tribal literature but this is a part whole tribal entity, their life and age old oppression they have come across, and thus publishing is activism here. Because publishing house like Adivaani is established to address such issue. Literature of the tribal community is not isolated from the immigration of the communities,  or displacement of them, or from the mining, from their life, culture, movement, resistance and oppressions. Literature of them, translation of those into English or other language or publishing those is a work which is part of greater tribal entity. Adivaani says,

“India is home to more than 84 million ‘Indigenous’ Peoples. Now, that’s an impressive figure and many a tribal would be overwhelmed by that number. But what else is known about us? An entry on the internet or a read in a book would throw up a stereotypical romanticized tribal lifestyle. More often than not we wonder if that is who we really are, is all that’s written about us really true”.

(Adivaani)

Navayana also believes in same idea and they also have similar attitude in publishing Dalit literature. The site says,

“Named after Dr B.R. Ambedkar’s socially and morally concerned interpretation of Buddhism, Navayana is India’s first and only publishing house to focus on the issue of caste from an anticaste perspective.

Since 2009 Navayana decided to broad-base its publishing programme, for the struggle against caste cannot happen in isolation from other struggles for justice and equality. We now publish the best of socially engaged writing from South Asia and across the world…”

Navayana celebrates the socially engaged ideas and literature of the oppressed across the South Asia and other parts of the world too. It ideologically read the caste from anticaste perspective what they mention here. Such publication houses are politically engaged with creating new literary contexts.

Conclusion

Dalit and Tribal literature as different categories of Indian literature are necessarily comparative and multilingual. Hence we need multilingual contexts to read Dalit and tribal literature in English translation. And these literature only cannot be read from  the  perspective of their context from what texts are emerged but such texts to be read with a holistic approach, keeping this reality in mind that literature of Dalits and tribal communities are not to be detached from the greater life of Dalits and different tribal communities.

Translation of such literatures in one side establishes new claims and call for rights of the communities and in other side the stake holders of literature finds new knowledge and alternative voices in literature. Dalit and tribal Literature in English translation attracts the critical thinkers as Indian academics is dominated by English language. The claim, the purpose and objective of writing Dalit and tribal literature as part of their movement appears as more successful when these are translated into English.

Dalit Literature and Tribal literature in English translation contributes to the original writing from India. India and South Asia are reimagined with this translation of Dalit and Tribal Literature into English. Such translations also redefines even the age old established English discipline and its curriculum. And along with this, English appears as more comparative and more non-English than it was before.

Summary

This module deals with the English translation of Indian Dalit and Tribal literature. While it speaks about Dalit and Tribal literature it keep in mind the dalit and tribal literatures are actually from different linguistic, cultural and social contexts. These literary texts have been written in several languages and have been brought into one common category such as Dalit literature in English translation or Tribal literature, to understand the Indian society, culture, politics and role of the Dalit communities or primitive races within this context.

This module try to understand the role of translation and how Indian academics studies Dalit and Tribal literature. How Dalit and tribal literature are being translated into English increasingly to fulfill the demands of academics. What the pedagogic role of such literatures into Indian academic disciplines is.

To situate Dalit and Tribal literature in the disciplinary practice of Reading New Literature in English, this module discusses the characteristics of the discipline and such discipline does establish its approach towards such categories of literature. This module also focuses on the role of publishing houses in creating such category of literature into English. Not only that translation is understood here as a political act and activism of the writers and translators. This module also focuses on the role of aesthetic to read and criticize the Dalit and Tribal literature.

Reference

• About. n.d. 22 March 2017. <https://adivaani.org/about/>.
• Basu Tapan;. “Introduction.” Translating Caste. Ed. Tapan Basu. New Delhi: Katha, 2002. ix-x. Print.
• Chavan Dilip;. Emergence of Dalit Literature in Translation: Towards A CriticAL Theory. n.d. web. 22 March 2017. <http://drdilipchavan.blogspot.in/2011/09/dalit-literature-in-translation.html>.
• EN251            New            Literatures            in            English.            28            March            2017.            Electronic.
• <http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/english/currentstudents/undergraduate/modules/fulllist/special/ne wlits/>.
• Kandaswamy Meena;. “Translating and Teaching Dalit Texts.” Muse India 15 (2007). Web. 22 March 2017.
• <http://www.museindia.com/viewarticle.asp?myr=2007&issid=15&id=814>.
• New English Literatures and Cultural Studies. n.d. Electronic. 28 March 2017. <https://www.philhist.uni- augsburg.de/en/lehrstuehle/anglistik/nelk/>.
• Satyanarayana, K; Tharu, Susie;. “Dalit Writing: An Introduction.” The Excercise of Freedom: An Introduction to Dalit Writing. Ed. K Satyanarayana and Susie Tharu. New Delhi: Navayana, 2013. 7-12. Print.