Reading Gandhi in two tongues
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Tridip Suhrud
Abstract
Language was important to Mahatma Gandhi. He wanted to make spoken and written language so simple as to be understood by workers in the field, yet he also wanted to explore the possibility of expressing the most complex philosophical notions through language. Although aware of the limitations of his facility with Gujarati, he wrote his most important works in this language, and also supervised their translations into English. His awareness of the importance of language made him particularly conscious of problems of translation, and this was borne out by his own experiences translating Tolstoy and Ruskin into Gujarati and rendering his own philosophical text Hind Swaraj into English. This paper examines Gandhi’s own translations and the translations of his works that he supervised and authenticated, so as to gain an understanding of the process through which he moved between languages and philosophical discourses to convey the originality of his thought and practice to the world.
Abstract
Language was important to Mahatma Gandhi. He wanted to make spoken and written language so simple as to be understood by workers in the field, yet he also wanted to explore the possibility of expressing the most complex philosophical notions through language. Although aware of the limitations of his facility with Gujarati, he wrote his most important works in this language, and also supervised their translations into English. His awareness of the importance of language made him particularly conscious of problems of translation, and this was borne out by his own experiences translating Tolstoy and Ruskin into Gujarati and rendering his own philosophical text Hind Swaraj into English. This paper examines Gandhi’s own translations and the translations of his works that he supervised and authenticated, so as to gain an understanding of the process through which he moved between languages and philosophical discourses to convey the originality of his thought and practice to the world.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- Foreword ix
- Introduction 1
- Caste in and Recasting language 17
- Translation as resistance 29
- Tellings and renderings in medieval Karnataka 43
- Translating tragedy into Kannada 57
- The afterlives of panditry 75
- Beyond textual acts of translation 95
- Reading Gandhi in two tongues 107
- Being-in-translation 119
- (Mis)Representation of sufism through translation 133
- Translating Indian poetry in the Colonial Period in Korea 145
- A. K. Ramanujan 161
- An etymological exploration of ‘translation’ in Japan 175
- Translating against the grain 195
- Index 213
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- Foreword ix
- Introduction 1
- Caste in and Recasting language 17
- Translation as resistance 29
- Tellings and renderings in medieval Karnataka 43
- Translating tragedy into Kannada 57
- The afterlives of panditry 75
- Beyond textual acts of translation 95
- Reading Gandhi in two tongues 107
- Being-in-translation 119
- (Mis)Representation of sufism through translation 133
- Translating Indian poetry in the Colonial Period in Korea 145
- A. K. Ramanujan 161
- An etymological exploration of ‘translation’ in Japan 175
- Translating against the grain 195
- Index 213
