The Hindu : Centre to help set up translation board

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Tuesday, Feb 19, 2002

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National

Centre to help set up translation board

By Our Special Correspondent

The Vice-President, Krishan Kant, the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, and the Nobel laureate, V.S. Naipaul, at the inaugural ceremony of the International Festival of Indian Literature, in New Delhi on Monday. — Photo: S. Arneja

NEW DELHI, FEB. 18. "Filled with despair'' at the problems faced by authors writing in native Indian languages, the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, today said the Government was prepared to support the setting up of a National Translation Board for Indian Literature to give non-English writing of the country its rightful place in the sun.

Inaugurating the six-day `International Festival of Indian Literature' here, Mr. Vajpayee said such a Board had been suggested by certain quarters to make good literature in one Indian language available to readers in other languages including English. Apart from promising support for such an initiative, the Prime Minister also expressed preparedness to "sympathetically look into the problems faced by publishers of good Indian literature in non-English languages''.

Of the view that the festival was being organised at a time when "India is going through a fascinating phase of transition'', Mr. Vajpayee said the "ever-changing present'' provided a fertile ground for literary energy and expression. Citing globalisation as a component of this transitory phase, he asserted that "good literature cannot be without a purpose''. This, he said, also underlined the need for ensuring that the writer had "untrammelled freedom to explore and express life as he or she sees it''. "Pre-empted'' by the Prime Minister in what he had to say, last year's Nobel laureate for literature, V.S. Naipaul, sought to steer the festival away from celebrating the antiquity of Indian literature -- as was the case with speakers who preceded him -- to rejoicing the dynamism of its modern incarnation. Toasting Indian literature of the day, he said the writings of the recent past had given India a "true idea of itself''.

With Indian writing in English finding recognition worldwide, the problems faced by authors writing in other Indian languages dominated the inaugural session. While Sir Naipaul fleetingly brought it up -- stating that there was little that could be done by writers to change the situation -- the Vice-President, Krishan Kant, said there was a need to create channels of communication to facilitate their movement into the larger world "where they will find new readers, engage with new thoughts and new ideas, and enrich as well as be enriched by changing literary mores''.

Titled "At Home in the World'', the festival is being billed as the first such event which has brought authors -- representing India's linguistic diversity and the Indian Diaspora -- under one roof to discuss issues that confront them and the place of Indian writing in the world. An initiative of the Indian Council of Cultural Relations, the festival has the support of the Sahitya Akademi, the British Council, the High Commission of Canada, the Embassy of France, the Embassy of the United States of America and the Ford Foundation, besides a host of private sponsors.

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