EVENT
Reading the Indian novel
HIMANSU S. MOHAPATRA
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A comment on a recently held International Conference in Delhi.
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INDIAN novels are best read from the multiple perspectives of translation, comparative literature and critical theory. Translation — and specifically translation into English — ensures the text's existence as a pan-Indian, though not a unified, object. Comparative studies further diversify the putative unity of the nation. Critical theory proposes interpretative paradigms with which to shift literary boundaries. An international conference titled "The Literary View from Below", held in Delhi (January 3-5, 2007), brought the three perspectives to bear on Fakir Mohan Senapati's Oriya novel Chha Mana Atha Guntha. Well heralded by a special interpretative section in the EPW (November 2006), it was organised by the DCRC, Delhi University, FMS Project, USA and the South Asian Program, Cornell University.
At the heart of the rehabilitating exercise is the recovery of Senapati's amazing first novel through a cross-cultural and collaborative translation project. The English translation, while fraught with deep irony given the text's critique of the Raj, is also indispensable. The English-speaking world ought to know the depth and dimension of the "othering" that the British Rule perpetrated in Orissa in the 19th century. Conversely, all of us can learn from the unusually rich critique of social power in all its forms that Senapati's novel articulates. The critique permits the story of colonial modernity to be told differently.
Central question
The two panel discussions that flanked the conference addressed the central question of language in Indian literature. Senapati's novel, panelists such as Namwar Singh, Harish Trivedi, Manoranjan Mohanty, G.K. Das and Chaman Lal (Delhi), Amiya Dev (Kolkata), V. Narayan Rao and Satya P. Mohanty (U.S.) argued, was a play on languages. While Namwar Singh resisted the Bakhtinian implications of this thesis, all agreed that the novel could be read as a cautionary account of the process whereby a rich heteroglossia was giving way to an impoverished monolingualism, designated by the nationalist shift to the concept of the mother tongue.
Senapati's novel fitted perfectly into Rao's scheme of looking further back than the 19th century for a vision of an Indian literature without linguistic borders, a theme that Kavita Panjabi, drawing on her Sindhi background, later echoed. To Rao the novel along with Gurujada's Telugu play "Kanyasulkam", a new English rendering of which is due out shortly from Indiana University Press, was crucial to a quest for an alternative modernity, premised not on reform, as in Bankim and Tagore, but on a playful parody of all forms of domination. Satya P. Mohanty reiterated the theme during the closing panel. He further outlined the epistemic dimensions of the parody and satire employed in Senapati's novel by showing how they irradiated the view from below.
The four sessions of the conference demonstrated the triad of rubrics guiding the deliberations. Under the interpretative rubric Ananta Giri of the Madras Institute of Development Studies, Sachidnanda Mohanty of the University of Hyderabad and Diptiranjan Pattanaik of Utkal University read the decolonising agenda of the novel in terms as different as "transformative critique", "narrative irony" and a form of non-engagement best described as "upanishadic." The same interpretative lens focused on gender elicited sharply polarised views on Senapati's construction of woman. Bidyut Mohanty, Savita Singh and Yasodhara Mishra dwelt on Senapati's breaking of the feminine mystique through the projection of the stronger woman. Pragati Mahapatra, however, saw signs of a new patriarchy in Senapati's holding on to the angel-witch polarity.
If a central issue in translation studies is local cultural adaptation, then Senapati's novel justly exemplifies this. It not only travels across languages; it also freely mistranslates in an effort to localise. G.J.V. Prasad of JNU traced this pervasive practice as far back as the ancient Tamil text, Tolkapiyam, where it exists under the name, "mori-preyarti". The name catches the spirit if not the letter of translation as the word is understood today. It refers to "Tamilakam", the "infusion of the Tamil spirit into a deserving text", something that serves as an analogue for Senapati's "oriyanising." Sudish Pachauri of Delhi University ably showed that this quality carried across by reading from Nawalpuri's 1959 Hindi translation of the novel.
Treatment of law
The comparative rubric positioned Senapati's novel vis-à-vis Hemachandra Barua's Bahar Rangsang Bhitare Kuabhaduri, Kashibai Kanitkar's Rangaroo and Premchand's Godaan. Tillottama Mishra highlighted the similarity between Barua and Senapati in the matter of the treatment of law. Meera Kosambi and Himansu Mohapatra emphasised difference. The former made a case for the "reformist realism" of the first Marathi woman writer as opposed to the satiric realism of Senapati. The latter provided a differentiated analysis of realism, pitting the epistemic achievement of Senapati against the panoramic psychodrama of Premchand.
The conference, a fitting scholarly tribute to an exceptional creative work, thus set a new benchmark in comparative literature studies, even as it restored the Indian novel to the multilingual ethos in which it revels.
Himansu S. Mohapatra is a Professor of English at Utkal University, Bhubaneswar, Orissa.
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