About the Workshop: An Inside Look from Our Participants

Four participants have offered their insights about the workshop in short write-ups. Malabika weighs in on the criticality of translation in how we understand famines. Dhruvi gives an overview of the workshop and underscores the significance of performance traditions and practises for this project. Abhiri assesses the findings of the workshop from the vantage point of her research world of Dalit writing. And Aditi discusses the challenges of translating famine texts, the trauma and despair that need addressing, with the example of her chosen text. The pieces also reflect on the process of translating from South-Asian languages to English.

Gobardhan Ash, Bengal Famine (1943), Watercolour on Paper, Artwork from https://prinseps.com/

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Some Thoughts on Translating Panchasher Manwantar as the Bengal Famine of 1943

Malabika Biswas

Attending the workshop “Translating Bengal Famine of 1943/Translating Famine Texts” has been particularly thought-provoking for me. In my doctoral thesis on the Bengal Famine of 1943, I have already translated numerous famine texts for my analysis. However, I did not necessarily use tools of translation studies for my research. It has been enlightening to discover the relevance of translation as a methodological lens in my fields of inquiry. 

One of the key arguments of my doctoral thesis is that the cultural knowledge of the Famine of Bengal, produced and transformed over the years, was more dependent on the rhetorical meaning of the Famine rather than historical facts. Scrutiny of translation choices is an insightful exercise in this regard: I argue for the salience of the difference between the meanings of manwantar and aakaal/durbhikkho although all three words are usually translated as famine into English. Yet, the nuance is often lost in translation because manwantar has a bigger rhetorical scope, which refers to the time of disease, destruction, and death between two yuga (era) in Hindu mythology, whereas aakaal and durbhikkho mean a ‘bad time’ and ‘dearth of alms,’ hence food scarcity by implication, respectively. Although the aakaal or durbhikkho historically took place over a longer period across areas beyond Bengal, due to various colonial policies such as grain diversion, boat denial, hoarding for stationed troops, and so on; the memory and knowledge around the famine of 1943 were shaped through the urban people’s experience of the famine in the city. For urban folks, the event rhetorically became manwantar as they, as onlookers, saw the hungry masses invading the city in search of food. The experience of famine in the city for the urban population, who had access to food as part of the protection by the governmental policies, was that of witnessing: seeing and hearing the starving rural people begging for food in the city. The presence of hungry masses was perceived as an interruption in the city’s social life; thus, we have the recurring trope of social transformation evoked through the word manwantar. On the other hand, aakaal or durbhikkho was the physical experience that the rural people had undergone. Analyzing the construction of the rhetoric of manwantar through translation studies, it makes even more sense to call out the urban politics behind the formation of the discourse of the Bengal Famine.

There has been no dearth of translations of the famine texts in academia. However, in all those translated texts, the inattention to the difference between manwantar and aakaal or durbhikkho and innocently translating all the words into ‘famine’ results in overlooking the difference in experiences between two kinds of hunger. For rural masses, the experience of hunger was bodily suffering. For middle-class urban folks, on the contrary, the experience of hunger was through different sensorial encounters with the hungry. For them, it was visual when they saw the hungry people, it was auditory when they heard them crying and begging for food, it was olfactory when the city was smelling of diseased bodies and dead bodies. 

Overall, the workshop has been a crucial moment of realization: the translation of Panchasher Manwantar to the Bengal Famine of 1943 and the lack of an English word that can capture the rhetorical dimension and capacity of the word of manwantar has been of critical import for the conception of my thesis. 

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The Archival Impulse in Translation

Dhruvi Modi

Various conceptions of translation, language, text, famine, archives, and performance emerged during the three-day “Translating Famine Texts” workshop. The workshop comprised theoretical discussions on translation, specific discussions on the Bengal Famine and its representation in visual art, as well as the difference between translating verse and prose, a session on the decolonisation and digitisation of archives at the British Library and a suggestion of using local, public libraries and archives, a panel discussion that revealed interweaving and diverging conceptions of the archive, and finally a discussion of how archives reconstruct historical memory. In this reflective note, I will trace some ideas we developed surrounding the aforementioned terms.

In the field of translation studies, there has been a notable shift over the last few decades. Dr Hephzibah Israel spoke about how the focus is no longer just on how to translate, with considerations of language, convention, genre, literary form, and socio-historical context, but also on how texts function within networks of power and how power manifests in translated texts. This pushes us to rethink not only translation but also the text itself. Where can we locate power within the text? How do we think about the text: does it act as evidence, is it a representation of society, is it political? More specifically for this workshop, how do we think about famine texts, and what role does translation play in the construction of knowledge on famines? Who writes these texts and who publishes them? Why do they so often represent the perspective of the victims? The “power turn” aside, what texts do we engage with? Do we only consider texts on famine, or do we also include food scarcity at large? Do these texts have to be historical or do we also include imaginative texts? For instance, Dr Sharmila discussed at length Meena Kandasamy’s novel The Gypsy Goddess (2014), which is about the 1968 Kilvenmani massacre in which forty-four Dalit villagers were killed. The novel is not about a famine, but people do suffer from dire food scarcity in it. Famine then becomes not an event—as something commemorated as ‘the Bengal Famine’ signifies—but a condition of living. The theoretical discussion thus propelled us towards such questions about the text, famine, and power, which this project of translating famine texts will wrestle with.

The archive has long been a site of fascination not only for historians but across disciplines. There is the scientific approach wherein archives provide the truth and evidence, and in literature and philosophy, the archive is often a metaphor. And then there is the idea of the text itself as an archive. Dr Paulomi Chakraborty observed that the translation of texts from the past is itself an archival impulse, and archives can be sites of critical engagement with political implications in the present, as Dr Neilesh Bose noted. Using methods such as reading along the grain or against the grain of the archive—here the translated text—what knowledge could we produce? How might translation function in the archive, and what might it open or obscure? The workshop, a preface to the larger project, has led us thus towards a conception of the translated text as an archive that might, through its form and structure, produce configurations of power and/or extract interpretative knowledge.

Enter performance, which is of special interest to me. Dr Priyanka Basu’s book, which was discussed in a session adjoining the workshop, is about ‘kobigaan,’ a folk performance tradition prevalent in both India and Bangladesh. Dr Basu’s book, as we learnt, examines cultural memory and the social fabrication of authenticity of the form. This study, illuminating in its combined use of archives and an ethnographic approach, does not directly concern famine or translation, and yet the discussion fits right in with the larger workshop, particularly due to its rich methodological insights. We learn, as Dr Bose noted in his comments following the talk, that performance traditions can act as useful historical sources in academic scholarship. The work-in-progress translations presented by students included a variety of texts such as poetry, excerpts of short stories and novels, and newspaper advertisements, but what stood out for me were texts associated with performance traditions, such as excerpts from Bangla and Tamil plays and Haryanvi, Kannada, and Santali folk songs. Translation, then, of various texts, including performances, has the potential to unveil alternate histories about famine, as Dr Israel remarked, or at least bring forth voices and perspectives not heard before.

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Translation: Power, Agency, and Intervention

Abhiri Sanfui

This year, I had the opportunity to participate in a translation workshop organised as part of a collaborative project by Dr Paulomi Chakraborty from the HSS department of IIT Bombay, Dr Priyanka Basu from King’s College, London, and Dr Hepzibah Israel from the  University of Edinburgh. Held from 7 August to 9 August, the workshop initially focused on famine texts related to the Bengal Famine of 1943. Later, the discussions and engagements expanded to include various famines from across the country and timelines, exploring the plethora of socio-cultural contexts from which the famine texts emerged.  

As a researcher in Literary Studies working with Dalit women's writings in Bangla and English, which often involves translating texts ranging from prose, poetry, and short stories from Bangla to English, this workshop proved to be a productive intellectual exercise in honing my translation skills. It provided me with the chance to try hands-on translation exercises and also enlightened perspectives on the process and politics of translation as delivered by Dr Israel in her sessions. This was the first time I was exposed to the pedagogy of Translation Studies, where Dr Israel’s insight on the three nodes of power, agency, and intervention in translation including the concepts of  ‘domesticating,’ ‘foreignising,’  ‘fluency,’ and ‘invisibility’ provided a nuanced understanding of the field. 

One of the major takeaways from this workshop is the power dynamics embedded in the process of translation which deeply resonates with my work. Through this experience, I was able to sharpen my understanding of the relationship between the translator, the reader, the text, and the institutional matrix in which they all operate. In the elaborate discussions, I became more aware of the ethical choices and responsibilities of a translation/translator inherent in my project. Moreover, the workshop equipped me with several strategies to navigate various genres, target audiences, and socio-cultural and historical contexts, including linguistic components such as colloquialism, non-standard language, formal language, and informal language. 

Dr Sreejata Paul’s session on the difference between translating Bengali prose and verse was very insightful for my project. Her detailed presentation emphasised the techniques of maintaining the stylistic integrity of the genre and the text while translating them. Dr Chakraborty and Dr Paul both highlighted various approaches to translating Bangla texts across various genres, addressing the specificities such as the cultural nuances, collocations, and stylistic features of the language. The experience enhanced my comprehension of translation as a critical practice and equipped me with practical skills and theoretical insights to engage with the ethical and linguistic complexities of translating Dalit women’s writings. 

For the Translation Workshop, I chose an excerpt from the Bengali play Chhnera Tnar (Torn String) written by Tulshi Lahiry and directed by Sambhu Mitra. It is a three-act play that was produced by the Bohurupee theatre group in 1950. The play centres on a peasant family in North Bengal, depicting the arrival and aftermath of the Bengal famine in 1943. It poignantly portrays the shifting socio-economic crises and the strained marital relationship between Rahim and Phooljan. One of the noteworthy features of the play is that although the stage direction and expository text are written in standard Bangla which is influenced by the Rarhi dialect, the dialogues are written in a spoken dialect of northeastern Bengal, though we were not able to identify the specific dialect. This contrast adds a distinct regional texture to the writing, demonstrating the linguistic diversity within Bengal. Therefore, keeping the essence of the dialect and preserving the linguistic heterogeneity were some of the translation challenges that I came across. For instance, royagara, a vernacular term, or phrases like royagara shara poirchhe,  a dialectic expression related to the sowing season, were particularly difficult to convey in English. Literal translation proved insufficient to retain the contextual and dialectal nuances faithfully. For legible translation, I had to take the liberty to change/simplify the grammatical setting of the source text.

The Bangla language is rich in duplication of verbal forms to indicate continuation or repeated occurring, such as boshte boshte (loosely meaning “while sitting”) and dakte dakte (loosely meaning “while calling”) which I found to be challenging to be appropriately translated with its rhythmic essence. One of the primary learnings from this workshop experience was recognizing the complex interplay between language and the cultural context in the act of translation. This was evident in finding suitable equivalents for Bangla onomatopoeic expressions like dhumdham and tungtang and exclamatory words such as dhyat and achha bojjat. 

Overall, the translation workshop was enriching. It provided invaluable insights into the diverse translation strategies and dilemmas across languages, providing a particular methodology to approach famine texts from different linguistic regions of the country. 

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Translating Trauma: A Reflection on Annadata and the Challenges of Conveying History

Aditi Behl

In August 2024, I attended the workshop “Translating Famine”, where I had the opportunity to translate Annadata (The Giver of Grains), a short story by Krishna Chander published in 1946. This piece is widely recognised as one of the finest examples of modern Urdu literature, capturing the harrowing reality of the Bengal Famine of 1943. The story’s depiction of the famine and its impact on landless peasants, juxtaposed with the power and privilege of landlords, forms the core of Chander’s narrative. My translation journey with Annadata was both interesting and challenging, mostly due to the deep reflection on the complexities of conveying trauma and historical weight through language.

Translating Despair

The excerpt I selected was written in the first person, narrated by a character on the brink of death. This perspective infuses the language with an urgency and darkness that I was determined to retain in my translation. Chander's tone reflects the despair of the time, and his direct style demanded a translation that was both clear and emotionally resonant. My challenge was to preserve the topical morbidity without overloading the English version with heavy-handed or exaggerated language. I found that sometimes subtlety could convey the same depth of emotion, and I strove to strike that balance in my work.

One striking feature of Chander’s prose is his use of directional phrases that capture the reader’s attention and draw them deeper into the narrative’s grim reality. Phrases like “Oh, where are you headed?”, “Please stay,” and “Don't go” punctuate the original text, guiding the reader through the dismal landscape of the narrator’s experience. In my translation, I worked to replicate this effect, using equivalent English phrases that maintained the same sense of immediacy and desperation. However, Hindi tends to use a lot of repetitive phrases, which sounded awkward in English, so I went on to use a variety of phrases.

Historical and Linguistic Complexities

Another challenge I faced in the translation process was the historical and linguistic distance between the original text and the modern reader. Annadata was written in the 1940s, and the language bears the marks of that time. Certain words in the Hindi version, like paniri (nursery plants) and khaalis (pure), are rarely used today. These terms carry cultural and historical weight that a contemporary reader might not immediately grasp. I did my best to translate these phrases while preserving their context in the footnotes. However, this led to another difficulty: managing the length of the footnotes. I had to decide to avoid overwhelming the reader with footnotes that might take up three-quarters of a page, filled with cultural and contextual background.

Moreover, the original text lacks conventional punctuation in places, a stylistic choice that contributes to its poetic and metaphorical form. Was this Chander’s intentional move to capture the fragmented, chaotic nature of famine, or was it simply reflective of an older style of Hindi writing? Without a definitive answer, I chose to preserve this ambiguity in the translation, opting for a more literal approach while highlighting terms and phrases I found challenging. This literal approach sometimes clashed with my desire to restore the poetic and symbolic essence of Chander’s writing. How do we maintain the fluidity of poetry when dealing with the rigid structures of a different language? I grappled with these questions as I worked, striving to find a balance between staying faithful to the original and making the text accessible and meaningful for a contemporary audience.

Translating the Famine: A Struggle to Convey Trauma Across Languages

Translating Krishna Chander’s Annadata, a story about the Bengal Famine of 1943, was about confronting the trauma and historical weight embedded in the text. The story’s brutal depiction of famine, with its scenes of starvation and moral collapse, was emotionally taxing to translate. One particular moment stood out: the narrator’s cynical portrayal of young girls being sold for food. The girls are referred to as maal (goods), a term that reduces them to objects, carrying a deep cultural and derogatory meaning that was hard to capture in English. 

In Hindi, maal is loaded with historical and emotional resonance, reflecting a society’s desperation under the weight of starvation. My struggle lay in finding an English equivalent that preserved the transactional reality of the original without losing its complexity with the word merchandise.  This challenge underscored for me the limits of translation, particularly when language is so closely tied to a specific cultural and historical context. I decided to focus on preserving the tone, evoking the anger and despair of the original.

The Bengal Famine itself became a crucial part of the translation process. Understanding the socio-political context of 1943 and the mass starvation, an outcome of colonial policy, helped me grasp the full impact of the narrative. During the workshop, discussions and talks, such as Dr Malabika Biswas’s "Hungry in the City," profoundly deepened my understanding of the Bengal Famine of 1943 and will influence my approach to further translating Annadata. I am not poised to see how the text isn’t just about individual suffering but is an indictment of societal failure. This awareness will influence my translation, pushing me to preserve the story’s political undertones and its critique of a society that views the hungry as outsiders. Translating famine and trauma, I learnt, is an act of ethical responsibility. It is not about simplifying or domesticating the source material but about respecting the voices of those who endured unimaginable suffering. 

The Workshop and the Archive

The workshop provided a deep dive into translation’s complex relationship with historical memory and archival work, particularly through the talks by Priyanka Basu and Hephzibah Israel. Their discussion on the constructed nature of archives reshaped my understanding of translation, not merely as a linguistic exercise but as an engagement with history itself. They highlighted how archives are not neutral, stable sources but are selective constructs, shaped by choices about what to preserve and what to omit. This raises questions about how translation scholars can critically engage with these constructed narratives and the silences within them, especially when dealing with historical contexts like the Bengal Famine of 1943.

One key takeaway from the workshop was the idea of creating a project that extends beyond individual translations, perhaps a comprehensive database of famine literature across different languages, which all the participants took part in. This would not only provide a broader understanding of the historical context but would also allow scholars and readers to explore the various perspectives and narratives that arose from the same event. The archival focus of the workshop also raised questions about the gaps and silences in historical records, especially regarding translation. How do we account for what is missing: the voices that were not preserved, the stories that were never translated, or the experiences that were deemed unimportant by historical gatekeepers? Ultimately, the workshop expanded my view of translation. It is not merely about bridging languages but about engaging critically with history, understanding how narratives are constructed, and questioning the power dynamics that shape them. It reinforced the idea that translation can be a transformative act, one that brings hidden or marginalised stories to light, allowing them to speak after a fashion across cultures and time.