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Tanweer Alam Mazhari teaches in the Department of English, Ramakrishna Mission Vidyamandira, a college under Calcutta University. After working in the field of modern British drama (his M. Phil Dissertation was on Harold Pinter) he has shifted his attention to Urdu Studies. Presently he is working on a few 19th century Urdu texts which are central to the understanding of Urdu-centric cultural group's interface with the cultural tradition of the empire. e-mail: teemazhari@yahoo.com

Abstract

The translational relationship between Urdu and English can be traced back to the first formal contact between the British and the Indians on Indian soil. The institutionalised interaction, however, began only with the establishment of College of Fort William in Calcutta in 1800. It marked the beginning of a cultural interface which led to a major shift in literary attitudes in Urdu. Khwaja Altaf Husain Hali's Muqaddama Sh'ir-o Sh'airi (1890), a critical treatise on poetry which attempts to formulate a new poetics, is a product of his encounters, solely through translations as he knew no English, with the English literary tradition. Hali's success, even if limited, in transplanting the western literay precepts and practices in an alien but receptive milieu is translation in a wider sense.

Translations can be taken as one of the reliable indicators of the nature of cultural transactions that take place between or amongst various cultural groups or speech communities. Whether the relationship is one of equality or of dominance can be, more or less, correctly gauged by the volume and the direction of the translated traffic between the concerned groups or communities. However, these apparently valid generalizations are open to many qualifications if the languages involved are English and one of the bhasas, necessitated, as is obvious, by the unique position that English occupies in colonial and postcolonial India's cultural configurations. These and other related issues are sure to arise in any discussion on the translational relationship that exists between Urdu and English.

The beginning of this relationship can be traced back to the first formal contact between the English and the Indians on Indian soil. Sir Thomas Roe during his presence at the Mughal court between 1615 and 1618 must have interacted with the same cultural group, the Mughal elite or the ashraf, which, though Persian-speaking, was slowly adopting Urdu as a language of preference. This was, however, an isolated and brief encounter and one has to wait for nearly two centuries for an institutionalized interaction between the two languages. It was at the College of Fort William in Calcutta, established in 1800 for preparing textbooks for the British civilians that the scholars of Urdu worked in collaboration with the British. Mir Amman, brought from Delhi to work as a translator at the College, produced his classic Bagh-o Bahar, a translation of the Persian text Qissa-i Chahar Darvish under the supervision of John Gilchrist, Professor of Hindustani at the College of Fort William. This marks the beginning of Urdu prose though scholars are divided on the importance of its role in the development of the main current of Urdu prose. The other institution that brought Urdu and English closer was Delhi College. Started in 1702, the College, originally established for the study of Arabic and Persian, had an English class attached to it in 1828. It was under the aegis of this College that the Vernacular Translation Society, the first formal body to translate and publish English books into Urdu, was established in 1843. Muhammad Sadiq, the noted historian of Urdu literature, has described the College as "the foremost interpreter of the genius of the West" (Mohanty 1984: 315).

The first Urdu literary text to be translated into English was Bagh-o Bahar or Qissa-i Chahar Darvish. Lewis Ferdinand Smith translated this Urdu classic by Mir Amman Dehlavi in 1841/1845.1 Though there is no definite information on the first English literary text to be translated into Urdu, it can be affirmed on the basis of many references to organized translation activities from English to Urdu in the nineteenth century that Urdu-English literary and cultural interface through translations was not altogether a unidirectional one. In fact many Urdu writers, including Khwaja Altaf Husain Hali (1836-37 to 1914), whose book is my point of reference, came in contact with Western literary and cultural traditions through Urdu translations of English texts as they knew no English. Apart from the Vernacular Translation Society of Delhi there was the Punjab Book Depot, an arm of Anjuman-e Punjab (founded in 1865), established with the object of translating English texts into Urdu and publishing them. It was during his employment with Punjab Book Depot in the 1870's as an assistant translator (his job was to correct Urdu translations made from English) that Hali had his encounter with a wide range of English literary texts.

From these early encounters in the colonial era the interface between the two literary traditions through translations has continued even after the end of the Empire, though their frequency may have varied from regular to occasional. The 1970's, however, saw a significant growth in the translation of Urdu texts into English. Mirza Ghalib's centenary celebrations in 1969-70 probably gave a big fillip to these translation activities. As many as eleven English translations of Ghalib's poetry appeared between 1969 and 1975. This proved infectious and other important Urdu poets and writers were translated into English. Among them Krishan Chandar stands out as ten of his fictional works were translated between 1968 and 1975. Many translated anthologies of Classical Urdu poetry came out during this period. The most comprehensive one was Classical Urdu Poetry, edited by M. A. R. Barker and Shah Abdul Salem, and published in 1977 from New York. The collection anthologized as many as thirty-four poets beginning with Quli Qutub Shah and coming up to Muhammad Iqbal. It may be mentioned in passing that the 1970's saw a spurt in English translations not only of Urdu literature but also of other major Indian literatures. Since a majority of the translators were Indians it was seen by many as breaking "the barrier between one Indian literature and another . . ." (Mohanty 1984: viii).

The remarkable translational harvest of Urdu literature in the English language created the right platform for a new area of specialized study to appear on the academic scene, generally referred to as Urdu Studies. This new discipline, offered as part of South Asian Studies in various universities, found adherents on both sides of the Atlantic and elsewhere. Scholars and translators from SOAS and the various American universities showed great vigour and enthusiasm in disseminating Urdu literature's rich harvest to the English-speaking readership. In fact, the translation activities in the 1980's and thereafter were not confined to the literary texts alone as books dealing with the cultural life of the Urdu-speaking people, predominantly but not exclusively Muslim, were also taken up for translation. The most notable example of such a cultural text is Behisti Zevar, a manual for a newly married Muslim woman compiled by Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanawi (1864-1943) and given till recently as part of her dowry. This manual was translated by Barbara Metcalf as Perfecting Women in 1990. If one looks at the recent crop of translations one is surprised by the variety of the translated texts and the large number of translators and scholars at work. The old team of Russell and Khurshid ul Islam has been joined by C. M. Naim, Frances Pritchett, Gail Minault, Muhammad Umar Memon, Christopher Shackle, Javed Majeed and Laurel Steele. The list remains incomplete as new names are being added each passing day.

Such frenzied translation activities are sure to make one euphoric. But this is just one side of the story. The other side, the number of translations from English to Urdu, necessary for sustaining its vigour and freshness, is not such a happy one. Such translations in recent times have been few and far between. There is neither an institutionalized set-up for its creation nor a ready market for its consumption. The lack of individual initiatives has further compounded the problem. A few literary journals like the Shabkhoon do publish Urdu translations from other languages but they do not go beyond a short story or a few poems. This gives an unhealthy twist to the cultural transactions between Urdu and English and disturbing questions regarding the nature of the relationship are sure to be raised. The spectre of neocolonialism may appear more and more real.

What accounts for the kind of interest Western scholars and translators have in Urdu literary and cultural texts? Is it a manifestation of the Anglo-American West's acceptance of the fact of multiculturalism? Or, is it a refashioning of the old interest in the oriental exotica? Or, is it sheer ennui with the Self which turns the gaze to the significant Other? As of now we have to remain satisfied with framing these questions for the answers are perhaps still in the process of making.

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