Translation - the management tool for administrators in India: a brief analysis

Being fascinated with language and cultural diversities is a habit, which, according to many of us is normal!  But what is the use of this fascination in today’s world? My ten year long association with software service industry supports my revolutionary idea – “ideally we should not use natural language in life at all. Even if we do, that should be replaced by codes. Ideally, we should be able to communicate among team members as well as with the clients in codes only. So in course of time, symbols like blockquote, \ ; shift ; <>; endshift etc. should communicate our intended speeches without sentences inserted into these – we don’t need to spend so much time and effort in learning and applying natural languages and placing those between the tags! I was trying to imagine the bright future of industries when Decision-makers and Employees would stop communicating in natural language and use only codes if urgent. I think client relationship will also enter into an upgraded phase with no communication or with coded communication. We will produce all tele-commercials without human dialogues – leading to huge cost cutting! And oldies like me will have a scope of enjoying silent movies as we did eighty years back”.

Jokes apart, if we go through the history of human civilizations, all empires, those were successfully managed for a considerable amount of time, were based on the strong foundation of excellent administrative communication channels and understanding of people’s cultural identities by the rulers. Let’s take recent examples from India. In the last thousand years, Moguls reigned during a considerable sixteenth century to mid-eighteenth century period over India. This was followed successfully by the British over almost two centuries (officially for about hundred years). Was it all because the rulers in both cases used to apply force notoriously and nothing else? Let’s take a deeper look.

Mogul courts, especially at the time of Akbar and Darashukoh, eldest son of ShahJahan, included good number of Brahmin and Jain scholars along with their Persian counterparts. What they were doing there? One major activity of these scholars was: translation!!!! It sounds impossible in this era of technological advancement that educated people would engage themselves in an activity called translation; but true, all the scriptures and available folk-tales in the country were translated into Persian, the language of fine culture and administration at that era, which made the texts readable to the non-Hindi, non-Sanskrit speaking administrators and law makers. Akbar was especially fond of folk-tales in his childhood. In fact, listening fables and folklore was an entertainment to him in his later life as well. Besides, he was interested in religious and philosophic discussions, which obviously provided him good understanding of the cultural backgrounds of people he had to manage here. So, on the one hand, the group of Islamic, Hindu, Jew, Jain or Sikh pundits, present in his court, continued informing him regarding religious and social beliefs, practices and philosophy of his vast and versatile Indian subjects, and on the other, started translating important Indian texts into Persian which found its patron again in DaraShukoh. 

Mogul emperors arranged a set-up suitable for a translation department. The scriptorium or Maktabkhana was the office, where translators used to sit with their books, script-writers and writing materials. Writing was not necessarily the work for all translators at that time, many of them used to dictate, registering which was the writer’s task. In the first tier of the translation task, texts were divided into three categories: 1) Scriptures, 2) Folklore 3) Miscellaneous. Second tier was selecting texts for translation. Moguls had two methods for selecting texts to be translated – on the basis of the emperor’s test and personal preference and on the basis of popularity of some literature. Multilingual titling was practiced. Emperors used to take translators along during their journey outside Delhi – not only to work as interpreters but also as storytellers and advisers who could tell a lot about the new place and its people. Akbar preferred a literary translation than the rhetoric one in order to maintain the translated version as close as possible to original – so that the translations could retain the cultural context of the text. That is the reason, Razmnama, the Persian translation of Mahabharatam starts with a traditional Ganesh Vandana instead of traditional Islamic invocation to Allah. 

This way, from 1575 onwards, the Sanskrit texts translated into Persian included the Epics, Ramayanam and Mahabharatam, scriptures as Atharavaveda, Rajatarangini - the most valued and only available history of Kashmir, numerous fables and folklore as well as treaties on Maths and astronomy – most notable of which is Lilavati. 

Akbar commissioned the translations of Hamzanahma, the story of conflict between good and evil. Leelavati, the treaties of mathematics written in Sanskrit by Bhaskara, was translated by Faizi, again being commissioned by the emperor. During a camping in Kanauj, he came to know of a book 'Singhasan Battisi' – a collection of 32 stories depicting king Vikramjit of Malwa. This chain of folk tales fascinated Akbar enough to immediately call his translator and appoint a local Sanskrit pundit to help in the task. The translated version was named 'Nama i Khirad Afza'. Another important one of this genre was Panchatantra – the great Indian collection of fables composed by a person called Vishnusharma, as believed. We do not know the exact time when this was first translated into  Arabic or Persian languages and gained popularity in Islamic world –– but two versions were available in 15th/16^th century Islamic world - Arabic one “Kalila wa Dimna” and the Persian one “Anwar i Suhaili”. The Mogul court library collected the Persian version, but Anwar i Suhaili was considered to be composed in a heavily ornamental language in Akbar’s India. Hence, Abul Fazl, the court historian and philosophical advisor of the emperor simplified it to “Iyar i Danish”. Another version was prepared by translating it directly from Sanskrit or probably using the Jain text by Mustafa Khaliqdad Abbasi, again during Akbar’s regime. The reason of translating it directly from Sanskrit was manifold. Arabic and the Old Persian text were not understandable to all due to the ornamental literary language used in those compositions. Secondly, Islamic world, while adopting the text as a book, had to make the changes to original to suit it to the Islamic concept of morality, which was not at all same to the understanding of morals by the Hindu world Akbar was ruling. Therefore, it was obvious for Akbar to get it translated from the original again to extract the essence originally produced in the ancient Hindu world. 

Translating Mahabharatam was an elaborate and critical task, taken up during Akbar’s regime. It was translated phase by phase.  As an epic developed through the ages with additions from different parts of the country, it had already taken the shape of a flowing river with many branches. The several layers of stories, sometime very loosely connected to the main plot, sometimes woven in verses with double-meaning, represent varying moralistic and philosophic concepts prevalent in various geographies in Indian peninsula in varying periods – sometime even contradictory to each other! Direct translation, as the emperor always desired, was not possible due to the complexity of the original; and even if was done so, some stories could reveal moralistic standard that could not be anyway acceptable by the emperor and his imperial policy. While performing this task as translator, Badauni even brought himself into the danger to face the emperor’s rage for bringing some ‘immoral’ concept in the stories (How come one woman could have five husbands?). The other translators who took part in the whole process of converting Mahabharatam to 'Razmnama' (Martial Epic) included Mulla Shiri, Naqib Khan, Sheikh Faizi, Haji anesari Munfarid  as well as Sanskrit scholars Devi Mishra, Madsudhan Mishra, Satvadhani and Chaturbhuj. 

While continuing Akbar’s legacy, Dara arranged more number of translation of Sanskrit texts into Persian. During his time, task of translating of Sanskrit texts into Persian reached its peak as he was open-minded patron of translation projects believing in religious and cultural synthesis in the region. Deeply influenced by Sufi tradition, he was trying to find a common philosophical language for Islam and Hinduism. His literary activities included both writing and patronizing translations. He could not survive the hatred of his fundamentalist brother who brought Mogul empire towards disaster with his sheer misunderstanding of people and over-dependence on power-politics, but his contribution within a 44 year lifetime included the translation of all fifty Upanishadas, which was entitled Sirr-i-Akbar or the “Grand secret”, and also the translated versions of Yoga Vashishtha (translated by Habib Allah) and Prabodhchadroday (translated by Wali Ram), a philosophical drama. The task of translating Upanishadas, the storehouse of Hindu Vedanta-philosophy revealing the oneness of God, was completed in six months under the supervision of scholars brought from Banaras.

                                                           

British imperial rulers officially started calling themselves as ruler of the “empire” in India only from 1858. But as all of us know – in reality, British empirical rule in India started as early as in 1700 with the downfall of Aurangzeb in Delhi and Siraj-ud-Daulah in Bengal, both organizers of powerful armed forces, by the merchants of the East-India Company in India. We will not discuss East-India Company’s business strategies, political aggression, and continuous struggle to stay in the ruler’s role and the way they gained support from Indian aristocracy here – those are well discussed in history books – but the most important phenomenon of this period we tend to overlook is the persistent interest of the ruling class in exploring the culture of the land ruled over – again through translation, which none of Aurangzeb and Siraj-ud-Daulah was interested in. 

Well, there was a difference between translation activities taken up in Mogul and British regime. Under Moguls, translation was solely a task sponsored predominantly by ruling class whereas during British regime, translation task was also taken up by their Indian subjects as a medium of self-expression, probably to protect cultural identity as a separate nation against the more aggressive and intense cultural invasion by the rulers which took the responsibility of not only ruling but also ‘civilizing’ the ‘uncivilized’ Indian nation as their sacred duty. Sanskrit, being an elitist and mostly written language, lost its importance as medium of communication long back. Persian and Arabic was not acceptable to the majority of Indians while regional languages were already in a developed form at the time of Islamic invasion. Islamic rulers also did not intervene much into common people’s regular lifecycle, unless encounters were essential for extending territories or tax-collection. India, then Hindustan, did not have a concept of ‘nation’ but a large territory inhabited by people of different racial identities following religions of polytheistic nature which were very much dominated by local social moralistic traits. Naturally, religions here did play no role or very little role in “nation building”. This concept of harmonized but asymmetrical “Hindustani” existence experienced its first threat from the standardized and race-conscious western civilization dominated by a monotheistic religion. Indian aristocrats, who did also participate in handling administration under Islamic rulers earlier, did learn English very fast as new official language of the country, mostly in order to adapt themselves to the new work-environment established by the new rulers. But coming in touch with this new concept of racial supremacy guided by monotheistic religion and single nation also created the concern of losing cultural identity. Probably this challenge was the reason behind Rammohan Ray’s translating Shankara and Kena and Ishopanishat into English, which made English critics and scholars acknowledge the existence of a ‘civilized’ Indian (Oriental) world having a single supreme God some thousand years back. We have more instances of translation activities by Indians during this era of course, but let’s talk about this in some later occasion.

English, as language did not take much time to be accepted in India as common language of communication. Main reason – we guess, is the absence of any common Indian language before. As already discussed, practicing Sanskrit was never permitted to all; Persian or Arabic was foreign language which also became the language of aristocracy, development of Hindi was confined within the boundary of Northern India; and every region had its own language and literary culture which obviously was not very suitable for British administrative purpose. Hence, introduction of own language as the most suitable and superior one became urgent. We find the tone of urgency in the famous Macaulay’s Minute in1835. (Available over internet! -  http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00generallinks/macaulay/txt_minute_education_1835.html)

Well, Macaulay might have expressed the idea “a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia” but note the previous lines –“I have no knowledge of either Sanscrit or Arabic. But I have done what I could to form a correct estimate of their value. I have read translations of the most celebrated Arabic and Sanscrit works.” – pointing out that the most celebrated Indian and Arabic literary works were already translated in English by then!

Why not? Warren Hastings, the infamously accused Governor General of Bengal (1772- 1785) with corruption charges, was a big patron of translation activities. In fact, contrary to Macaulay, he believed that British rule in India would be more successful by sympathetically treating the local culture and traditions here. He himself spent good amount of his time in India studying local literature; engaged actively in understanding translations of those during his preliminary years in Bengal during early 1750s. Hasting’s understanding and interest in Indian cultural studies, though not much praised by all his counterparts in England at that time, helped him achieve the sought after success for the empire as he came back as Governor-General of Bengal in 1773. The ruler, having a great respect for the ancient scripture of Hinduism was successful in engaging local Brahmin scholars in interpreting Hindu legal system and synchronizing the British administrative system with this. His simple and precise  “Judicial Plan of  India” 1772, unambiguously states its purpose - "all suits regarding the inheritance, marriage, caste and other religious usages, or institutions, the laws of the Koran with respect to Mohametans and those of the Shaster with respect to Gentoos shall be invariably adhered to." Both the foundations of Madrasa Aliya in 1781 for the study of the Arabic and Persian languages and Muslim Law and Bengal Asiatic Society in 1784 as a storehouse (database archive?) for the subcontinent’s cultural information were Hasting’s planned stepping stones of British Empire in India. Obviously Sir William Jones, Henry Thomas Colebrooke and Nathaniel Halhed, the group of philologists and grammarians were the main pillars of success here. 

The first translation by William Jones was not any Sanskrit scripture though! His translation debut was “Histoire de Nader-Chah”, the French translation of the Persian work Ta'rikh-i-Nadiri by Mirza Mehdi Khan Astarabadi. Jones was already a celebrated orientalist, who had published “The Grammar of the Persian language”, having in-depth knowledge of Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Persian, Arabic, French, Chinese, German and Russian, Spanish and Italian, among others by the time he arrived India in 1783 being appointed as a Puisne Judge of the Old Supreme Court. His next ten years were spent in establishing Asiatic Society, learning Sanskrit and giving birth of two subjects of studies -  “Comparative linguistics” and “Indo-European studies” as well as preparing his famous discourses on oriental studies -  the prelude and interlude of oriental art, science, history, commerce, literature, sociology and geography composed in English.

He was a prodigy linguist with passion for working on Eastern part of the globe. Notable is, East-India Company did not take time to recognize this genius at the time they needed him the most! No wonder almost all our British administrators were well versed in Indology post Jones era. Now, if we take a look of Jones’s nature of work in India, his memorandum, prepared in the very beginning of his India visit suggests that he already had a clear idea of what he wanted to do – it’s studying a part of the globe. He studied languages – but it was a tool for him to understand the world, as John Shore, Jones’s successor in Asiatic Society correctly explained : "But the judgement of Sir William Jones was too discerning to consider language in any other light than as the key of science, and he would have despised the reputation of a mere linguist. Knowledge and truth, were the object of all his studies, and his ambition was to be useful to mankind; with these views, he extended his researches to all languages, nations, and times." Jone’s memorandum, which he prepared before arriving in India bears the evidence which includes:  the laws of the Hindus and Mahomedans; the history of the ancient world; proofs and illustrations of scripture; traditions concerning the deluge; modern politics and geography of Hindusthan; Arithmatic and Geometry and mixed sciences of Asiaticks; Medicine, Chemistry, Surgery and Anatomy of the Indians; natural products of India; poetry, rhetoric and morality of Asia; music of the Eastern nations; the best accounts of Tibet and Kashmir; trade, manufactures, agriculture and commerce of India: Mughal constitution, Marhatta constitution etc.

But why was the linguist brought to India as a judge? In fact, establishing an adequate judicial system which would be abided by the subjects on their own will was the first challenge to East India Company and this needed an urgent attention to fulfill the dream of ruling India. Till the time they established stronghold over most of Indian peninsula, they already faced enough cultural resistance from the inhabitants, making them understand very well, that there would be no other option to rule a well-educated country but to provide them better inclusive administration; establishing a popular judicial system being the foundation. No wonder English legal system was tailor made for India – Jones’s legal encyclopedia “Al Sirajiyyah or the Mohammedan Law of Inheritance: With a Commentary” and “Institutes of Hindu law, or, The ordinances of Menu, according to the gloss of Cullúca : comprising the Indian system of duties, religious and civil : verbally translated from the original Sanskrit was completed in 1792 and 1794 respectively. Well, when the country had a reputed legal system or couple of well-accepted legal systems already working since two thousand years at least, the best option was to translate the prevailing legal literature at first, and then customizing the new legal system so that it becomes culturally acceptable to subjects. British as colonialists were probably the best readers of the kaleidoscopic view of Indian civilization.

What else but language can be the best tool to read a culture? Jones did learn Sanskrit after arriving in India, not only because of passion – but to read India, to know India “better than any other European knew it” and probably also to remove the danger of being influenced by the “biased” Indian Pundits. Reference from a letter of Jones written to Charles Wilkins (the first translator of Bhagabadgita and Dharmashastras into English) – “It is of the utmost importance, that the stream of Hindu law should be pure; for we are entirely at the devotion of the native lawyers, through our ignorance of Sanscrit” – is good example of a learning language for a cause.  Whatever the reason is, Jones not only learnt Sanskrit but also translated (1789) Kalidas’s AbhijnanShakuntalam, a masterpiece of Indian literary history, which also became the medium of interpreting Indian philosophy to European scholars – not only in England but also to the scholars like Goethe and Herder and Max-Mueller in Germany. His projects with Sanskrit literary translation included Jayadeva's Geetagovindam (1789) and editing Ritusamhara (1792) – both representing of Hindu folk way of love and passion in coherence with natural phenomenon. Jones also translated a Persian literary work “Laila Majnu” – again a folk love story which talks about people, in other word “commoners” –the main component of the country ruled over!

Learning languages and translating text was obligatory to Jones in order to understand the culture foreign to Europeans. Refer to the preface of “Grammar of the Persian Language” by Jones -   “A variety of causes, which need not be mentioned here, gave the English nation a most extensive power in that kingdom. Our Indian company began to take under their protection the princes of the country, by whose protection they gained their first settlement; a number of important affairs were to be transacted in peace and war between nations equally jealous of one another, who had not the common instrument of conveying their sentiments; the servants of the companies received letters which they could not read, and ambitious of gaining titles of which they could not comprehend the meaning; it was highly dangerous to employee natives as interpreters, upon whose fidelity they could not depend; and it was at least discovered  that they must apply themselves to the study of the Persian language.”  (https://archive.org/details/grammarofpersian00joneiala) Is that Jones who almost forced the officials of East India Company to be acquainted with India, its language and culture? 

It was not only Jones, many other scholars and Company officials joined him in the mission of discovering the orient. In fact, in this phase of company’s rule, western scholars interpreting India was considered to be more trusted and reasonable in comparison to indigenous researchers, which Tejaswini Niranjana defines as “hierarchical relationship of power”; especially when the “powerful” one arrived with a weapon called printing press. Notable is, not everyone of the ruling nation landed in India with a role of a ruler, but many as humble writer of the company (Colebrook) who was later assigned the task of translation by the company because of his skill in interpreting local language and culture or as religious preacher (William Carey) who started being consulted by company, and even appointed to teach Sanskrit, Bengali and Marathi at Fort William College, Kolkata in 1806 after long 13 years of denial. 

Henry Thomas Colebrooke, the self educated classics and mathematics specialist came to India as a writer under the Company, moved constantly in the vast landscape between Calcutta and Nagpur in initial years which exposed him to locals and localities before being appointed a judge in a local court, and then a professor of Sanskrit and Hindu Law in newly established Fort William college (1800) and finally as one director of Royal Asiatic Society. After he started studying Sanskrit, it was normal for Company to assign him the translation works of Hindu laws among which a large part was unfinished works of William Jones. So, Colebrooke’s work included Mitakshara of Vijnaneshwar and Dayabhaga of Jumutavahana - both treaties on ancient Hindu Law of Inheritance, one Sanskrit Grammar (1805), some papers on the religious ceremonies of the Hindus, and the essay on the Vedas (1805). 

Another associate of Jones was Nathaniel Brassey Halhed whom he met first in Oxford. Similar to Jones, he started working on his literary ambitions in Europe only and learnt Greek and Persian and a little Arabic. The “Love Epistles of Aristaenetus” (Greek and English) was his translation achievement (though controversial) before he moved to India in 1770. Also starting as a writer with East India Company in 1771, he was later appointed as a Persian translator with the main task of understanding silk trade in Bengal. He immediately needed to learn Bengali to be able to interact with local weavers and traders. And within a year, under Waren Hasting’s patronage, he started his famous project “A Code of Gentoo Laws, or Ordinations of the Pundits" (published in England in 1776) appointing 10 local Pundits for the cumbersome task of translating Hindu legal texts first into Persian and then into English. Halhed’s understanding of his task was also very clear that it would meld British and indigenous legal systems in Bengal, which in turn would facilitate Britain's occupation of India for the purposes of trade. His next project was “The Bengali grammar” (1778) which needed typesetting for Bengali fonts; as an obvious consequence the first Bengali printing press was established in Hoogly. Another remarkable part of the story is Halhed’s marrying a Dutch lady in India during his silk trade learning years, which might have helped  him receiving financial support for his language projects from Dutch colonialists also (Dutch established themselves in Chinsurah in Bengal and engaged themselves mainly in trading activities). Another significant work he published was “Narrative of the Events which have happened in Bombay and Bengal, relative to the Mahratta Empire, 1779. Even after returning England, he continued helping the company though started facing trouble is legal and administrative areas due to his association with Hastings. He translated Darashukoh’s Upanisadas into English staying in his home country only. Again monotheism expressed in Hindu philosophical texts was interesting for Europe to understand India – while with the rise of Christianity, ancient Roman or Greek polytheism gradually went into oblivion or remembered only as a symbol of “under-civilized” (pagan) culture. 

From the point of view of a colonist administrator, “under-civilized” nations were only to be destroyed. At the same time, there was no option for mass destruction (the way it was practiced in both the Americas) in Indian Peninsula. Probably due to widespread tradition of reading and writing in this part of the globe differentiated them from the other “Pagan”s of the world - which brought a second thought in colonialists or they didn’t want a repetition of the unpleasant experience in Americas! Therefore, finding out some “civilized” material from within the Indian culture and setting that as a guiding principle for Indians was of utmost importance. Finally it was found in Upanisadas and Bhagabadgita.

Hastings appointed Charles Wilkins, “metallurgist, engraver, founder, and printer’ (in the words of Halhed) for Bengali and Persian typesetting  being in charge of the press. Of course they had to find the localite Panchanan Karmakar to support in the project. Therefore, Wilkin’s and Karmakar’s Bengali types were used to print Halhed's Bengali Grammar. Halhed could not proceed much with Sanskrit studies and continued depending on his Persian translators but Wilkins, though inspired by Halhed’s example of taking up Sanskrit studies in the beginning, was persistent. He moved to Benaras and learnt the language under a Pundit call Kalinatha. He could not complete many of his projects because these were too ambitious to complete by individual effort - Sanskrit grammar of his dream needed extensive research and Devanagari typeface which he lost by accident; Mahabharatam was too large to handle for a single translator, but the excerpts and the section of Mahabharata like "Dialogues of Kreeshna and Arjoon or Bhagvat-geeta", 1785 gave him immense success of being first translator of another Indian philosophic text having some potential to be close to European individualistic approach to life, into an  European language. Veda’s being a text of polytheistic nature and full with verses worshipping natural phenomena did not seem to be an example of any high philosophical standard to the Europe which had already gone through the process of Industrial revolution (nature was no more important but natural resources needed to be extracted). But Geeta, as Wilkins claimed in the preface that it was written to encourage a form of monotheist "unitarianism", easily gained popularity because of :

1) Krishna’s speech claiming Brahaman (himself as an expression of Brahman) to be    the single supreme power in the universe in chapter 8 and 10:

aham atma gudakesa
sarva-bhutasaya-sthitah
aham adis ca madhyam ca
bhutanam anta eva ca

And manifestation of divine glory in the single form of God (11th chapter):

2)Advocacy of “manliness” 

klaibyam ma sma gamah partha
naitat tvayy upapadyate
ksudram hrdaya-daurbalyam
tyaktvottistha parantapa

and “killer instinct” 

asocyan anvasocas tvam
prajna-vadams ca bhasase
gatasun agatasums ca
nanusocanti panditah

which was very much needed to nurture the European industrial civilizations whereas accumulation and use of natural resources collected from other countries by any means was not possible without their men driven by this.

3) Reasoning for constant modification and transformation in life:

vasamsi jirnani yatha vihaya
navani grhnati naro 'parani
tatha sarirani vihaya jirnany
anyani samyati navani dehi

4) Strengthening the concept of “work is worship” 

na hi kascit ksanam api
jatu tisthaty akarma-krt
karyate hy avasah karma
sarvah prakrti-jair gunaih

 (both from 2nd chapter –The way of knowledge)

or

niyatam kuru karma tvam
karma jyayo hy akarmanah
sarira-yatrapi ca te
na prasiddhyed akarmanah

(3rd chapter – The way of action)

Everything was, in a word suitable to the need of the hour. No wonder, English courts adopted Geeta and Koran for non-Christian Indians as a replacement of Bible during oath-taking.

In addition, Wilkins translated The Heetopades of Veeshnoo-Sarma (cousin of Panchatantra), directly from Sanskrit (1787) a Series of connected fables. He also translated the Mahabharatam version of the Shakuntala - story which is little different from Kalidasa version – already translated by Jones.

Translating Koran was not possible the way Vedas and Bhagabadgita was done, mainly because of:

1) The complicated nature of Arabic as language,

2) Requirement of excellent knowledge of history of Arab states and the prophet’s life to understand the significance of words used,

3) and to a little extent the religious prohibition.

Even age-old Persian translations of Koran were defined as an “Interpretation of Koran”.  Still, Middle East was closer than India and therefore, the first English interpretation of the Islamic holy book by Alexander Ross was available in 1649 (though Latin, Italian, German, Dutch and French versions preceded English!). Modern English version of Koran made directly from Arabic only in mid nineteenth century but was never acceptable by researchers of Islamic studies due to misinterpretation of insertion of Christian ideology into this. So, even if necessary, Koran left almost untouched by new colonial rulers! 

But we can safely interpret that the excavation through Indian philosophy and literature pushed the British far ahead of their other European competitors, namely Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, French and Dane - who were still depending only on slave trading, religious conversion or making friends with local Royals while colonizing here. Contrarily, East India Company was not into slave trading and completely against religious conversion. Jesuits had real trouble to start their activities in the Eastern part of India, (people without any business interest was simply prohibited to enter the region) as it was successfully done under Portuguese dominated South-western coastal regions. 

Refer to the story of William Carey - the self educated linguist’s voyage and initial years in India starting from 1793. Well, the person having knowledge of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French and Dutch  had no trouble in learning local language Bengali, after finding a home in Serampore and also tried his best to preach Christianity by publishing the Bible in Bengali, printed by himself in own printing press. He was also successful in introducing the name of another God “Christ” (to many Hindus in the locality – an addition to the preexisting thousands) but his learning Bengali and potential of working as printer was of main administrative use by the company.  In the history of British rule in India, he became more memorable for  publishing grammars  in  seven  Indian  languages and  the  compilation of dictionaries  in  Bengali, Sanskrit  and Marathi as well as his attempt of translating “Ramayana” into English, his movement against infanticide, Sati (widow burning), Ghat killing (placing sick people beside the rivers to die in the open) and establishing Serampore college for all local  people irrespective of religions (though criticized by one section of the  fellow British here). Carey’s press in Serampore published various Indian and English works simultaneously. He started publishing periodicals in Bengali, "Dig-Darshan," daily "Samachar Darpan" , an English monthly "Friends of India" and also received printing orders from East India Company as well as from native Indian Royals. He founded the "Agricultural and Horticultural Society of India" and completed a survey of agriculture in India.,  His understanding of the spreading education is clarified in one of his letters to his sister before opening Serampore College, “We  have  also  a  large  number  of  schools  connected  with  our  institution,  and  have  lately begun  to  erect  a  College  for  the  education  of  natives  in  the  higher  branches  of  science  and  especially  to  fit  Christian  Youth  for  the  ministry  of  the  Gospel:  This  is  a  great  undertaking,  but  I  trust  the  Lord  will  provide  the  necessary  funds,  and  make  the  institution  a  permanent  blessing  to  India.” 

True, by the time Carey arrived, translating India to English from the part of rulers was almost over. Second phase of imperial effort of injecting own cultural goodies to new colony started during this period. Pro-Indian scholars like Edmund Burke were fighting their best to protect “Indians” in their own cultural environment since long, as we find in Burke’s comments in as early as in 1783, “This multitude of men does not consist of an abject and barbarous populace ; much less of gangs of savages... But of a people for ages civilized and cultivated—cultivated by all the arts of polished life while we were yet in the woods.”  or "All shame of calling in foreigners and savages in a civil contest is worn off. We grow indifferent to the consequences inevitable to ourselves from the plan of ruling half the empire by a mercenary sword. We are taught to believe that a desire of domineering over our countrymen is love to our country, that those who hate civil war abet rebellion, and that the amiable and conciliatory virtues of lenity, moderation, and tenderness to the privileges of those who depend on this kingdom are a sort of treason to the state." (SPEECH ON MR. FOX'S EAST INDIA BILL, December 1, 1783) – but need of the hour was different!  Edmund Burke, the stern critic of racism and “Oriental despotism” was simply ignored.  

Post Hastings, Lord Charles Cornwallis as new Governor General (starting 1783) took this responsibility of civilizing and wining India by means of extensive war and missionary activities and ‘reforms’ after he had to 'surrender' to independent Americans in 1781. In Gauri Viswanathan’s words, colonizing enterprise and translation actually served to feed particular representations of the British to their colonial subjects in India in order to establish the image of the benevolent and not just British ruler governing the Indian people this time. We may conclude that the “benevolent role” was already established by the end 18th or early 19th century with the foundation of educational institutes and movements against certain types of social injustice here. Then the “shift to Anglicism” was timely started by Cornwallis and that is why we find lesser translation efforts from the part of rulers in this period. But this was another interesting phase of British Indian history when English educated Indians themselves started translating and publishing own version of their own ancient culture in English – only way of survival against foreign cultural aggression! At the same time that becomes a different chapter for translation studies – “Translation for self expression”. 

But why are we talking so much about the Moguls and British who are not reigning anymore? 

Let’s look at the resemblance of a global business administration to any democratic or mercantile organization. Business these days runs in a world where globalization is, more than a choice, only option for growth for an enterprise, irrespective of whichever part of the world the enterprise comes from. Global business does recruit people from different parts of the world same way a colonial govt did (sans mistreatment). They have to manage resource of different cultural backgrounds from different geographies. They have to sell goods and services in different parts of the world. Analyzing customer’s requirement becomes the first step in the steep road of global sales same way as creating acceptability was a challenge to Moguls or East India Company. Is it possible to define what kind of service of product would perfectly suit to customer’s need without understanding customer’s cultural existence which is best expressed through his language and literature? The world of business unequivocally takes the shape of a Mogul empire to some extent where number of decision makers are many, leading to a joint decision making portfolio instead of one emperor show – but at the core of it resides the  idea of integrating people of diverse cultural existence – sometimes numerous, depending on the nature of the industry. If scenario is similar, can we completely avoid deploying similar applications (with modifications, of course) and still win?

I remember - once I was discussing the importance of developing the habit of practicing couple of languages in global business environment with one colleague – my point was - this could serve both the purpose of understanding customer and in-house need of creating a comfort zone for new joiners from different countries. His first question to me was –“Why do we need to learn foreign languages other than English? I speak English – why don’t the French and German and Japanese learn English like us?” My next 10 minute’s lecture on impact of colonialism on Indian languages worked some or other way I guess, while his next words were, “See, if English could do it, we will also do it! See some day you will translate SAP into Hindi; none of your Badshahs and Sahibs is there any more.”

I couldn't continue the discourse with my young colleague any longer- seeing his face glowing with pride of having one language of his own -  dreaming of establishing own empire where he could make non-Hindi speakers translate technical documents into his language……………….