Role of Translation in Nation Building

Nation Building” has always been linked to national integration and the creation of national identity. For a country like India, it is a very delicate and challenging matter to deal with the national identity that derives its strength from multiple layers of social, political, religious, economic, cultural, ethnic and linguistic diversity. However, the communication gap which inevitably arises out of such a diversity of boundaries is constantly being bridged by the people themselves, whose day to day reality is, for the majority, living in a multi-cultural society and interacting in a multilingual manner.

We should not forget that the concept of the nation-state is not an ancient or indigenous one but a notion imported relatively recently from Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries. The United Kingdom only became “united” through the Act of Union in 1702 when England (and Wales) and Scotland merged politically. We should acknowledge that when America famously declared independence from Britain in 1776, this fledgling state initially contained only a tiny fraction of the area it has today. Similarly, Italy and Germany were not unified until the middle of the 19th century.

In India, the impact of this colonial myth has been that many educated people accept that the idea of India as a nation is a British creation. However, a detailed study of linguistic history reveals that Bhartiyata (Indianness) is not by any means a recent phenomenon; it is deeply rooted in its citizens across the country since ancient times.

It was, we might argue, the existence and subsequent translation of the great Indian classics that acted as a catalyst in creating a pan-Indian ethos. Epics – especially the Ramayana and the Mahabharata - have been translated into almost all regional languages. Cutting across religious beliefs, the legends of Rama andKrishna have stirred the minds of Indians living in almost all corners of India. These myths, whose nature is patently nationalistic, were made available to the Indian population through translation, without which it is inconceivable that the deeply entrenched cultural and linguistic boundaries within India could have been bridged.  

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