Various segments, from many social levels, justify through their reception, the intellectual and cultural cost of a literary product and ‘explain’ its proliferation. The preceding chapters have shown how a ‘literary’ product, in this case an Indian text in English translation, is neither confined to, nor exclusively dependent on literary factors alone. Among institutions that canonize works of art, the publishing industry plays a very crucial role. Situated at a point of intersection between culture and commerce, print capitalism ‘determines’, to an extent, the production and consumption of literature. Publishing choices stem from both cultural and market-driven forces. When it comes to literature, we do not, on the whole, think of market forces as decisive in the generation, availability and reading of books. Of course, books are products of negotiations between publishing agencies and socio-cultural trends. In the complex interplay of demand and supply, readers' desires are both created and addressed, making the role of publishing and disseminating too important to ignore. This part of the study is based on the premise that the proliferation of books in English translation in the recent decades and the dynamism of English-language publishing in India are interconnected. As in the earlier chapters, the main focus of this chapter is the period of the mideighties. What follows here, therefore, is a discussion of the preceding period.

This chapter attempts to locate the dynamics and prominence of English language productions, especially ILET in the changing political economy of postcolonial India. It takes the discussion of the proliferation of English translations away from the academic arena and concerns itself with the socio-cultural matrix in India today. As mentioned earlier, paraliterary and literary phenomena are treated in separate units for maintaining focus and do not suggest mutual exclusivity.

Readerships

English translation in India is now a very self-conscious and self-reflexive activity. The ‘outwork’ of translated texts—prefaces, introductions, publishers' notes—are directed at specific audiences. The case of Nita Kumar's translation of the Hindi novel Mai mentioned earlier or the fresh translation of Rabindranath Tagore's Gora (1997) introduces the reader not only to the text, but also the academic discourse surrounding it. Aimed clearly at the academic market, the framing of translation is intertwined with the needs of the audience. If academics and students form a specialized, but not insubstantial, market for translation, general readers form another non-specialized market. The two segments overlap; not unlike the overlapping of domestic and international readerships. It is possible to offer some firm observations about specialized readers, largely by belonging to this category and observing the ‘uses’ to which translation is put, and hence the analysis of ‘academia’ in the previous chapter. However, general readers of English offer little opportunity for observation and there are few mechanisms for determining popular choices. The English-reading public of India, in particular, is scattered all over the cities and belongs to the so-called “great Indian middle class” (Varma: 1998).

The Delhi Iron Pillar shows very negligible signs of rusting. This particular feature has greatly enhanced the significance of the pillar in the engineering and scientific community. We shall explore in detail this fascinating aspect of the Delhi Iron Pillar, and try to understand the probable reasons for its excellent resistance to corrosion. We shall also examine various theories that have been proposed to explain this quality. There are some limiting conditions regarding the resistance of the pillar to corrosion. It must be realized at the outset that the excellent resistance to corrosion of the pillar relates only to the upper part which is exposed to an atmospheric environment. Had the pillar been completely buried or exposed to complete immersion conditions, the iron in the pillar would have corroded like normal iron. The resistance to corrosion of the pillar is attained very specifically in the atmospheric environment.

What is Corrosion?

You must have observed that when any iron object is exposed to the environment, it develops a dull reddish or brown coating on the surface. This surface layer is called rust and it is a corrosion product of iron. In fact, the corrosion of iron is generally termed as rusting. Corrosion may be defined as an electrochemical process (i.e. a chemical reaction that involves the transfer of electrons) in which a metallic material is oxidized and returns to its natural mineral form.

At the end of the metal extraction process, the metal is inherently in a higher state of energy because, energy was expended to extract the metal from its ore.

Can the knowledge that we have accumulated about the Delhi Iron Pillar be used in modern technology? How can we utilize the knowledge to manufacture corrosion-resistant irons? What are the possibilities? Let us briefly explore the relevance of the Delhi Iron Pillar to modern technology.

Often, the relevance of studies conducted on ancient Indian science and technology is questioned because no direct applications can be envisaged by the revival of ancient Indian technologies in the modern context. However, studies on ancient Indian science can open new lines of thinking which may prove beneficial, if applied appropriately, in modern times. The paragraphs below present a new idea for the possible application of the scientific and technical knowledge that we have accumulated on the historically, culturally and scientifically significant Delhi Iron Pillar.

We begin by noting certain basic facts about modern iron- and steel-making technology. The technologies dealing with both the extraction of metal from the ore in the blast furnace and its conversion to steel are highly environmentally unfriendly. The emission of greenhouse gases and their role in causing deleterious climatic changes have been well documented. Therefore, there is an urgent need to adopt iron-making technologies that do not emit significant amounts of greenhouse gases. The main culprit is, of course, the coking coal used for extraction of iron. Interestingly, all the major coke oven batteries in existing iron and steel plants around the world are due for significant replacement in the very near future. The huge investment required for this activity has provided an opportunity to look afresh at the entire gamut of iron and steel making operations, in general.

The Jnanpeeth award, (the most prestigious award for literature instituted by a private trust, Bharatiya Jnanpith, and not extended to any Indian English writer to date) for the year 2001 was conferred upon Indira Goswami from Assam. Undoubtedly all awards and prizes are controversial, especially literary ones since literary merit is a fuzzy concept. What interests us here are the terms of objections and explanations voiced by the Gujarati literati on the occasion of this year's award. In articles included in the Gujarat Sahitya Parishad's journal Parab (August 2001), and local newspapers, leading writers such as Bholabhai Patel and Chinu Modi referred to the role played by English translation in the jury's decision. According to them, Gujarat's well-known writer Rajendra Shah was also short-listed for the award but the dearth of his work in English translation made him lose out to Indira Goswami whose writings are accessible in English.

The Sahitya Akademi (a semi-government publishing house), which had not included English as one of its scheduled languages until the sixties, awarded a Translation Prize for English in the eighties. Katha (a non-profit private publishing house) an organization solely concerned with translation began in the nineties, and instituted the A. K. Ramanujan Award for translation. In 2000, the Crossword chain of bookshops in India included English translations in their short-list. (The 2005 Crossword event was in collaboration with Hutch and gave to ‘original’ writing as well as English translation unprecedented glamour). In the last few years there have been on an average at least five national seminars on translation in India. Courses on translation studies and Indian literature in English translation are taught in about 20 universities. The Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore sponsors a minimum of three workshops on translation in India every year. The Institute's journal, Translation Target, initiated in 2005, promises to be one of the early and serious translation journals in English. Both Penguin and Picador India launched their operations in India with a decision to tap the Indian market for books written in, and translated into English. The rise in the institutionalization through awards and courses in India has also coincided with energetic and radical debates on translation in India and the West. These debates stridently question the very assumption of the ‘original’ let alone its superiority over a translation.

There comes a point in time when words leap out of their conventional boundaries and embrace different shades of meaning. Something similar has happened to the word “translation”, which, long ago meant a linguistic substitution of meaning from a Source Language (SL) into a Target Language (TL) (Catford, 1965). Today it stands as a fundamental principle describing just about any interaction between two languages, cultures or objects. John Sturrock (1990:996) notes:

If Sturrock (1990) and Talal Asad (1986) see ethnography as an act of translation, Tejaswini Niranjana (1992) and Eric Cheyfitz (1991) employ it as a metaphor of the Empire. Their postcolonial writings focus on understanding inequalities and slippages in colonial relationships through translation. Homi Bhabha (1994) and Salman Rushdie (1991), on the other hand, seek to articulate hybrid intercultural spaces and identities through the term ‘translation’—Rushdie refers to his tribe as “translated men”(1991:17). Looking at this widening rubric, it is clear that “our perception of translation has changed profoundly in the last decade or so” (Holmstrom, 1997:4–5).

A discussion on the manufacture of the Iron Pillar throws up several questions. How did the ancient Indians extract iron from iron ore? What is the composition of the material in the pillar? Very importantly, how was it manufactured? The Delhi Iron Pillar is a large mass of iron, weighing about 6 tons, which is nearly the weight of a full-grown male elephant! It is difficult to even imagine how such a huge mass of iron was lifted and manipulated during manufacture. But they managed to do it. How? Finally, having made the pillar, how was the surface polished? This chapter tries to answer these questions. Like any other work of engineering excellence, the design and manufacture of the Iron Pillar must have been planned precisely, well in advance. Additionally, the artisans must have initially worked out the mechanisms of producing such a massive pillar by conducting a trial run, possibly by manufacturing an Iron Pillar of a much smaller size. This kind of prototyping is also carried out in modern engineering design and construction where the final design is tested on a smaller scale to check the viability of the idea and also to obtain ideas on how the product can be manufactured. Prototyping helps to understand some of the possible pitfalls in the design or the process of making it.

How did the Ancient Indians Extract Iron?

You may wonder why it is necessary to understand the method of iron extraction to understand the manufacture of the Iron Pillar. It is for the simple reason that iron lumps were the starting material for the construction of the pillar.

In this chapter, we shall address various aspects related to the structural features of the Delhi Iron Pillar. The nature of the portion of the pillar that is buried will be studied first. A detailed analysis of the dimensions of the pillar provides proof of the engineering, planning and skill of the craftsmen who conceived and manufactured it. There are some areas on the pillar where the presence of lead has been confirmed and these areas will be briefly described. The artistic and engineering aspects of the decorative bell capital will be described in the end.

The Buried Part of the Pillar

When we look at the Iron Pillar as it stands in the courtyard of the mosque, we notice that the bottom region of the pillar has a very rough and uneven surface. There are visible hammer marks in this area. This is in marked contrast to the region just above the rough region, which appears extremely smooth and polished. In order to understand these features, take a look at PLATE 7. Let us now look more carefully at this rough bottom region (PLATE 8).

The original engineers deliberately made the bottom of the pillar rough so that the pillar would have a better grip when it was erected. This region was to remain buried underground and was not intended to be exposed. There is sufficient evidence to conclude that the rough part of the pillar, which is now visible above ground level, was originally buried while it was located at Udayagiri.

Appendix 2 provides full transcripts of my interviews with publishers. The interviews are preceded by some factual details about each publishing house. The gist of these interviews is interwoven into one of the sections in “Publishers' Perspective”.

Transcripts have not been provided, however, for informal interviews conducted with:

Sahitya Akademi

The Akademi was set up in 1954 by the Government of India to meet the challenges of a multilingual society and foster the art and literature of the Indian people. The Akademi has been trying to meet this challenge in two ways: firstly by producing informative material regarding literary activities in all Indian languages and secondly by publishing translations of award-winning titles from one Indian language into another. The Akademi started off as a national organization that would, among many other things, subsidize the cost of books that normally do not interest private publishers. This noble, but perhaps unrealistic, aim had to be amended in the course of time because the private publishers never showed any interest in Sahitya Akademi projects. In the course of time, the Akademi had to start publishing and marketing its own books. At the same time, the pricing structure in Sahitya Akademi is different from that of private publishers. The Akademi does not take into account the cost of the preparation of a manuscript, i.e. the remuneration paid to the author/compiler/translator/reviser, because such expenditure as a part of the literary activities of the Sahitya Akademi, is treated as subsidy in the larger national interest.

Visitors to the Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque in New Delhi are often left wondering about the origin and meaning of the iron pillar that stands in the courtyard. It must first be stated that the Iron Pillar did not originally belong to Delhi. The Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque was constructed by Qutubuddin Aibak between AD 1192 and 1199 and the construction was extended by his successor Iltutmish. While the design and construction of the Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque is Islamic in nature, it was actually constructed by Hindu engineers and artisans. The materials obtained from twenty-seven Hindu and Jain temples that had been destroyed were utilized in its construction. The Iron Pillar was also uprooted from a Hindu religious site and brought to the courtyard of the mosque. As we shall soon see, the Iron Pillar dates back to the period of Indian history that is considered by scholars as the Golden Age of India, namely the Gupta period (AD 320 to 600).

Where was the pillar originally located? What was it meant to represent? Was it merely a religious symbol or did it serve any other purpose? To which era does the pillar belong, and which monarch commissioned its construction? Who moved the pillar to its current location? This chapter is intended to answer these questions. First, an attempt is made to explain the Brahmi inscription found on the pillar. This is followed by a verification of whether it really belonged to the Gupta period, using numismatics and paleography to decipher the clues the pillar gives us.