Translating Englandey Bangamahila: Seeking Relevance of Nineteenth-Century discourse of Freedom in Contemporary Worldview

Abstract

Nineteenth-century was a period of rising nationalist concern in Bengal. There has been a growing awareness of British imperialism and a desire for complete independence among the Indians. While English education in India has been responsible, to a large extent, for the rise of the nationalist concern, among the middle-class intelligentsia, the idea of freedom was further propagated among the masses by the books authored by Indians in this period. Krishnabhabini Das' Englandey Bangamahila or A Bengali Lady in England (1885) is one such work that nurtures the idea of freedom and can be located within the larger framework of nationalism in India. Translation is a medium of sharing a text beyond its linguistic limitations, enabling its reach to a wider circle of readers. Translating Krishnabhabini Das’ Englandey Bangamahila has been a work of revisiting the idea of independence through the eyes of a woman in the nineteenth century. It also becomes an important postcolonial activity that re-negotiates with the idea of imperialism and nation-building, and women’s concerns in the nineteenth century, as it existed within the consciousness of this woman who belonged to a middle-class, orthodox, Hindu family but had a nationalist education due to her erudite and supportive husband. The proposed paper would look at the concept of the empire writing back, through the work of Krishnabhabini Das, and explore the importance of her thoughts in today’s context, thereby validating the translation of her work within the contemporary context.