BY RISHAV ARYAN

This text is an extract from “Spectrum: A brief history of modern India” by Rajiv Ahir published in 1995.

About the author

Rajiv Ahir is an IPS officer from Punjab of 1996 batch who is presently posted as Joint Director IB, Ministry of Home Affairs under the government of India. He has been empanelled to the post of Joint secretary in GOI.

Source text (English)

The British government’s decision to partition Bengal had been made public in December 1903. The idea was to have two provinces: Bengal comprising Western Bengal as well as the provinces of Bihar and Orissa, and Eastern Bengal and Assam. Bengal retained Calcutta as its capital, while Dacca became the capital of Eastern Bengal. The official reason given for the decision was that Bengal with a population of 78 million had become too big to be administered. It was also stated that partition would help in the development of Assam if it came under the direct jurisdiction of the government. This was true to some extent, but the real motive behind the partition plan was seen to be the British desire to weaken Bengal, the nerve center of Indian nationalism.

Target text (French)

L’annonce officielle de la partition du Bengal a été annoncée en décembre 1903. L’idée était d’avoir deux provinces: Bengal comprenant Western Bengal ainsi que les provinces du Bihar et d’Orissa et Eastern Bengal et Assam. Le Bengal a retenu Calcutta comme capitale tandis que Dacca a devenu le capitale d’Eastern Bengal. La raison officielle a donée pour cette decision était que le Bengal avec une population de 78 million d;habitants, était devenu très grand pour être administré. On a egalement dit que la partition aiderait au développement de l’Assam si elle venait directment de la jurisdiction du gouvernment. C’était vrai dans une certaine mesure mais le motif principal de la partition était le desir d’affaiblir le Bengal, le centre du nationalisme Indien.

The strategy that I have used for translation

I have used the technique of literal translation to translate the source text into the target one. Literal translation also known as direct translation or word to word translation and is a translation of a text done by translating each words separately without looking at how the words are used together in a phrase or sentence. This technique of translation does not necessarily result in grammatically wrong phrases.

Pros and cons of literal translation

Pros

• Literal translation teaches us new words, and grammar as one can defer the grammatical forms of words from their literal meaning.
• The literal translation is quite fast and consumes very little time to translate source text into the target text.

Cons

• Literal translation can at times fail to convey any meaning at all, or it can convey the wrong meaning.

It also does not take into account that different languages have different ways of expressing the same thing.