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).