The central question that this chapter is concerned with is, “Why translation now?” The thematic trajectory of English translation in India provided in the first chapter established Tagore's Gitanjali (1913) as a landmark heralding literary translation as an exercise for wider dissemination. Tagore's enterprise of translation was not altogether free of the anxieties of a colonial subject. However, unlike the English translations of the previous century, it was neither ‘nationalistic’ nor ‘reformistic’ in an obvious way. The impact of Gitanjali not-withstanding, translation from Indian languages into English remained an uninstitutionalized, sporadic activity till well into the middle of the twentieth century. The nation-state institutionalized translation and creative writing for the first time through the National Book Trust (1957) and the Sahitya Akademi (1954). Literature, along with music, dance and theatre seemed one of the ways to bring different communities together. The push towards creating pan-Indian forms and reinforcing ‘unity-in-diversity’ fitted well with the Nehruvian vision of India. Keeping that in mind, semi-government institutions like the Sahitya Akademi chose to confer awards on ‘reputed’ works from each language and undertook to translate them from one Indian language into another. English hardly ever figured in this scheme of ‘nation-building’. As discussed earlier, the fate of English remained uncertain, in official terms, till the sixties.

Sixties onwards, we witness an increase in English publishing activities by Indians, a matter discussed in some detail subsequently. English translations from Indian languages acquired a tiny slot with some publishers such as Jaico, Vikas and Asia. Around the same time, UNESCO's collection of Representative Works chose Indian works for translation into other languages of the world, including English.