Ambiguity over Bank of Baroda's Rs 36 lakh Rashtra Bhasha Puraskar for best translated work

New Delhi, Dec 9 (PTI) Has the Rashtra Bhasha Puraskar, the Rs 36 lakh award instituted by the Bank of Baroda for the best translated work, been discontinued just a year after it started? With 2024 drawing to a close and no winner yet, litterateurs and others believe that might well be the case though there is no formal announcement yet.

The announcement of the biggest translation award – Rs 21 lakh for the winning work and Rs 15 lakh for the Hindi translator – was made during the Jaipur Literature Festival in 2022. The first – and only -- award went to Urdu writer Mohsin Khan and translator Saeed Ahmed for the novel “Allah Mian Ka Karkhana”. Entries were invited in March and April of 2023 and the winner announced in June that year.

No new jury has been formed for the second edition and organisers have been silent on the matter.

“The first award was given in 2023. But there was a controversy over giving the first award to an Urdu novel. Later, the bank also received a large number of RTI applications in this regard,” said author and translator Prabhat Ranjan who was a member of the jury for 2023.

He added that this could be one reason for such a big award being put on hold.

International Booker Prize winner Geetanjali Shree, whose novel “Tomb of Sand” won the coveted prize in 2022, also for a translation, was chairperson of the jury. She said she had no information on the jury for this year or whether the prize has been discontinued.

"If no jury has been formed yet, then something is wrong,” added academician Pushpesh Pant, who was also part of the previous jury.

The other two members of the 2023 jury were poets Arun Kamal and Anamika. PTI reached out to a top Bank of Baroda official for clarity. She did not give any clear answer to the question regarding the controversy surrounding the award or its discontinuation but said on condition of anonymity that the process of award selection has just started and is under consideration. She also said no one has been awarded the award for 2024 yet.

On reports of discontinuation of the award, she said the management has not said anything yet on whether the award will be discontinued or changed.

Asked whether the award will be given this year or not, the official refused to comment and only said that nothing can be said definitively. “Discussions are still going on in the management regarding this,” she said.

Apart from the top prize, there is also a prize for five selected works -- Rs 3 for the author and Rs 2 lakh for the translator.

The longlist for 2023 had 12 books besides “Allah Mian Ka Karkhana”. They were Oriya writer Paramita Satpathy's novel “Abhipret Kaal”, Roop Singh's Punjabi “Baaki Safa 5 Te”, Siddique Alam's “Chini Kothi” in Urdu, two Khalid Javed novels ‘Ek Khanjar Pani Mein” and “Nemat Khana” in Urdu, Chuden Kavimo's “Fatsung” in Nepali, Manoranjan Byapari's “Ghar Palano Chhele” in Bengali, Anita Agnihotri's “Mahanadi” in Bengali, Manoj Borgaonkar's “Nadisht” in Marathi and Tamil writer Vasanti's “Poimugam” and “Thirkkatha Jannalkal”.

Releasing the longlist in 2023, Sanjeev Chaddha, former managing director and Bank of Baroda CEO, said the award had been started to honour and encourage the original literature of Indian languages and their Hindi translation.

“This award will provide a national platform to talented Indian writers from different regions of the country and will promote literary writing and translation work of Indian language,” he said.

A trust would be formed so it can continue even later, he added. PTI NK MIN MIN