Rita Kothari: “The vocabulary we assume is about religion is often about caste”
The book feels radical in its insistence on mutual respect and understanding, both between individuals and between communities.
What drew you to this book and to translating it into English for a wider audience?
I’d known of Ittehad for at least 20 years. I’d come across references to it and always found it intriguing. I remember wondering, is Vimmi Sadarangani related to the writer Guli Sadarangani? And why doesn’t she appear anywhere? Not even in the two-volume 1993 anthology Women Writing in India: 600 BC to the Present edited by Susie Tharu and K Lalita. That included Popati Hiranandani, Sundri Uttamchandani, and others – but not Guli Sadarangani.
And every small entry I came across called the book controversial. To me, that should have made her better known, not less. Why was this pioneering woman, who wrote such a courageous book in 1941, missing? I felt this was a historical imbalance. I wasn’t surprised when I learnt that even her son Kishore hadn’t read her work.
Finding a copy was a challenge, I finally got one from Sahib Bijani, Director of the Indian Institute of Sindhology at Gandhidham. And then finding a publisher – this was done through a collaboration between the Ashoka Centre for Translation and Zubaan. It’s called Women Translating Women. Zubaan is bringing out many other books in this series – and there will be other languages. I’m thrilled that this Sindhi novel is part of a community of women’s voices, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, Bengali, Sindhi and others, not standing alone as an outlier.
Translation can be a small gesture, but it can have larger ramifications. At the very least, it was my way of paying homage to a pioneering and courageous woman writer, the first woman novelist of our language. Not many people know of Sindhi literature, let alone a woman writer in pre-Partition Sindh. So, it’s a minoritization at several levels – woman, language, region, era.
What were the problems that this 1941 novel faced when it was first published and has continued to face over the years?
Ittehad was ignored in its own time; the theme was distasteful. It wasn’t widely read or discussed, and over the years, it didn’t feature in literary histories in English.
What I found compelling was how Guli Sadarangani managed to be both conventional and subversive. There’s a clear valuing of romance and relationships, yes – but also a questioning of institutions like marriage, property, and patriarchy. The protagonist, Asha, isn’t looking for salvation through marriage. She’s invested in her friendships, in her own selfhood, in the idea that love can’t survive without independence.
There’s also a certain tenderness and idealism in how religion is portrayed – not as dogma, but as a journey. The book feels radical in its insistence on mutual respect and understanding, both between individuals and between communities.
Perhaps it was too gentle to be taken notice of, or too idealistic, or perhaps it didn’t fit the more strident narratives that came to dominate after Partition.
What could it be about Guli Sadarangani’s life and background that led to her producing a book with ‘woke’ themes?
Guli Sadarangani was from an Amil family; the Amils are a Sindhi community with several generations of education. They tend to be more liberal, ahead of their time – as is this book, remarkably ahead of its time.
Her brother, Krishna Kripalani was an English professor at Shanti Niketan; in 1941 when Tagore died, he was appointed director. He is well known – but no one talks about the sister.
Guli also studied at Shantiniketan, which I believe was formative for her. That’s where her character Asha also goes to study, in the novel. Guli translated Gora, and I assume Tagore’s ideas influenced her. Another character, Aruna comes from a Brahmo Samaj background too – that’s the Bengal connection, which was common among liberal Sindhis before Partition.
Clearly, her family was progressive. Sending a young woman across the country to study at Shantiniketan – those values must have shaped her deeply. She wrote other novels too, which I haven’t worked with. But Ittehad felt like an important landmark.
Russia comes across as a shadowy ideal in this book. What made it special to Sindhi writers?
Most people in India see Sindhis as purely mercantile, without a cultural or intellectual life. But the truth is, prior to Partition, Sindh had a thriving intellectual scene. Many educational institutions were run by Hindu Sindhis. After Partition, that cultural identity appears to have drained away.
Today’s stereotype of Sindhis in India as only money-minded is post-Partition; in Pakistan, people acknowledge the role Hindu Sindhis played in creating cultural institutions.
My own father was not from an elite background, but names of Russian thinkers, communism – meant something to him. In his lifetime, he swung from attending communist meetings in Kalyan to eventually admiring the BJP. But those multiple ideological influences coexisted, it wasn’t just Russia.
You see those same ideological streams in the novel – Gandhi, Tagore, Brahmo Samaj, communism. At the heart of it is always the question: how does one become a good, ethical citizen? The novel doesn’t always make clear where its moral compass lies, so it feels utopian at times. Yes, the 1940s were a critical time in Sindh – communal tensions, the Muslim League, Hindu Mahasabha, RSS, and so much more. To write a novel like this during that time – it meant something.
Translating across cultures is never easy. Which parts of the book did you find difficult to convey in English?
Most of the language in Ittehad was urban and familiar to me, so not especially hard. But there were moments that gave me pause. One passage stands out: when Hamid tells his mother he doesn’t want to marry and she asks if he’s in love. He says he is, and she asks, who is she? “Khudaji bandi,” he replies, “A devotee of god!”
“Aren’t we all that?” she asks. “Tell me more, what abour her zaat-paat?”
And he says, “So now you want to know her zaat-paat!”
“Yes!” she replies, and when he reveals the girl is Hindu, her reaction is so interesting.
She says, “Really? Those people who consider us to be untouchable, who won’t even accept food from us, you’re going to marry one of those?”
Words that are used for a sect, or a caste, have become of huge interest to me in the act of translation. It shows how the vocabulary we assume is about religion is often really about caste. Words like zaat, sampradaya, panth – we use them across different contexts, and they often blur categories of religion, caste, and sect. This overlap has become a major area of interest for me, especially in translation.
So, there were interesting aspects – but nothing really challenging in the act of translation.
That couldn’t have been the case with your translation of Shah Abdul Latif into Hindi?
No, it wasn’t, and I’ll admit that was a project I care about even more. It’s called Kahé Latif. I selected about 450 of his poems. The translation felt like a lifetime wish – something I didn’t have the confidence to take on for a long time. It’s coming out from Vani Prakashan.
As you know, Sindhi is one of India’s important literary languages, with a 600-700-year-old tradition. This is almost unknown in India, even amongst Sindhis. If you ask an average person to name a Sindhi writer, they won’t know anyone. Popati Hiranandani may be translated, but how many have heard of her? And there are so many other fine writers, writing on a range of themes.
So, my Kahé Latif is another attempt at reclaiming our literary tradition. It’s a Hindi translation, done directly from Sindhi – not from English, and not as a prose rendering, but in poetic verse. There are many English translations of Shah Latif, but we don’t have versions that retain the alliteration and rhythm of the original. Hindi allowed me to do that. I hope people will read it aloud in Hindi, quote it the way Latif is meant to be quoted.
Saaz Aggarwal is the author of Sindh: Stories from a Vanished Homeland and Losing Home Finding Home.
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