ABSTRACT
In this essay, I examine the confluence of two phenomena— the negotiation of violence as an appropriate tool of nationalist resistance and the role of translation in nationalist praxis—in the work of three early Indian nationalists: Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Subramania Bharati, and VVS Aiyar. These three men—a Marathi educator, an impoverished Tamil journalist-poet, and a globe-trotting barrister—are an unlikely trio, but they are connected by a shared nationalist vision and a corresponding passion for the work translation could play in effecting that vision. As a result, all three were also accused of being terrorist sympathizers during a period when the definition of what constituted discursive violence in the subcontinent was legally expanded. In their work—and the colonial administration’s response to it—we gain a better understanding of the politicization of language in the era of emergent nationalism (1905-–17).
