Media In India/elsewhere -2

[dhu]

The entire so-called caste system is constructed out of such material. land fights, random murders, etc are attributed with an ideological basis. someone complaining about "it's very difficult to get tea" gets converted into a desire to sit at the table. Same thing with entry into kitchens, eating out of plates, and so on...

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Madhava Prasad (2000) rightly points out this confusion in our understanding of caste problems in one of his articles.

[I]n its “India Matters” segment, Star News reported on the continued practice of untouchability in a part of Tamil Nadu…reporter is interviewing a labourer who says...in Tamil: “Oru kappu tee kadikkiradekashtamapochi.” A close translation of this remark would be as follows: “It is/has become difficult to get even a cup of tea.” However, the translation provided by the news programme was embellished with the insinuation of another desire, rendering the cup of tea itself immaterial. It said, “We cannot even have a cup of tea with them.” <b>This is not so much a translation error as an ideological slip. To put it simply, the expression of a need (and the difficulty of its fulfilment) has been converted by the translator into an expression of desire.</b> ... The labourer’s words could be interpreted as a complaint against the tea-stall owners for refusing to serve him tea, but the translator implies that he is actually more concerned about the refusal of the upper caste customers to let him share their company. To the stated object, “cup of tea” the translator adds the implied object: to have tea with “them”. The subject too has changed: the grammatical subject “it” has been replaced by the collective “we”, thereby transforming the speaker into a spokesman.4<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->