GUWAHATI, Feb 24 � Several leading scholars and writers of the State have resented Sahitya Akademi Kolkata-based Regional Office�s irrational act of humiliating eminent scholar and critic Dr Hiren Gohain.
In a protest letter to the Sahitya Akademi, these leading writers and scholars, who include Dr Amalendu Guha, Prof AC Bhagawati, Indira Goswami, Nalinidhar Bhattacharyya and Harekrishna Deka, utterly condemned the irrational and unethical behaviour of the Sahitya Akademi Regional Office. They also demanded prompt and appropriate corrective steps to undo the injustice done to Dr Gohain.
It needs mention here that Dr Gohain was assigned the task of editing the English version of some selected Assamese stories. List of the stories was furnished to Dr Gohain by Dr Ramkumar Mukhopadhyay, Regional Secretary of the Sahitya Akademi. In his June 19, 2006 letter to Dr Gohain, Dr Mukhopadhyay said that the stories were taken from the Nirbachita Asomiya Galpa �compiled� by GP Sarma, Sailen Bharali and H Gogoi for the Akademi.
Dr Gohain was asked to intimate the Regional Office indicating the names of the translators of each of the stories. He was not asked to work under anyone, nor was it mentioned that his work would be linked with the above compilation. The impression given to him was that the work assigned to him would be treated as an independent one.
But when the translated works were published in a book form with the title Splendour in the Grass in January last, Dr Gohain was taken aback by the fact that his name has been printed on the front cover of the book and on the title page as �Translation Editor� while the names of the above persons were printed as the editors.
Interestingly, on the back cover of the book the Akademi has declared: �This collection of 20 Assamese stories was translated into English in a four-day translation workshop in Guwahati under the aegis of the Sahitya Akademi and the direction of acclaimed writer and scholar Dr Hiren Gohain (former Dean, Arts Faculty, Gauhati University and recipient of the Sahitya Akademi award for literary criticism in Assamese in 1989) in December, 2006.
�� A thoughtful and analytical introduction on the background, themes and trends, has been contributed by Dr Hiren Gohain as the editor of this volume.�
Dr Gohain said in the preface of the book that he �had to devote more than couple of months to introducing nuances and correcting excesses or sometimes even downright errors of understanding in the light of the originals.�
