August 28, 2026, (Inside AI) — Literary translators are not obsolete. That is the central claim from Rita Kothari and Arunava Sinha, two scholars who argue that artificial intelligence cannot yet replicate the layered work of translating serious literature. Their comments come ahead of Bhashavaad 3.0, a national translation conference opening August 29 at the India International Centre in New Delhi.
The two-day event begins with a session titled "Are Translators Redundant?" Kothari and Sinha reject that premise. They say AI tools are useful for basic communication but fail when a text carries literary depth.
"Good literature is extremely layered. It asks its translators to enter into the skin of a language, into the nuances of the words, into very deep contextualisation," Rita Kothari, Professor, Ashoka University
The scholars co-direct Ashoka University's Centre for Translation. Their assessment is grounded in direct experimentation. The Centre has tested AI translation systems and found them unreliable for literary work.
"AI can be very competitive, but it is still awfully risky. Every now and then it will do something so out of the blue that you could end up having some really serious bloopers. So if the human eye is required to keep an eye, the human eye might as well work on the translation itself," Rita Kothari, Professor, Ashoka University
Sinha points to a deeper technical limitation. AI translation relies on probabilistic models trained on massive text corpora. For Indian languages, especially translations between non-English languages, that data barely exists.
"Trust me, if translators could get help from AI for deep research, they would take it. But the process that an AI tool agent uses is very different from the process of a human translator," Arunava Sinha, Professor, Ashoka University
He describes AI's approach as volume-driven and mechanical. It works for functional text but not for writing where thought has gone into every word.
Translation's Boom Masks a Missing Connective Tissue
Both professors call this the heyday of Indian translation. Interest is high, and more works are being translated than ever before. Yet they see a structural gap: frameworks for cross-regional dialogue are missing.
"The frameworks are missing, in the sense that there is so much out there. But what frameworks can we use to understand how it interacts with this other region? If Tukaram is available in English, what does Tukaram have to say to Kabir? I think that kind of cross-dialogue needs to take place... and that is not happening," Rita Kothari, Professor, Ashoka University
Sinha identifies a human resource problem. Fewer people can translate directly between non-English Indian languages. Most translations now pass through English or Hindi as a bridge language.
"We do not have enough people who can translate between the non-English Indian languages. The biliterate people who existed in fairly large numbers, say 50-80 years ago, are not there anymore," Arunava Sinha, Professor, Ashoka University
This bridge-language practice introduces loss. Sinha notes that no two languages map perfectly onto each other. Change is inevitable, but the current system may flatten nuance.
Language Death, Coercion, and the Real Threat
The scholars also push back on narratives about dying languages. Kothari rejects the word "dead" as dramatic. She points to Sindhi, her own language, which is shrinking in India but thriving in Pakistan. She prefers to speak of languages whose roles have shrunk.
On state mandates for language learning, Kothari is blunt. Coercion backfires. She would learn a regional language out of respect, not political pressure. But she objects to forcing taxi drivers and daily-wage workers while English-speaking elites opt out.
"That is the person we should be going after. Not the taxi driver. He should not be harassed," Rita Kothari, Professor, Ashoka University
Sinha sees language mandates as exclusionary tactics. Language becomes an easy marker to identify whom to exclude. The real issue is not linguistic but social and political.
Both scholars agree the three-language formula in schools failed because it became a box to be checked. Students chose the easiest third language for marks. Yet Kothari believes the formula had structural possibility. The goal of a multilingual India is achievable with institutional will.
For now, Bhashavaad aims at changing attitudes, not policy. Kothari says that is the beginning. The conference runs through August 30, with sessions on AI and publishing, and a discussion titled "Between Word and God."
