The DBTA Story

The Missing Bridge

The formation of the Dravida Bhasha Translators Association (DBTA) was not born from a routine organisational plan. It was born from a search for books that seemed not to exist.

When Founder-President Dr. Sushma Shankar, a Malayali scholar, was pursuing her Ph.D. in Kannada, she needed to study 19 Jnanpith-recognised works across the five major Dravidian languages. While Kannada and Malayalam were accessible, finding Tamil and Telugu translations proved incredibly difficult. She travelled across state libraries, Sahitya Akademies, and bookshops, only to face a massive gap. The Dravidian languages possess an enormous shared literary heritage, yet readers and researchers face high walls between them.

Instead of abandoning the research, Dr. Sushma learned Tamil and Telugu to translate the works herself. This experience revealed a profound truth:

From 24 Petals to a Thriving Movement

Determined that future researchers should not face this same wall, Dr. Sushma shared her vision with eminent literary personalities. On September 19, 2021, during the isolation of the pandemic, 24 members gathered online to lay the foundation stone of DBTA.

What began as a scholar's search for missing books has bloomed into a 124-member literary family. We are actively moving translation from an “occasional activity” to a “continuous movement,” ensuring language never remains a barrier to our shared cultural heritage.