This paper sketches the politics and nature of the identity that was envisaged as evident in two moments in the history of translation in Princely Mysore. The two moments are, first of all, the debate around Bhashabhimani’s review of a Shakespearean play translated by Srikantesh Gowda in 1895, and, second, a translator’s preface to a translation of a work by Walter Scott, written by Bhashaanthara Vairy (an enemy of translation) in 1918. Tentative remarks on caste differences and the new identity, along with different ways of scripting the modernity that was underway in Princely Mysore, are also made.