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He was known as Bartanvi Baba-i-Urdu in Urdu circles. Prominent Urdu scholar, Professor Ralph Russell, Head of Urdu department, Oriental and African Studies, UK, passed away on September 14. He was 90. He taught Urdu at the University of London for close to 32 years between 1949 and 1981. Among Russell’s many famous works is his translation of Mirza Ghalib’s poetry. He spent three-and-a-half years in India during the war and learnt Urdu to be able to converse with the soldiers ‘to awaken their political sense’. After the war, he devoted himself to the study of Urdu language and literature. He had earlier completed his education at Cambridge in 1940. His published works include, Three Mughal Poets (on Mir, Sauda and Mir Hasan) written with Khurshidul Islam, Ghalib’s Life and Letters, How not to write the History of Urdu Literature and A New Course in Urdu and spoken Hindi, besides his English translations of Urdu poetry and contributions to Urdu literary journals. He spoke Urdu in Pathan accent because he learnt Urdu from an Urdu munshi from the Pathan community. The Urdu translation of his memoirs titled, Joinda-o-Yabinda was published only recently. He established such a system of Urdu teaching in Britain, which facilitated the learning of the language across Britain. In his own words, A New Course in Urdu and spoken Hindi was designed for adults who wished to communicate with Urdu-speaking immigrants and their children, but had no time in the first instance to acquire more than the everyday spoken language. The course is in four parts, and worked on the principle of helping people to learn what they wanted and needed to know, and not burden them with information they neither wanted nor needed. Russell had pointed out that Urdu poetry, unlike poetry written in English, is meant to be primarily recited and not read (he was referring to the tradition of ‘Mushaira’ whereby a group of several poets recited their poems in front of an audience – sometimes all-night long).
Bangalore based former Chief Secretary to Government of Karnataka, T. P. Issar, who authored Divan e Ghalib : English Renderings had wide consultation with Prof. Russell prior to penning his magnum opus.
The Pakistan government had conferred ‘Sitara e Imtiaz’ on Prof. Russel in acknowledgement of his service to Urdu literature. The National Council for Promotion of Urdu in India has condoled his death.
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