He calls himself a “Russified Indian” whose love for Russian literature and culture drove him to become a philologist and an expert in speaking Russian with much ease and mastery.
Meet 78-year-old Prof. Abhai Maurya, who made a name for himself with his linguistic proficiency in the Russian language and penned over 12 literary works, including the Russian-English-Hindi Essential Dictionary.
Learning the Russian language not only widened his mental and literary horizon, it also added a new dimension to his personality and opened a different world to explore the rich history of the people, culture, and literature of another country.
“I grew up reading Russian literature, Western literature, starting with Maxim Gorky who was a Russian writer and a socialist political thinker nominated five times for a Nobel Prize in Literature. I read most of the writers like Alexander Pushkin, Nikolai Gogol, Anton Chekhov, Leo Tolstoy, and many other Russian writers,” Prof. Maurya told Sputnik.
Upon earning a Ph.D. in Russian literature, Prof. Maurya travelled to Russia to master his linguistic skills.
“When you are there in Moscow or elsewhere in Russia, you make friends and interact with them. And that added absolutely mesmerizing features to my character. I became a kind of Russified Indian. So, it opened up a new world to me, which continues to be with me even now. It transformed me into an Indo-Russian personality,” Prof. Maurya said.
From Small Village Boy to Russified Indian
Hailing from a village in the state of Haryana's Rohtak district, Maurya grew up studying at a Hindi-medium school where classes were held under the tree.
He became a first-generation literate who not only topped his class but made his way to Moscow for further studies.
“My parents were not educated, they were simple farmers. They could not guide me as to what should I become. Moreover, they were not very, very well off. Peasants in India, generally, are not very financially sound families. So, my teachers wanted me to become an engineer. But I had more flair for languages,” Prof. Maurya recalled.
He went on to study English, Hindi, Punjabi, and Sanskrit and fared well.
The biggest turning point came in 1965 when he read in a newspaper that a Soviet Institute of Russian Studies was opened in Delhi.
“Without telling anybody, I applied for the course and got selected. The Institute was opened in the presence of education ministers of Soviet Union, and India,” Prof. Maurya recalled.
Little did he know what he would become in the future after studying the Russian language.
Prof. Maurya turned out to be one of the best students that learned Russian in his group and when he finished the institute among the first batch of graduates, the institute became a part of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).
“This was the first institute that became part of JNU in Delhi, which was inaugurated in 1969. We were taught Russian by the Soviet teachers who had come from the Soviet Union. And they were very good. We picked up Russian very well very soon,” Prof. Maurya said, adding that he owes his success to Russian teachers and class fellows who helped him hone his skills and personality.
After graduation, he went to Moscow State University on a government scholarship to do a Ph.D in Russian Literature where he found Prof. Petrov who was the author of many books on Soviet Literature.
Prof. Maurya shared that it was Prof. Petrov who inspired him to pen Russian novels and books.
“I was very slow initially in writing and reading in Russian, but Prof. Petrov would patiently read my work and give exhaustive remarks. Step by step, he made me grow as a scholar of Russian literature. And towards the end, I could write Russian fluently, I could write as a scholar of literature,” Prof. Maurya said.
He was the first one to finish a Ph.D. degree in Russian literature in 1973.
Meeting the Love of His Life in Russia
Prof. Maurya's life took a beautiful turn when he found the love of his life, Vibha Maurya, in Moscow.
“Well, thanks to Russian. I met my wife in Moscow. It so happened that after completing my Ph.D., I got a chance to study at Maurice Thorez Institute of Foreign Languages for one year. There my wife was also studying Spanish and Russian languages,” Prof. Maurya said.
According to Prof. Maurya, Prof. Vibha's father, who held a position in the Indian Parliament, was assigned to the peace movement in Helsinki, which is why she ended up in Russia.
She stayed in Russia for six years and spoke Russian very well and took a lot of interest in culture, literature, and more.
“She used to speak Russian initially but later on became more comfortable with Spanish,” Prof. Maurya shared.
Promoting Russian in India
Upon returning to India, Prof. Maurya headed the Department of Slavic Studies at the University of Delhi. He also founded the Central University of English and Foreign Languages.
He has more than 50 research papers to his credit and also authored 12 novels, both scholarly and creative, such as ‘Fall of a Hero’ (in English, 1998), ‘Yugnayika’ (in Hindi, 2004), and ‘Mukti-Path’ (in Hindi, 2006) and the Russian-English-Hindi Essential Dictionary, all of which were critically acclaimed.
In addition, he has received international awards and has been actively associated with various bodies of UNESCO.
Students Unaffected by West's Sanction
The spirit of Indian students, who aspired to learn the Russian language and literature, remained unfazed by the Western sanctions imposed on Russia because of the ongoing conflict with Ukraine.
According to Prof. Maurya, the demand for learning the Russian language has surged due to the emergence of job opportunities that require proficiency in the language.
"I don't think it has negatively affected Indian students learning Russian. I don't see the fall in numbers that was there before the sanctions. In fact, Indian students are more keen to go to Russia for further studies. Maybe in some cases, because of the fear due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict and some parents might be worried but otherwise not," Prof. Maurya said.
With more and more Russian companies having started coming to India and opening their offices, the scope for employment has also gone up.
"If rupee-ruble trade is streamlined as it should be, and dependence on the dollar is reduced to the minimum possible. There is a trend of growing trade and economic relations between India and Russia, which will continue with conferences like BRICS and others. Hopefully, this Russia-Ukraine conflict will end sooner than later," Prof. Maurya said.
Demolition of Pushkin's Monument – Russophobic sentiment
As the conflict between Russia and Ukraine drags on, numerous writers and artists have been subjected to sanctions by the West. At least 34 monuments and commemorative plaques honoring Russian poet Alexander Pushkin have been destroyed in Ukraine.
Prof. Maurya strongly condemned such actions and said that this was the result of the Russophobic bias that has spread among people worldwide.
“A conflict between countries is a short time event, and the works of arts and culture are eternal," he noted, going on to ask why would "a sane person demolish monuments? Why do people become so blind due to Russophobia that they negate everything, which is Russian?”
Rising Russophobic sentiment
Prof. Maurya stated that the Russophobic sentiment across the globe is not a new phenomenon.
He recalled when the Soviet Union collapsed, people across the world were happy and there was so much hoopla to explore Russia, Russian culture, and history and about the first president of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, who was instrumental in the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
“The hate subsides for some time and then again comes up. If you look at history, the West has never liked Russia. There has been a sort of inferiority complex among Westerners,” Prof. Maurya said.
Western Sanctions against Russia
Calling the ongoing sanctions "an abhorrent phenomenon", Prof. Maurya criticized the restrictive measures and noted that even Cuba has been under sanctions for decades.
“Who gives them the right to blockade another country, whatever the reason? Whether peace or conflict, this should be dealt with in terms of peace and conflict and not through blockades and sanctions,” he said.
Despite Prof. Maurya's belief that the military conflict between the two nations should end sooner rather than later since it is not beneficial to anyone, he claims that the West will not allow it to end soon.
“The West wants Russia to bleed, and they want this conflict to go on. They are saying that they will defeat Russia. I don't think anybody can defeat Russia. Russia is a big nuclear power. When existential questions will arise, this nuclear power will not rest in peace.
“Moreover, Russia has friends like India and China, which has not bowed down to the Western diktat. [The] three of them, together, form a big chunk of mankind. So the world should see the reality as it is, but the West wants to weaken Russia as far as it could,” Prof. Maurya explained.
Pointing to the influence of what he called the “propaganda conflict” or “information conflict”, Prof. Maurya noted that even the media has been influenced by this phenomenon.
“It has been [a] one-sided information conflict that has been going on even in Indian media. Media is influenced by that. And I feel bad about it that this is happening and only wish that this conflict ends sooner than later and the suffering by two fraternal countries comes to an end,” he concluded.