Sawaneh-i Dehli: Biography of Dehli, written by Bahadur Shah Zafar’s grandson, Mirza Ahmad Akhtar Gorgani, and first published in 1894, has been translated by Ather Farouqui, the well-known Urdu scholar and translator. Farouqui writes that the 1894 edition is available only in facsimile form in the Jamia Millia Islamia library, of which he managed to obtain a digital copy for translation. However, since the facsimile is in a decrepit form and is also illegible in places, he has had to rely on some guesswork, and on the Delhi Urdu Academy text. The Delhi Urdu Academy republished the Hardinge Library original without following the rules of textual criticism, says Farouqui in his Translator’s Notes. Farouqui’s translation is one that brings his own scholarship of textual criticism to bear on it; in addition, he utilized the expertise of a medieval Indian historian, Riya Gupta, and amended his translation and footnotes with her suggestions.
Farouqui’s translation of Sawaneh-i Dehli is a cultural, archaeological, historical treatise since it is not limited to simply translating the text from one language to another but also painstakingly locates factual errors in Gorgani’s original text and has elaborate explanatory footnotes: as Farouqui points out in his Preface, Gorgani knew very little of history. Gorgani’s dates in the original text are Hijri dates which Farouqui converts to dates conforming to the Gregorian calendar. Apart from the factual correction of discrepancies and errors, Farouqui offers critical analyses of events and people from his scholarly perspective. Farouqui’s own MPhil and PhD are on the socio-political condition of Urdu in India in the post-Partition era. At present, he is the General Secretary of the oldest Urdu organization, Anjuman Taraqqi Urdu (Hindi).