A.G. Noorani (1930-2024): A polymath passes on

“Ghafoorbhai” was one of the sharpest minds on constitutional law. He leaves behind a vast legacy of legal scholarship and incisive journalism.

A. G. Noorani in New Delhi on April 23, 2010. | Photo Credit: SUDERSHAN V

Scholar, lawyer, biographer, historian, and political commentator: this is how many would describe Abdul Ghafoor Majeed Noorani, who passed away at his home in Mumbai on August 29 at the age of 93.

Noorani or Ghafoorbhai, as he was more popularly known, was a polymath and much more. One of the sharpest minds on constitutional law and a prolific writer on a range of subjects, he had a deep sense of justice and was committed to secularism, equity, and progressive ideas. His repertoire of writing spanned domestic politics, jurisprudence as well as international relations, contemporary as well as historical.

A former Supreme Court lawyer, he had practised in the Bombay High Court as well. He wrote for many leading publications including The Hindustan Times, The Hindu, Frontline,Economic and Political Weekly,The Statesman and Dainik Bhaskar. His regular and well-researched columns in Frontline were a repository of information and insight. He wrote extensively on Kashmir in a range of publications, using archival material to substantiate his arguments. He also wrote about the process leading to the Partition of India, which he described as “one of the ten greatest tragedies in human history”.

N. Ram, Director of The Hindu Group of Publications, recalled his long association with Noorani. In a warm tribute to the late scholar, he said: “Ghafoor Noorani was a journalist’s journalist; erudite, versatile, brave, fiercely independent—and inexhaustibly productive on issues that matter. He was rock-like in his belief in citizens’ rights and especially freedom of speech and expression. Thanks to his knowledge and experience as a respected lawyer, he was able to push the exercise of this freedom right up to the limits prescribed by India’s quite illiberal free speech jurisprudence, without ever getting the publication into trouble.”

Ram added that Noorani did original research and wrote learned columns and books on a wide range of subjects, including the Kashmir dispute (1947-2012), Article 370, the India-China boundary problem, the RSS and the BJP, Savarkar and Hindutva, the Babri Masjid, ministerial misconduct, and the rights of citizens. “Ghafoor was a long-standing and highly valued contributor to Frontline. He would fight for space, planned his contributions in advance, and could always be relied on to deliver his copy on deadline. I think he took it as a personal defeat if he ever missed contributing to an issue. Ghafoor was a wonderful friend. He lived a full life and Indian journalism is demonstrably poorer for his passing,” Ram said.

Former Vice President of India Hamid Ansari described Noorani as “one of the most remarkable personalities of our era”. Noorani, he said, was “a lawyer by profession but his work exceeded that of a normal lawyer”. Recalling Noorani’s body of work, Ansari said that he specialised in matters of international relations, especially India-Pakistan matters in which he did excellent work. Ansari, who had a close friendship with the late scholar, shared some interesting facets. Noorani, he said, was respected but not necessarily liked by the political leaderships and intellectuals, on both sides of the divide.

“Yet the work that he did and the books he wrote on the subject will remain unique. His set of articles on the Kashmir dispute ended up in two volumes. But more than that, his diligent research will always remain unique. In his passing, we have lost a great personality. One of his last works was a book on Babri Masjid, on which he had already written enough,” said Ansari.

He recalled some personal anecdotes too. Noorani, he said, loved coming to Delhi and his room at the India International Centre was known and marked. “He was fond of good food and that is how our friendship started decades ago when he would induce me to join him in Old Delhi’s restaurants. He was a great friend. His memory of facts, not just about India-Pakistan, was remarkable. Statesmen on both sides of the border did not necessarily like him but respected him,” he said.

With a deep sense of justice, Noorani was known as an authority on international relations especially India-Pakistan matters, disputes relating to Kashmir, etc. | Photo Credit: By Special Arrangement

Noorani authored a number of books including The Kashmir Dispute—1947-2012, Article 370: A Constitutional History of Jammu and Kashmir,Constitutional Questions in India, Ministers’ Misconduct, The Presidential System,Brezhnev’ Plan for Asian Security,The Trial of Bhagat Singh,The Destruction of Hyderabad, and The Babri Masjid Question. He authored the biographies of Badruddin Tyabji and Zakir Husain. In his later years, his association with LeftWord Publications led to several more books: The RSS and the BJP: A Division of Labour, Islam and Jihad, Savarkar and Hindutva: The Godse Connection, and The RSS: A Menace to India.

Noorani had a deep sense of justice and a belief that successive governments at the Centre had not dealt with the Kashmir question fairly. In his capacity as a lawyer, Noorani put up a legal defence of Sheikh Abdullah, who was jailed for 11 years by the then-Congress leadership. Abdullah was the first Prime Minister of Jammu and Kashmir. He was ousted from office in 1953. In an article titled “The Sheikh versus the Pandit: The roots of the Kashmir Dispute” published in 2016 on the website KashmirConnected, Noorani was unsparing in his criticism of Jawaharlal Nehru and his treatment of Abdullah. When Article 370 was finally abrogated in 2019 by the Modi-led government, Noorani called it “deceitful” and “unconstitutional.” He was not one to mince words. He wrote several articles decrying the abrogation, the propriety and the legality of the act and the destruction of the State’s autonomy in the process.

Article 370: A Constitutional History of Jammu and Kashmir by A.G. Noorani. | Photo Credit: By Special Arrangement

In Article 370: A Constitutional History of Jammu and Kashmir, there are sections where Noorani reproduced the correspondence between Abdullah and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi that showed a complete disregard for popular will by the then Central government. The book is replete with rare and hitherto unreported correspondence between the major political protagonists of that period. The erosion of Article 370 had begun long back as some of the correspondence and other memoranda cited seem to indicate. Just as Noorani’s defence of Abdullah created legal history, his defence of M. Karunanidhi in the Bombay High Court was a much-talked-about event.

Political leaders across the spectrum recalled his contributions and mourned his demise. Former Rajya Sabha MP and Politburo member of the CPI(M), Brinda Karat, described him as a towering intellectual and author, who through his numerous publications based on meticulous research, laid bare the toxic working of the RSS, its ideology, and its links with the BJP. “He served the cause of secularism and truth in every word he wrote. His work will endure”, she said. Other leaders to pay tribute to him included National Conference leader Omar Abdullah, All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen chief Asaduddin Owaisi.

Noorani focussed on the trajectory that India was taking, the growth of right-wing conservatism and Hindutva politics, and the attack on liberal ideas, free speech, and expression. | Photo Credit: By Special Arrangement

Managing editor of LeftWord Books, Sudhanva Deshpande recalled his own experience of working with Noorani. “Reading A.G. Noorani was to be educated in the skill of making a cogent, persuasive, watertight argument; publishing him was to be schooled in the art of combining rigorous fact-checking with elegant prose. At LeftWord, we were honoured to publish four books by Mr Noorani, and I was privileged to have been his editor. Personally, I will remember Ghafoorbhai as a man of great decency and old-world charm; someone who, in befriending me, cast aside hierarchies of age and stature with disarming ease. Above all, what will stay with me is the memory of our visits to various roadside chaatwallahs every time he visited Delhi. If ever there was a chaat connoisseur, it was Ghafoorbhai,” said Deshpande.

The subjects Noorani chose to write on reflected a concern with major developments, both within and outside the country. He was particularly concerned about the trajectory that India was taking, the growth of right-wing conservatism and Hindutva politics, and the attack on liberal ideas, and free speech and expression. He was, as one journalist described him fondly, an eccentric genius. Colleagues at Frontline recall that he made his aversion to the use of first the typewriter and then the computer known early on. For the longest time, he wrote in longhand, and the manuscripts would run into several pages, until he started taking help to have his articles typed but not on the computer. That was Noorani.

Lyla Bavadam, formerly with Frontline, was in touch with him in Mumbai over the years. She said Noorani used to say that he thought best with pen and paper. “The first draft, used to be a horrifying sight but it was also a brilliant look into his precise mind. He sought and found the right word, thought, and emotion. In fact, he was as relentless about good writing as he was about facts. His determination in seeking out the tiniest bit of information put you in awe of him. His whole life was writing. At least in his later years, writing was his life. Even his helper, Qayyum, used to say “Saab, likhe bagair khaana nahi kha sakte hain” (Sahib cannot have a meal without having done his writing). He enjoyed the company of all sorts as long as there was intellect and courtesy. His own manners had the grace of another era but he could cut down people he disliked. There were no greys with him. It was all black or white,” she said.

Eminent economist and academician Prabhat Patnaik also shared his memories of Noorani. “I first came across Ghafoor Noorani’s writings in the Economic & Political Weekly, and met him personally later when he published through LeftWord Books with which I was then associated. One could always rely absolutely on the veracity of the information contained in his writings; in fact, in this sense, he stood apart from literally everyone else. This trait was as much a result of the meticulousness of his research, as of his honesty and dispassionateness as a scholar, and of the immense effort that went into everything he wrote. The loss of Ghafoor Noorani is a severe blow to the intellectual discourse on contemporary India,” he said.

Perhaps Noorani had a longer and fuller life than most are privileged to enjoy. But precisely for that reason and because of the immense body of work he produced, his passing seems to have come too early. It is unlikely that there will be another like him.