Siddharth Varadarajan
The great A.G. Noorani is no more. His caregiver said he died this afternoon (on 29th of August) in Bombay. Ghafoor, as his friends called him —a nd I am proud to have been among their ranks —had been ailing for some time but was still working furiously on a book he had hoped to complete, on the Supreme Court’s atrocious Babri Masjid judgement.
With his death, India has lost one of its finest legal scholars, historians, political analysts and human rights defenders—all wrapped in one. He was a walking encyclopaedia of India’s diplomatic history, the Jammu and Kashmir question, the Indian constitution and a lot more. His books on Kashmir, India-China relations, Hyderabad, fundamental rights, the Babri Masjid and Hindutva have achieved classic status—each and every one of them. He was a relentless seeker of (unclassified but hard to find) official documents, and of great food. I had the good fortune to accompany him more than once on wild goose-esque chases of a gola kebab maker or a qorma in Old Delhi.
Noorani was a creature of habit, of firm likes and dislikes. At the IIC, he had to have Room 38, nowhere else. If he was meeting you for lunch, he would not allow a third person to accompany you or even hover around the table for a second.
He had a low tolerance level for any kind of bad behaviour, impertinence or impropriety and once someone crossed that Rubicon they would remain banished from his life forever. I know a few veteran journalists or scholars whom Ghafoor cast aside and even intercede on behalf of one of them once, to no effect.
Kashmir held a special place in his heart. As a lawyer, he defended Sheikh Abdullah and as a writer and constitutionalist, he did his best to make the case for an honourable and just solution to the Kashmir problem.
In any other country, a scholar and jurist like Noorani would have been considered a revered national treasure, his brilliant columns sought after. But in India, his sharp tongue and sharper pen – deployed with impeccable if old fashioned prose – made him many enemies on all sides (and especially ‘the establishment’, whatever the party in power) and in the end he was largely confined to Frontline in India and Dawn in Pakistan (excellent publications, both) till ill health two years ago forced him to devote all his energies to the books he wanted to write.
He was 94 and we’d hoped for 100. We will miss you dearly, Ghafoor bhai.
— Taken from Sidharth Varadarajan’s X Handle
Siddharth Varadarajan is the Founder Editor of the online publication ‘The Wire‘
