A G Noorani, 1929-2024: In fact

Sometime back as I was reading one of his recent columns, erudite and elegant as always; it struck me how sharp and acerbic he is even at 94. I thought I must write his obituary. The only issue being that if I did write it, I would have had to send it to him. Given his fastidious nature in general, and especially about the written word, he would have liked to see what was being written about him. But that was not to be.

Abdul Ghafoor Majeed Noorani, Ghafoor Bhai, for his friends, was a binary man; truth and false; correct or incorrect, constitutional, or unconstitutional. The man who could only see two shades: black and white. There was no grey. In his world of binaries, he liked you or he disliked you.  Of course, he could have loved you one day to be ignored the very next day. In Kashmiri, Noorani sahib would be best described as “trosh te tyoth bude” (brittle and bitter old man); someone who has an attitudinal temper.

The moment I heard on the August 5th, 2019 the Home Minister use Section 3 of Article 370 to read down the Article, my first thought was, what will Mr Noorani have to say about this in terms of its constitutionality. Something he has studied and declared unconstitutional almost 30 years before it was actually done.

What this tells you is that for me, and for almost every educated Kashmiri, “Noorani” was the last word on the special constitutional position of J&K in the Union of India, its constitutional history, and the interpretation of the Constitution of J&K. Every Kashmiri owes him a debt of gratitude for not only educating him/her about it, but advocating with intellectual integrity every time the special constitutional position was chipped at. He wrote that the Supreme Court judgment ignored “legality and history”

To the best of my knowledge no one has worked more than him on the relationship between Constitution of India and the Constitution of J&K. His book on Article 370 is truly the last word. Ironic that what he had thought and believed in as the far solution wasn't to be. Not for the lack of his commitment. Noorani documented the minutest detail with clinical care and precision

Noorani was the first constitutional expert who showed the hollow reality of "the special status" of the state of Jammu and Kashmir and his method is to trace the steps by which Article 370 was "eroded" by "conscious executive acts" to the point where "only the shell" was left.

His hope was to "retrieve from the wreckage of Article 370, a constitutional settlement which satisfies the aspirations of the people of Jammu and Kashmir". To that end, he made his own contribution and presented a draft of the article.

Noorani was particularly severe, and justifiably so, on the 1975 "accord of political cooperation" between Indira Gandhi and Sheikh Abdullah. "Based on a fundamental error of law", he calls it "worse than useless" and "harmful to Kashmir's rights and interests" having "neither legal efficacy nor moral worth".

Starting from "special status" in 1947, Noorani chronicles how J&K was by mid 80s in "a status inferior" to that of the other states. Be it in relation to the centre's powers to legislate on matters in the State List, pass executive orders towards president's rule or command residuary power in relation to the state. This was even before 2019.

Mr Noorani’s long and enduring love affair with Kashmir starts when all love stories start, in the twenties while he was assisting Mridul Sarabhai in the Kashmir Conspiracy Case. He had very high regard for Sheikh Sahib as a leader (certainly up to 1953), and National Conference as an institution. He was friends with National Conference leaders like Abdul Rahim Rather whom he held in high esteem for intellectual integrity.

A small eclectic circle of friends, journalists, bureaucrats and politicians, got Noorani sahib addicted to the delights of Kashmir – Wazwan, Harissa and Ambre apples. He would for ever be talking about how he gets all this stuff from various friends in Kashmir. It meant a lot to him and saw them as close a family as he had. It is a fact that, in Srinagar, he was very warmly hosted and widely respected.

His research methods have set the standards of scholarship. The written word – text or data – was sacrosanct and every assertion made is backed by credible evidence that has been documented painstakingly. He hasn’t drawn big inference but has written well within the bounds of the evidence he has.   Intellectual integrity was the greatest quality his work.

He was an archivist at heart. He loved documentation. The Trial of Bhagat Singh: Politics of Justice (2005) and The Muslims of India: A Documentary Record are examples of this love. Way before the Hindu right became the dominant national ideology, he foresaw their future in The RSS and the BJP: A Division of Labour. He wrote a dozen or more books ranging from Islam, South Asia and the Cold War to Challenges to Civil Rights Guarantees in India.

Noorani was like a beehive. If you wrote something he didn’t agree with, you would be bitten all over. But if you managed to develop a relationship, you would get the taste of honey. He carefully chose every word he wrote and spoke. There was never any ambiguity.

He wrote a vituperative column against me on the introduction of GST. I expected him to be happy with the legislative process that I had followed in introducing it. In fact it was the only time that the state legislature approved it before recommending it to the Union to issue it. But he saw it in terms of the curtailment of autonomy. I wrote a long response pointing out that he was completely all over about GST but never got to publishing it. Just as well, out of sheer respect for the man.

His views were widely respected. I had written a piece in Greater Kashmir in 2010 or 11 which Mr Noorani had quoted “in extensio” endorsing it. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, a regular reader of his columns, asked for my column. Such was the respect for what Noorani wrote.

He was a classical gentleman in many ways. He had a certain old school sartorial elegance, the kind that one doesn’t get to see know. A pocket square was always peeking out of the breast pocket often of a double-breasted blazer. Winters would see him sport a cravat. He would make it a point to have French cuffs on his shirt and match his belt and boots. And most of it came from his family business. It is not widely known but his family owns Zodaic clothing, an iconic menswear brand in the country.

This made him a part of the social elite of Mumbai. I was having lunch with him in the Cricket CIub of India, in Mumbai. The waiters obviously knew him. True to his style, he had preordered. He was just too meticulous. My preferences were assumed in affection and good faith. Keema toast and all the specialities were lined up. He had a voracious appetite, what Kashmiris call “Khorande”.

Every day a copy of the Greater Kashmir was mailed to him. He would read the edit page, in particular. Later he would also call for Kashmir Life, the cerebral fortnightly out of Srinagar.

For most of his life, he lived alone in his apartment in Breach Candy with his immaculately catalogued reading materials, notes, articles, correspondence, research references and books. I hope his extended family makes his library a public asset. The J&K Research and Library department would do well to reach out and offer to make it a special part of the library. Something like a “Noorani Centre” or simply designate it as Noorani Private Collection’. There can be no greater tribute to the great man. RIP Ghafoor Bhai!