A.G. Noorani was an observant Muslim, he had not an iota of sectarianism in him. He was a great Indian and a greater human being, writes Ravi Nair in this personal note..—.IT is not easy writing about A.G. Noorani who passed away on August 29, 2024. The obituaries in the media have been fulsome in praise and rightly so..I had started reading his articles in late 1977. I found them most educative as I thirsted for information on human rights issues. Most of the articles then appearing in the print media were mainly anecdotal, Noorani was one of the few who wrote substantively with a deep grasp of both domestic law in India and international human rights law..At some point in 1981, I had gone to Bombay to see a lawyer associated with the then-Indian chapter of Amnesty International. He had asked me to meet him in the high court Bar library. As we were leaving the library, he pointed to a gentleman reading a book in a corner and whispered to me, "That is A.G. Noorani.".I immediately requested that he introduce me to Noorani. My friend quickly steered me out of the Bar library and told me that Noorani kept to himself and was very protective of his privacy..In 1982, when V.P. Singh was the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, yes, the same of Mandal Commission fame, later to be Prime Minister of India, I had an unfortunate print media exchange with Noorani..V.P. Singh had given the Uttar Pradesh police a free hand to conduct extrajudicial killings as 'encounter deaths' of alleged dacoits. A gang of dacoits had earlier murdered his elder brother, Justice Chandra Shekhar Pratap Singh, his son and a servant..The Uttar Pradesh police then was principally an upper caste force. It took upon itself the task of not only physically liquidating alleged dacoits but also doing away with a large number of backward and other backward caste activists in central and eastern Uttar Pradesh..Also read: Fali Nariman: Bright by name, brighter by deed.Narendra Guru, an old-time indefatigable Lohiate socialist activist from Allahabad alerted me to the problem. Noorani then wrote an article about these killings in one of the major dailies. His figures of the killings were from the then-English print media. I contested his figures in a letter to the editor. A Bombay journalist friend later told me that I had contradicted Noorani— sacrilege..I had ground-level information in the form of handwritten affidavits in Hindi from the village level to the tehsil level in most districts of Uttar Pradesh thanks to party workers of Lok Dal then led by Mulayam Singh Yadav in the state..I made my peace with Noorani in the early 1990s thanks to the abominable human rights situation in Kashmir and started a long and fruitful friendship and collaboration on human rights matters. We were brought together by the then head of the International Committee of the Red Cross in India, Michel Ducraux, a rare and sensitive humanitarian..I was able to gather the most authentic information on violations thanks to the fact that on my then-frequent visits to Kashmir, I would go to the road outside the police headquarters and meet the next of kin of those illegally detained and disappeared who in most cases waited in vain for their next-of-kin who had been abducted by Indian armed forces..I would take copious notes and arrange to meet them later. I was greatly helped by Ghulam Nabi Hagroo, a senior member of the Srinagar Bar. I also benefited greatly from the advice and assistance of Dr Ahad Guroo and Dr Farooq Ashai who were both killed, about which I will write some day in detail..It was Noorani who filled me in on the history. The work of Mirza Afzal Beg and Mridula Sarabhai who was perhaps one of the first non-Kashmiris to be imprisoned for asking for justice for Kashmiris. The work of Jayprakash Narayan committee on Kashmir of which Noorani was a member..Also read: Revocation of Article 370 in Kashmir through the lawfare lens.The internet was in its infancy. Noorani was my go-to person on all things historical and political on Kashmir and international human rights law..In November 1993, The Observer of Business and Politics, Delhi accused me of being on the payroll of Pakistan's intelligence agency, after I had participated in the Round Table Conference on Kashmir organised by the Socialist Group of European Parliament in October 1993 in Brussels..When I filed a complaint with the Press Council of India (PCI), Justice P.B. Sawant, then chairperson of the PCI, incredulously asked me to obtain a clearance certificate from the intelligence agencies..Noorani made short shrift of Sawant, the PCI and the spooks in a two-part centre page article in the Hindustan Times titled 'The Ravi Nair Case'. Thanks to Noorani, C.R. Irani, then Editor of The Statesman, wrote a front-page edit called Caveat, titled, 'In Defense of Ravi Nair'..When I became more familiar with international human rights law, Noorani and I cooperated on many issues..He was generous in his praise for my work in many of his articles. He wrote a fulsome paragraph in his magnum opus on the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh on my efforts at the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the United Nations to deny membership to the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP)..My organisation, the South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre, jointly authored a book, Challenges to Civil Rights Guarantees in India, with Noorani published by Oxford University Press in India in 2011. With Noorani's written permission, I have been working on an anthology of his earlier writings. I am devastated that he will not be there to see its publication..Noorani had a gruff exterior. I am convinced it was an automatic defence mechanism to keep flatterers and time wasters at bay. To me and the many friends he had, he was generous with his time, knowledge and experience..An observant Muslim, he had not an iota of sectarianism in him. A great Indian and a greater human being.
A.G. Noorani was an observant Muslim, he had not an iota of sectarianism in him. He was a great Indian and a greater human being, writes Ravi Nair in this personal note..—.IT is not easy writing about A.G. Noorani who passed away on August 29, 2024. The obituaries in the media have been fulsome in praise and rightly so..I had started reading his articles in late 1977. I found them most educative as I thirsted for information on human rights issues. Most of the articles then appearing in the print media were mainly anecdotal, Noorani was one of the few who wrote substantively with a deep grasp of both domestic law in India and international human rights law..At some point in 1981, I had gone to Bombay to see a lawyer associated with the then-Indian chapter of Amnesty International. He had asked me to meet him in the high court Bar library. As we were leaving the library, he pointed to a gentleman reading a book in a corner and whispered to me, "That is A.G. Noorani.".I immediately requested that he introduce me to Noorani. My friend quickly steered me out of the Bar library and told me that Noorani kept to himself and was very protective of his privacy..In 1982, when V.P. Singh was the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, yes, the same of Mandal Commission fame, later to be Prime Minister of India, I had an unfortunate print media exchange with Noorani..V.P. Singh had given the Uttar Pradesh police a free hand to conduct extrajudicial killings as 'encounter deaths' of alleged dacoits. A gang of dacoits had earlier murdered his elder brother, Justice Chandra Shekhar Pratap Singh, his son and a servant..The Uttar Pradesh police then was principally an upper caste force. It took upon itself the task of not only physically liquidating alleged dacoits but also doing away with a large number of backward and other backward caste activists in central and eastern Uttar Pradesh..Also read: Fali Nariman: Bright by name, brighter by deed.Narendra Guru, an old-time indefatigable Lohiate socialist activist from Allahabad alerted me to the problem. Noorani then wrote an article about these killings in one of the major dailies. His figures of the killings were from the then-English print media. I contested his figures in a letter to the editor. A Bombay journalist friend later told me that I had contradicted Noorani— sacrilege..I had ground-level information in the form of handwritten affidavits in Hindi from the village level to the tehsil level in most districts of Uttar Pradesh thanks to party workers of Lok Dal then led by Mulayam Singh Yadav in the state..I made my peace with Noorani in the early 1990s thanks to the abominable human rights situation in Kashmir and started a long and fruitful friendship and collaboration on human rights matters. We were brought together by the then head of the International Committee of the Red Cross in India, Michel Ducraux, a rare and sensitive humanitarian..I was able to gather the most authentic information on violations thanks to the fact that on my then-frequent visits to Kashmir, I would go to the road outside the police headquarters and meet the next of kin of those illegally detained and disappeared who in most cases waited in vain for their next-of-kin who had been abducted by Indian armed forces..I would take copious notes and arrange to meet them later. I was greatly helped by Ghulam Nabi Hagroo, a senior member of the Srinagar Bar. I also benefited greatly from the advice and assistance of Dr Ahad Guroo and Dr Farooq Ashai who were both killed, about which I will write some day in detail..It was Noorani who filled me in on the history. The work of Mirza Afzal Beg and Mridula Sarabhai who was perhaps one of the first non-Kashmiris to be imprisoned for asking for justice for Kashmiris. The work of Jayprakash Narayan committee on Kashmir of which Noorani was a member..Also read: Revocation of Article 370 in Kashmir through the lawfare lens.The internet was in its infancy. Noorani was my go-to person on all things historical and political on Kashmir and international human rights law..In November 1993, The Observer of Business and Politics, Delhi accused me of being on the payroll of Pakistan's intelligence agency, after I had participated in the Round Table Conference on Kashmir organised by the Socialist Group of European Parliament in October 1993 in Brussels..When I filed a complaint with the Press Council of India (PCI), Justice P.B. Sawant, then chairperson of the PCI, incredulously asked me to obtain a clearance certificate from the intelligence agencies..Noorani made short shrift of Sawant, the PCI and the spooks in a two-part centre page article in the Hindustan Times titled 'The Ravi Nair Case'. Thanks to Noorani, C.R. Irani, then Editor of The Statesman, wrote a front-page edit called Caveat, titled, 'In Defense of Ravi Nair'..When I became more familiar with international human rights law, Noorani and I cooperated on many issues..He was generous in his praise for my work in many of his articles. He wrote a fulsome paragraph in his magnum opus on the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh on my efforts at the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the United Nations to deny membership to the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP)..My organisation, the South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre, jointly authored a book, Challenges to Civil Rights Guarantees in India, with Noorani published by Oxford University Press in India in 2011. With Noorani's written permission, I have been working on an anthology of his earlier writings. I am devastated that he will not be there to see its publication..Noorani had a gruff exterior. I am convinced it was an automatic defence mechanism to keep flatterers and time wasters at bay. To me and the many friends he had, he was generous with his time, knowledge and experience..An observant Muslim, he had not an iota of sectarianism in him. A great Indian and a greater human being.
