The following is the text of an address delivered by former Vice President Hamid Ansari at the A.G. Noorani Memorial Lecture on September 18, 2026 at the India Islamic Cultural Centre in Delhi.Bulandi chaahiye insaan ki fitrat main poshidaKoi ho bhais likin shaan-e-sultani Nahin jaatiThere was more than one way of knowing Abdul Ghafoor Noorani saheb, familiarly known as Ghafoor-bhai. He was a Bombay boy, a member of the Kutchi Memon community. The circles of lawyers in Bombay and in the Supreme Court of India were well acquainted with his legal excellence. Many of his contemporaries felt he kept to himself and was very protective of his privacy. Khushwant Singh is said to have attributed Noorani’s lifelong bachelorhood to his stubborn and irritable nature.Raah-e-khuddari se mar kar bhi bhatak sakte NahinToot to sakte hain hum, likin lachak sakte naninThe loss of Ghafoor Noorani, wrote Prabhat Patnaik, is a “severe blow to the intellectual discourse on contemporary India”.Noorani 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.Better known, and appreciated by friends, was his fondness for Mughalai and Kashmiri cuisine. My own acquaintance and enduring friendship emanated from many a trip to Karim’s near the Jama Masjid. On his numerous visits to Delhi, he was on the lookout to quench his appetite for good cuisine.IIIn matters relating to human rights, Noorani’s knowledge was articulated in a widely appreciated series of books and articles. He was a fierce defender of civil liberties, minority rights and constitutional governance, focusing heavily on state overreach, Jammu and Kashmir and secularism. His writings were focused on the defence of fundamental freedoms and against oppressive legislation.In 1963 Noorani published a biography of the then-President Zakir Husain with a foreword by Jayaprakash Narayan, who wrote that ‘a story of a life so active and creative, so refined and dedicated, so fearless and truthful, and fulfilled thus with national recognition, cannot but be a source of light and joy’. A photocopy of M.F. Husain’s portrait of Zakir Husain graces the book.His writings detailing defence of fundamental freedoms against oppressive legislation and injustice took shape in his book The Trial of Bhagat Singh: Politics of Justice. He argued that Bhagat Singh and his colleague were victims of a travesty of justice that amounted to judicial murder.His other books include a volume on the background of the India-China Boundary Problem 1846-1947. It was dedicated to his friend foreign secretary Ram Sathe and digs deep into the origins of what has become a major foreign policy problem.The author delivers the A.G. Noorani Memorial Lecture on September 18, 2026. Photo by arrangement.He describes the border dispute as ‘a heady cocktail of history, law, morality and expediency’ and surmises in a sweeping generalisation that ‘if and when the boundary dispute is resolved, the leaders of a democratic India will perforce recall to its people the very facts of history that were brushed aside in 1959 and thereafter, by its leaders and the entire nation, especially the media and the academia, with baleful and lasting consequences.’The Destruction of Hyderabad (2013) covered Operation Polo, an important happening in the early years of our Republic. Portions of the book make disconcerting reading. Prime Minister Nehru asked Pandit Sunderlal to enquire into alleged excesses. The full text of the Sunderlal Report was not available till last year; Noorani has published as appendices to the book two portions of it available in the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library.A couplet at the end of chapter 16 reflected what many in that city may have felt in those difficult times:Gazala tum to waqif ho, kaho majnoon ke marney kiDiwana mar gaya aakhir ko, weerane pe kya guzriIIINoorani was a fierce defender of civil liberties, minority rights and constitutional governance, focusing heavily on state overreach, Jammu and Kashmir and religious equality. His life’s work as a lawyer, historian and public intellectual detailed the defence of fundamental freedoms against oppressive legislation.Ghafoor bhai was of leftist persuasion, but a constitutionalist at heart. The defining point in Noorani’s life came when he, as a young lawyer, was selected by Mridula Sarabhai in 1958 to defend Sheikh Abdullah in the Kashmir conspiracy case when a foreign lawyer was refused permission to appear in an Indian court.Ghafoor Noorani’s seminal work was his two-volume study The Kashmir Dispute 1947-2012 published in 2013. A long, very long, introduction preceded the text. He purposefully began both the volumes with an extract from Jawaharlal Nehru’s speech in Lok Sabha on January 26, 1952:“I say with all respect to our Constitution that it does not matter what your Constitution says; if the people of Kashmir do not want it, it will not go there. Because what is the alternative? The alternative is compulsion and coercion – presumably, of course, that the people of Kashmir do not want it. Are we going to compel them … against us …?“Do you think you are dealing with a part of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar or Gujarat? You are dealing with an area, historically and geographically, in all manners of things, with a certain background. If we want our local ideas and local prejudices everywhere, we will never consolidate. We have to be men of vision and there has to be a broadminded acceptance of facts in order to integrate really. And real integration comes of the mind and the heart and not of some clause which you may impose on other people.”We know that the government, subsequently, had reasons to think and act otherwise.Also read | Murder of Insaniyat, and of India’s Solemn Commitment to KashmirMany years later, Noorani bowed to changed realities and explored other options for a solution of the Kashmir problem, citing in his support models elsewhere in the world where somewhat analogous situations may have risen.A relevant study was his volume on the jurisprudence of Article 370 of the Constitution. Noorani viewed the proposed changes as detrimental to the interests of the people of J&K; the continuing public and political agitation for the restoration of these changes seems to shed much light on it.IVOn a wider canvas, and in a volume dedicated to his late parents and published in 2003, Noorani saheb put together a set of documents on different aspects of the Muslim minority life in India in the period after 1857, and the efforts made by its spokesmen to articulate them. The minority, he wrote, found themselves leaderless and those who rose to the fore did not have the gifts of political leadership and organisation.Bereft of leadership, he added, the community took a wrong turn in 1948-49, found itself confused and “set on the sterile course of communal mobilisation”. Elsewhere, in his volume on Hyderabad, Noorani wrote positively about “the Muslims of the South” and lauded their emphasis on education and participation in national politics with self-assurance.Noorani expressed his views on the communal problem candidly. It exists, he wrote, as a fact of life:“But agitation against discrimination can arouse the very emotions that foster discrimination. The solution of the Muslim problem lies in the resolution of this dilemma by devising a form and context of agitation which heals old wounds and inflicts no new ones. This resolution can be achieved by regarding discrimination for what it is; a problem of Indian democracy to be resolved within the framework of national integration.”He went on to write that the“empowerment of Muslims will not be achieved through communal mobilisation but as part of a process in which Muslims participate actively in national life, engage themselves enthusiastically on national issues and bring to the fore Muslim grievances as aspects of the injustices that scar Indian society. A keen sense of realism must inform this effort, besides considerable patience. No political would risk his popularity by being seen as a ‘champion’ of Muslims. A wider educative effort is necessary.”This was eminently sensible advice but perhaps not altogether practicable given the size of the community and the diversity of views within it. Noorani was detached but not indifferent to the issues that bothered the community. The choice of themes, and problems dilated upon in the book, makes this abundantly evident.Noorani recalled with zest Maulana Azad’s speech of 1940 at the Ramgarh session of the Indian National Congress and asserted: ‘Whether we like it or not, we have now become an Indian nation, united indivisible.’VThe saga of the Babri Masjid has been narrated in innumerable books and journals. Noorani’s contribution to it was a three-volume tome. I do not pretend to comment on the legal niceties of the much-disputed judgment but cannot help recalling Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer’s remark that “the judiciary will be described as the villain of the piece”.An Urdu couplet on the covering page of volume 3 sums up the feelings of many:Wahi qatil, wahi mukhbir,wahi munsif thehreyAqrba mery karen khoon ka dawa kis parSubsequent statement by various BJP leaders, including the late Sushma Swaraj on April 14, 2000, candidly admitted that the masjid movement was ‘purely political in nature and had nothing to do with religion’.VIGiven his interests and learning, a study on the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh was to be expected. The RSS: A Menace to India was published in early 2019; it was perhaps his last major book. It is substantive in volume and content but did not attempt to camouflage the ideological objective that, in Noorani-style, was expressed in two Urdu couplets:Sar zamin-e-hind par aqwam-aalam ke, FiraqQafle aate rahe aur Hindustan banta gayaandJab Gulistan ko lahoo ki zaroorat parhi, sub se pehle hamari hi gardan katiPhir bbhi kahte hain hum se ye ahl-chaman, yeh chaman hai hamara tumhara NahinThe latter couplet, he wrote in the first line of the introduction, “accurately summed up the Muslim sentiment in India today”. He cited in the introduction to this volume Nehru’s observation in an officers’ meeting in the Ministry of External Affairs (and recorded for posterity by foreign secretary Gundevia): “the danger to India, mark you, it is not communism. It is Hindu right-wing communalism”.VIISo how do we sum up our perceptions of Ghafoor Noorani?I can only repeat what many before me have said. He was a one-man institution, fiercely independent, known for his courage and precision, renowned for his commitment to human rights and secularism, and anti-conversion laws. He was altogether an encyclopaedic figure.Marne waale marte hain, lekin fana hote nahinYeh haqiqat main kabhi hum se juda hote nahinKya khoob aadmi tha, khuda maghfirat kareJai Hind.