AG Noorani, another giant of our constitutional journey -- who was born in colonial India in 1930, who witnessed the unfortunate partition of the country and who was filled with hope after hearing Nehru's historic tryst with destiny speech -- has finally left this selfish world of power-hungry politicians, pliable judges and insensitive citizens.
Noorani had closely observed first the drafting of a great constitution by the visionary founders of our republic and then with dismay and disbelief its open and blatant dismantling -- not only during emergency but even prior to that and subsequently. He also saw with his own eyes the death of the great idea of constitutionalism in several democracies.
The 94-year-old giant's convictions and moral courage were and will be widely appreciated. He called a spade a spade and criticised almost all ministers, including Jawaharlal Nehru, for whom he had the utmost respect.
Being witness to the constitution, intended to be a document of rights and limitations, slowly and gradually getting converted -- both by amendments and some judicial verdicts -- into a document of power and control, he became disillusioned and turned into a restless soul who lost trust in the powers-that-be.
How should we evaluate his legacy? Was he merely a critic of VD Savarkar and the RSS? Was he a secular fundamentalist or a constitutionalist with a bias towards Muslims? Was he objective in his assessment of people and events, or was he highly opinionated?
Noorani has written extensively on almost everything that happened in our constitutional history. He did not spare anybody, including those whom he admired and was fond of. Though he used to encourage me and even appreciated my quick analyses of judgments at times, he did express his displeasure with me for writing on the possible options before a Hindu Rashtra.
He totally disagreed with my analysis that the Hindu Rashtra won't take away any fundamental right of Muslims. He was greatly annoyed with me for writing a number of articles welcoming what I felt were the RSS chief's extremely positive statements on Hindutva and Hindu-Muslim unity.
Noorani had a deep understanding of historical events and here his photogenic memory aided him. Accordingly, he believed that Hindutva will always assert the superiority of Hindus and will never accept Muslims as equals.
Noorani, a lifelong critic of the RSS, has written that the Sangh is at war with India's past and has been belittling three of the greatest builders of the Indian state -- Ashoka, Akbar and Nehru. Being a true constitutionalist and having witnessed partition and the communal violence it unleashed, he was absolutely against communalism and the use of religion in politics.
He, like Nehru, was more scared of majoritarian communalism and that's why in his book on the RSS, he said that this "poison has spread alarmingly". But as a believer in pluralism, he had unflinching faith in the genius of country's majority and was optimistic that "the forces that spread it are not invincible". An eternal optimist, he wrote that such forces can be defeated if those who oppose such kind of communal politics are ready and equipped to meet the challenge.
For Noorani, what was at stake was "not only the Indian dream". He said, "What is at stake is the soul of India." As a true patriot, Noorani used his pen to tell citizens about the evil designs and harmful effects of communalism.
Gandhiji's assassination by Nathuram Godse shocked Noorani. He extensively used the inquiry report by former judge of Supreme Court Justice Jivan Lal Kapur on Gandhiji's assassination and the conspiracy behind it to criticise Savarkar. But he blamed several others as well.
For instance, he had written that immediately after Madanlal Pahwa exploded a bomb at Gandhiji's prayer meeting on January 20, 1948, Jamshid Nagarvalla of the Bombay CID asked the then Bombay Home Minister, Morarji Desai, for his permission to arrest Savarkar. This was based on the fact that Madanlal had paid Savarkar a visit the week before. Morarji angrily refused. Noorani always believed that had Morarji agreed, Gandhiji could have been saved.
Noorani has argued that Hindutva is a political -- not religious -- ideology as prior to Savarkar, who coined this term, no great exponent of Hinduism, including Swami Vivekananda, had used it. Noorani said Savarkar himself has written that Hindutva is not to be confused with Hinduism. Interestingly, even Savarkar in his book entitled Indian War of Independence,1857 published in 1910 had not used the term Hindutva anywhere.
To Noorani, Hinduism was an ancient "path to self-realisation and Hindutva, modern and ignoble".
Noorani, a master of archival research, reported Savarkar's meeting with Viceroy Linlithgow on October 9,1939. The Viceroy sent his report to the then Secretary of State Lord Zetland. Savarkar had assured him of the Hindus support to the British.
"Our interests were now the same and we must therefore work together," he had stated. Savarkar went on to say that "the essential thing was for Hinduism and Great Britain to be friends and old antagonism was no longer necessary". In Savarkar's view, territorial nationalism or Indian nationalism was not good enough and therefore he advocated cultural nationalism.
Noorani was frank enough to state why he had to write a book on Savarkar -- Savarkar and Hindutva: The Godse Connection (2002). He said that it was due to then union Home minister LK Advani's decision to install Savarkar on a pedestal by renaming the Andaman and Nicobar airport as the VD Savarkar airport at a function on May 4, 2002. In the preface of that book, he said he is submitting his book to the 'judgment of fellow citizens'.
Noorani has written on a number of constitutional and legal issues. For instance, writing on Shiv Sena's opposition to Deepa Mehta’s film Fire, he argued that whole system of film censorship is unconstitutional. He cited the Justice GD Khosla Report (1969), which found several provisions of Cinematograph Act,1952 and its Rules to be utterly unconstitutional. Noorani favoured the idea of an independent and autonomous Board of Film Censors as he considered the existing board neither independent nor autonomous.
Though Noorani was for civilian control of defence forces, he criticised Prime Minister Vajpayee for the unprecedented dismissal of Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Vishnu Bhagat and favoured a Joint Parliamentary Committee probe into it. This was the very same Noorani who told us through an article that it was Nehru who had asked the then Indian Commander-in-Chief General Sir Rob Lockhart to put in his papers. This was because Lockhart had been alerted on telephone by General Douglas Gracey, Commander-in-Chief of Pakistan army, about the invasion of Kashmir by tribals and did not share this vital information with the Indian government.
We need not agree with each and every conclusion of Noorani's when it comes to political and constitutional developments in India. But if we want to fully understand or research any constitutional issue, we should not ignore his arguments, particularly those in which he meticulously cited archival records.
Noorani may have fallen silent, but his constitutional scholarship will continue to speak to future researchers and prisoners of conscience.
(Professor Faizan Mustafa is Vice-Chancellor of Chanakya National Law University, Patna. The views are personal.)
