A.G. Noorani’s books are testimony to his eclectic interests in politics and history Premium

A.G. Noorani's insightful writings on politics, history, and society offer a masterclass in understatement and critical analysis.

He demanded patience, tons of it, from his readers. He asked too, of elementary understanding of contemporary politics. And maybe a nodding acquaintance with history. But whenever you read A.G. Noorani, you were enriched — the author’s rare ability to sift through seemingly endless piles of papers and reams of documents to craft an unbeatable argument left you in absolute awe. Reading Noorani was seldom a joy; it always was an education.

His 16 books, and thousands of newspaper columns, dating back to the early 1960s and up to 2022, were a masterclass in understatement. He wrote long essays and books running into hundreds of pages. Yet, what was always critical was not what he said, but what he left unsaid. The best of Noorani, and he was among the very best in his stream, lay not in the lines he wrote, but between the lines. Add to that his eye for detail which would have made an architect proud, and patience which would not have been amiss with a jeweller, and you get a once-in-a-generation package answering to the name of Abdul Ghafoor Noorani, the colossus who breathed his last recently.

For a man who wrote with equal relish on Kashmir as he did on Ayodhya, or Bhagat Singh and the Constitution, on Islam as well as diplomacy; it is well-nigh impossible to say where exactly lay his strength. Was he a constitutional expert who stood up for the Fundamental Rights of our citizens, a scholar of history who ripped apart many assumptions about Bhagat Singh and Savarkar, and indeed about the Babri Masjid-Ramjanmabhoomi imbroglio? Or was he at his best when it came to unmasking the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a non-governmental body with self-proclaimed non-political aspirations but one which has exercised unseemly control over at least a couple of Prime Ministers? Talking of the RSS, Noorani left nothing to the imagination in his book, The RSS: A Menace to India.

With no claims to euphemisms, the book announced, “India is battling for its very soul. The RSS is the most powerful organisation in India today; complete with a private army of it own, unquestionably obeying its leader who functions on fascist lines on the Fuehrer principle….The RSS is at war with India’s past. It belittles three of the greatest builders of the Indian state — Ashoka, the Buddhist; Akbar, the Muslim; and Nehru, a civilised Enlightened Hindu.” The words had a ring of forecast to it, as the BJP’s attempts to belittle Akbar’s accomplishments and their constant mocking of Nehru have proved.

Brave, fair and fearless, Noorani said what needed to be said, without equivocation. For instance, take his views on the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) in the same book. On the ABVP, he wrote, “In 2017, the ABVP had a young 49-year-old Sunil Ambedkar as its head…the ABVP, the VHP, the Bajrang Dal are all independent of the BJP. To bridle the BJP, the VHP hurls abuses at it, driving the BJP to seek Nagpur’s protection. That is granted and the BJP begins to adhere to the RSS line.” He talked about the BJP and the RSS in greater detail and with equal felicity in The RSS and the BJP: A Division of Labour.

As for the VHP, he wrote, “The VHP cut its teeth on the anti-cow slaughter movement in New Delhi in 1966 on the eve of the 1967 general election. In April 1984 it declared for the first time its resolve to ‘liberate’ the birthplace of Ram at Ayodhya.” By the way, 1984 was also an election year as was 1989 when the Congress government allowed it to conduct shilanyas.

If Noorani was relentless in his criticism of the Hindutva politics, he did not spare the Congress either. In his painstakingly researched two-volume exercise, The Babri Masjid Question, he unmasked the party by highlighting how the socialist leader Acharya Narendra Deva was presented as a ‘lesser’ Hindu by the Congress, much the same way some BJP leaders seek to do to the Congress today.