A G Noorani (1930-2024): A rare scholar
Abdul Ghafoor Abdul Majid Noorani Pic: The Hindu A very senior journalist and editor once told me that they initially thought A G Noorani was an 'Islamist'. I did not ask to elaborate on what exactly they meant by 'Islamist', but in the very next sentence they said Noorani's meticulous research and prodigious output showed him as someone who was wedded to facts. Noorani, who died on 29 August 2024, at the age of 94, was born in Mumbai in a Kutchi Memon family in 1930. Till his last days he continued to collect, document, read and write. The quest for documents perhaps began with the Kashmir issue. In the 1950s, when he was in his early 20s, he sought white paper on Kashmir. That was not the era of surfing websites and downloading documents. So his effort to gain a copy of the white paper made New Delhi think about outlining the practicalities of making such documents available to the public. Noorani's quest for knowledge and accuracy was legendary and he broug...
