A S Uraizee: A rare Muslim Gandhian who fought for human rights

MUMBAI: A lawyer whose clients describe him as “the father I never had;” a judge whose brief tenure is still remembered by both staff and lawyers; a self-effacing fighter for human rights -- A S Uraizee, who passed away this week aged 91, was all of these, and more; he was among the last of the rare breed of Muslim Gandhians.

His parents’ marriage was solemnized in the presence of Gandhiji at Sabarmati Ashram, and the couple often accompanied the Mahatma on his travels through Gujarat. It was only befitting, therefore, that their son would become a lifelong Sarvodaya member and a trustee of Mani Bhavan, Mumbai, later in his life.

Everyone knew Uraizee Saab (as he was called), as the gentlest of beings. But this soft-spoken lawyer could become hard as nails when it came to protecting people’s rights.

As a PUCL (Peoples Union for Civil Liberties) member, Uraizee stood up for the two Sikh professors arrested from Mumbai after Indira Gandhi’s assassination, and charged, along with then CRPF officer SS Mann, with conspiring to kill her. It was a false case that was dropped years later by Rajiv Gandhi’s government. As a lawyer, he took on the most powerful figure in his community—Maulana Ziauddin Bukhari, who was known as then chief minister Sharad Pawar’s right-hand man—and won. The fight was for those homebuyers who found that the flats they had booked in Bukhari’s housing scheme, meant for lower middle class Muslims, had been sold to multiple buyers.

Some of those fighting under Uraizee Saab’s leadership received threats and more, but nobody dared threaten the incorruptible lawyer. Such was his standing that even though his progressive views and critique of his own community were well-known, he remained a respected figure in the predominantly Muslim area of Nagpada. The one-room flat in a crumbling building, where the balcony doubled up as the kitchen, remained his home all through the nine months that he worked as a judge. Leave aside the promised government accommodation, he was not even reimbursed for the petrol used for travelling to court in his moped.

Uraizee Saab never spoke about the discrimination he faced, but was articulate about the state’s discrimination against his community. So, while he opposed the practice of triple talaq, he opposed equally the BJP’s attempts to thrust a uniform civil code on Muslims.

Uraizee Saab’s appointment as a judge, which had been in the offing for months, came about only after a letter from the famous Justice Lentin. Not surprising then, that among those who condoled his passing was Justice Chandrachud. In a message to Uraizee’s daughter Shafaq, a lawyer herself, the former CJI recalled her father as “always gentle to the court and opponents, compassionate and kind, he believed in the power of persuasion over the noise and clatter of the courtroom.”