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The Importance of Dialogue in an India That Has Seen the Waqf Amendment

A culture that had remained united while we sought freedom is being tainted with silence.
A culture that had remained united while we sought freedom is being tainted with silence.
the importance of dialogue in an india that has seen the waqf amendment
An agitator during a protest against the Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025, at Freedom Park, in Bengaluru, Karnataka, Monday, April 7, 2025. Photo: PTI.
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Fresh out of college, a friend has recently started picking up newspapers from his father’s desk, a collection envious to all of London and New York’s bounteous newsstands, initially in the hope of humouring oneself with feuilletons, to couple literary knowledge with the voices of the world. It makes me sad to mention that he has begun to call that an unfortunate enterprise. The columns are caparisoned with tears, suppressed muffles, or occasional screams that seem to continuously poke at his consciousness. People who he calls 'brothers' have been sighted parading down an apparently secular ladder that was carefully built by fellow citizens.

What one is hearing of late is a subdued but highly visible oppression of the marginalised by the hands of a collective conscience – a majority.

The Waqf (Amendment) Act has been passed by both the Houses of the parliament and has got the president's assent. Yet again, the powerful has labelled itself as the reformers of a ‘backward’ demography of people (as did the British imperialists), taking potshots at a culture which is gradually losing its essence to Hindu gentrification. It is repeatedly said that all that seems pernicious in this country in today’s day and age has everything to do with the norms of Islam, which alone have stymied its prosperity. What has been foisted is a replacement of minority representation with ‘pioneers’ of larger social reform – the government’s foot in the door at allocating Waqf, property belonging to Allah, as public property.

Also read: Parliament Passes Waqf Bill in Consecutive Overnight Sessions, 'Means to Grab Land', Says Opposition

A few years ago, during the months of summer, I recall coming back home from school along with a senior of mine who was celebrating Eid. Having shared our evening plans, he playfully invited me to his house for biryani and kebabs made by his mother. Naïve as I was, I thought that a social invitation was beyond the luck of a gauche conversationalist. “Seriously. Please come to my house for an Eid dinner. I’d love to have you”, he said. Living in the same apartment complex and having little sartorial knowledge, I showed up in shorts and a washed-out t-shirt. His apartment door opened to an ecstatic aroma of food, and my friend stood in a light blue kurta and white pyjama, inviting me to sit in the hall along with another friend whom he had invited for the gathering. We sat together, chatted, sharing laughter, anecdotes from school, and very importantly a culture so different from ours. That one moonlit Eid, two people who had very little to do with Islam sat with the host and shared a common space that was forged through a camaraderie of unified sentimentality.

Is this not what Waqf was always about? Devoting one’s space to god, who carves its contours with friendship, unity, and sharing universal benefits with fellow believers.

In April 2024, a Hanuman temple miraculously spawned in my apartment complex overnight. An idol was furtively snuck into the shared premises in the middle of the night, and was cemented as days went by with a menagerie of believers reciting prayers and organising satsangs.

A common residential area is a space that has been paid for by all its inhabitants, and a decision to allow for any form of construction within its premises must be achieved through a democratic consensus. Through the course of the year, there was no rumination over the unauthorised installation of the temple. There was no ‘encroachment’ tag. With the Waqf amendment, the government emphasised the necessity to curb the ‘encroachment’ of government property. Adityanath, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, called the claiming of properties by the Waqf boards as ‘loot khasot’ and said that no concessions should be given to the Muslim community on grounds of being a minority in this country. Reading namaz on Meerut roads was purported as indiscipline, and with temerity he argued that people should ‘learn discipline from Hindus’. Is the destruction of homes of innocent people by various municipal authorities, without due notice, in the state Adityanath rules an act of discipline? Is this the kind of discipline we should aspire to? Over the last few years, a fair share of residential complexes have built temples within their premises, without due space or respect given to the views and sensibilities of people of other religions, a situation reminiscent of the Lok Sabha debate over Waqf.

Amidst prevailing polarisation, what needs to be considered is the fact that there was a spiritual victory of empathy within the raucous arena we call politics. The opposition was composed of an astounding 232 members, against a brazen 288 in favour. In what looked like a losing battle to protect our people, there were certain individuals who gave the marginalised a voice to emerge out of the quicksand of hopelessness. 

Cut to 2022, my second semester at college had just come to an end. My group of friends and I had stepped out to the Kerala Hotel at Dilli Haat to enjoy some non-vegetarian delicacies. Sauntering through the smoke-filled Delhi streets, a friend of mine told me about their recent encounter with an elderly gentleman, who was supposedly a professor at a reputed university, in the Metro. Having been asked their name, my friend identified themselves by a typical Hindu name, despite being Muslim. Confounded, I asked them about their predicament to which they replied in jest, “Hey man, I don’t want to be lynched." 

The palpability of fear amongst even the youth echoes through the jacketed neighbourhoods of my metropolitan city. The Sea of Stories that Haroun and the Shah of Blah wished to save against the Prince of Silence appears polluted. The void needs dialogue – lost to the quiddities of suppression. Dialogue is what is required now that a culture that had remained united while we sought freedom is being tainted with silence.

Yajas Vaidyanathan is a student of Writing MA, currently on a leave of absence from the Royal College of Art, London

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