New Delhi: On Monday (January 27), the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) cleared the Waqf (Amendment) Bill 2024, adopting all amendments proposed by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led (BJP-led) National Democratic Alliance (NDA) members and refuting every alteration suggested by the Opposition members.
The Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2024, was referred to the joint committee of parliament on August 8 last year after it was introduced in the Lok Sabha by Union minority affairs minister Kiren Rijiju. The Bill aims to amend the Waqf Act of 1995, to address issues and challenges in regulating and managing Waqf properties.
The Bill proposed to get rid of the concept of “Waqf by User,” under which properties are sanctioned as ‘Waqf-based’ purely on the basis of religious purposes.
Now that the JPC has cleared the Bill from its end after touring several cities, this rush to assign the reigns of Waqf properties to the BJP is drawing flak.
‘Discriminatory at best’
On November 27 last year, a civil court in Ajmer issued notices to the Ajmer Dargah committee, Ministry of Minority Affairs and the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), after a petition was filed, claiming that the Dargah was originally a Shiva temple. The petition, filed by Hindu Sena – a Hindu extremist organisation, sought a survey of the Ajmer Sharif Dargah – one of the most revered Islamic shrines in India and an international pilgrimage site for Muslims across the globe. Though it is an Islamic shrine, people from across several religions offer obeisance at the shrine, making it a symbol of syncretism, in an India turning increasingly violent against its minorities.
After Khwaja Ghareeb Nawaz’s shrine became a site of contestation, Syed Sarwar Chishty, one of the custodians at Dargah Ajmer Sharif, said that once passed, the Waqf Bill 2024, will open a pandora’s box of problems.
“Every now and then the BJP picks up some issue to harass Muslims. Either it is Triple Talaq, Waqf or Article 370, or they will be busy pushing people into finding temples beneath mosques or dargahs. They just don’t want Muslims to live peacefully and are only promoting communalism and their own politics,” Chishty told The Wire.
Adding that the BJP’s agendas are a 100% anti-Muslim, Chishty said that these policies are plainly discriminatory and promoting the ideas of M.S. Golwalkar.
“They do not want to see Muslims and their institutions, and just want to fan communal hatred using one way or another,” Chishty said.
‘Reeling under threat’
The jolts of the JPC’s decision of clearing the Bill have also reached Jammu and Kashmir where several political parties, including the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the Democratic Progressive Azad Party (DPAP), and the Communist Party of India (Marxist), expressed tension and concern over the JPC’s functioning as well as the proposed amendments. Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M)) leader M.Y. Tarigami also criticised the JPC chairman for “unilaterally rejecting the concerns of the Opposition on the Waqf Amendment Bill”.
Also read: The Ajmer Dargah Sharif Is the Site for the Tussle Between Sufism and Hindutva
Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, the head cleric of J&K also believes that these amendments are completely against the interests of the Muslim community and aim to disempower Muslims and also violated the universally accepted fundamental rights. Farooq feels that the amendments will also exacerbate the sense of insecurity and mistrust among Muslims.
“The Muslim community, [is] already reeling under threat, as now their religious properties will no longer be safe from government interference. Muslim majority regions of Jammu and Kashmir feel very strongly about these amendments to the Waqf Act seeing it as another attempt at undermining our religious freedom and the autonomy of our institutions. Muslims of J&K see it as an assault on our religious institutions,” Farooq told The Wire.
Interference in Islamic Law
While many feel that the Waqf Bill 2024, will hamper the way Islamic institutions function, and the ownership patterns will also be impacted, in Uttar Pradesh’s
Mosque at Sambhal in Uttar Pradesh (1789). Pencil and wash drawing, 29.7 x 48.8 cm. British Library, London. Photo: Thomas Daniell, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Sambhal, where violence broke out on November 24 last year during a court-ordered survey of the Shahi Jama Masjid, Muslims feel that targeting any mosque or mausoleum will be easier for Hindutva forces now.
Advocate Qamar Husain, who practices at the district & sessions court in Sambhal views these amendments to the Waqf Bill as sinister strategies cloaked in legal lacunae. “These amendments are clearly formulated to legalise the encroachment over Waqf properties across India. The JPC itself ignored the Opposition members, this shows that they had already made up their mind,” he explained.
Husain also said that Waqf as a concept is purely Islamic and is rooted in Islamic Fiqh and Sharia law and any such amendments cannot be accommodated according to Islamic law.
Speaking to The Wire, Zafarul Islam Khan, president of the All India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat, the umbrella body of Muslim organisations in India and former chairman, Delhi Minorities Commission, said that the proposed Waqf Bill opens the floodgates for both the Union and state governments as well as for individuals to “usurp Waqf lands and properties” which were endowed by pious Muslims over a millennium to serve the Muslim community in various ways like taking care of poor Muslims, widows, orphans, mosques madrasas, travellers etc.
“This bulldozing policy is undoing the idea of India and straining the social compact under which we live. It means nothing is safe for minorities – any government will be able to unilaterally impose anything it likes using its parliamentary majority or on the pretext of security and common good,” Khan said.
In Gujarat – which is often the site of state sanctioned demolition of Islamic properties – Muslims feel a fear for the future of their masjids and mazaars. For Mujahid Nafees, convener of the Minority Coordination Committee in Gujarat, this whole act has reduced the trust of the Muslim community in the government.
“Without understanding Waqf, [the] JPC has taken a step towards making Muslims second class citizens by taking over the property given to them by their ancestors in order to further [the] BJP’s political agenda. This step will make Indian Muslims stand in queues to prove the ownership of the property given to them by their ancestors,” said Nafees.
Mohammed Taufeeq, a member of the Gujarat Waqf Board feels that this amendment is aimed at putting a hold on the claims made by Muslims. “The modification in several sections will make sure that approval by non-Muslims over property owned by Muslims will be a long haul, thereby making Muslims beggars for the ownership of their own properties,” Taufeeq said.
