There exists a deep communication gap even among the non-partisan (voices) on the issue of the Waqf. This needs to be bridged. Every society and religion have provisions and practices, both related to charity and public welfare. In present day India, an era of majoritarian ascendance and minority-bashing, weaponising of this welfarist institutional –even noble– practice is easy. On the other hand, huge Waqf assets and proceeds have been (unfairly) controlled and siphoned off by some among the self-serving religious and secular elites among Muslims in connivance with (sic) the state and state-regulated Waqf Boards, for decades. This duality is a double whammy for the average Muslim citizen, regardless of whether the political dispensation has been overtly anti-Muslim or ostensibly pluralist.

An instance from my ancestral village

In my own native village in rural north Bihar, there are at least three to four graveyards. The largest one is, as per documentation, owned by some families, but used for community burials by all Muslim castes (biradris) and classes of the village. Another one is owned by three specific families. In the three contiguous graveyards, each family buries its own dead in their respective spots. Yet another one, adjacent to it, belongs to the Muslim communities of Mir-Shikars, Rayeens, Mansuris (Pasmanda Muslim communities). The land is said to have been donated by a Bhumihar-Brahman– Hindu upper caste — landlord of the village, the economic status of whose descendants are reported to have dwindled very significantly. What happens then if the (2025 amended provision) of “Waqf by user” is applied to these graveyards in my native village which fall under Waqf properties, without detailed documentation. As per the just legislated law (Waqf Amendment Act 2025), the Hindu inheritors of these lands may claim their ownership (!!) and one can then imagine the socio-political fallout, particularly in an era of “everyday communalism”.

The older mosque of my ancestral village stands on a piece of land which belonged to a widow without any children. The rest of the plot of the land is home to the house of the legal inheritors of the donor, who possess their document of proprietorship. On and off, some other villagers, hostile to, or envious of, the descendant who owns the house (legal inheritor), keep claiming that the rest of the plot of the land (apart from that on which the mosque stands) too belongs to the Waqf (mosque). Thus, a dispute has been kept alive, intra-Muslim. The very same widow-donor is said to have donated another plot of her land and the produce from this other plot of land is s meant for the costs and upkeep (chiraghi, i.e, lighting) of the mosque. This has been all through oral endowments, not documented. If oral practice were not followed, the legal inheritor of the widow-donor could/can always reclaim the land. Recently, certain “pious” people of the village expressed their intent to sell away that part of the land so that a tall, 80-feet tall minar (spire) could be built! Without such an imposing minar, the identity of a newly arrived, affluent (neo-rich) Muslims cannot be displayed, a phenomenon that also creates a sense of awe (and dominance) among both Muslims and Hindus of the locality. This handful of demonstrably “pious” villagers — with pretensions to religious education and knowledge of the Shariah—choose to forget the fact that a Waqf land cannot be put to use for any purpose other than for what has been specified by the donor (Waqif). They also choose to forget the fact that in the face of the non-existence of any written documentation and the lack of registration of such details with the Waqf Board; or non-registration in a court of law to that effect, their step would/could encounter a big obstacle. Who would be the “seller” in the land-registration office? The seller, in such a scenario, has necessarily to be a legal inheritor of the land. That the newly constructed tall minar on the northern wall of the mosque (the metallic road touches the northern wall of the mosque, hence, it involves another question of legality) would (or could) attract the attention of Hindu religious processions and therefore it is (also) potentially explosive– another important issue– that I put aside at the moment. [On more than one occasion, some instances of communal conflict that revolve around the “spot” of religious structures in the past have also brewed on the misplaced priorities of local Muslim communities, who otherwise perennially complain of educational and economic backwardness).

Religiosity of the Waqf

Some academic works, for instance, Khalid Rashid (1978), Gregory Kozlowsky (1985), P. Munawar Husain (2021), etc., on the theme of Waqf, also throw up some important questions:

Is the creation and existence of Waqf strictly as per the Sharia? The Holy Quran makes no mention of awqaf or any institution similar to them. Abu Hanifa (AD 699-767 AD) “disapproved of the institution”?  Collections of the fatawa of religious scholars in India have contained both favourable and un-favourable statements on the institution of Waqf.

Waqf, in actual practice, was not necessarily and strictly either a charitable trust or a foundation of faith. Many of these, such as the Waqf-e-Aulad, were/are selfish practices too, besides of course, also being altruistic. In this specific category (Waqf-e-Aulad), the maximum proceeds of most of awqaf are theoretically and practically earmarked for the members of the family and kinship. Every Waqif (donor) wanted his or her offspring to inherit the fruits of that ingenuity of the [Waqf], to preserve the world of their founders.

The British Indian court’s approach towards following literal Quranic rules of inheritance made Muslim landholders carve out other “legal” ways of preserving the holdings by creating awqaf. Therefore, beginning in 1879, the High Courts of India handed down a series of decisions which overturned any endowment considered to benefit primarily the settler’s own family. The Privy Council in 1894 observed that Muslim endowments must be religious and “charitable”; public, not private. The Courts’ premise was: Muslims ought to follow their own Holy Scripture, Quran, to inherit parental assets.

Who were the mutawallis (managers) of the earliest Awqaf, viz., Khyber, Sawad (Iraq, which was then a part of Iran), and Ramlah in Palestine, founded in 912 AD) Waqf by Faiq, a eunuch, distinguished as having the earliest written record (on a stone tablet)? All of these three earliest awqaf (s) in Islamic history became non-existent due to encroachment by soldiers and other influential elites in the early centuries of Islam. “Military and political leaders gradually appropriated the territory’s income. Such encroachment on endowments was by no means rare. Though awqaf aimed at permanence, few attained it”. The Buwayhids, a family of Iranian, not Arab origin, had a hand in dismembering that [Sawad] endowment.

The creation of Waqf, in most cases — as observed by judges during British colonial rule –had more to do with circumventing the Quranically defined rights of inheritance and division/distribution of the properties (estates) and their proceeds among his/her heirs. Waqf-creation was a way of putting a complete restriction on sale and purchase of the assets/properties by the heirs.  “Waqf is a (unique)/typical phenomenon which partakes the characteristics of endowment, gift and many such sister concepts but, at the same time, stands apart”. “The removal of encroachments upon the Waqf properties is relegated to the executive wing rather than a judicial exercise. The appointment and removal of mutawallis is another complicated issue”.

In the early years of the 19th century, a number of persons from India’s Muslim elite began to convert their property into awqaf. This was a way to protect their family’s fortunes and the social prominence which accompanied it. In both kinds of awqaf, viz., Waqf-e-Aam (exclusively for charitable purposes) and Waqf-e-Aulad, through mutawllis (managers), self-interest could be both preserved and perpetuated.

In 1879, Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan (when he was in the Viceroy’s legislative council) published an article in his Urdu journal, Tazhib- al-Akhlaq, titled “A plan for saving Muslim Families from destruction and extinction” (“Ek Tadbir: Mussalmanon ke Khandanon ko Tabahi awr Barbadi se Bachaane ki“). In this article, he noted, that a Waqf was “allowed”, or “permitted” (mujaz). Could this mean that while he did not outright disapprove of the practice, he was not a vocal supporter of the institution?

Sir Syed’s four important concerns were: (a) that the property placed in a Waqf be accurately and fully described. (b) his proposal insisted that, once drawn up, a waqfnamah (deed of Waqf) be registered with the district officer or the district collector or magistrate; (c) The shares of the waqf‘s income had to be precisely laid out in the Waqfnamah. (d) Also, the succession to the office of mutawalli had to be clearly established. He wanted the Muslim waqifs to introduce significant content of charity in their waqf so that the European judges may not “mis-read” it as lacking in charity.

Ameer Ali (1849-1928) however disagreed with Sir Syed; Shibli (1857-1914) in his 21-pages long essay on Waqf-e-Aulad (1908) argued that even this form of Waqf is charitable, which endorsed Ameer Ali. Shibli’s theologically premised argument was less convincing as the Waqf-e-Aulad does not promise charity for the ordinary, common Muslim. Eventually, bending under the pressure of the Muslim orthodoxy, Sir Syed was not able to propose the draft-bill in the Imperial Legislative Council.

Interesting facts about some Indian Awqaf: A Muslim woman in Bengal even allowed her deed of Waqf to begin with an invocation to the goddess Durga. In Tamil, a mutawalli preferred to be called Dharmakarta –indigenous usage not Persio-Arabic terminology. Najiban, a tawaif of Bareilly also created a Waqf. It was only when the British Indian State ran interference that the Hoogly College[1] was established out of the Waqf created by Mohd Mohsin. The deed of the Mohd Mohsin Waqf did not have such a provision. Since the period of Caliph Umar’s (the awqaf of Khyber and Sawad), the Awqaf were always under “direct” control of the state.

India’s Waqf estates (Charitable endowments) earmarked for modern education, healthcare and similar welfare activities

Mohammad Mohsin (1732-1812) of Hooghly created a Waqf. It was only with the intervention of the East India Company (colonial) state, that the Waqf established a college in 1836 (Chinsura, West Bengal), now affiliated to the Burdwan University. This College produced alumni such as Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Muzaffar Ahmed, ABM Habibullah, and many more in various fields, including films and sports. Subsequently, with interventions of the Calcutta reformist, Abdul Latif (d. 1893), scholarships and other stipends for students were also instituted, out of the income from the Mohsin Waqf estate.

In Haryana and Kashmir, some educational institutions are also run by Waqf, though, it is unclear, how much of the running costs are contributed by the financial grants of the Waqf Boards via the provincial government’s ministries of minority affairs. This is something that needs to be brought out more clearly.

There are many Waqfs within the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) which provided land and scholarship to students. The noted Physicist Prof Wali Mohammad (1886-1968) is one such person who created Waqf for AMU. A students’ residential Hall (with many hostels) for engineering students, has been constructed on the Waqf land donated by Professor Wali Mohammad, in the 1990s. The Hall, meant for the Engineering students, got named after Nadim Tarin, for the reasons one fails to understand. Thus, the donor (Waqif) of the land, despite being a noted Physicist, has been sadly anonymized, almost completely erased from the history of AMU and its donors. This action was not performed by any anti-Muslim political party. There are many more Waqf lands within AMU which await a transparent acknowledgement and display (of inherited ownership) on the AMU website to ensure comprehensive wider public knowledge and also, accountability. The AMU has also been losing its lands frequently and intermittently, in one or other ways.

“Muslim waqfs and endowments are an old institution but like most other assets, have been generally mismanaged… generations past have been dissatisfied with the way Muslim Waqifs and Mutawallis,… and the governments, have handled waqf properties. Islamic governments have done no better, and in India” too the British imperialist and secular republican governments have fared no better, wrote, the economist and former Vice Chancellor of AMU, A M Khusro, in his Foreword to Khalid Rashid’s book (1978). 

Contentious legislative histories of the Waqf in India

After the failed attempt of Sir Syed in 1879, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, astute politician that he was, jumped into the Waqf fray, ostensibly to protect the interests of the Muslim landed elites who needed the Waqf Validation Act of 1913. This Act, supported by the colonial state, aimed to safeguard the landed assets of these elites, who were seen as potential allies against a growing anti-colonial movement. The Swadeshi Movement, which opposed the religious-communal partition of Bengal, had forced the colonial state to annul the (Bengal) partition in 1911-192, necessitating a political arrangement to secure Muslim support. So much so that, unlike the Sir Syed’s draft (1879), Jinnah (1913) also succeeded in getting a clause added that stated that the registration of a Waqfnamah was not mandatory.

Subsequently, Jinnah enlisted more consolidated support of Muslims through the Shariat Act of 1937 which was based on the Aurangzeb era codification of Shariat, Fatawa-e-Alamgiri of the late 17^th century. Through the Shariat Act 1937-1939, he secured hugely consolidated political support of the separatist Muslim elites and soon after, he succeeded in winning Pakistan for them. Pakistan reformed Muslim Personal Laws in March 1961. Many other Muslim countries have introduced reforms but India’s Muslims continue to resist state interference not only in the issue of the un-Quranic Instant Triple Talaq but also in the AMU’s malignant governance and gross abuse of autonomy[2]

It is also not be out of place to mention here that presently India has 32 Waqf Boards, with only Bihar and UP having separate Waqf Boards for Shias and Sunnis. The Dawoodi Bohra community, historically, has shown a preference for managing their religious properties through trusts rather than under the purview of Waqf Boards. This preference stems from their unique religious governance structure, which centralises authority in the al-Dai-al-Mutlaq.

Moral weakness of building resistance and solidarity

While the “liberal” (or, less illiberal) era of the Indian republic has often been obliging of the Muslim regressive tendencies, the current majoritarian era pursues its own divisive political agenda. For instance, it has criminalised the Instant Triple Talaq (ITT) in 2019 but did not strengthen the provisions of maintenance to the divorced women. Whereas, the Supreme Court’s verdict (in the Danial Latifi case 2001) had already clarified that the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986 (MWPRD) does provide for maintenance, surely the 2019 Act should have further strengthened the provision? Especially since, maintenance for the divorced women is the most crucial aspect of this issue in the sphere of both equity and rights?

Such has been the political history of India’s Muslims in the 20^th century (colonial and republican eras) and their stubbornness against state intervention to any reform that they have foregone the moral strength needed to resist the Waqf Amendment Act 2025. Worse, this kind and character of Muslim politics, particularly since the 1980s, has been identified by many scholars as a contributing factor to the rise of majoritarianism in India today. Concealing the pathetic aspect of widespread mismanagement of Waqf assets for decades, will now further deplete the moral strength required to build understanding and solidarity required to resist an unwanted law.

Pertinently, the need for a satisfactory political arrangement to safeguard any monopoly on landed assets is equally applicable for Hindu Mahanths and their Mutths. The current dispensation is not concerned about these Hindu institutions which also suffer from similar ills of non-transparent mal-functioning. Unfortunately, it is also true that the institution of Mahanths and Maths remains under-explored academically by historians of Peasant and Agrarian Relations. [Prakash Jha’s film Mrityudand (1997) attempts to depict some of the degenerative aspects of the institution of Mahanth, but this was a melodramatic depiction on celluloid].

The BJP-dominated regime has no intention of introducing a similar law to reform this Hindu institution of Mahanths’ Muths. This is therefore an additional reason why Muslim communities and justice-loving people look upon the Waqf Amendment Act 2025 with alarming concern. The legislative control that it seeks to seize gives a clear impression of targeting only Muslims with this discriminatory treatment.

Specifically, there is a real apprehension that the (amended) Act –presently under challenge—will turn into a tool to harass Muslims by the sinister and wide network of local majoritarian forces and outfits in those smaller villages and mohallas where the written deeds of Waqf and mosques are not available, as is the case with the abovementioned instance from my own ancestral village. Another alarming aspect of the Act is the Places of Worship Act, 1991 falling under the Ancient Monuments Preservation Act, 1904. According to Kapil Sibal[3] , this specific aspect was also concealed from the Members of Parliament from the Opposition, right until the day it was finally debated in the two Houses of Parliament.

Many scholars also feel that Israel –in West Asia—has also played this politics of usurping available Waqf land and thereby pursuing the politics of dispossessing the Arabs by illegitimate means. Haitam Suleiman and Robert Home in their 2010 essay demonstrate that most Waqf property within Israel has been expropriated by the Israeli state under Absentee Property Laws, a sensitive and complicated issue within the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. This instance justifiably alarms India’s Muslims further, about the BJP’s intent.

Briefly, to sum up. India’s Waqf urgently need reforms in terms of actualising the maximum potential of revenue, proceeds, and its use for charitable purposes, that is, towards capacity-building for the weaker sections of the citizenry. Khalid Rashid (1978) estimated that Waqf assets actualise only a mere 3.5% of its actual promise in terms of use for charitable purposes. Waqf land need to be protected from encroachers. Waqf-loot happens with the connivance of both the state and the Muslim elite controlling the Waqf Boards.

The Act legislated in 2025 doesn’t promise any such reformatory intent not does it reflect any sincerity towards breaking this nexus (between the state and the Waqf-looting elites). Protecting the Waqf and realizing its basic objective of charity and welfare remains as elusive as ever. A more thorough and sincere implementation of the Waqf (Amendment) Act 2013 –with some amendments– would have been a more constructive step rather than legislating a new law.

Finally, it must also be notes that a large proportion of Waqf property comprises graveyards (Qabristan) which do not yield any income. A paltry section (mostly orally endowed and unregistered) Waqf assets are owned by village/Mohalla mosques (which are maintained through meagre resources or no income). These “assets” add to the quantum of property of Waqfs, but do not yield returns. This is the point that the Sachar Report (2006), which highlighted the poverty of India’s Muslim minority, failed to note. However, the Sachar Report did reveal that, “There are more than 4.9 lakh registered Wakfs [Waqf estates and assets] spread across the country but the current annual income from these properties is only about Rs.163 crores, which amounts to a meagre rate of return of 2.7 percent…. The current… market value (income to be generated out) of [these] Wakf properties can be put at Rs.1.2 lakh crore.

The present, BJP-dominated NDA-III regime, therefore, should have considered emulating Turkey whose laws of 1868 and 1924 make the Waqf institutions more robust in terms of education, healthcare, municipal and civic amenities and even in disaster relief. Politically, such an emulation may have helped the BJP outsmarting the Opposition, without creating the attendant social friction.

The author is a professor, Modern and Contemporary Indian History, Aligarh Muslim University, and author of Muslim Politics in Bihar: Changing Contours.

(This article is an expanded version of Outlook’s May 1, 2025 issue ‘Username Waqf’ where it appeared under the title, ‘A Fractured Timeline’; this is an expanded version being published at the specific request of the author, a regular columnist with Sabrangindia)

[1]  Two decades later than their first venture, the British rulers made another effort to engage Muslims in their pattern of education by taking control of the Imambada Madrasa at Hooghly run under the endowment made by Haji Mohammed Mohsin in 1806. Now it is functioning as the oldest law college in the country, named as Hooghly Mohsin College in 1937.

[2] https://www.academia.edu/127645531/UGC_Draft_Regulations_2025_Question_of_Univ_Autonomy_and_AMUs_Abuse_of_Autonomy).

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYQEyPP-A2M; Kapil Sibal Calls Waqf Bill Unconstitutional, Alleges Political Agenda

The post Amendments to the Waqf Law were needed, but the grab-and-control Waqf Amendment Act, 2025 is not the answer appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The United Waqf Management, Empowerment, Efficiency, and Development (UMEED) Bill 2024, introduced by the ruling BJP-led Union government, has now been referred to the Joint Committee of Parliament (JCP) for further examination. Upon reviewing the draft Bill and observing reactions from the Opposition, media, and academics, it becomes evident that a crucial aspect is missing from the discourse. The responses from Muslim organisations follow a familiar pattern: an outright rejection of reforms deemed as religious matters, coupled with a resistance to any state intervention aimed at reforming these areas. This has been the typical stance on issues like Muslim Personal Law, Muslim University governance, and Waqf administration.

This reaction necessitates an intervention to bring forth a broader perspective.

The scope of the flawed bill

The proposed Bill ostensibly addresses the management and mismanagement of Waqf properties, rather than delving into the theological or historical legitimacy of Waqf as an institution. It seeks to address concerns about the assets held under Waqf, the proceeds they generate, and the persistent corruption within the Waqf administration. However, some Opposition leaders seem to be treating the Waqf Bill in the same way as they have treated other religious matters, such as the Shariat Act of 1937 and the governance of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU).

It is important to clarify that, regardless of the Supreme Court’s upcoming verdict on AMU’s minority status, structural reforms in the governance of AMU will remain unresolved. For instance, the AMU will still have a preponderance (over 80%) of membership of the internal teachers in the Executive Council. In all these cases, there exists a widely held belief within all Muslim communities that the state should not interfere, that no reforms should emerge from within the community, and that these matters are divinely ordained and therefore immutable. This belief perpetuates a sense of Muslim exceptionalism, exclusivity, and isolation from the state.

Both the government and the Opposition appear to be engaging in the usual “vote-bank politics”, addressing their respective constituencies based on identity. This approach has already caused significant harm to India’s Muslim communities, due to the bizarre stance of their own self-serving elites as well as the ruling and intellectual elites of the country. It is crucial for ordinary Muslims to be informed by their theological and secular institutions (such as Deoband, Nadwah, Aligarh Muslim University, Jamia Millia Islamia, and MANU Hyderabad) that Waqf, arguably, does not have explicit Quranic or Shariah mandates. Imam Abu Hanifa (699-767) also didn’t approve of it as an institution indisputably and explicitly sanctioned by Sharia. Waqf-e-Aam and Waqf-e-Aulad (types of Waqf) are often more about circumventing Quranic inheritance rules and preventing division among heirs than about altruism and charity and public welfare. They are not divinely ordained.

The historical context of Waqf

In the latter half of the 19th century, Waqf in India became a means to fund identity politics and secure representation in colonial governance institutions. Gregory Kozlowski’s 1985 book, Muslim Endowments and Society in British India, highlights that most Waqfs in India emerged during this period when the colonial state turned land into a commodity. Sir Syed Ahmad Khan (1817-1898), a visionary pragmatist, was aware of both the British Indian judges’ concerns about Waqf-e-Aulad (Waqf for descendants) and the self-interests of the Muslim landed aristocracy. British judges rightly saw Waqf-e-Aulad as circumvention of Quranic inheritance laws and in their judgments invalidated many of these Waqfs, as they lacked charitable elements. This is why they kept invalidating such Awqaf, annoying the Muslim landed elites turning into Waqifs.

Sir Syed therefore, proposed a middle path. In 1879 –as member of the Viceroy’s Legislative council– he introduced a draft bill advocating that Waqf properties be used also for more meaningful and tangible charitable purposes such as education, healthcare, and social welfare, not just for mosques and madrasas. He argued that if managed properly, Waqf could be a powerful tool for social change and community development, brings out Prof. Shafey Kidwai’s column (India Today, August 13, 2024). Sir Syed’s proposal was also published in 1877 in his periodical Tehzibul Akhlaq, with the title, ‘A Proposal for Salvaging Muslim Families from Extinction and Destruction’. This was vehemently opposed by orthodox Muslims who saw the insistence on charity and public welfare as an innovation (bidat). As a result, Sir Syed succumbing to the conservatives and orthodoxy withdrew the bill.

In contrast, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the cunning politician, by the second decade of the 19th century, jumped in to protect the interests of the Muslim landed elites who needed the Waqf Validation Act of 1913. This act, supported by the colonial state, aimed to safeguard the landed assets of these elites, who were seen as potential allies against the growing anti-colonial movement. The Swadeshi Movement, which opposed the religious-communal partition of Bengal, had forced the colonial state to annul the (Bengal) partition in 1911-192, necessitating a political arrangement to secure Muslim support.

Such a political arrangement to safeguard the monopoly on landed assets is equally true for the Mahanths and their Mutths .Unfortunately this institution of Mahanths and Maths remains under-explored by the historians of peasant and agrarian relations. Prakash Jha’s film Mrityudand (1997) attempts to depict some of the degenerative aspects of the institution of Mahanth, but it eventually turned more into a melodramatic movie.

The BJP has got no intent of introducing a similar Bill to reform this Hindu institution of Mahanths’ Muths? This is therefore an additional reason why Muslim communities look upon the proposed Bill with alarming concern, as it creates an impression of targeting only Muslims with discriminatory treatment. One more apprehension is, turning the Bill into a tool to harass Muslims by local majoritarian forces and outfits in those smaller villages and mohallas where written deeds of a Waqf and mosques aren’t available.

The nature of Waqf: Neither divine nor immutable

Waqf is not the exact equivalent of charitable endowments in the “Christian” West. In many cases, as said earlier, it is a means of circumventing Quranic inheritance regulations. Just as the community’s elites have misled others into believing that Shariat is divinely ordained, Waqf has also been portrayed as an immutable, divinely sanctioned institution. This deception needs to be exposed for the greater common good.

Moreover, the looting and encroachment of Waqf assets have been a recurring issue across the Islamic world since the 7th century AD. This mismanagement occurred with the earliest prominent Waqfs, such as Khyber and Sawad (Iraq) during Caliph Umar’s time, and the Rumlah (Palestine) Waqf established in 912 AD by a person named Faíq (which has earliest surviving written record-stone inscription). All three “earliest” Waqf estates have since become non-existent, as their assets were looted by military and other elites!

Waqf mismanagement and loot

The looting of Waqf assets is almost as old as the institution itself. In India, there is a consensus that Waqf properties suffer from gross mismanagement and looting. Despite numerous legislations, the loot continues unabated. The existing laws, therefore, require a thorough re-examination. Unfortunately, neither the ruling party nor the Opposition has highlighted this consensus in the Lok Sabha, in media, or in academic debates. The near silence of academics from institutions like AMU and JMI on this matter is particularly notable.

The “Muslim-friendly” “secular” Opposition refrains from addressing Waqf loot because doing so would justify the need for the Bill. This also explains why their interventions in the Lok Sabha are superficial and merely rhetorical. The Opposition cannot afford to state frankly that Waqf is not divine and requires human intervention for reform in order to prevent its loot and redirect it for the welfare and empowerment of the Muslim communities.

Academics, theologians and other knowledge elites have been shallow in their interventions. They have not voiced the concerns and apprehensions they discuss privately about the implications of the proposed Bill. The Muslim community needs to see through this politics, not only of the politicians but also of their own knowledge elites. Why aren’t these academics helping legislators and the community understand the issue in a holistic manner?

The real threat posed by the Bill is to the elites within the Muslim community. The proposed Bill challenges the exclusive Muslim representation in Waqf Boards as mandated by Section/clause 14 of the Waqf Act of 1995. This section, which deals with the social composition of Board Executives, is being questioned in the new Bill. The provision for Muslim-exclusive privileges in Waqf representation is being removed, which is a significant point of concern, alarm and contention. Another alarming concern is the proposal to do away with the enabling provisions enshrined in section 40 of the Waqf Act, 1995. It gives powers to the Board to acquire, issue notices or hold an enquiry into the ownership of the property that it has reasons to believe belongs to the Waqf.

Proposed reforms

While the proposed Bill has its deep flaws, the lack of detailed articulation by its opponents hinders constructive debate. Historically, state intervention has sometimes yielded positive results, as seen in the Mohsin Waqf of Hooghly, where the British colonial state established the Mohsin Hooghly College in 1836, going beyond the original terms of the original Waqf. The Waqf Bill of 2024 should explicitly incorporate such progressive steps. Parliament should legislate to ensure Waqf Boards take similar rewarding actions.

Muslim communities must abandon their collective hypocrisy. For instance, the practices, such as Instant Triple Talaq (ITT), are un-Quranic yet they stubbornly refuse to reform themselves as much as they resist the state intervention. Despite, Ali Miyan Nadvi’s assurance to the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, the AIMPLB refuses to provide for maintenance to divorced Muslim women. They keep opposing the Supreme Court verdicts in this regard.  Likewise, adoption of a child is not prohibited by Quran (it only prohibits concealing the biological paternity of the child adopted) and custody is absolutely valid as was the case with Zayd the adopted son of the Prophet Muhammad, yet, the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) refuses to reform it. Their stubbornness is immensely supported by most of the academics of the modern institutions such as the AMU and JMI. Political leaders like Akhilesh Yadav, Asaduddin Owaisi, and the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) must take a clear stand on this issue.

Some Tentative Recommendations for the Waqf Bill 2024

1. Creation of a Waqf Tribunal: Establish a tribunal consisting of judges of the rank of High Court judges as the exclusive body for resolving Waqf cases, with the Supreme Court as the appellate authority.
2. Enhanced Land Survey: A Land Survey Commissioner should be comprised of at least three officers in each Board.
3. Mandatory Gender and Caste Representation: The Waqf Board’s composition should be diversified and this should be made mandatory (with Muslims of all castes and women as members).
4. Digital Transparency: Waqf assets, deeds, and real estate records should be digitized and made publicly accessible online for transparency and vigilance.
5. Promotion of Charitable Activities: The Bill should mandate that Waqf properties be used aggressively for establishing modern educational and research institutions, especially quality residential schools under Article 30 of the Constitution.
6. Strict Penalties for Mismanagement: Penalties for those who grab, usurp or mismanage Waqf properties should not be diluted. Rigorous imprisonment should be enforced.
7. Memorialization of Waqf Creators: Waqf creators (Waqif) should be remembered in a befitting manner, be honored, and their deeds digitized and made publicly available.
8. Defined Roles for Mutawallis: The roles of Mutawallis (Waqf administrators) should be clearly defined, with fixed tenures of 3-5 years. Eligibility criteria should be established for their appointment.
9. Accountability Mechanisms: A robust check and balance mechanism should be implemented for both Mutawallis and Waqf Boards.
10. Mandatory annual auditing, and the income of the Waqf Boards should be made available for public vigilance.

Hope, the stakeholders would listen to the above words!

(The author is a Professor of History, Aligarh Muslim University)

The post The Waqf Bill 2024: An Open Letter to the Joint Committee of Parliament, the Opposition, and India’s Muslim Communities appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The origins of this institution is obscure; but one thing is certain is that it did not have an Islamic root. Waqf like institutions were present in the Roman Empire as well as amongst the Sassanians. And it appears most likely that the early Islamic society borrowed this institution from the Sassanids. Although it was later theologically justified as devoting a property to Allah, there is no record of earliest Muslims instituting any such grant. The earliest Waqf in Muslim societies therefore date after the establishment of the empire, rather than during the period of the Rashidun Caliphate. But once Muslims adopted it, they made wide use of it. Through this institution, they funded hospitals, madrasas, caravan Sarais, etc. Instituting a Waqf was simple: the property was bequeathed in perpetuity to God and a manager was appointed for overseeing the property. This property could generate income which was to be spent for welfare purposes; part of the income thus generated went to the family of the founder of the Waqf.

Thus, apart from serving an important function, Waqf was also a means to provide for the financial fortunes of the future generation. Over the years, the latter function dominated the former. Thus, in many cities of the Muslim world, like Algiers and Istanbul, Waqf properties formed nearly 30-50% of all real estate. Since all Waqfs were exempt from taxation, this only meant that the state had less and less revenue to operate with. The presence of this institution, which served the important purpose of social service, therefore also had its downside: that of limiting the value of state revenue. Although a huge empire, but the Ottomans were forced to take loans from other countries and foreign banking consortiums.

Becoming a mechanism of tax evasion was one of the many malfunctions of the Waqfs. The very nature of the institution made it rigid and hence unsuited to the changing economic realities. Once a Waqf was instituted, its purpose could not be changed or altered. Many Muslims, for example, established caravan Sarais throughout the silk route during the middle-ages. These Sarais served traders and their animals for a fee, the proceeds of which went to the upkeep of the building and to the children of the founder. However, as the silk route changed over time, these Sarais felt into disuse and could no longer be financially viable. But, owing to the fact that the Waqf was created for the specific purpose of serving traders and merchants in perpetuity, there was no legal way to change the nature, function or the purpose of these Waqfs.

Similar is the case in India. It is all very good to feel proud about the value of Waqfs and to what better uses it can be put. But the reality is that the very nature of these properties will not allow Muslims to put them to a different use. Certainly, there are issues like government encroachment of Waqf properties. Huge number of them are also lying unused due to litigation which takes decades to solve. But even without these factors, the very nature of Waqf would make it extremely difficult to liquidate the property or to change its use. If someone instituted a madrasa as a Waqf, then it has to perform that function in perpetuity. God forbid if the founder also mentioned some books that he thinks should be taught in that madrasa, then those books also cannot be removed from the curriculum even after hundreds of years. It is this rigidity that makes Waqfs unsuitable for our times. However, Muslims of the time cannot be faulted for not planning ahead hundreds of years. The fault lies with us, the present-day Muslims, for rooting for the revival of Waqfs without realizing its negative effects.

The late middle-ages was the time when banking consortiums were coming up throughout the Western world. Merchants and traders were coming together, pooling resources and establishing banks with huge capital which gave impetus to the upcoming industrial revolution. Something very opposite was going on in the Muslim world. They had the resources but these were increasingly getting locked up in immovable assets through the creation of Waqfs. The financial resources were therefore locked up and its very nature made it obligatory that it could not be used for any other purpose. Moreover, different Waqfs could not be merged together unless the founder had left explicit instructions to do so; which was very rare. Even when some Muslims realized their folly, it was too late and many did not speak up fearing the clergy who had by now declared these Waqfs as sacred institutions. Moreover, since Waqfs could only be created by the wealthy, this only meant that the elite of Muslim world bound itself within a rule which was no longer beneficial. Also, this institution was not beneficial for the children of the rich as the latter got dependent on the largesse provided by the Waqf and hence did not do anything meritorious in the lives.

Today in India when we talk about the potential value of Waqf properties and how it can change the fate of Muslims, we must take into consideration its historical nature into account. The only way in which all the money that is locked up in various Waqfs can be put to better use it by a willingness to change the ‘sacred’ character of these institutions. But are there enough Muslims willing to take this call?

A regular contributor to NewAgeIslam.com, Arshad Alam is a New Delhi based independent researcher and writer on Islam and Muslims in South Asia.

Courtesy: New Age Islam

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First of all, let me congratulate you for successfully piloting the Waqf Bill, now rechristened UMEED, which in both Hindi and Urdu means “Hope”. I am sure President Droupadi Murmu will soon give her assent to the Bill and it will become the law of the land. In this context, I remember the agricultural Acts the Modi government had to rescind following a massive protest from the farmers.

I liked your assertion in the Lok Sabha that you yourself belong to a minority community and you do not feel any discrimination against minorities. As you are the minister in charge of minority affairs, can you say with confidence that there is no such discrimination?

As you are a Buddhist, I do not have to tell you that the Buddhists have built great Peace Pagodas like the one in Delhi and elsewhere. They are all architectural marvels and I never miss them on my visits to places like Leh in Ladakh, Darjeeling in West Bengal, and Kathmandu in Nepal.

I am sure that you will not contest me when I say that the greatest pilgrim centre for Buddhists the world over is not Lumbini in Nepal, where Siddhartha Gautama was born. Instead, it is the Mahabodhi Temple in Bodh Gaya where Lord Buddha attained enlightenment under a Bodhi tree. I have visited the place several times.

In the eighties, I did a cover story on the Mahabodhi Temple for the Sunday Magazine of the Hindustan Times. One of the highlights of the article was the demand the Buddhists were making for control of the temple. They resent Hindu Brahmins doing Puja there and the Hindus controlling the administrative affairs of the temple.

The agitation for control of the temple still goes on, though it does not get traction in the media. As a Buddhist and Minister for Minority Affairs, you will do a great service to the nation if you can liberate the Mahabodhi Temple from the immoral control of non-Buddhists. Instead, you want non-Muslims to have a say, if not control, of the Waqf Boards at the Centre and in the states.

You should see this in the light of the Tirupati temple authorities’ draconian decision to terminate the services of all their non-Hindu employees. The argument is that Tirupati temple belongs to the Hindus and only Hindus can work there. I don’t think you have taken any action against the retrenchment of the few non-Hindu employees.

The greatest Hindu pilgrimage centre in Kerala, from where I come, is Sabarimala, which is controlled by the Devaswom Board. The MLAs can vote for various posts in the board but only Hindu MLAs can take part in the voting. The Vaishnodevi temple in Jammu and Kashmir is run by a Trust. The Lieutenant-Governor holds the post of Chairman of the Trust.

If a non-Hindu is appointed governor, a Hindu has to be appointed chairman of the Trust. Once, when General S.K. Sinha was governor and no ice lingam was formed in the Amarnath cave, he managed to procure tonnes of ice from as far away as Jammu to create an ice lingam. Alas, a press photographer published the pictures of the ice lingam which had dirty hand marks of the workers who made it. Sinha escaped unscathed.

Early this week, the details of the will of Ratan Tata, worth Rs 10,000 crore, appeared in the media. Most of the wealth has gone to philanthropic organisations. What attracted me is a clause under which his favourite dog, Tito, and other pets will benefit from a Rs 12 lakh fund, which will be used to care for his pets, ensuring that each of them will receive Rs 30,000 per quarter for their care. He also mentioned that his cook, Rajan Shaw, will take care of Tito after his demise.

The executors of the will have a duty to ensure that the money is distributed as mandated by Tata.

In the seventh century, Umar ibn al-Khattab, also spelled Omar, who later became the Caliph, owned land on the shores of the Khyber. He approached the Prophet on what he should do with the land. He was advised to give it to Allah, which will, of course, deprive him of all his authority over the land. The land could be used only for religious or charitable purposes and the person responsible for it was known as Mutawalli. I owe this information to an article by Advocate T. Asaf Ali in the Madhyamam daily.

A Jew who fought unsuccessfully against the Prophet bequeathed all his property for similar purposes. All the rules and regulations governing Waqf follow from this precedent. This reaffirms the point that Waqf properties cannot be sold for profit; they can only be used for religious or charitable purposes.

Under UMEED, only a person who has been a practising Muslim for at least five years can will away his property as Waqf. Since you studied the Bill, let me ask you how will you determine whether a person remained a Muslim for five years or not?

A person becomes a Muslim when he dedicates his prayer solely to Allah and considers Mohammed as the final prophet and messenger of God. Of course, his religious practices are enumerated in the Five Pillars of Islam: the declaration of faith (shahadah), daily prayers (salah), almsgiving (zakat), fasting during the month of Ramadan (sawm), and the pilgrimage to Mecca (hajj) at least once in a lifetime.

Anybody can become a Christian and the longevity of his faith does not matter to God. That is why the thief on the cross attained salvation because he believed in Jesus as the Son of God. He did not live even for a day after his conversion. This being the case, on what basis do you say that to be a Muslim one must practice the religion for five years?

Last Sunday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the RSS headquarters at Nagpur. He also visited the Deekshabhoomi, the ground where people led by Dr B.R. Ambedkar got ordained as Buddhists. This religious mass conversion at one place was the first ever of its kind in history. The day they took Deeksha, they became Buddhists.

You may like to know why Ambedkar chose Nagpur for his conversion to your religion. Nagpur is where the Nags lived on the banks of the Nag river. They were the ones who fought vigorously against the invading Aryans. And they were the ones who propagated Buddhism in far corners of the land, including Arunachal Pradesh, to which you belong.

When the British wanted to build a house for the Viceroy in Delhi, they did not go to a temple for a model. Instead, they looked at a Buddhist vihara to draw ideas. When you take UMEED to the Rashtrapati Bhavan for the President’s signature, please check whether the building resembles a temple or a Buddhist vihara.

On the day Parliament was debating the Waqf Bill, UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath claimed that the Waqf authorities had declared the area where the Mahakumbh was held as Waqf property. Even if it is true, did it prevent Yogi from driving away every Muslim selling even Bisleri water bottles from the banks of the Ganga?

Home Minister Amit Shah even claimed that the Waqf authorities could have declared Parliament House as Waqf property. You and your party have perfected the art of scare-mongering. You don’t even leave Aurangzeb, who died 318 years ago.

The whole world knows that Mukesh Ambani’s grotesque house, Antilia, in Mumbai—consuming power worth Rs 70 lakh every month—is situated on Waqf land. Has Ambani suffered on this account? But you portrayed the Waqf Boards as more powerful than even the Supreme Court.

And some persons, like Baselios Cleemis, the current Major Archbishop-Catholicos of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church, fell for it. He saw the issue from the perspective of the residents of Munambam, numbering 600 families, mostly Catholic. If Ambani could not be evicted from his Antilia, how could they be evicted?

The broader issue was that the Muslims were not consulted on the drafting of the Bill. You mentioned that it was vetted by a parliamentary committee. Was even one suggestion of an Opposition member accepted? During the debate in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, was even one amendment suggested by an Opposition MP accepted? It was a Bill of the government, by the government, and for the government.

With non-Muslims allowed to decide Waqf-related issues, the Muslims will lose control of their Waqf properties. The Waqf Boards will be deprived of assets to run madrasas, orphanages, and hospitals. The Bill’s agenda is clear to the discerning.

Small wonder that the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), which controls Sri Harmandir Sahib or Darbār Sahib, also called the Golden Temple, has opposed the Bill, for it knows that tomorrow, the government can amend the Sikh Gurdwara Act to their disadvantage. Alas, the Catholic Church leadership can’t see the woods for the trees.

The Catholic and other churches own thousands of acres of land and properties worth billions of rupees. Using the same argument, the government can easily take them over. In fact, many Church-run schools and colleges are situated on government land given by the British on lease for 100 years. The government has already started putting pressure on the church to vacate such properties, as in the Army Cantonment in New Delhi.

While Parliament was discussing the Waqf Bill, some Opposition members drew Parliament’s attention to the attack on two Catholic priests in Jabalpur. As Minister in charge of Minority Affairs, who prevented you from opening your mouth on the action you have taken on the matter?

Nonetheless, I was glad to hear you quoting the Sachar Committee report. Justice Rajinder Sachar appeared for me in a case the Punjab and Haryana High Court instituted, suo motu, against me and some of my colleagues at The Tribune. Have you ever thumbed the pages of his report except to find out what it said about Waqf properties? You say that if the Waqf properties are put to commercial use, Muslims will earn a lot.

That is exactly what is happening under crony capitalism. Government properties are handed over to the likes of Ambani and Adani so that they can become the world’s richest, pushing the poor down the ladder further and further. True, if they are handed over the Waqf properties, they will surely earn billions—so that they can have their swimming pools on their rooftops while the women in Mumbai stand for hours to get a pitcher of water.

By the way, the Sachar Committee made many suggestions, including a mechanism to monitor whether the government’s minority welfare measures benefit the communities concerned.

What amused me the most was your assertion that Muslim welfare was your government’s prime concern. You don’t have a single Muslim colleague in the ministry of which you are a member. Muslims constitute about 200 million in this country. It is unbelievable that the Prime Minister cannot find a single Muslim from among them to represent the community. Forget the Centre—mention one name of a Muslim minister in any of the BJP governments, from Gujarat to Manipur and Delhi to Uttarakhand.

Modi demonstrated his concern for Muslims by introducing the law banning triple talaq during his second term. Divorce frees a woman from marital bondage, especially when the husband no longer wishes to live with her. In many ways, it is better than abandonment of wives.

It has been over five years since the triple talaq law was enacted. Can you name even one conviction under it? The law was designed to appease Hindutvawadis rather than genuinely help Muslims. Unfortunately, the Waqf Bill follows the same pattern, aimed at depriving Muslims of their limited rights. I only wish Christians had realised— to borrow poet John Donne’s words—that the bell tolls not just for Muslims, but for them as well.

Yours etc.

Courtesy: Indian Currents

The post Letter to Minorities Minister: Waqf bell tolls for Christians too appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Around two months ago the BJP-led government brought a flawed and ill-intended Bill to amend the Waqf Act 1995. It created a furore, and ever since, newspapers, news-portals, Youtube videos have been educating the masses through their “explainers”. Opinion pieces from experts and the theologians too have been published, interjections into the issue with their own position. All this while, the AMUTA, for whatever reasons, has not been able to call a general body meeting or hold discussion sessions. Eventually, on Sunday, September 22, 2024, they called a meeting. Given the general mood on the campus against the Bill, one assumed that there would have been a near consensus on finding ways of working out political tactics and strategies of rejecting and resisting the move. One expected there would be a discussion more on this specific aspect.

That was however not to be. Only two speakers spoke at a “sickening” length as if fellow academics sitting there were school students waiting to be educated, threadbare. This paternalism of these academics against their own colleagues made many among the audience uncomfortable. Speakers’ assumption that others had nothing significant to say, was irksome. The affair degenerated further when two of the longest speaking teachers sought yet another session to again speak on issues they claimed to have omitted to speak on! The presiding authority was generous enough to grant them a second session, again ignoring the fact that others were also competent enough to speak on the issue. These other speakers-in-waiting including this writer (who was the first among the serving AMU faculty to have intervened through his column on the Waqf Bill issue) had a right to speak at greater length: to propose preparing a draft (alternate) bill that could be put in the public domain to mobilise constructive public opinion and also to solicit support of cross-sections of people, including the opposition political parties apart from some of the allies in the ruling coalition. 

Treating the fellow academics as children

In some ways, the two longest speakers were probably right in treating their colleagues as infants or their inferiors. This has to be illustrated by a one instance. This writer used an expression to describe the Executive Council which is massively dominated by a select club of internal teachers. Hence I used the the expression, “Incestuous Club”. This expression was first used by a columnist on March 6, 2023. She then wrote, AMU’s “Executive Council, Academic Council, and the Court are incestuous clubs where everyone is everyone’s someone”.  On March 10, 2023, this piece was rebutted by a professor of law cum vice chancellor of a law university [he eventually made it to the panel for AMU-VC in October-November 2023]. His rebuttal was anything but a precise objection against any sexual connotation of the expression. The EC members aggrieved with my usage of the expression cannot claim to have been ignorant about the columns and rejoinders. The reason being, a long thread of debate on the issue has been carried on The Print.In and on Rediff.Com, besides other portals in 2023. Let it be added that a “synonymous” expression, “blind inbreeding” [in recruitments], was used by the AMU Official Enquiry Committee Report, 1961.

Ever since then (March 6, 2023), dozens of meetings of the AMU Executive Council (EC) have been held thus far. None of these four, or for that matter, other EC members, have raised any objection to the expression. Thus, their silence can be construed as their consent or endorsement of the expression. 

This writer used this expression on a Facebook (Meta) post. They didn’t object to the expression on Facebook or on Whatsapp group of the AMU teachers, called “AMU Faculty 1” where I could have helped them with Dictionary. They, in vengeance and to intimidate me, straight away silently/confidentially, submitted a complaint against this writer, to the Vice Chancellor, possibly to get me penalised or gagged. This is now admitted by at least two (in fact, three) of the four signatories that they have written to the VC to curb my academic freedom. 

The Oxford Advanced Learners’ Dictionary clearly provides the meaning of the expression, “incestuous” club, “of a group of people that have close relationships with one another and do not include people outside their group”. The Dictionary, further illustrates it, in order to make it clearer, by using the expression in a sentence: “the incestuous atmosphere of media discourse”. 

We the teachers have elected four teachers to represent us inside the Executive Council, to safeguard our academic freedom, against the Vice Chancellor. Far from doing so, they are, instead, unfortunately, approaching the VC to penalize us and curb our academic freedom.  At least one of them came to me saying, he shouldn’t have signed on such a document. I said to him that of he regrets his act, he should consider withdrawing the complaint. He declined. 

The Vice Chancellor would, one expects, understand the dictionary meaning as well as the extended meaning of the expression in question, and she will treat the reported complaint accordingly.    

The founder admin of the abovementioned WhatsApp Group of the AMU teachers (almost all Muslims) is one of the four elected members of the EC-AMU. For long, a Pakistani member was added to the WhatsApp Group. Once I spotted it and objected strongly to this. His response was, “it happened inadvertently”. My response was, if they have got a habit of submitting complaint to the VC, why shouldn’t I bring it to the notice of the VC, the Government and also to the media? They had no response.  

Further, one of the four elected members to the EC advised me to refrain from consulting dictionaries; that I should concentrate on teaching history [whereas he indulge in campus (politics) through the EC; would carry out his Tablighi Jama’at activities and the Drama Club engagements, besides doing Mathematics!]. He further preached me not to teach/discuss/raise the issues of caste. Asserting his immodesty, he insisted on adding the prefix of “Honourable” for the AMU-EC (and by implication, for its members, including himself), regardless of no such protocol specified by the AMU. 

I look upon this argument with him as one with a person who holds a right wing ideology and is committed to depoliticising the electorate. Outraged, I argued with him referring to Juan Linz’s book (2000), Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes, which argues that, authoritarianism relies upon a “mentality” (“way of thinking and feeling more emotional than rational that provide non-codified ways of reacting to different situations”). Thus, by depoliticising common people and by trapping them into irrationalities they facilitate variants of authoritarianism and the personality cult (to which, let me add) of “honourables”.  Such people choose to forget that honour is commanded, not demanded. I wish there was a provision of right to recall such representatives!” He had no response to this on the WhatsApp Group.

Another elected representative, the Joint Secretary of the AMUTA, while inviting the teachers to attend the meeting on the Waqf issue, first circulated an “intimidating” message as to whosoever from among the AMU teachers is referring to the faults (retrogression on caste and gender) of India’s Muslims in the 1970s-1980s and asks the Qaum to self-introspect in order to find out the possible reasons of the rise of Neo Hindutva, according to him, amounts to “blaming the victim” and therefore s/he is a Qaum’s villain; therefore only he can command teachers to attend the meeting.  

In a Muslim majority campus like AMU, any academic with an independent (read “contrarian”) view, is already demonised as Qaum’s traitor, by the elected representative. Given the prevalence of competitive right wing radicalism, such intolerance and provocations might endanger the life of the insider-academics espousing “contrarian” views on such issues.  

Be that as it may, the point I am trying to make here is: (1) Either the two long, self-indulgent speakers on the Waqf issue were absolutely right in treating the fellow academics as school kids with spoon-feeding as pedagogy. Or, (2) The speakers are too self-obsessed and narcissistic to make way for listening to fellow colleagues and more importantly to concentrate more on working out the strategies of resistance. Or, (3) They harboured an intention to consume much of time and thereby not letting this session culminate into working out a strategy to resist in a comprehensive way, by a longer discussion on that specific aspect? (To be fair to them, this is less likely, though).

Anyway, on the intervention of fellow academics in the assembly, focus was brought back to working out a draft bill. This would eventually be endorsed by the academics attending the meeting (There was a thin presence in the meeting).   

Alienation of the Qaum, or disjunction between the Qaum and its self-serving elite    

Most interesting aspect is, these educated elites of the Qaum were then pledging to fight the BJP regime, whereas, the commoners of the Qaum have already been on the streets against the Waqf Bill for the last many weeks. Barring one or two exception, the collective of the AMU teachers seem to have risen to register their protest belatedly. This shows how yawning is the gap between the commoners of the Qaum and its educated, affluent elites!

Even more importantly, while these elites do persuade the commoners of the Qaum to keep waging wars against the ruling dispensation, they themselves behave with cunning opportunism. Consider the empanelment result of the AMU-VC in October-November 2023. Unlike other central universities, AMU empanels its VC through its own EC and Court (both the bodies excessively dominated by internal members), without advertising the position to invite application from across India. This select Club (EC & Court) eventually ended up empanelling all the three from the internal faculty members in November 2023. The predecessor VC too was not only internal faculty but also a resident of the town for the last few generations; he eventually became a legislator belonging to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in UP Council as well as vice president of the ruling party. This unprecedented inbreeding was so brazen that some of the internal teachers seeking to be empanelled as VC have approached the Allahabad High Court to challenge this. 

Insiders in the AMU know too well as to which of these (empanelled) candidates for VC-ship or their alleged patrons have been writing columns in favour of the BJP-RSS in the national English dailies, testifying further to their opportunism. AMU insiders also know it very well as to which of the AMU teachers (aligning with Muslim BJP legislator) canvassed for the BJP candidates in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Videos of such event(s) had circulated among the AMU teachers and on the social media. The AMU insiders also know with considerable clarity as to which of the EC members (from among the AMU teachers and teacher-administrators in the EC), and their clouts, were inclined towards which of these “pro-regime” candidates for VC-ship. 

The short point is: sections of these elite Clubs of AMU have already aligned with the ruling BJP and at the same time the Club has also been instigating the commoners to keep fighting the BJP and facing reprisals from the hate-filled vindictive regime. Understandably, this approach provides such opportunist elites with stronger bargaining power vis a vis the governing party.  

AMU’s Own “Anti-Waqf” (mis) deeds

The AMU itself is alleged to have indulged in erasing the names and identities of the Waaqif (the donor of land estates and assets who institutes/creates the Waqf or charitable endowment). For instance, it has been reliably learnt that the renowned physicist cum the last principal of the MAO College (when it became incorporated into AMU in 1920) and also the founder of the department of Physics in the Lucknow University, Prof. Wali Mohammad (1886-1968) had instituted the Waqf for AMU; one of these is the costly land on which a residential Hall of students is existing. The Hall is named after Nadim Tarin who bore the construction cost of the students’ residential Hall. Sadly, the name of the donor/waaqif of the land stands obliterated. We are told, there could be many such Waqf estates and assets dedicated to AMU, wherein the Waaqifs/donors remain unacknowledged and anonymized.  

In other words, with such state of affairs and the corruption of land-grabbing (by the influential people within the state administration, Waqf Boards and society), ordinary Muslims have become cynical. There is a huge deficit of the people’s connect with the Waqf estates and assets. This would dissuade the common people from adequately agitating and mobilising against the Waqf Bill 2024. This in turn, one apprehends, would fail to mount as much of pressure on the regime, as is required. 

I made similar arguments in my essay as to how and why the current dispensation succeeded in demonising the best of our universities. Questioning the relevance of India’s elite institutions to the social and economic challenges facing Indian societies, I argued that the lack of socially relevant research and teaching has contributed in part to society’s disaffection with “our respectable institutions.”   

The significant disconnect between the educated elites and the common Muslims pose a critical challenge. As highlighted by Omar Khalidi (2010) who records a damning indictment: “[research] publications on Indian Muslims since 1950 to 2010 reveals that the three AMU faculty combined [Political Science, Sociology, Economics] have contributed little to the burgeoning literature on Indian Muslims”. Of course, the Indian state didn’t stop them from carrying out such researches on the India’s Muslim communities.

 Moreover, as Daniele Struppa notes, “A university is a microcosm of our larger society that reflects different beliefs, ideologies, experiences, and backgrounds. While that is exactly what I love about a university community, it also comes with the reality that prejudice lives within our communities as well: we are not immune to the ills of our society”. 

Given this concern, the challenge before the academia in our times is to establish an effective and efficacious connect with the rest of the society, if the current democratic downslide has to be resisted and arrested with forging solidarities. Quite a number of teachers (with clout) in AMU, at the moment, seem to be missing this point, as they are the ones either falling into the trap of becoming practioners of Muslim communalism or aligning opportunistically with the Hindu Right, or both. Patronage-distribution and clientelism is embedded in the governance structures of AMU. So much so that some teachers have shamelessly been continuing in certain administrative offices of the AMU for the last 10 to 12 years, or even more! Some of them holding three administrative positions concurrently, compromising with their teaching; forget about their research. Their clout is so entrenched that successive VCs have failed to replace them with new faces in the University administration. 

Such a pathetic state of affairs needs to be addressed immediately by many reforms including change in composition of the EC, which defiantly adopts any kind of resolution, disregarding financial implications, sense of justice and the government’s or UGC’s inviolable norms. For instance, for recruitments in the AMU schools, they have outrageously reversed the norms of the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS, which has got only 30% component on interview and 70% component on written test-for admissions). In contrast, the requirement for AMU schools is reversed,  70% for the interview and only 30% for written test. This is obviously designed to favour their own candidates, already recruited on a temporary basis, in large numbers, over the last many years. Likewise, in certain cases, some influential employees have placed themselves in Old Pension Scheme despite having been recruited on regular basis after 2004 (even advertisement of the post was after 2004 making it even stronger case of New Pension Scheme). The Audit and Account of the government needs thoroughly probe this. The examination system is thoroughly compromised even at the level of question paper-setting and moderation. Yet, the Controller of Examinations has been continuing in his office for very long. The rules state that tenure-statutory administrative positions of the University are required to be advertised and filled every five years. There are many such irregularities, including financial chaos, which need probing by independent government agencies. The assets of such teacher-administrators need to be probed by such agencies too.

The question for the ordinary men and women of the Qaum is: if their educated and affluent elites can’t mount enough pressure upon the AMU-VC to replace these clouts and reshuffle the AMU administration then such a weak-kneed and helpless lot can’t be expected to muster enough strength to press the current dispensation in New Delhi to withdraw the Waqf Bill 2024.  

Most important of all, ordinary Muslims need to be alerted by the conscientious section of people, that a chunk of their educated and affluent elites have switched over to the saffron establishment, leaving them vulnerable, isolated and, above all, helpless to fend for themselves. Felix Pal (2020) has documented a section of western UP Muslim elites opportunistically joining saffron outfits.

The time has come for the AMU [Teachers’ Association] and the communities to rise to the occasion and unite their members. They must actively engage in strategies that not only resist the Waqf Amendment Bill but also address the broader implications of elite’s perfidious detachment from the community. Only by fostering a genuine dialogue and acknowledging the voices of all constituents can we hope to challenge the majoritarian regime effectively. The survival and dignity of the embattled Qaum of Indian Muslims and the country’s organic plurality depend on it. 

(The author is a Professor of History, Aligarh Muslim University)

Related:

The Waqf Bill 2024: An Open Letter to the Joint Committee of Parliament, the Opposition, and India’s Muslim Communities

Three Banes of India’s Muslims: Victimhood Syndrome, Power Theology, Obsession with Identity Politics

No Central Funds, Aligarh Muslim University’s Second Campus in West Bengal Faces Uncertain Future

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A case has been lodged at the Ramsanehi Ghat police station night under IPC sections including 419 (cheating by personation), 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery), 471 (using as genuine a forged), reports the Indian Express. The Barabanki Police, stated the news report, lodged a case on Thursday night against eight people “who were members of a committee”, this includes a former UP Sunni Central Waqf Board inspector, accusing them of “fraud and cheating” reportedly to get the mosque that was demolished registered as a Waqf property.

The Gareeb Nawaz Masjid that had existed peacefully in Ram Sanehi Ghat, a city in Barabanki, in Uttar Pradesh, for decades, was demolished earlier this week. The destruction of the Mosque was reportedly in violation of a High Court order that had said no action was to be taken till the end of May. This demolition has had a massive impact on the community in Uttar Pradesh, already a communally sensitive state. The Guardian had put the report under the global spotlight saying this is “one of the most inflammatory actions taken against a Muslim place of worship since the demolition of the Babri Mosque by a mob of Hindu nationalist rioters in 1992.”

While the district administration continues to maintain that the mosque was an “illegal construction”, it is on the records of the Sunni Central Waqf Board documents as ‘Tehsil Masjid’ for the last six decades, reported the BBC. Those in charge of the mosque told the media that it is even older, as the record books came into existence much later than the structure. The Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board has called the administration’s action illegal, and is likely to challenge it in the High Court, stated the news report. 

However, according to the Indian Express report, now the Ramsanehi Ghat Station House Officer (SHO) Sachidanand Rai said that those named in the FIR had “fraudulently got a structure in the tehsil premises registered as a Waqf property” adding that. “In order to do so, they had formed a committee.” The FIR names committee president Mushtaq Ali, vice president Waqeel Ahmad, secretary Mohamad Aneesh, members Dastageer, Afzaal, Mohammad Naseem, and then UP Sunni Central Waqf Board Inspector Mohammad Taha stated the IE, adding that according to the complaint lodged by District Minority Welfare Officer Sonu Kumar, the alleged “fraudulent registration” was done in 2019. 

The IE quotes from the complaint: “This is to bring to your notice that these people formed a committee and then through cheating and fraud got a structure registered as a Waqf property on January 5, 2019. The structure is within the Ramsanehi Ghat tehsil and is opposite the SDM residence… These facts have come to light in a probe done by Tehsildar Ramsnehi Ghat. This was done under a conspiracy, which included these people and also then UP Sunni Central Waqf Board Inspector Mohammad Taha.”

Meanwhile, the Sunni Central Waqf Board has already stated that it will move the High Court demanding “restoration of the mosque, a high level judicial inquiry and action against the guilty officials”.

Related:

Barabanki mosque demolition: UP Sunni Central Waqf Board to approach High Court

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