In the wake of developments happening in the legislative front, the Muslims have had to face a worrisome situation under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Modi government has used a legal weapon to rob the Muslim owners of their properties. It is highly discriminating and against the constitution to undermine sovereignty of people through the Waqf Bill. The slant of the controversial bill is to centralize the Muslim community’s religious properties to be used for charitable purposes.
It also closely mirrors the preference of the Modi government to centralize control over religious property, which directly contradicts India’s history of religious autonomy
In the same way as state governments run Hindu religious trusts, running the Muslim religious trusts cannot be in the government’s hands. In particular, such a law is an attack on the idea of secularism, and especially because it violates the principles of the federation. It also closely mirrors the preference of the Modi government to centralize control over religious property, which directly contradicts India’s history of religious autonomy. If the government targets only Muslim trusts then it would carry a clear message of religious bias.
Concerns surround it with regard to the larger political implications of this selective approach to religious endowments. Also, the critics of the Modi regime state that it leads to the government’s larger plan of anti-minority policy.
The Waqf properties in India have been an essential source of income to realize the objectives of support for religious affairs, welfare, education, and social services for centuries. The government actions under the Modi regime seem to be directed at rendering Muslim stewardship of these properties insignificant by the state sanctioned dispossession and political interference. This challenge to the historical autonomy of Muslim communities in managing their religious assets is a manifestation, and a defining element, of a more general strategy to try to eviscerate the community’s economic power and independence.
It’s an explicit method of dissolving the Muslim community’s control of its religious and cultural heritage
The proposal to appoint non-Muslims to manage the Muslim properties is one of the most troubling aspects of the Waqf Bill. In fact, this move is being called inclusion and modernization, though it can also be considered a form of colonization. The government accordingly undermines the authority of Muslim communities by putting non-Muslim individuals into positions of power over religious institutions that are integral to the Muslim experience of political authority. The concept that non-Muslim property can be used to manage Muslim Waqf properties in a step towards more unity, but no; it’s an explicit method of dissolving the Muslim community’s control of its religious and cultural heritage.
BJP leaders have seized upon these protests and branded them ‘Email Jihad,’ thereby demonizing dissent and purporting that Muslims’ just demands of justice should be seen as violent
In response, millions of Muslims across the country have risen up against the Modi government’s actions. The repeated news of peaceful protests – emails to BJP leaders – have been widely reported, but all the efforts have been in defiance. Rather than addressing the Muslim community’s grievances as raised, BJP leaders have seized upon these protests and branded them ‘Email Jihad,’ thereby demonizing dissent and purporting that Muslims’ just demands of justice should be seen as violent. This rhetoric does not only hush the voice of the Muslim community but is an indicator of the government’s reluctance to recognize or address the real and legitimate grievances of the minorities in India.
The Waqf Bill is, therefore, not a reformative measure in the sense of undoing or relaxing the regime of Muslim ownership of property and curbing the community’s rights, but a thinly veiled land grab aimed at destroying Muslim ownership of property and depriving the community of its rights. Billed as a modernization initiative, the bill has also become a tool in state suppression as the government has converted it into a power on state machinery for control, seizure and dispossession of Muslim communities’ assets. It is a blatant violation of the constitutional rights of Muslims which entitle them to freedom of religious and cultural institutions.
In a broader context of political climate under the regime of Modi, Waqf Bill is an emblem, of an indifferent strategy to marginalize Muslim communities. Government actions are an obvious suggestion that Muslims do not have the right to receive the same rights and guarantees that are granted to other religious organizations in the country. Instead, under Modi, the government has injected more divisions along religious lines, stoked attacks on Muslim autonomy and become a hostile place for the country’s minorities.
It is about saving what is the core – the ability to preserve the essence of religious autonomy, cultural identity, and the right to self-governance
In a nutshell, religious freedoms and minority rights can be easily trampled upon with government policies that erode the very foundations of this liberty and these rights. Preservation of land and property is indeed not the core of this struggle on the part of the Muslim community; it is about saving what is the core – the ability to preserve the essence of religious autonomy, cultural identity, and the right to self-governance. The Waqf Bill is more of the same when it comes to the marginalization and disenfranchisement of the Muslim community.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. They do not represent the views, beliefs, or policies of the Stratheia.
