Waqf Amendment Bill An Attempt to Snuff the Soul of Indian Muslims

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The opposition members of the JPC submitted dissent notes on the report and termed the entire exercise unconstitutional 

Dr Syed Ali Mujtaba 

With the opposition having strong reservations to the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, the Joint Parliament Committee (JPC) has wetted the bill with 14 amendments and scripted a majority with 15 “Ayes” and 11 “Nays.” Now the Waqf bill is ready for the perusal of the Lok Sabha Speaker who will take further action to pass the bill.

The opposition is still unconvinced with the current structure of the bill draft. Assaduddin Owaisi, the MP from Hyderabad says; “We reject this Waqf amendment bill as all these amendments are not in the interest of the Waqf and Muslims will lose their endowed properties.”

“These will destroy the Waqf Board’s character and increase interference of the Central government in its functioning.”

“The ‘evacuee properties,’ (the properties being endowed by the Muslims who left for Pakistan) will now be taken by the government. This is not acceptable to the Muslim community,” he said.

Congress member Imran Masood said, “You have violated our rights granted under Article 26 of the Constitution. You talked about the Uniform Civil Code, but there are Hindu Endowment Boards, Sikh Boards, and Christian boards that do not have non-Hindus, non-Sikhs, and non-Christians as members, but why there be Hindu members in the Waqf board?  

Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Arvind Sawant, said “When you say that the Waqf Board will have non-Muslims then by same count temple rules be amended to include Muslims, then only there would be parity, will the Hindus agree?  

“The other bewildering thing is; that members of the Waqf Board will not be elected but selected by the government. Is this not a travesty of democracy,” asked Mr Arvind Sawant.

Trinamool Congress MP, Kalyan Banerjee said “The report indicated it was made with a predetermined mind by the ruling government. The statements of witnesses and the observations of the MPs were not taken into account and the proceedings of the JPC turned into mockery. What was the use of the whole exercise if its outcome was predetermined?” Asked Mr. Banerjee.

The opposition members of the JPC submitted dissent notes on the report and termed the entire exercise unconstitutional. They said that the 655-page draft report was circulated among the 31-member committee very late and they got little time to go through the voluminous document.

“We received the 655-page report and were given not even 12 hours to respond.  It is humanly impossible to read such a voluminous report and respond in a short time. I have given a dissent report against the amendments that do not favour the Waqf Board,” said a member opposing the bill.

With the government making the pitch that amending the Waqaf law is the prime necessity of the country, the passing of the Waqf bill is a mere formality.

The government is determined about the passing of the bill in the Parliament as it’s touted to have sufficiently greased the palms of its allies Chandrababu Naidu, the Andhra Pradesh CM, and Nitish Kumar the Bihar CM, whose support is crucial.  

In this background, the Waqf bill will be bulldozed by the ruling government using the heavy steam roller of the Parliamentary majority even though it means snuffing the soul of Indian Muslims.  

Syed Ali Mujtaba is a journalist based in Chennai. He can be contacted at syedalimujtaba2007@gmail.com

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