By Syed Khalid Husain
At the stroke of midnight on Friday the 13th (a day considered unlucky in the West), the race between India’s Muslims and Hindus to submit their views and suggestions on the Waqf (Amendment) Bill 2024 to a government-appointed Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) finally came to an end with tens of millions of emails sent to the panel by members of both the communities.
The 31-member JPC was formed on August 9 to review the Waqf (Amendment) Bill 2024 and table it in Parliament during its next session after the opposition parties strongly objected to its introduction in the House a day earlier by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju.
The Bill seeks to repeal the Mussalman Wakf Act, 1923 and amend the Waqf Act, 1995. The Act regulates waqf property in India and defines waqf as an endowment of movable or immovable property for purposes considered pious, religious or charitable under the Shariah (Islamic law). Every state is required to constitute a Waqf Board to manage waqf. The Bill also renames the Act to ‘United Waqf Management, Empowerment, Efficiency and Development Act, 1995’.
Three weeks after the Bill was referred to the JPC, the panel out of the blue launched a “public” consultation exercise on the proposed controversial piece of legislation. Consequently, both Muslim and Hindu organisations enthusiastically launched two-week-long vigorous campaigns to ensure the maximum number of people of each community submitted their feedback to the JPC before the September 13 deadline.
Organisations such as the All-India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad employed various methods, including sharing Google forms and QR codes on social media and messaging platforms, to encourage people to send emails to the JPC.
Some Muslim groups also used mosques on the two Fridays falling during the submission period as a platform to assist people in sending their emails, while certain Hindu groups spread the word through Ganesh puja pandals, evening prayers at temples and resident welfare associations. Small gatherings were also organised by these groups to promote awareness of the Bill and the JPC. A letter was also shared on WhatsApp and social media asking Hindus to send their suggestions to the JPC in favour of the Bill.
Now the ball is in the JPC’s court which, after deliberations and changes if any, is expected to submit its report during the first week of the winter session of Parliament. The JPC will hold its fourth meeting from September 18 to 20 to hear the opinions or recommendations of some experts and stakeholders, including officials from AIMPLB and the Muslim Rashtriya Manch. At the JPC sessions, opposition parties consistently opposed the Waqf Bill, causing a ruckus and spirited discussions.
Amid all this, an important point in the JPC chairman’s widely circulated appeal to solicit views and suggestions on the Bill was surprisingly overlooked or deliberately ignored by Muslim leaders, institutions and organisations in their quest to meet the committee’s deadline for submissions. The appeal published in newspapers sought feedback from not just Muslims but from the “public”, including Hindus who have no stakes in or proper knowledge of Waqf, and various stakeholders.
Waqf, which is an inalienable charitable endowment under Shariah (Islamic law), is a purely Islamic institution and has nothing to do with any religion or community other than Islam and Muslims. Hence any attempt to effect changes in this Islamic provision through the legislature, executive or judiciary should concern Muslims alone and it is only they who should be consulted and whose views and suggestions solicited while mulling over any amendments to the 14 centuries old Islamic endowment system.
But the JPC, apparently setting its own rules of the game, cleverly included non-Muslims too as respondents to his appeal, citing “the wider implications” of the Bill as the reason for making the call to the “public” instead of just Muslims. There certainly seems to be a ploy behind this action, which unfortunately was not noticed or considered by any Muslim religious, political or social leader, institution or organisation.
Without realising that by calling on the “public” the JPC had opened the floor of “voting” on the Bill to the country’s 1.16 billion Hindus too, the Muslim leaders, intellectuals, scholars, lawyers, organisations and institutions concerned kept urging Muslims to rush emails to the JPC rejecting the Bill before the deadline.
But, to be honest, where was the level playing field because Muslims constitute less than one-sixth of the country’s 1.4 billion population and have a 1-5 ratio against Hindus. Hence no wonder “exit polls” already show overwhelming support for the Bill by the Hindus. A study by LocalCircles has revealed that 9 in 10 citizens surveyed expressed support for the Bill. Another survey of 41,753 people earlier in September showed the majority of the respondents (34,540) were Hindus while a fraction (7,213) were Muslims, making the Hindu support for the Bill five times the Muslim opposition to the same. There were 1,508 responses from Christians and 3,087 from people of other religions.
Given this pattern, even if all the 200 million Muslims had sent rejection emails to the JPC, they could still fall short in case the Hindus had decided to support the Bill. Responses from just one-fourth of them are sufficient to outnumber the Muslim submissions and thus allow the JPC to give the go-ahead to the contentious Bill. It is quite likely that the Hindus have supported the Bill in view of the current anti-Muslim environment in the country. This clearly means that Muslims cannot get the desired result from their exercise merely on the basis of the number of submissions, making their campaign an exercise in futility.
The question arises: Does the JPC have a mandate to launch a public consultation exercise and was this exercise warranted in the first place? Even if it was called for, the JPC should not have sought the views/suggestions of non-Muslims because waqf is essentially an Islamic matter about which non-Muslims are not concerned and have little or no knowledge.
The JPC’s move to seek “public” opinion on a purely Muslim religious issue would likely set a very dangerous precedent as it could pave the way for the government to refer more such matters concerning Muslims to JPCs, and for the JPC to seek public opinion on them, which would naturally be bigger and more effective from the majority community. These matters may include demolition of mosques, shutting down of madrasas, banning hijab, abolition of the Muslims’ personal laws and curbing the slaughter of certain animals. The list is long. If the yes votes are more than the no votes then all these things can happen without any hurdles.
The JPC’s current action also raises the question whether Muslims’ opinions would be sought, too, in matters related to the Hindus, their places of worship and education institutions, as well as the people of other faiths and their respective religious faiths and institutions.
Finally, the question arises how the Muslim leaders in the JPC, including Barrister Asaduddin Owaisi, Muslim institutions and organisations such as the AIMPLB failed to find fault with the JPC’s move to seek “public” opinion on a purely Islamic matter.
Instead of depending on the submissions alone, Muslim leaders, intellectuals, institutions and organisations should now focus their attention on the JPC’s proceedings and lobby for the cause of the Ummah by liaising with other members of the committee and those in Parliament and convince them to oppose the Bill tooth and nail. Pinning hopes on politicians such as Chandrababu Naidu and Nitish Kumar may not be useful in the end.
