India Lok Sabha adopts a controversial bill on Muslim properties

The lower parliament of the Parliament of India has adopted a controversial bill which aims to modify the way in which the properties of a billions of dollars given by Indian Muslims over the centuries are governed.

The WAQF (Amendment) bill, 2024 – which provides dozens of amendments to an existing law – was adopted late Wednesday evening after a heated debate which lasted more than 12 hours.

The Government says that the bill will introduce transparency into WAQF management, as well as the properties are called.

But the opposition parties and the Muslim groups called it an attempt to weaken the constitutional rights of the greatest religious minority in India.

In the Lok Sabha, as the lower chamber calls it, the bill was adopted with 288 deputies in favor of it, and 232 against (halfway is 272).

He has now been sent to Rajya Sabha, or to the upper room, for discussion and passage.

If it is adopted by Rajya Sabha, he will be sent to President Droupadi Murmu for his assent before he became a law.

The bill was tabled for the first time in Parliament in August of last year, but was sent to a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) after an uproar from the members of the opposition. The version which has been adopted includes several modifications suggested by the strongly divided committee. The members of the opposition who were part of the panel allegedly alleged that the JPC had accepted the changes suggested by the BJP and its allies while rejecting all the amendments they have proposed.

Mallikarjun Kharge, deputy for the congress and head of the opposition to Rajya Sabha, said that the opposition was united and would work to defeat “the unconstitutional and divisor of the Modi government on the Waqf amendment bill”. But the figures may not be in favor of the opposition.

Muslim groups have argued that the bill “aims to weaken WAQF laws and open the way to the seizure and destruction of WAQF properties”.

Speaking in Lok Sabha, the head of Congress Gaurav Gogoi declared that the bill “would dilute the Constitution, defam the minority communities, divide Indian society and minorities of priority”.

The Federal Minister of the Interior, Amit Shah, defended the bill, affirming that the opposition frightened the minorities by creating “an illusion that this bill would interfere in the religious activities of the Muslim Brotherhood and in their given goods”.

The properties of the WAQF, which include mosques, madrassas, refuge houses and thousands of land acres given by Muslims, are managed by advice. Some of these properties are vacant while others have been encroached.

In Islamic tradition, a WAQF is a charity or religious gift made by Muslims for the benefit of the community. These properties cannot be sold or used for other purposes – which implies that WAQF properties belong to God.

The government says Waqf’s advice is among the largest landowners in India. There are at least 872,51 Waqf properties across India, covering more than 940,000 acres, with an estimated value of 1.2 billion of rupees (14.22 billion dollars; 11.26 billion pounds sterling).

A major criticism from the opponents of the bill is that it grants the government an undue power to regulate the management of these allocations and to determine whether a property is qualified as “WAQF”.

The bill also offers the induction of two non -Muslim members on WAQF advice that supervise these properties. Critics have opposed this provision, arguing that most of the religious institutions managed by non-Muslims do not allow followers of other confessions in their administration.

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