Srinagar, India (AP) – India The Wednesday Parliament began to discuss a controversial proposal from the Hindu nationalist government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to modify the laws governing the grants of Muslim land in the country.
The bill would add non-Muslims to the councils which manage the endowments of the WAQF land and give the government a more important role in the validation of their land funds.
The government claims that changes will help fight corruption and mismanagement while promoting diversity, but criticisms fear that this is undergoing more the rights of the Muslim minority of the country and can be used to confiscate historical mosques and other goods.
The Minister of Affairs of Minorities, Kiren Rijiju, presented Wednesday the bill on the modification of the WAQF, which would reform a law of 1995 which establishes rules for foundations and implementing state councils to administer them.
The debate in the lower room of the Parliament should be animated while the opposition led by the congress is firmly against the proposal. Modi Bharatiya Janata’s ruling party has no majority but may be able to depend on the allies to adopt the bill. The BJP and the Congress asked their legislators to be present in the House.
If it is adopted, the bill must clean the upper room before it is sent to President Droupadi Murmu for his assent to become a law.
Many Muslim groups as well as the opposition parties say that the proposal is discriminatory, politically motivated and an attempted party in power to weaken minority rights.
The controversial bill was presented for the first time in Parliament last year, but was then sent to a Committee of Legislators for discussion after the opposition parties raised concerns. The Committee report was tabled in the two chambers of Parliament on February 13 in the midst of the demonstrations of opposition leaders who declared that their contributions had been ignored. The government claims that opposition parties use rumors to discredit them and block transparency in the management of endowments.
What is a waqf?
Waqfs are a traditional type of Islamic charitable foundation in which a donor constantly puts goods – often but not always real estate – for religious or charitable purposes.
Waqfs in India controls 872,000 properties which cover 405,000 hectares (1 million acres) of land, valued at $ 14.22 billion. Some of these endowments date back centuries, and many are used for mosques, seminars, cemeteries and orphanages.
The law would change that executes the waqfs
In India, WAQF property is managed by semi-official councils, one for each of the States of the country and territories of the Union managed by the federal government. The law demanded that non-Muslims be appointed to the advice.
Currently, WAQF’s advice has Muslims, such as similar organizations that help administer other religious charities.
One of the most controversial amendments is the change in property rules, which could potentially have an impact on mosques, sanctuaries and historical cemeteries under WAQF. It could modify the property rules of several of these properties which lack formal documentation because they have been given without decades of legal files, and sometimes, even centuries ago.
Title Questions
Other changes could have an impact on historical mosques, whose earth is often owned in the Waqfs old centuries.
Hindu radical groups have targeted mosques across the country and claimed to several of themArguing that they are built on the ruins of important Hindu temples. Many of these cases are underway in court.
The law would force WAQF’s advice to request the approval of a district level officer to confirm WAQFS complaints to property.
Critics say that it would undermine the board of directors and could lead Muslims stripped of their land. We do not know how frequency the advice would be invited to confirm such claims to land.
Fears among Muslims
While many Muslims agree that the WAQF suffers from corruption, encroachments and mismanagement, they also fear that the new law will give the Hindu nationalist government of India much more important control over Muslim properties, in particular at a time when attacks against minority communities have become more aggressive under Modi, with Muslims often targeted food And clothing styles has interreligious weddings.
Last month, the American Commission on International Religious Freedom said in its annual report that the conditions of religious freedom in India continued to deteriorate while Modi and his party “propagated hateful rhetoric and disinformation against Muslims and other religious minorities” during the electoral campaign last year.
Modi’s government says India is managed on the democratic principles of equality and no discrimination exists in the country.
Muslims, who make 14% of the Indian population of 1.4 billion people, are the largest minority group of the Hindu major nation, but they are also the poorest, revealed a government survey of 2013.
