The BJP’s undying love for Muslims is no state secret, but in the Modi years, this community has been at the receiving end of some very special attention from the ruling party. A notable feature of this attention has been the various attempts to ‘reform’ Muslims, their personal laws and other legislation that impinges on their status as citizens.
Take for instance the Citizenship Amendment Act, or the Uniform Civil Code, or the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act, a.k.a. the triple talaq law. Or now the apparent haste to pass a Waqf (Amendment) Bill.
Of the many jihads Indian Muslims are supposedly waging against the hapless Hindus of India, ‘land jihad’ is one. There is more in that arsenal, of course: ‘love jihad’, ‘vote jihad’, ‘thook jihad’… The colourful vocabulary has been legitimised by the party’s brass and given a hyperreal dimension on social media.
On 8 August, when the Waqf (Amendment) Bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha, minority affairs minister Kiren Rijiju shared a story that had been circulating widely. In 2022, Raj Gopal, a resident of Tiruchendurai village in Tamil Nadu’s Trichy district, went to register the sale of his 1.2 acre plot of land. He was told this land was not his to sell in the first place, that it belonged to the Tamil Nadu Waqf Board. He was further informed that his entire village was Waqf property and that he would need an NOC from the Waqf Board’s Chennai office before he could proceed.
What has gone largely unreported in media is the refutation of this story by the TN Waqf Board, which apparently even issued a press release with clarifications and supporting documents. “The land in question is recorded in waqf board records as inaam (gift) waqf,” clarified A.S. Fatima Muzaffar, member, Tamil Nadu Waqf Board. “When this issue came to light, the Tamil Nadu Waqf Board provided all the documents related to the village to the government and administration.”
What is waqf?
The concept of ‘waqf’ applies to movable or immovable assets........