Waqf Amendment Act, 2025
In the month of April, the Govt of India has withdrawn the old Waqf Act, 1995 and enacted the new 'Waqf Act, 2025'. There has been a persistent campaign from the ruling BJP-Sangh Parivar eco-system that the Waqf Boards are 'corrupt', 'undemocratic', 'opaque' etc etc. BJP led Central Govt as well as Sangh Parivar has claimed that all these fault lines of the old Act have been rectified through the new Act.
However, if we go through more than forty amendments made in the oldAct, it would be apparent that all those tall claims are far from thetruth. In lieu of more autonomy empowered through the new Act, the powerand authority of the Waqf Boards has been curtailed more; in lieu ofmore empowerment of the community, more centralization in the hands ofthe bureaucrats and governments on the Waqf properties has beenenforced; non-Muslim personnel have been incorporated into themanagement of the Boards; restrictions have been imposed on who candonate a property as 'Waqf'. The new Act has been extended up to theextent that if someone grabs a 'Waqf' property by force, that offencewould no more be a 'non-bailable' offence with 'rigorous imprisonment'up to two years.
So, whatever be the claims of the BJP-Sangh Parivar and thegovernment led by them, it is clear that the motive behind themodification of the old Act is completely different. It needs to beunderstood in connection with the activities of RSS-Sangh Parivar sincelast more than 30 years, particularly since they came to the limelightby bringing forward the agenda of Ram Mandir. Since then, through alltheir heinous activities and hate-mongering campaigns, they tried toestablish that all miseries and hardships of the vast majority of theHindu population of this country have been caused due to the existenceof Muslim populations, they are outsiders in this country, so if theyneed to live here, their status would be of a second class citizen,deprived of all rights and privileges. For doing these, they have builtup a very well-organized machinery based on a bunch of hoodlums infusedwith their fascist ideology, who are the prime movers of the physicalassaults made on the poor hapless Muslim people on the basis of seriesof false and fabricated issues. The main motive of this machinery is todevelop an atmosphere of persisting fear-psychosis and a severe sense ofinsecurity among the vast section of common Muslim population. Inaddition, since Modi-Shah came to power, they are leaving no stonesunturned to utilize the government power and machinery to further thesense of insecurity and helplessness among this population. For doingso, they are changing laws of the land one after another and utilizingstate machineries at its best. The change of Waqf Amendment Act is partof this process. Even though the power and management of the Waqf Boardsand properties were vested on the upper stratum of the Muslimpopulation, the perception of the common Muslims was that theseproperties are part of their religious identity and the community as awhole is the custodian of this property, as because a significantportion of Waqf land is used for Muslim graveyards and mosques, thusused by the common Muslim people. So, they feel that their right ofusing this common religious property is being snatched away from theircustody. So, by changing the old Act, RSS-Sangh Parivar essentiallytried to enhance this sense of insecurity and helplessness among thevast majority of the Muslim population ? this was the main purpose ofamending old Waqf Act.
Another aspect of the campaign of RSS-Sangh Parivar needs to beattended here. They claim that Waqf Boards hold land amounting 9.4 lacsacres, it is the third largest holder of movable and immovableproperties, though 'Waqf Asset Management System of India', anorganization under the aegis of Govt of India, does not corroborate thefact. The fact which they carefully and meticulously hide is that,thousands of large Hindu temples are managed by the individual Trustsand most of them hold vast amount of properties of different varietiesincluding agricultural lands and in almost all the cases, theseproperties are unaccounted for. The few facts that have trickled downare ? Lord Jagannath holds 60,822 acres of land, total land held by44,000 temples of Tamilnadu amounts to nearly 5 lacs acres, the value ofthe properties held by Tirupati temple is 250 billion crores, the amountof gold it owns is more than eleven tons. RSS-Sangh parivar is silentabout all these facts, but they are crying hoarse about the propertiesof Waqf Board! They have modified Waqf Act with the plea that it was?corrupt?, ?centralized?, ?opaque? etc etc. But do not the sameaccusations applicable for Hindu Temple Trusts! But they do not utter asingle word against it. They have incorporated two non-muslims in themanagement of Waqf Board, do they dare to implement the same thing, likeincorporating two Muslims, in the Hindu Temple Trusts? Even they haveadvanced up to the extent that once the new Waqf Act has got passed,they are howling with the claim that Christian churches own 170 millionacres of land, that also without any evidence. The sole purpose offeeding all these messages to the common Hindu masses, is to alienatetoiling Hindu masses from common minority population on the basis oftheir politics of hatred. So, as a whole, the amendment of Waqf Actneeds to be viewed from the perspective of the communally divisivefascist politics of RSS-Sangh Parivar-BJP ecosystem.
But at the same time, we must not forget the fact that lands andproperties in the name of God across the world is very much part andparcel of feudal property and production relations, donations in thename of god were primarily made by the kings and lords and theirassociates, fruits of these properties were produced exclusively byexploiting & coercing the peasants and artisans and again those wereconsumed for the luxury of those at the topmost layers of the feudalsociety. This held valid for our country also. However, even whenBritish rule was abolished, these feudal relations in our country werenot fully abolished from the society and as part of this process, thereligious properties were not confiscated and still the source of largeearnings from these properties are coming from the exploitation of thepeasants and toiling masses. Existence of Waqf properties is also a partof this process and the same was duly protected by the Waqf Act, 1954after abolition of British rule. So, it is evident that working classcannot stand for preservation of the right of all these religiousproperties still surviving on the basis of pre-capitalist productionrelations.
Here we further need to keep in mind that most of the Waqf propertiesare used for the benefit of upper stratum of the Muslim population, apart of it is utilized for community religious purposes, like graveyardsand mosques; and in real life, only a meagre quantity is used forproviding some reliefs to the toiling Muslims. And here it is moreimportant to mention that by utilizing this meagre quantity of the wholeproperty for relief purposes of the poor Muslims, the religiously devouttoiling Muslim people are kept enchained to the opium of religion, sothat they remain silent about their daily sufferings. This is applicablenot only for Waqf properties, but for all forms of religious properties.So, once again the working class cannot support the properties survivingon pre-capitalist production relations, and where a very meagre portionis utilized as relief to the toiling Muslim people to keep them chainedwithin the boundary of irrational religious beliefs.
Here one more aspect also needs to be taken into consideration. It istrue that in India like countries where Hindus are the majoritycommunity, the fundamentalist and communal politics of Hindu religiousforces are naturally more dangerous than other similar forces,particularly when this force is organized based on fascist ideology. Butthat does not signify that minority fundamentalism is not dangerous andharmful, as because any sort of fundamentalist politics and ideologyessentially breaks the class unity of the working class, peasantry andtoiling masses. In case of protests against Waqf Act, 2025, we find thatdifferent Muslim religious and fundamentalist forces are often, thoughobviously not exclusively, at the forefront. It also needs to bementioned that most of the mainstream political parties vying forelection against RSS-BJP, are hobnobbing with these Islamic religiousand fundamentalist organizations. Working class cannot ally with theseIslamic organizations just to oppose the conspiracies of fascistRSS-BJP. So, while exposing these conspiracies of RSS-BJP to theadvanced section of the proletariat, at the same time, we must exposethe narrow divisive politics of Islamic religious and fundamentalistorganizations, particularly to the advanced sections of the workers andtoiling Muslims. We must convey to them how these organizations arekeeping them trapped in a very backward life under the guise ofreligion, how they are dividing and alienating them from the toilingmasses of the bigger section of the society, in the name of preservingWaqf properties, how they are limiting their aspirations within theirown communal arena and that also by providing some meagre reliefs. So,they need to understand that for the fight against fascist Hindutvaforces, first they have to alienate themselves from Islamicfundamentalist forces and to proceed for struggling unity with theadvanced section of the workers and toiling masses cutting across alldivisive barriers. From that perspective, the question must beforcefully brought in limelight to them, how the miseries of their livescan be brought to an end only through the advancement of revolutionaryclass struggle, for which revolutionary class unity of workingclass-peasantry and other toiling masses cutting across all religiousbarriers are the main pre-condition. And at the same time, the advancedsection of the workers of the majority community must extend theirstruggling hand towards their comrades-in-arms of the minoritycommunities to its fullest ? in fact, this role from that of themajority community is more important in today's situation ? and thenonly they would be able to proceed for the achievement of desiredrevolutionary class unity. And, the new Waqf Act needs to be opposedfrom this whole perspective.
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