The Waqf Board Bill

Today (4-April-25 at around 2 AM) Rajya Sabha approved the Waqf board bill. It is just matter of time when Hon. President signs it and become a law of the land. No law could satisfy everyone. Therefore, I am not trying support or oppose this bill. I would like to share what I observed during last 2 days.

 

The experts say, “The democracy is chaotic form of government”. Although it is the worst form of government, however, it is still the best form of government in the era of nation states. There are multiple versions of democracies that exists in the world. Seemingly stable democratic nations like India, USA, UK, France, Italy and Israel do not have the same form of democracy. I think Indian democracy given by the Constitution of India is better than any other democracies in the world. The people of India could address their problems, issues, aspirations through the framework of the constitution. It might have been misused by a strong majority government like 42^nd constitutional amendment by Mrs. Indira Gandhi. However, it was corrected (though partially) through the constitutional means when the government was changed.

 

What I like about this bill was that the democratic process it followed. The current govt introduced Waqf Amendment bill and Mussalman Wakf (Repeal) Bill in Aug-24. The parliament referred it to JPC. The JPC met with more than 10 state governments, numerous minority religious organizations, many experts and millions of people shared their views in its favor or in opposition. The Muslims looked at it as an aggression on their fundamental religious rights whereas many Hindus believe that it is required to teach a lesson to Muslims of this country. However, each law must pass the test of equality, fraternity, mutual respect and respect the religious freedom given by the Constitution. Unlike, CAA, NRC and Agriculture reform bills, the government did a lot of background work before putting this bill in the parliament. I have been following Kiren Rijiju since long on the social media. He visited many Islamic establishments. He met with many Christians bodies. He was putting it on his X account. I was aghast when PM Modi sent Chadar to Ajmer Darga. Kiren Rijiju personally handed over it to them. He was putting efforts to convince the minority people that do not see this bill from religious perspective, and it is good for them. As a result, there were many demonstrations by Muslims in last 2 days in favor of Waqf bill. The ruling party put all the efforts to achieve consensus among the various stakeholders.

 

The discussion continued for more than 12 hrs in both LS and RS. The speakers from BJP were well prepared. Amit Shah, Kiren Rijiju, Anurag Thakur, Nishikant Dubey etc in LS put forward very logical arguments towards the support of the bill. Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Vadra were absent for most of the time. Both of them did not utter a single word in LS. They have given the impression that it is not an important bill. They should have taken this opportunity to put forward their opposition to this bill. Rahul Gandhi is a leader of opposition in LS. He should have taken this opportunity to establish himself. He should have led the entire opposition. However, he handed over matters to Gaurav Gogoi and ran away from LS. It looks like that both Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi did not have any understanding of the bill and were not interested at all. Rahul Gandhi came to parliament in the mid-night in the nightdress. He has shown such respect to the parliament. He is absolutely not discharging his duty as a leader of the opposition.

 

The opposition leaders like Gaurav Gogoi, Kalyan Banerjee put forward very toothless and directionless opposition to the bill. There was not substance in their arguments. I was aghast when Akhilesh Yadav stood for his argument. He said everything but nothing on the bill. There were a very few logical, credible reasoning from people like Asaduddin Owaisi and one Muslim lady MP of SP. They expressed their opposition very logically for many clauses of the new law and reasons behind it. You may agree or not. But their arguments were very logical, and one can’t ignore.

There were two arguments in RS which must be pondered. The Congress’s Imran Pratapgarhi argued that the properties which were owned and donated by the Islamic rulers of India in the past should be treated as waqf properties and the Congress rightfully handed over them to waqf board. Sudhanshu Trivedi’s answer to this argument must be discussed in a wider forum. He said that all those properties were looted by invaders. There was one more invader (British) in between. I immediately remembered the judgement of Sheikh Jarrah in the supreme court of Israel. Can the Constitution of India accepts the orders of invaders? How far in past one should go to establish the ownership of the property? This is a larger topic someday Indian society will have to confront.

Other smaller parties like AAP, Shiv Sena (UBT), NCP (SP), SAD simply missed the bus. They could not pick any clause where they could argue based on their basic principle of their party. Sanjay Raut’s speech was so directionless that BJP must be very happy.

 

At the end, I really felt that it was a fixed match between the Ruling party and the opposition parties. The opposition parties just wanted to show opposition but secretly wanted to pass the bill.

 

Satish Gundawar

09-Nov-2023