SRINAGAR, India (AP) — India’s parliament early Thursday handed a debatable invoice moved through Top Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist executive to amend rules governing Muslim land endowments.The invoice would upload non-Muslims to forums that organize waqf land endowments and provides the federal government a bigger position in validating their land holdings. The federal government says the adjustments will assist to battle corruption and mismanagement whilst selling variety, however critics concern that it’ll additional undermine the rights of the rustic’s Muslim minority and might be used to confiscate historical mosques and different assets.Debate within the Decrease Space was once heated because the Congress-led opposition firmly adverse the proposal, calling it unconstitutional and discriminatory towards Muslims. Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Celebration lacks a majority within the Decrease Space, however its allies helped to go the invoice.
The controversy that started Wednesday ended with 288 individuals balloting for the invoice whilst 232 had been towards it early Thursday. The invoice will now wish to transparent the Higher Space prior to it’s despatched to President Droupadi Murmu for her assent to change into regulation.
Minority Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju presented the invoice to modify a 1995 regulation that set laws for the rules and arrange state-level forums to manage them. Many Muslim teams in addition to the opposition events say the proposal is discriminatory, politically motivated and an try through Modi’s ruling celebration to weaken minority rights.
A Muslim guy provides prayers at Mahim Dargah, a Muslim shrine in Mumbai, India, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photograph/Rafiq Maqbool)
A Muslim guy provides prayers at Mahim Dargah, a Muslim shrine in Mumbai, India, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photograph/Rafiq Maqbool)Learn Extra
The invoice was once first presented in parliament closing yr, and opposition leaders have mentioned a few of their next proposals on it had been unnoticed. The federal government has mentioned opposition events are the use of rumors to discredit them and block transparency in managing the endowments. What’s a waqf?Waqfs are a conventional form of Islamic charitable basis by which a donor completely units apart assets — incessantly however now not all the time actual property — for devout or charitable functions. Waqfs in India regulate 872,000 homes that quilt 405,000 hectares (1 million acres) of land, price an estimated $14.22 billion. A few of these endowments date again centuries, and lots of are used for mosques, seminaries, graveyards and orphanages.
Regulation would trade who runs waqfsIn India, waqf assets is controlled through semi-official forums, one for each and every state and federally run union territory. The regulation will require non-Muslims to be appointed to the forums.These days, waqf forums are staffed through Muslims, like an identical our bodies that assist administer different devout charities.All through the parliamentary debate, House Minister Amit Shah mentioned non-Muslims could be incorporated in waqf forums just for management functions and serving to run the endowments easily. He added that they weren’t there to intervene in devout affairs.“The (non-Muslim) individuals will track whether or not the management is operating as consistent with regulation or now not, and whether or not the donations are getting used for what they had been supposed or now not,” he mentioned.
Kashmiri Muslims pray within the shrine of Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jeelani, usually referred to as Dastageer Sahib, in Srinagar, Indian managed Kashmir, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photograph/Mukhtar Khan)
Kashmiri Muslims pray within the shrine of Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jeelani, usually referred to as Dastageer Sahib, in Srinagar, Indian managed Kashmir, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photograph/Mukhtar Khan)Learn Extra
A Kashmiri Muslim guy prays within the shrine of Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jeelani, usually referred to as Dastageer Sahib, in Srinagar, Indian managed Kashmir, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photograph/Mukhtar Khan)
A Kashmiri Muslim guy prays within the shrine of Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jeelani, usually referred to as Dastageer Sahib, in Srinagar, Indian managed Kashmir, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photograph/Mukhtar Khan)Learn Extra
One of the vital debatable adjustments is to possession laws, which might have an effect on ancient mosques, shrines and graveyards since many such homes lack formal documentation as they had been donated with out prison information a long time, or even centuries, in the past.
Questions on titleOther adjustments may just have an effect on mosques on land held in centuries-old waqfs.Radical Hindu teams have laid declare to a number of mosques round India, arguing they’re constructed at the ruins of necessary Hindu temples. Many such instances are pending in courts.The regulation will require waqf forums to hunt approval from a district point officer to substantiate the waqfs’ claims to assets.
Muslims depart after providing prayers at Mahim Dargah, a Muslim shrine in Mumbai, India, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photograph/Rafiq Maqbool)
Muslims depart after providing prayers at Mahim Dargah, a Muslim shrine in Mumbai, India, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photograph/Rafiq Maqbool)Learn Extra
Critics say that may undermine the board and may just result in Muslims being stripped in their land. It’s now not transparent how incessantly the forums could be requested to substantiate such claims to land.“The Waqf (Modification) Invoice is a weapon aimed toward marginalising Muslims and usurping their private rules and assets rights,” Rahul Gandhi, the principle opposition chief, wrote on social media platform X. He mentioned the invoice was once an “assault at the Charter” through the BJP and its allies “aimed toward Muslims these days however units a precedent to focus on different communities at some point.”Fears amongst MuslimsWhile many Muslims agree that waqfs be afflicted by corruption, encroachments and deficient control, additionally they concern that the brand new regulation may just give India’s Hindu nationalist executive a ways better regulate over Muslim homes, in particular at a time when assaults towards minority communities have change into extra competitive beneath Modi, with Muslims incessantly centered for the entirety from their meals and clothes types to inter-religious marriages.
A Kashmiri Muslim lady prays within the shrine of Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jeelani, usually referred to as Dastageer Sahib, in Srinagar, Indian managed Kashmir, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photograph/Mukhtar Khan)
A Kashmiri Muslim lady prays within the shrine of Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jeelani, usually referred to as Dastageer Sahib, in Srinagar, Indian managed Kashmir, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photograph/Mukhtar Khan)Learn Extra
Bashir Ahmad, a Kashmiri shopkeeper, rests at his store within the Auqaf Marketplace in Srinagar, Indian managed Kashmir, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photograph/Mukhtar Khan)
Bashir Ahmad, a Kashmiri shopkeeper, rests at his store within the Auqaf Marketplace in Srinagar, Indian managed Kashmir, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photograph/Mukhtar Khan)Learn Extra
Kashmiri males acquire footwear within the Auqaf Marketplace in Srinagar, Indian managed Kashmir, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photograph/Mukhtar Khan)
Kashmiri males acquire footwear within the Auqaf Marketplace in Srinagar, Indian managed Kashmir, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photograph/Mukhtar Khan)Learn Extra
Remaining month, the U.S. Fee on Global Non secular Freedom mentioned in its annual file that devout freedom prerequisites in India persevered to go to pot whilst Modi and his celebration “propagated hateful rhetoric and disinformation towards Muslims and different devout minorities” throughout closing yr’s election marketing campaign. Modi’s executive says India is administered on democratic rules of equality and no discrimination exists within the nation. Muslims, who’re 14% of India’s 1.4 billion inhabitants, are the biggest minority team within the Hindu-majority country however they’re additionally the poorest, a 2013 executive survey discovered.