The
BJP Logic on Waqf
Shrikant G. Talageri
After a hue and
cry raised among Hindu people in the social media after Anand Ranganathan
brought out the lethal nature of the Waqf provisions in the Indian legal system
in his seminal book “Hindus in Hindu Rashtra”, the BJP government, was
forced to look, or pretend to look, at a very crucial issue which they
had deliberately ignored during their ten years of unchallenged one-party rule.
They therefore set out to pull the wool over the eyes of their followers (or rather, over those among their followers who, in their hearts, want to see Hindus getting equal rights and justice in India at least as much as they want to see their BJP idols ruling the roost and getting richer and more powerful by the day), a science and an art at which they are past masters. They brought in a Waqf (Amendment Bill) 1924 in Parliament in August 2024, and hope that the hue and cry that any such Bill will definitely evoke among the Muslim mobs will certify, in the eyes of these Hindu-minded among the bhakts, that the BJP is trying to do something for Hindus – even if (as half expected, and hoped for, by the BJP “thinkers”) this same Muslim reaction will serve as a pretext to ultimately shelve even this half-hearted Bill as impossible to enforce (after it has successfully achieved its objective of fooling its own Hindu fans).
While this old and familiar game is being played out for the umpteenth time, some people are still raising objections. Anand Ranganathan, the original genius who brought out this Waqf issue into the open (I admit even I myself had no idea at all, before I read his book, about what the Waqf laws really entail), is still actively expressing his opinions on all these “developments” in his tweets, articles, talks and TV appearances. And a few other people (most prominently, an advocate Vishnu Shankar Jain who is making waves in the social media) are bringing out the uselessness of the proposed Waqf (Amendment Bill) 1924 for the benefit of those Hindus who may still care about these issues crucially affecting the future of the nation.
The BJP propaganda machine has jumped into the fray to defend the proposed Bill and to try to answer critics. One such attempt is the following article in Swarajyamag.com:
This article describes
Jain’s criticism (see the title itself) as “overzealous” and “impractical”,
and an attempt “to undermine the
reformist and progressive approach that the Government has taken with the Bill”.
The article assures us that the Bill fully deals with all the shortcomings in the Waqf laws:
“The Bill strives to bring
extensive reforms by abolishing the power of the waqf board to identify any
land to be waqf, requires for waqfs to be created by practicing Muslims only
via a registered waqf deed, omits the provision for non-Muslims to mark their
donations as waqf, gets rid of the provision classifying evacuee properties to
be waqfs, provides for CAG audits of waqfs, etc.
These provisions, once implemented, will free up an extensive
number of properties that are presently encumbered as a result of being
classified as waqf.
It is this premise to the
amendment that Adv. Vishnu Shankar Jain has missed out in his vision for waqf
governance in India. Beyond this foundational divergence of views, his propositions
also lack substantive legal or logical backing.”
But in their
zeal to justify anything and everything done by the BJP government, there are
many fundamental points that the writer of this article and the BJP
propagandists have “missed out”.
I will not deal with the specific provisions of this Waqf (Amendment Bill) 1924, or the criticisms of these provisions by Advocate Jain, because, as I wrote above, all this quibbling and chattering debate “misses out” on the most fundamental issue; equal rights for Hindus and non-Hindus in the Indian legal system.
There is no, or little, point in debating whether the specific provisions of any particular Act or Amendment Bill are right or wrong. The only principle which matters is: if specific provisions are right, let them apply equally and indiscriminately to followers of all religions; if specific provisions are wrong, let them equally and indiscriminately be discarded in respect of the followers of all religions.
[In principle, this really should apply to all legal provisions which do not directly pertain to private personal freedom to follow one’s purely religious beliefs and practices: if it is right to allow males to marry four wives, let this “right” be given to all males, Hindu, Muslim, Christian or anything else. If it is wrong, let no-one be given this “right”, whether Hindu, Muslim, Christian or anything else.
However, in the case of this and other such issues (i.e. banning polygamy, etc.), it is not a Hindu Issue (i.e. it is not an issue of Injustice Towards Hindus, or failure to give equal rights to Hindus). It is a Muslim Women’s Issue. It is in fact a Secular Issue which has nothing to do with Hindus as such, but which should be advocated by every Secular person. So it has no place in any discussion on Hindus not being given equal rights with followers of other religions. And the same goes for most other issues pertaining to what is called a Uniform Civil Code (UCC): UCC is not a Hindu Issue, it is a Muslim Women’s Issue or a Secular Issue.
But issues pertaining to Articles 25-30 of the Constitution, which discriminate very harshly against Hindus and deny them basic fundamental rights given only to non-Hindus, are very definitely Hindu issues which Hindus should fight for. And all the gross iniquities arising from these draconian, discriminative provisions; and the kind of sadistic anti-Hindu mindset that they have created in the legal, political, administrative and intellectual spheres of life in India, are definitely Hindu Issues. The Waqf laws fall within this discriminatory category. [For details on these issues, I can only, again and again, advocate Anand Ranganathan’s brilliant book, and his tweets, articles, talks and TV discussions].
As Ranganathan
very correctly keeps pointing out, there can only be two possible
solutions to this Waqf problem:
1. Either abolish
the Waqf Board, and all laws pertaining to Waqf
properties.
2. Or create an
identical board and set of laws for Hindus:
The Sanatan Act,
an exact clause for clause replica of the Waqf Act, is a must if this country
is to be saved. If
cannot abrogate acts that discriminate against
Hindus, in the spirit of equality and fairness he must promulgate similar acts
for Hindus.
10:37 PM. Mar 20 2025
All these deceptive propaganda articles (such as the above one in Swarajyamag.com) which try to pull the wool over Hindu eyes, just in order to defend the acts and activities of a crooked and mercenary political party, do not even merit discussion or debate, let alone serious consideration. The only important thing is Equal Rights For Hindus with Non-Hindus, and An End To Anti-Hindu Discrimination in India.
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