While the nation debated the on-going power struggle inside BJP UP government, after the poll debacle, there were ‘meetings’ between UP CM Yogi Adityanath and PM Narendra Modi, and what has followed thereafter are a series of ‘gifts’ to Muslims. The Modi government has passed the bill Central Waqf Amendment Act-2013 with 40 changes on August 5. This will cripple the powers entrusted with Waqf Boards, once guaranteed even by the British government under the Shariat Application Act 1937!

Waqf is an endowment as per Muslim Personal Law.  It consists of assets that are donated, bequeathed, or purchased for being held in perpetual trust. The Waqf Board regulates such properties, moveable and immoveable, for the pious, religious, or charitable ends, donated by Muslims.

Not a week earlier, on July 30, UP government did pass a ‘more’ stringent Bill on anti-conversion law which now does not require the presence of the victim, her parents or siblings for a complainant, but anyone from the roadside can file an FIR under the amended Bill. It now entails for life a imprisonment.  Around more than 13 unregistered UP madrassas catering to lakhs of Muslim students now stand to be closed, despite funded by Muslim funds of Zakat (alms) and Sadaqat (donations).

The latest bill on Waqf had to make the  understandable ‘hue and cry’ from all corners of the nation, as after all,  according to official data, there are 8,70,000 Waqf properties in India, on an area of 9.4 lakh acres of land.  The ‘heart burns’ of BJP over Waqf Board lands, has been for ages as it is considered to hold the second biggest land and property assets after Railways in India.

How BJP gets all such brazen acts done against Muslims? The method in mechanism has to be understood. It will not be at all out of place to recall that a whole coterie of BJP guided ideologues like like Pushpendra Kulshreshtha, Sanjay Dixit, Vijay Krishna ‘Tufail’ Chaturvedi, Adi Achint, Gaurav Arya, RSN Singh etc have devoted hundreds of hours of Youtube telecasts, in the last decade, as ‘head, ears and eyes’ of BJP, to help develop an echo system for such Acts be ‘amended’ by BJP.  BJP foot-soldiers have long been laying grounds for such events.

Now BJP has finally curbed the ‘unfettered powers’ of Waqf Boards, which were responsible to manage mosques, Dargahs, Imambadas, Qabristans, Khanqas  and other Islamic religious endowments. Women members are now slated to be two in numbers in State Boards, There was never a restriction on women.  The final axe has now been put as Waqf Board, as it cannot, from henceforth, designate any property as “Waqf property.” Any claim now made by the Waqf Board on properties will undergo mandatory verification, by the District Magistrate. Earlier if Waqf Board was to find an old Waqfnama (Deed) it had the powers to register it as a Waqf. Now it stands annulled.

The bill to amend the Wakf Act, 1995, if it is introduced and passed, will make it mandatory for the Waqf boards to register their properties with the district collectors to ensure their actual valuation.