The Waqf row and the BJP’s goals

What started as a social media post by MP Tejasvi Surya, with reference to a village in Vijayapura district in north Karnataka is now under the radar of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Waqf (Amendment) Bill. File
| Photo Credit: The Hindu

The campaign against the Karnataka Waqf Board, taken up by the State unit of the BJP ahead of bypolls on November 13, 2024, has now ballooned into a national issue. What started as a social media post by MP Tejasvi Surya, with reference to a village in Vijayapura district in north Karnataka, followed by protests in many districts, is now under the radar of the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on the Waqf (Amendment) Bill. Meanwhile, the issue has also been raised by the BJP in the bypoll-bound Wayanad district of Kerala. Without referring to Wafq, Union Minister Suresh Gopi called it a “four-lettered monstrosity”.

In Karnataka, the BJP has alleged that the Waqf Board is trying to “snatch lands” that poor farmers have been cultivating for generations. Mr. Surya initially alleged that the Waqf Board was trying to take over 1,500 acres of farmland in Honawad village in Vijayapura district alone. Then, several leaders joined in saying the Congress government was conspiring to claim the lands of “innocent Hindus”.

Jagadambika Pal, chairman of the JPC on the Waqf Amendment Bill, visited the Hubballi and Vijayapura districts to meet aggrieved farmers who have either received notices from Revenue authorities on a complaint of encroachment of Waqf lands or whose land records have been mutated to insert claims by the Board in column 11 of the Record of Rights, Tenancy and Crops (RTCs). He said that he would invite a delegation of farmers to New Delhi to depose before the JPC.

With the issue blowing up ahead of the bypolls, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah announced that all notices would be withdrawn and the mutation process stopped immediately. An official order to this effect was issued by the Revenue Department. However, Opposition leaders campaigning in the bypoll-bound constituencies of Shiggaon, Sandur, and Channapatna have repeatedly spoken about the Waqf issue and called it part of Congress’s “appeasement politics.” There have also been social media posts stoking fear among farmers. One of them appeals to farmers “to rush to the Tahasildar offices to check whether their lands are still their own.”

Minority Welfare and Waqf Minister B.Z. Zameer Ahmad Khan has said that of the 1.2 lakh acres previously managed by Waqf, around 75,000 acres were redistributed among the landless under the Inam Abolition Act and the Land Reforms Act and that only some 20,000 acres are now managed by the Board. Mr. Khan has maintained that the Board’s actions, such as holding Waqf Adalats, were against encroachers and not farmers.

While notices have been issued to some farmers and mutations done in RTCs, following Waqf Adalat meetings in 10 districts, there is a mix of truth and falsehood being peddled in the campaign. For instance, the total extent of farmland in Honawad does not cross 1,100 acres. Of them, Waqf lands constitute only 14 acres. In 2022, the BJP government had transferred the ownership of a nine-acre graveyard to the Board. Also, contrary to the claims by the BJP that “thousands of notices” were issued in Karnataka, the Revenue Department had prepared 423 notices to be issued in five districts. Second, Mr. Surya’s claim that the notices were issued by the Waqf Board and were in Urdu turned out to be false. Revenue Department officers issued notices and not the Board. Even the Waqf Board has to abide by the official language policy. An FIR has been lodged against Mr. Surya for spreading “fake news”.

The issue of Waqf land encroachments is not new; it was raised years ago, particularly by Anwar Manippady of the BJP. As Chairman of the Karnataka State Minority Commission, he had prepared a report on encroachments of Waqf properties and submitted it to the government in 2012 when the BJP was in power. Mr. Manippady alleged that powerful politicians from the Congress and JD(S) had encroached Waqf lands. He was unhappy that successive governments had not taken action against the alleged encroachers.

While the ongoing campaign is aimed at winning the bypolls, the BJP is also using it to prepare ground for acceptance of the Waqf Amendment Bill. Mr. Pal and leaders such as Pralhad Johi and Shobha Karandlaje have alleged that the Karnataka government was hurrying up the process of reclamation of Waqf lands before the Bill could come up before Parliament. Clearly, the timing of the BJP campaign is opportune.