By Abhik Deb
At the end of October, Bharatiya Janata Party MP Tejasvi Surya visited farmers in Vijaypura district who had received notices contending that the land that they were occupying was actually owned by the Waqf board that administers Muslim charitable properties.
Surya claimed that the notices had been sent out “with no evidence or explanation”. He added, “The extent of these claims is staggering, with nearly 1,500 acres claimed in a single village of Honavada.”
The Karnataka government claimed that the notices to farmers in the Vijaypura village were the result of an error in a gazette notification. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah directed officials to withdraw such notices issued to farmers in other parts of the state as well.
But the notices sparked violence 300 km away in Haveri district, as villagers in Kadakol district threw stones on the homes of Muslim residents, fearing that their land would also be claimed as waqf property. Farmers in Dharwad and Kalburgi also held protests, motivated by the same anxieties.
The events in Karnataka were an example of how the BJP is tapping into public anger to advance the perception that Waqf boards are land encroachers and urgently need to be reformed. It plays into the Hindutva conspiracy theory that Indian Muslims have launched a so-called land jihad to illegally take over tracts belonging to Hindus or the government.
Waqfs are charitable endowments made by Muslims for community welfare. They are administered by state-level bodies that have powers laid down in the Waqf Act, 1995. India has 30 waqf boards, for each state and Union territory. Together, they control nearly 9 lakh properties across the country.
Playing politics
The developments in Karnataka came even as the Lok Sabha on November 28 extended the tenure of a joint parliamentary committee reviewing a bill proposing amendments to the functioning of Waqf Boards. The draft legislation was sent for review in August after Opposition parties and Muslim bodies opposed the bill, contending that it would curb powers of the boards.
This story was originally published in scroll.in. Read the full story here.
