Opinion Waqf law is an act of economic humiliation dressed in language of procedure

In numerous corners of India’s cities and villages, where mosques, dargahs, and orphanages stand as a testament to centuries of lived faith, the word “waqf” carries the solemn weight of trust. It is not merely about property but about charity, legacy and community. It is a system built over centuries, not for profit, but to provide sustenance, education, and shelter to the most vulnerable in India. It is one of the last-standing architectures of self-determined care. The waqf properties, many in disrepair, still offer the semblance of a commons. To tighten state control over them, without accountability or consent, is to sever a lifeline.

The amendment arrived in a context already bruised. It followed the bulldozers that have become symbols of brazen injustice. It is not paranoia when a pattern emerges. It is not victimhood when a community points to evidence of being pushed out of the frame. From homes to food choices to college campuses, Muslim citizens find themselves and their ways of being more excluded than ever in independent India. Economic alienation is not just the absence of wealth but the systematic closing of doors that once led to dignity.

The amended waqf law is an act of economic ruination and humiliation dressed in the language of procedure. To call the new law “UMEED” is a sick joke. It is zulm (oppression), and at the heart of this zulm lies not just arrogance and brute force but also the refusal to see the other as fully human. As the legislative and administrative reins tighten, the Muslim community stands at a perilous intersection today.

The defence of waqf is not a defence of some relic of the past but an insistence on a rightful place in the present. There can be no denying that the place of Muslims in the story of India is not a footnote but a co-authorship. Muslims who stayed back in India after 1947 chose to invest their future in a shared tomorrow. They wagered their lives against the theory of separation, and every blow to their dignity today gives unearned vindication to the proponents of that theory. It is here that the actual damage lies.

Such amendments are like the hammers with which human ties are being broken. Each encroachment, each cunning claim, each arbitrary demolition, and each bureaucratic slight is a grim reminder that we are becoming a society in which insaaniyat (humanity) and bhaichara (brotherhood) are becoming distant echoes. This is not the spirit that guided Mahatma Gandhi’s fasts or Maulana Azad’s sermons. To live in a homeland that watches you with suspicion and treats your institutions as liabilities to be managed rather than legacies to be cherished is a form of zulm made more acute because it comes veiled in the language of order and reform.

It is my firm belief that the hopes of insaaf (justice) lie in reposing our faith in shared culture and tradition. It lies in the perseverance of those who belong today to a community of shared pain. They must not remain silent but speak, because silence about zulm can only lead to its spread, never to insaaf.

Despair is not the heritage of a people whose poets were revolutionaries — “Dekhna hai zor kitna baazu-e-qatil mein hai (Let’s see how much strength the enemy has).” Who taught the world that some probable defeats must be risked and even in unfulfilled desires, we must aim for abundance — “hazaron khwahishein aisi ke har khwahish pe dam nikle (thousands of desires, each worth dying for)”.

We cannot forget that “sarfaroshi ki tamanna” or the desire for self-sacrifice to reclaim dignity, still pulsates through the nation’s veins. Every moment of injustice calls forth its counterforce: A renewed insistence on truth, a commitment to a fair and shared future.

To alienate Muslims from the nation’s narrative is to amputate the nation’s history. It is to deny the cultural echo of Amir Khusrau’s songs, the dreams of Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, and the pathos of Bismillah Khan’s shehnai. It is not Muslims alone who are being wronged; it is India that is being made desolate, mean, and small. The future demands that Muslims insist on insaaf, and that their compatriots recognise zulm not as fate but as failure — a failure they have the power, still, to reverse. Any legislation should be judged by whether it is rooted in constitutional values like equality, justice, and freedom of religion. This Act is not.

In a multi-religious country, majoritarian legislation — laws passed primarily to reflect the beliefs or interests of the majority religious or cultural group — can disrupt social harmony and undermine the principles of pluralism and inclusivity. Let us not forget that when laws reflect only the majority’s views, minority communities may feel alienated or discriminated against. This can neither be encouraged nor tolerated.

The writer is Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha, Rashtriya Janata Dal