The recent Waqf Amendment Bill, passed with little public debate, is more than a piece of legislation. It feels like a quiet dismantling of a centuries-old legacy. For the Muslim community, Waqf is not just about land or assets. It is a sacred trust, a form of charity that lives beyond the donor, serving the poor, funding education, and sustaining places of worship.
This new law strengthens the state’s powers to survey, take over, or repurpose Waqf land without prior consultation with the Waqf Board. It raises a deeply troubling question: why is community-managed endowment being subjected to government overreach when similar safeguards exist for other religious institutions? Article 26 of our Constitution assures every religious group the right to manage its own affairs. Then why this selective intervention?
Yet, painful as it is, we must also introspect. The truth is, Muslims too have failed the Waqf system. We allowed political appointees, indifferent boards, and corrupt caretakers to mismanage properties meant for the collective good. Many Waqf assets have been lost not just to external encroachment but to our own silence and complacency.
I remember how a small Waqf clinic once gave my mother free medicine. How my early education was funded by the rent from a humble Waqf shop. These memories are not personal, they are shared by thousands. But the institutions that shaped them are now under threat, not just by law, but by neglect.
The Sachar Committee estimated Waqf land to be worth over Rs. 1.2 lakh crore. But instead of empowering the community to manage this wealth with transparency and professionalism, we are seeing more centralization, which risks further misuse.
We must speak up, not just to oppose the bill, but to reform our own systems. Waqf is not just law. It is life, faith, and trust. Let’s defend it with dignity and rebuild it with integrity.
- Ikkz Ikbal, Kupwara
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