This is not the first time that the Waqf Board Act amendment has been done. Right from 1864 onwards to 1954, 1955 etc, the amendments have taken place including the present one. There is an umpteenth number of political and non-political platforms as well as the individuals that, of late, have been trying to rattle the Muslim community that the government will take away the Waqf endowment including the mosques, madrasas, graveyards, dargahs etc which is wayward fallacy. Instead, the digitization by the government will restore many encroached Waqf properties besides increasing their rent. Unfortunately, there’s an anti-governance lobby of the “Lutyens Gang”, “Khan Market Gang”, “Award Wapsi Gang”, “Mombatti Gang” etc, that has misguided Muslims treating them as their vote bank.
Waqf’s pernicious nexus
They are creating an unnecessary hue and cry because nothing can impact the Waqf properties including the present amendment except the corrupt inhouse Waqf officers and their stooges as lawyers. The Muslims of India and the World must be told that not an inch of any Waqf endowment can be illegally annexed by the BJP, RSS or PM Narendra Modi, as has been stated in the purifying manner by Owaisi. The author can ably counter him lock stock and barrel! Actually, the 900 acre endowments of the Waqf have been frittered away during the Congress rule by the Pernicious machinations and nexus of Waqf officers, their lawyers and the police over the six-decades from the Independence. Had the political masters of these times been honest, the poor students would have been able to pay their medical, engineering etc courses’ fees.
If at all there is a systematically managed daylight robbery going on for a long time in India, it is the wheeling and dealing of the land given in the name of Allah by the affluent for the upkeep of the orphans, widows, divorcee women, educational and charitable purposes, and for other social causes by the Auqaf [Waqf Boards]. The Waqf endowments, in terms of land in India, are unimaginably huge and to the tune of around 5,00,000 registered properties and around 9,00,000 acres of land – the largest in the world. According to the report of the joint parliamentary committee headed by K Rehman Khan, the third largest ownership of land after the Indian Railways and the defence department, is that of the Waqf in India. Khan’s report records that almost 70 per cent of the Waqf property has been encroached upon already, and of the remaining, cases of blatant corruption abound and land is disposed off to builders, markets, hotels, malls or industries at unimaginably shockingly low rents.
Waqf, Quranic injunction
The concept of Waqf is rooted to the Quranic injunctions dealing with charity: “And in their wealth the beggar and outcaste had due share.” [Chapter-26: Verse-19]. Again, “Ye shall never attain to goodness till ye give alms of that which ye love, and whatever ye give, of a truth God knoweth.” [Chapter-3: Verse-86]. Imam Abu Hanifa stated that Waqf is the detention of specific things in the ownership of the waqif (donor), with profits or products devoted to charity.
Imam Abu Yusuf and Imam Muhammad said that Waqf signifies the extinction of the waqif’s ownership, with the property held in the implied ownership of God, and profits applied for the benefit of mankind. Islam’s followers transformed this concept of charity into an institution known as Waqf that formed an important branch of Muslim Law for it is interwoven with the entire religious life and social economy of the Muslims.
Literally, the Waqf means endowment of movable or immovable property by the Muslims for the welfare of needy and poor people and maintaining dedicated to God mosques, tombs, orphanages, shrines, imambaras, madrasas etc. The Waqif (settler) in his deed appoints Mutawalli [manager or caretaker] for the administration of the Waqf. The Waqif has the right either to appoint himself or any Muslim as Mutawalli systematic daylight robbery
Waqf laws are many forms, like – Qazis Act II of 1864, Dargah Khwaja Saheb Act 1955, Central Waqf Act 1954, Waqf Amendment Act 1959, UP Muslim Act 1960, etc. Laments M Atyab Siddiqui, the lawyer who is an expert in Waqf law, “For over a millennium, emperors, nawabs and Muslims in India have been setting aside property and pledging it, in the name of Allah, for charitable works”. Ironically, the list of encroachers, illegal occupiers and perpetrators of misappropriation of Waqf properties include the names of many big personalities and individuals.
Muslims scared of Hindus’ inclusion and digitization
As India is a safe secular haven for people from all the faiths, inclusion of Hindus and ladies should not be a big issue because not an inch of land. Besides, digitization will help restore many encroached Waqf properties and increase in their rent. During the six decades
Waqf for the poor
The purpose was that the earnings would go to the upkeep of orphans, widows and for other social causes but the Waqf Boards aren’t doing their work honestly, else Rs 12,000 crore could be obtained each year just from rents of the 30 per cent left properties [even though 70 per cent have been encroached upon]. Adds a disgruntled lawyer, Atyab Siddiqui, “The legal cells don’t fight cases as we hear that the files often are ‘lost’. Besides, lawyers of Waqf Boards are often ‘bought’ by the other party that has encroached on a property and sold it after constructing a multi-storey complex on it.”
How the Waqf Board has become an establishment deeply mired into corruption, can be gauged from some land scams like this one from Maharashtra Waqf Board, which has given a patch of 4,535 square metres for his palatial house, “Antilia”in the upmarket Altamount Road to Mukesh Ambani for his royal 27-storey apartment for peanuts, wheres its actual price is in thousands of crores. Hope the bulldozer had been used there before the SC verdict.
60 per cent Waqf land encroached
More than 60 per cent of the Waqf land has been encroached upon. Similarly in Bangalore, the Windsor Manor Hotel worth more than 1000 crore, has been leased at a paltry Rs 12,000 per month. Most Waqf properties have managers who treat even heritage sites as their fiefdom by building offices, businesses and even houses as has happened in the case of Dargah Khwaja Sa’adullah Naqshbandi at the historic heritage site Anglo Arabic School, Ajmeri Gate, Delhi. It was declared a heritage site by the DDA in 1994 and according to the PIL (No 8759 of 2004) filed by this author the high court ordered the removal of about 51 families of the encroachers from the heritage property.
However once again, the same builders, property dealers, smalltime politicians and local musclemen are again trying to re-encroach. The common Muslim, taking the Waqf to be something religious, doesn’t interfere even listening to stories of corruption.
Corrupt officials
“An abhorrent nexus between the politicians, police, bureaucrats and land mafia has always been eyeing the Waqf land that’s mostly in prime locations despite the fact that the Waqf property can not be sold or it’s use changed for eternity. However, the exact opposite happens unfortunately. They are given on lease in lieu of money that goes in the pockets of officials,” piques, Kamal Farouqui, an eminent Muslim thinker.
Unfortunately, most of the corrupt officials in the Waqf Boards are Muslims who sell off the property for a pittance and later on remove the files of the properties thus manipulatively sold. The modus operandi for mismanagement is simple.
Clandestine mismanagement
A builder or businessman usually identifies a Waqf property, approaches the members or chairman of the Board and, surreptitiously, the land is sold for a at paltry price while the Board members get their “due”. The worst thing is that no accountability is fixed for wishy-washy deals in the Waqf Boards.
Thousands of mosques and even graveyards have been encroached upon countrywide. “In spite of owning 9,00,000 acres of properties and thus being the most resourceful community, Indian Muslims are one of the poorest sections of the country,” states Sirajuddin Qureshi, eminent Muslim thinker and president, “India Islamic Cultural Center” Sirajuddin Qureshi.
These Waqf Boards are invariably constituted of members with vested interest installed by the ruling state government and often persons acting as veritable puppets of the local governments of their time, like Chaudhary Mateen Ahmed and Haroon Yusuf, the former chairmen, Delhi Waqf Board, usually had no knowledge of matters relating to the property and hence whose interference is detrimental to their smooth running.
Lucre of Waqf land
According to Iqbal Mohammed Malak, a social worker from the walled city of Delhi, belonging to an NGO, “Friends for Education”, the lure of the lucre of Waqf properties to persons having unscrupulous aims to make it big in politics and misusing funds donated at holy shrines continues to this day.
True, the apathy of Muslims is astonishing to say the least. Corruption, misappropriation, embezzlement of funds and misconduct by the “Mutallawis” (caretakers) and those responsible for honest and smooth functioning of the Waqf have been pointed out in the media time and again but in vain.
Theologically, once the properties are dedicated in the name of Allah (God) and endowed to Waqf, remain perpetual, irrevocable and inalienable and thereby once a Waqf it always remain a Waqf entitlement. During the Muslim rule in India, there was no central body to look after Waqf properties. In British India all endowments, Muslims and non-Muslims, were managed by provincial governments. In post-independent India, the management of Waqf properties was for the first time manned by the formation of a Central Waqf Council.
Waqf offices dens of corruption
This too, it is alleged, was a den of murky corrupt deeds as had been proved after the author had convened an inquiry into the embezzlement of Ajmer Dargah Khwaja Saheb Committee at the behest of the Delhi High Court. The present Waqf system should be dissolved to make way for a Waqf management with honest people and responsible committees like,”Education Committee”, “Medical Committee”, “Widow Committee, “Madrasa Committee”, “Masjid Committee”, “Khanqah Committee”, “Political Affairs Committee” besides others. Muslims must ask the government to help them restore their encroached prime property. It is high time that the entire Waqf system should be overhauled.
Firoz Bakht Ahmed is a former chancellor of Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU), commentator on educational and social issues, community worker and the grandnephew of Bharat Ratna Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. He lives in Delhi
