A humble advice to Indian Muslims
By Justice Katju
Demonstrations and protests have been held by Indian Muslims in many parts of India against the recently enacted Waqt Amendment Act. 73 petitions have been filed by various organizations and individuals in the Supreme Court challenging the constitutional validity of the Act, and the hearing is going on.
In my opinion all these steps were misguided, and their effect will only be counter productive viz to strengthen the BJP. Let me explain.
If Muslims are prevented, by law or by the executive authorities, from saying namaz, or observing roza during Ramzan, or going on Haj, or sacrificing a goat or buffalo on Bakrid, their protests would be certainly justified.
But are their protests over amendment to the Waqt Act justified ?
To answer this we should ask how many Muslims create waqfs ?
The answer would be a negligible number. Most Muslims are very poor ( as the Sachar Committee Report mentions ), so they have barely enough money to buy food and other essentials. Where is the money to create a waqf ? In fact it is not just poor Muslims who do not create waqfs, but even middle class Muslims rarely do. I spoke to a well to do senior Muslim lawyer who said neither he nor his father or grandfather had ever created a waqf.
So for the vast majority of Muslims the Waqt Amendment Act is really irrelevant.
All kinds of false rumours are being circulated about the Act e.g. that waqf by user has been abolished, when the truth is that it has not been abolished, but new waqfs can only be created by a registered deed. What could be the objection to that ?
There is no doubt that there was a lot of corruption in the Waqf Boards. The new law permits the District Magistrate to investigate whether government property was illegally converted into a waqf, and to restore it as government property if it was. The DM’s decision is not final, but is subject to appeal before the Waqf Tribunal, whose Chairman is a District Judge, and the Tribunal:s order can be challenged before the High Court.
I am afraid that the hue and cry being created over the new law will have a backlash detrimental to the interest of Muslims. Hindus, who constitite the vast majority of India’s population, will think that all Muslims are fanatics and trouble makers, and will get consolidated behind the BJP.
Ordinarily Hindus are divided on caste lines. Hindu upper castes ( Brahmins, Rajputs, Vaishyas, Bhumidhars, etc) are usually solid BJP supporters, but in many states they altogether constitute only about 18-19% of the population. This is insufficient to win elections, so the BJP needs another block of about 15%. For this it has to arouse communal passions and polarize society, as that makes a section of OBCs and SCs go over to the BJP.
The present hue and cry being raised by Muslims achieves precisely that, and so it really helps the BJP.
As regards the petitions in the Supreme Court, the opposition parties who have moved some of them are really interested in the Muslim vote bank, not because they genuinely care for the welfare of Muslims.
Ordinary Muslims are emotional ( jazbaati ), so they can easily be provoked.
For instance, when cartoons were made of the Prophet Mohammed in some European countries, Muslims raised a big hue and cry. But the proper course of action for them was to have ignored this provocation. In fact the very aim of the mischievous persons is to provoke Muslims, and by getting provoked the Muslims fall into their trap.
The same can be said about the Waqf Amendment Act. It would have been best for Indian Muslims to have ignored it, instead of reacting to it
