Delhi’s outrage industry has one dependable setting: siren. A bill is introduced, opposition spokespeople declare the constitutional sky to be falling, and the commentariat spends forty-eight hours interviewing itself about the darkness ahead. The Waqf amendments received this treatment before many of the loudest participants had seriously discussed how waqf properties are registered, audited, litigated or used for their intended beneficiaries. I am not asking anyone to accept the government’s claims on faith. The Ministry of Minority Affairs published an extensive comparison of the old framework and the amendments; critics should interrogate it. But interrogation requires reading individual provisions. Announcing that any external oversight of a religious endowment is an attack on a community is emotional blackmail masquerading as constitutional analysis.
My starting point is simple. Waqf institutions exist to preserve endowed property and use its income for religious, charitable or community purposes. If records are unclear, properties are encroached upon, disputes last for years or benefits fail to reach intended recipients, the victims are often ordinary Muslims. Transparency is therefore not a concession extracted from a community. It is a service owed to it. The opposition’s framing treated existing administrators and self-appointed representatives as though they were identical to every Muslim citizen. They are not. Institutions can be reformed without insulting the faith associated with them, just as temple boards, churches, charities and trusts can be examined without condemning their worshippers.
The word ‘inclusion’ cannot be selectively sacred
One controversy concerned non-Muslim participation in waqf bodies. I understand why many Muslims asked whether people outside the faith should help supervise a specifically Islamic institution. That is a legitimate design question, not proof of bigotry. The government’s answer was that boards perform statutory and administrative functions, while designated Muslim representatives and scholars remain part of the structure. Reasonable people can debate the balance. What I found unserious was the sudden opposition claim that religious bodies must be insulated from outsiders in principle. The same political ecosystem routinely demands representation, public accountability and secular supervision everywhere else. Apparently pluralism becomes contamination when the BJP proposes it.
The legislation’s provisions on registration, audits, appeals and property disputes matter more to daily governance than the television argument about symbolism. The government said it wanted a central portal, clearer records, broader audit powers and access to High Court appeals against tribunal decisions. Its separate account of stakeholder engagement also records consultations with organisations representing women and Pasmanda Muslims, among others. A government press release is naturally the government’s case, not an independent verdict. Yet it establishes that the official rationale is administrative reform, and critics must show where that design fails rather than substituting adjectives for analysis.
Consider appeals. A specialised tribunal can provide expertise and speed, but finality without an ordinary appellate route creates anxiety when title to valuable land is involved. Allowing High Court scrutiny is not obviously hostile to minority rights. Judicial review can protect waqf institutions as well as people contesting their claims. Similarly, digital registration is not intrinsically sinister. India’s land records are notoriously messy, and ambiguity benefits whoever possesses resources, influence or endurance. A widow, small tenant or local committee rarely wins a paperwork war against a powerful operator. Better records can reduce that imbalance if the portal is accessible and errors can be corrected fairly.
Where the government must listen
Support for reform does not require me to applaud every clause. The role of district officials in determining whether land belongs to the government prompted understandable concern about executive conflict of interest. When the state is itself a claimant, an administrative officer cannot appear to be both contestant and referee. Safeguards, reasoned orders, disclosure and prompt independent appeal are essential. The government earned some suspicion by initially communicating complex property provisions as though only obstructive politicians could dislike them. People with ancestral, incomplete or inconsistent documentation do not experience digitisation as an abstract good; they fear losing rights because a database treats absence as guilt.
The restriction connected to who may create a waqf also deserved careful examination. The stated goal was to prevent dubious dedications and establish ownership and intent. But faith is not a membership card stamped annually by the tehsildar. Any rule that asks the state to evaluate the duration or sincerity of religious practice risks arbitrary enforcement. If ownership, legal capacity and informed intent can be established through neutral evidence, the government should prefer that route. A reform advertised as reducing disputes should not manufacture a theological inquiry for civil servants.
There is also the question of ‘waqf by user’, under which long religious or charitable use can matter even when original documentation is missing. India is full of old institutions whose paper trail did not survive partition, administrative reorganisation, family disputes or simple neglect. Abruptly privileging modern records could harm genuine historic sites. Grandfathering, evidentiary rules and a humane claims process are necessary. I say this not to endorse every sweeping property claim, but because legal certainty requires methods for recognising authentic long use as well as detecting opportunism.
The opposition’s maximalism harms the people it claims to defend
Why, then, am I more irritated by the INDIA alliance’s performance than by the government’s imperfect salesmanship? Because the opposition converted amendable details into an existential communal warning. When every reform is declared an assault, no language remains for an actual assault. The strategy may energise a press conference, but it discourages practical negotiation. An opposition genuinely focused on Muslim beneficiaries would identify clauses, draft amendments, demand measurable service standards and insist on accessible appeals. It would ask how much waqf income reaches education, health care and maintenance, and how digitisation can be funded for small institutions.
Instead, we were offered the familiar cast: leaders speaking as custodians of a community, commentators detecting authoritarianism in database fields, and Congress behaving as though decades of unresolved administration were an inheritance too sacred to inspect. This is the party’s recurring error. It confuses the preservation of intermediaries with protection of minorities. That paternal model once passed for secularism in Lutyens Delhi. Many voters now recognise it as a bargain in which community elites receive rhetorical deference while ordinary citizens receive poor institutions.
The BJP, for its part, should avoid triumphal language. It need not market every disagreement as proof that opponents support opacity. Religious endowments carry memory, identity and local trust. Reformers should explain how specific rights will be protected, publish rules in accessible languages, train officials and invite independent evaluation. A portal that crashes, an official who cannot understand old deeds, or an appeal that costs years of income will discredit the project more effectively than any opposition slogan.
Judge the reform by beneficiaries, not studio decibels
I would measure success through mundane questions. Are properties surveyed accurately? Can citizens inspect records? Are accounts filed and audited? Do disputes move faster without becoming less fair? Does more income reach schools, clinics, graveyards, mosques and charitable purposes? Can women and disadvantaged Muslim groups participate meaningfully rather than ceremonially? Do courts correct administrative excess promptly? These are not glamorous metrics, which is precisely why television politics ignores them. They would reveal whether reform changed governance or merely rearranged appointments.
The constitutional argument also deserves sobriety. Minority rights protect religious practice and institutional autonomy, but no constitutional democracy treats property administration as a zone without law. Regulation must be proportionate, non-discriminatory and respectful of religious purpose. Those standards can invalidate a bad provision without establishing that regulation itself is persecution. The opposition’s suggestion that only total resistance demonstrates solidarity leaves Muslim citizens trapped between bureaucratic weakness and political theatre.
I support the government’s central proposition: waqf administration can and should become more transparent, appealable and professionally recorded. I also expect the government to correct conflicts of interest, protect genuine historic use and keep officials out of theology. That is what a serious pro-reform position looks like. It neither genuflects before ministers nor treats opposition alarm as sacred testimony. The INDIA alliance could have improved the law through precision. It chose the emergency siren. The noise may have pleased Delhi’s usual audience, but the people entitled to well-run endowments deserved a much better argument.
