Waqf Bill Is The Litmus Test In Bihar

If he had his way, then former Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad’s son Tejashwi Yadav would throw the Waqf (Amendment) Act in the dustbin. The young Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader said this is exactly what his party would do if voted to power in the Bihar Assembly election due by the end of this year. He also accused the ruling BJP at the Centre of using the amendment to “divide the country”.

This prompted Union minister Giriraj Singh of the BJP to accuse him of “going the Bengal way”—a reference to the TMC’s refusal to implement the amended law in the neighbouring state, as well as a more veiled one to the widely reported violence during the Waqf protests in Murshidabad.

Clearly, the controversial amendment in the law concerning the legal status and management of property handed over by Muslims to God, according to the faith, for use in charitable purposes is set to face a laboratory test of sorts in the run-up to the Assembly polls, significantly influencing how the battlelines are drawn and the relations among the various parties, and with their bases of social support.

With over 400 of the 3,000-odd properties in Bihar registered under the Sunni and Shia Waqf Boards already in various stages of legal battles at the Waqf Tribunal and the Patna High Court, it is indeed a sensitive issue for the Muslims, who comprise 18 per cent of Bihar’s population. After the backward castes (63 per cent) and the Dalits (19.5 per cent), they are the third-largest population group in the state. Among the Muslims, 73 per cent are Pasmanda, i.e. relatively backward. Though the Centre has been claiming that the amended law is especially in the interest of this section, it has not stopped many Muslim organisations from protesting against what they see as a threat to the collective interest of the community.

Before the new law was enacted, Muslim groups had unsuccessfully urged CM Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) and the Telugu Desam Party (TDP)—both members of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA)—to vote against the bill in Parliament. As the bill couldn’t have been passed without support from the majority of MPs from these two parties, the Muslim organisations later announced a boycott of the iftar parties organized by Nitish and the TDP’s N. Chandrababu Naidu during Ramadan.

“The aim was to send a message that we are not happy with their support for the Act,” says Ameer Faisal Rahmani of the Imarat-e-Sharia, one of the leading organisations in Bihar opposing the Act. “Our boycott also conveyed that the Act is eroding people’s faith in the Constitution. It will lead to the misuse and mishandling of lakhs of Waqf properties and will destroy the very institution of Waqf by handing over its control to other people.”

Contending that the new law does not accord with the Constitution’s Article 26B, which defines the right to manage religious affairs, the Imarat-e-Sharia has warned that the new provisions could lead to the end of Waqf properties. “The message has reached our community that the government is interfering with the religious rights of Muslims, which makes us feel that the amendment is not in our interest,” says Tanzif Akhtar, a resident of Patna city who has been closely following the Waqf debate. “No wonder Nitish’s support for the Act has created a popular sentiment against him.”

Arguing that Muslims have always been united on what they see as matters of faith, Akhtar cites the Shah Bano case, where the then Congress-led Centre was forced to overturn a Supreme Court verdict in favour of alimony to an elderly Muslim divorcee by enacting the Muslim Women (Protection on Divorce Act), 1986. This law also gave magistrates the power to direct the Waqf Board to provide for a divorcee and her children, if necessary. While the court verdict had been seen as interference in Sharia, Akhtar claims the Waqf issue today is even more sensitive.

BJP’s Bihar spokesperson Neeraj Kumar, however, claims “only a handful” are opposing the new law. “It is in the interest of the Pashmandas, and they know what Nitish has done for them so far,” he says. Senior journalist Surur Ahmad doesn’t agree and says support for the Act could consolidate the Muslim votes against the JD(U)’s alliance with the BJP. “Their resentment against the BJP’s allies is quite visible,” Ahmad says. “The Muslim votes that used to go to Nitish, Jitan Ram Manjhi and Chirag Paswan’s parties will shift to the RJD alliance, which could see significant gains in Muslim-majority seats where it lost by narrow margins.” Several Muslim leaders of the JD(U) have already left the party. MLC Ghulam Gaus, who hasn’t quit, has called the Waqf Act unconstitutional and appealed to Nitish to intervene, while JD(U)’s national general secretary Maulana Ghulam Rasool Baliavi, who also heads the Idara-e-Sharia, a religious organisation, has decided to wage a legal battle against the Act.

Ali Anwar, a Pasmanda Muslim leader and former close associate of Nitish, says the Muslim votes for the JD(U) have been gradually declining since 2017 when the party allied once again with the BJP, and it’s only going to get worse in the first post-Waqf election ahead.

“Before 2005, Nitish Kumar could never defeat the RJD in elections. It was only after the All India Pasmanda Muslim Mahaz (AIPMM) officially supported him with certain conditions in the 2005 election that Nitish could win and form a government. He soon fulfilled the condition of reservation to backward Muslims and also ensured the fencing of cemeteries,” says Anwar, who founded the AIPMM in 1998. A larger number of Pasmanda Muslims aligned with Nitish and in the 2010 election the JD(U) won a historic 115 seats in the 243-seat assembly.

“Nitish’s image among Muslims today has become that of a villain,” says Md Umar Ashraf, the founder of Heritage Times. While Ashraf says the RJD alliance will benefit from the votes the JD(U) loses as the RJD has been the Act’s most vocal opponent, Prashant Kishor’s Jan Suraaj Party is also in the fray for the first time and vying for the same votes, with a similar stand against the Act.

Patna resident Zafar Imam says Nitish is remembered by Muslims for the fencing of graveyards and the renovation of madrasas, in particular. “However, he left their side in the matter of this Act,” Imam says. Recalling the Bhagalpur riots of 1989, in which nearly 1,000 people died, mostly Muslims, and the police were accused of playing a partisan role, Imam says Muslims became disillusioned with the Congress which was in power then. “They turned towards the RJD. Later they left the RJD and embraced the JD(U) when they felt their graveyards were being encroached upon and the Yadavs were tying up cows and buffaloes there. Now, they feel Nitish has not supported them on the Waqf Act.”

The JD(U)’s national spokesperson Rajiv Ranjan says Nitish is at the forefront among the few leaders who have sincerely worked for the minorities. “Let me assure the Muslims who have apprehensions that the flexible provisions were made possible only due to Nitish’s pressure. He insisted on adding the clause of the Waqf-by-user (a mosque, dargah, graveyard or community kitchen to be deemed Waqf if it has been used for religious purposes for a long time without formal documents). There will be no changes to the lands of idgahs, mosques, imambaras, dargahs and graveyards. So long as Nitish is there, there will be no misuse of Waqf properties.”

Among the 2,900 Waqf properties with the Bihar Sunni Waqf Board, 350 are embroiled in cases of encroachment and possession. The Bihar Shia Waqf Board is fighting cases related to 127 of the 350 Waqf properties with it. Its chairman Syed Afzal Abbas says the Act was brought in haste, has several shortcomings that need discussion, and has ended up hurting Muslim sentiment.

Md Ashraf of Heritage Times says the disputed properties will now face greater threats as hundreds of them in Bihar lack proper documentation or are not registered. He believes this is the biggest reason for the opposition. Take the case of the Madrasa Aziziyah in Bihar Sharif, which comes under the Sogra Waqf Estate. Registered as Waqf No. 2 with the Bihar Sunni Waqf Board, it is considered to be the largest Waqf estate in the state. On March 31, 2023, rioters broke into the madrasa and set it ablaze, turning its 115-year-old library into ashes. Forever lost besides 5,000 books, including 300 handwritten religious texts, were the Waqf-related documents that could prove the legal status of the property.

The historic madrasa is being renovated with government support, but the loss caused by the fire of hatred cannot be compensated. “While retrieving the documents was already a problem, the new Waqf Act will further complicate the process of reclaiming the Sogra Waqf Estate’s encroached lands,” says Mukhtarul Haq, the caretaker of the estate, who claims hundreds of acres are under encroachment. He feels these cases, which could have been resolved by the Waqf Tribunal, will now go to the high court, leading to lengthy legal battles. Consequently, the income generated from these properties, which was used for welfare activities, would be on hold.

When Bibi Sogra dedicated her entire estate to Waqf on September 21, 1896, it is said to have spanned nearly 21,000 acres. Encroachment has reduced it to around 12,000 acres. According to the Sogra Waqfnama (Waqf deed), the income was intended for establishing educational institutions. It was under this provision that the Madrasa Aziziyah was founded in Nalanda district in 1910, followed by Sogra High School in 1917 and Sogra College in 1978, all considered significant institutions in the education sector. Haq claims the new law will lead to the transfer of Waqf properties, which will eventually slip out of Muslim control across the country.

(Translated by Kaveri Mishra)

Md Asghar Khan is senior correspondent from Jharkhand

This article is part of 해외카지노’s May 01, 2025 issue 'Username Waqf' which looks at the Waqf Amendment Act of 2025, its implications, and how it is perceived by the Muslim community. It appeared in print as 'Waqf, The Litmus Test In Bihar'.