The Waqf (Amendment) Bill, which has been cleared by both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha after heated, marathon debates, will benefit women from the Muslim community and ensure transparency, BJP MP Ravi Shankar Prasad has said.
In an exclusive conversation with NDTV on Friday, the former law minister insisted that no mosque, place of worship or ‘kabrastan’ (graveyard) is going to be touched.
“The issue is very simple and straight. Whether the intention of the ‘Waqif’ who created the Waqf for noble purposes is being executed properly by the ‘Muttawali’, who is the manager, or not. A Waqf is not a religious body at all. It is a legal or a statutory body… The ‘Muttawali’ is just a superintendent or a manager. He does not have any rights over the property, because once a Waqf has been created, the property vests in Allah, peace be on him,” Mr Prasad said, adding that the Bill will empower Muslim women and help widows and the marginalised from the community.
The senior BJP leader pointed out that areas near the Dak Bungalow locality in Patna – the city he is from – have a lot of Waqf land but five-star hotels and showrooms have come up there. He also said India has the highest number of Waqf properties in the world and asked how many hospitals, universities and training centres have been built there.
“Is the manager using the property the way the person who dedicated it intended or is he stuffing his pockets? That is the question. And a drama is being created over this… Let me tell you, people from my state and the entire country are going to appreciate (this Bill). People were dismayed to learn that so much property is being misused,” he said.
Transparency
Mr Prasad asserted that the bill will help bring transparency by making Waqf boards accountable.
“The entire thing is being made accountable, everything will be available online, digitisation will happen, you can see which property is where, who is the Muttawali, what use is the particular property being put to in terms of the intention of the ‘Waqif (the person dedicating the property). So, all these things are very transparent now,” he said.
Backlash expected?
To a question on whether the government is fearing some kind of backlash from the Muslim community and the possible impact the passage of the Bill would have on Nitish Kumar, who enjoys support among them, ahead of the Bihar Assembly polls later this year, Mr Prasad said the queries around Mr Kumar have been asked since he allied with the BJP in 1996.
Pointing to the protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, the BJP leader said the citizenship of not even one Muslim has been taken away.
“But the larger issue is we were two in 1984, just two (the BJP had two seats) in the 1984 Lok Sabha. Where are we today? Ruling the country, in more than 21 states of the country. Nitish Kumar ji, our very proud colleague and friend, has been a chief minister for 19 years,” he said.
The former law minister also insisted that India’s polity has undergone a ‘tectonic metamorphosis’.
“…whereas the nature of the argument is the same. Secular, communal, appeasement. The world has changed. India has changed. And I would say the young people of the minority community and the thinking community have also changed… And some people are trying to frustrate that change by the same logic of the 1990s and 1980s,” he said.