By Sushil Kutty
Elections come and go. Even these will pass. One nation one election is for the birds and the bees. What will not pass easily is the fracas over the Waqf Amendment Bill 2024. The next big political fight will be when the Joint Parliamentary Committee sends the bill back to Parliament. The Muslim community across India is bracing for the big showdown during the Winter Session and Muslim organizations have warned the Modi government of massive street protests.
For the community, it is do or die. Doubly anxious because the Modi government doesn’t look like it will go back on the proposed amendments. The free farm bills come to mind. As with those bills, which were supported by a silent majority of farmers, there are large numbers of Muslims who want the Waqf Amendment Bill 2024, but they’re wary of challenging a louder section of Muslims.
The fight over the three farm bills ended when Prime Minister Narendra Modi lost his nerve after months of farmer protests and government indecision. At the end of the day, ‘Modi hai toh mumkin hai’ proved to be only a slogan, a passing thought which took its own time to evaporate. Will Prime Minister Narendra Modi succumb to pressure this time, too?
The three farm bills pushed Prime Minister Modi to the brink. He apologised and withdrew the bills. Street veto is Modi’s Achilles Heel. Modi crumbled even when the BJP had a majority on its own. Today, the BJP was halted at ‘240’ and the current Narendra Modi-led NDA government is at the mercy of the Janata Dal (U) of Nitish Kumar and the Telugu Desam Party of N Chandrababu Naidu, two chief ministers known to be “secular” and “Muslim-friendly.”
Of the two, the TDP is more likely to revise its stand. TDP has a majority in Andhra Pradesh assembly and doesn’t need BJP or PawanKalyan’s Janasena support. In fact, the TDP credits Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu for the Waqf amendment bill’s referral to the Joint Parliamentary Committee. A senior TDP leader disclosed this at a meeting of Muslims called by the Jamait Ulema-e-Hind at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium in Delhi.
TDP leader Nawab Jaan assured the congregation of Muslims that Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu stood like a bulwark and Naidu will not let a bill that harms Muslim interests be passed; that there were no “ifs” and “buts” to it. Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind’s ‘Samvidhan Bachao Sammelan’ was doubly assured when Jan said Chandrababu Naidu has two eyes – one ‘Hindu’ and the other ‘Muslim’ and that Naidu says any harm done to one eye affects the other, too.
Jan jotted down the benefits Muslims got under Naidu’s rule. He pointed out Naidu’s “secular mindset” and said that but for Naidu, the Waqf (Amendment) Bill 2024 would not have been referred to the Joint Parliamentary Committee. Also, Naidu wants a Muslim institution to have only people of the same religion in it. Jan won plaudits when he said “we will tolerate everything, but will not tolerate any attempt to harm the unity of the country.”
But so far, even as the protests against the Waqf (Amendment) Bill are threatening to hit the streets in a big way, neither Chandrababu Naidu nor Nitish Kumar have spoken a word on the matter. Mohammad Adeeb, a once upon a time Rajya Sabha MP, stood at a podium in Delhi the other day and vented, “India owes Muslims big time because we chose to remain in India and we made Brahmin Jawaharlal Prime Minister!”
Adeeb, who was with the BSP and the Samajwadi Party before he joined the Congress and now is sort of on the loose, said “if we had heeded Jinnah’s call and gone, Pakistan’s border would not have stopped at Lahore, it would have extended to Lucknow!”Adeeb would have even declared “independence”, such was the incense on display at this Delhi meeting of Muslims.
The reality is, things had been going fine for the community till Prime Minister Narendra Modi struck hard and fast with the Waqf Amendment Bill 2024, a “most dangerous” piece of legislation, in August this year. The allegation is the proposed amendments will make it possible for the government to take over mosques and madrasas and that it was against the Constitution.
The JPC has been meeting and travelling to Waqf hotspots to study the impact of suddenly increasing Waqf claims in the months since the Waqf Amendment Bill 2024 was introduced in the Lok Sabha. The Opposition has so far stood strong with the Muslim community, which is a vote-bank for these opposition parties. The outcomes of the Maharashtra, Jharkhand and the UP bypolls will impact continued TDP and JD(U) support to the BJP-led NDA government. The TDP looks like the most likely to think of giving a jolt to the Modi-led NDA government. (IPA
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