I don’t envy the Catholic Bishops in India. I have no doubt that some reform needs to be made to wqaf properties in law, but getting into bed with the BJP to do it is not the cards I’d like to have in hand.
I’m not sure why the Church should feel compelled to defend a law that 1) specifically privileges Muslim charities over all others and 2) has been used to take land from Catholics on dubious pretexts. The argument that religious minorities should always band together simply doesn’t persuade. If the government wanted to target Catholic charities, it already could because the waqf law is specific to Muslims. Instead, the current waqf systems seems to provide no recourse for anyone in the sights of a waqf board. That seems like a problem in need of solving.
I'm a little confused about the 400 acres. How did it get designated as waqf? Based on the explanation given above, it sounds like an endowment or will. Was the whole property owned by one Muslim who made that designation? And the Catholic fishing families are tenants?
The story of the land's waqf designation is quite complex. The key moment seems to have been in 1950, when a Muslim family that had owned the land for decades gave it to an institution called Farook College as a waqf property for educational purposes. But, as this comprehensive article explains, the deed included a condition that if the college closed, the ownership would revert back to the previous owners. That condition contained a major ambiguity: could it be waqf property if the ownership could change? Everything from that point is mired in legal disputes:
A lot of hand-wringing over the impact to “good relations” yet it seems like all that has gotten is a threat to evict families from their own land. Not sure what the benefit of maintaining “good relations” is in this situation.
I don’t envy the Catholic Bishops in India. I have no doubt that some reform needs to be made to wqaf properties in law, but getting into bed with the BJP to do it is not the cards I’d like to have in hand.
I’m not sure why the Church should feel compelled to defend a law that 1) specifically privileges Muslim charities over all others and 2) has been used to take land from Catholics on dubious pretexts. The argument that religious minorities should always band together simply doesn’t persuade. If the government wanted to target Catholic charities, it already could because the waqf law is specific to Muslims. Instead, the current waqf systems seems to provide no recourse for anyone in the sights of a waqf board. That seems like a problem in need of solving.
I'm a little confused about the 400 acres. How did it get designated as waqf? Based on the explanation given above, it sounds like an endowment or will. Was the whole property owned by one Muslim who made that designation? And the Catholic fishing families are tenants?
The story of the land's waqf designation is quite complex. The key moment seems to have been in 1950, when a Muslim family that had owned the land for decades gave it to an institution called Farook College as a waqf property for educational purposes. But, as this comprehensive article explains, the deed included a condition that if the college closed, the ownership would revert back to the previous owners. That condition contained a major ambiguity: could it be waqf property if the ownership could change? Everything from that point is mired in legal disputes:
https://thefederal.com/category/explainers-2/munambam-waqf-land-row-background-legal-and-political-angles-path-forward-153853
Wow, thanks for the response, Luke! What a quagmire.
A lot of hand-wringing over the impact to “good relations” yet it seems like all that has gotten is a threat to evict families from their own land. Not sure what the benefit of maintaining “good relations” is in this situation.