How the BJP is using the Waqf bill row to push its Hindutva politics
The party is mobilising public support in favour of the perception that Waqf boards are land encroachers and urgently need to be stripped of any independence.
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At the end of October, Bharatiya Janata Party MP Tejasvi Surya visited farmers in Vijaypura district who had received notices contending that the land that they were occupying was actually owned by the Waqf board that administers Muslim charitable properties.
Surya claimed that the notices had been sent out “with no evidence or explanation”. He added, “The extent of these claims is staggering, with nearly 1,500 acres claimed in a single village of Honavada.”
The Karnataka government claimed that the notices to farmers in the Vijaypura village were the result of an error in a gazette notification. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah directed officials to withdraw such notices issued to farmers in other parts of the state as well.
But the notices sparked violence 300 km away in Haveri district, as villagers in Kadakol district threw stones on the homes of Muslim residents, fearing that their land would also be claimed as waqf property. Farmers in Dharwad and Kalburgi also held protests, motivated by the same anxieties.
The events in Karnataka were an example of how the BJP is tapping into public anger to advance the perception that Waqf boards are land encroachers and urgently need to be reformed. It plays into the Hindutva conspiracy theory that Indian Muslims have launched a so-called land jihad to illegally take over tracts...
