India’s Waqf Under Siege: A Partition Redux?

The echoes of 1947 have never felt louder. India’s partition was not just a division of land; it was a violent rupture driven by a deep-rooted fear—that a dominant majority would marginalize and erase minority rights. Today, nearly eight decades later, that very fear is being realized.

At the heart of this unfolding crisis is India’s Waqf system—a centuries-old institution that safeguards mosques, graveyards, shrines, and charitable assets for the Muslim community. The recent push by the Modi government to wrest control of Waqf properties is not just about land; it is a systematic attempt to erase Muslim identity, wealth, and heritage—a pattern that mirrors the very anxieties that fuelled Partition.

The Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2024, proposed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, aims to strip Waqf Boards of their autonomy, allowing non-Muslims to control the management of Muslim religious endowments. With an estimated 872,000 Waqf properties valued at $14.22 billion, the stakes are massive. This is not just a legal reform—it is the largest religious land grab in India’s history.

History Repeats: The Politics of Land and Faith

This is not the first time Waqf lands have been targeted. During British rule, colonial administrators frequently seized Waqf properties under the guise of ‘public interest’, repurposing them into government offices and railway stations. But even the British, at their worst, did not attempt to legislate away Waqf ownership itself.

In independent India, successive governments neglected Waqf institutions, allowing encroachments, bureaucratic corruption, and political manipulation to weaken the system. But under the BJP’s Hindutva project, the attack on Waqf has turned from neglect to outright aggression.

Consider the Ujjain case, where nearly 250 Waqf properties, including a century-old mosque, were bulldozed in January 2025 for the Mahakal Corridor, a $1 billion temple expansion project. Government records from 1985 clearly recognized the land as Waqf property, but Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) officials dismissed these claims, arguing that no permission is needed when land is acquired for a social cause.

Translation? If it benefits the Hindu majority, Muslim ownership is irrelevant.

The pattern repeats across Bhopal, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, and Karnataka, where Waqf lands have been reclassified as government property, mosques converted into parking lots, and centuries-old Muslim graveyards erased from land records altogether.

From 1947 to 2025: A Familiar Fear

The fear that led to Partition in 1947 was that Muslims would become politically, socially, and economically marginalized under a Hindu-majority rule. Critics of Partition argued that such fears were exaggerated, that a secular India would safeguard Muslim rights. But can the same argument be made today?

A Dangerous Shift: The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and Beyond

The CAA of 2019 marked a dramatic shift in India’s democratic fabric, particularly with its selective exclusion of Muslims from the fast-track citizenship process. This law, which grants citizenship to non-Muslim refugees from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, sent a clear signal: Muslim identity in India was now being questioned through the prism of religious affiliation. The widespread protests that followed, particularly in Muslim-majority areas like Shaheen Bagh, indicated that for many, this was more than a legal matter—it was an existential crisis, signaling an attack on India’s secular foundation.

Mob Lynching and Social Marginalization

From 2019 to 2021, incidents of mob lynching—often under the pretext of cow slaughter—became disturbingly regular. The normalization of these acts, where Muslim men were often the targets, was a clear reflection of the broader shift in Indian society. These acts of violence, often carried out in full view of the police, were not isolated incidents; they were indicative of the deepening culture of impunity. According to the Indian Express, in the first six months of 2021 alone, at least 22 Muslims were killed in communal violence across India, with no significant legal repercussions for the perpetrators.

The Targeting of Religious Institutions: A New Phase in Marginalization

This growing environment of impunity has translated into a direct assault on Muslim institutions—none more glaring than the attacks on Waqf properties. As mentioned earlier, the 2024 Waqf Amendment Bill has intensified the struggle for religious and cultural identity in India. But before this, a series of incidents between 2021 and 2024 made it clear that the state was looking beyond just legal reforms.

In 2021, the government bulldozed Waqf properties in Aligarh to make way for a state-sponsored ‘Ram Mandir Yojana’ (a Hindu temple development scheme). This destruction was carried out despite clear documentation of Waqf ownership of the land. In 2022, the Waqf Board in Uttar Pradesh was stripped of its powers, and local authorities began seizing valuable properties for “government purposes”—again, with no legal recourse for the Muslim community. The most significant such seizure occurred in 2023, when a 500-year-old mosque in Varanasi was marked for demolition under the pretext of ‘urban renewal’. These targeted attacks on Muslim places of worship reflect a broader pattern of dispossession that is tied directly to the erosion of their legal rights.

Beyond Muslims: A Growing Hostility to Sikhs and Christians

The plight of other religious minorities in India is equally disturbing. Sikhs, who were once seen as a symbol of resistance during the 1980s, have increasingly found themselves targeted by the state. The rhetoric around Sikh identity became especially toxic during the farmers’ protests of 2020-21. As hundreds of thousands of farmers, mostly from Punjab, organized against controversial farm laws, the Indian government—and particularly the BJP—accused Sikh protesters of being “Khalistani terrorists.” The stigmatization of Sikhs as separatists was not merely political; it was aimed at delegitimizing their grievances and quashing their voice in the national discourse.

Similarly, Christian minorities in India have faced a surge in anti-conversion laws, criminalizing interfaith marriages and limiting religious freedom. As of 2023, at least five states, including Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka, passed stringent anti-conversion laws, targeting Christian missionaries and organizations. This legislation is presented as a means to curb “forced conversions,” but it has predominantly been used to disempower Christians, labeling them as outsiders within their own country.

India’s Waqf The Emergence of a Parallel “Partition”

What we are witnessing today is a quiet, but steady, dismantling of the multi-religious fabric that India was once celebrated for. The partition of 1947 was not just about dividing land—it was about the security and survival of identities under the threat of hegemonic power. What we see now in India is the same fear unfolding, but not in terms of land division. Instead, it is a division of rights, property, and history.

Muslims are no longer just concerned about their place in the country—they are being systematically erased from the country’s public memory. Waqf lands, mosques, and other religious properties are now subjected to state-led erasure, with historical landmarks bulldozed, rebranded, or repurposed. And this is not an isolated event. The real fear today is not of a geographic partition, but of an ideological one—where religious minorities are pushed to the margins of public life and their identities are systematically wiped out from the national consciousness.

The Waqf Bill is part of a broader agenda that seems designed to push India further down this path of exclusion, where the state decides who has the right to live, worship, and exist within the national narrative.

Also See: India’s Waqf Bill 2024: The State’s Assault on Muslim Heritage

The Political Playbook: Bulldoze, Privatize, Erase

The BJP’s strategy is clear: alter the laws, erase history, and take control of religious assets. By allowing non-Muslims to run Waqf Boards, the government is effectively legalizing what was once an illegal land grab. If the goal was reform, the focus would have been on strengthening Waqf institutions, not dismantling them.

This is not just about land—it is about power. When the state decides who can manage religious endowments, it fundamentally alters the balance of religious freedoms. The loss of Waqf lands is not just a financial setback for Indian Muslims—it is a direct attack on their ability to sustain religious, educational, and social institutions.

What Next? Is This History Repeating Itself?

India stands at a critical juncture. The decisions of today—on Waqf properties, religious freedoms, and the growing marginalization of minorities—are hauntingly reminiscent of the fears that fueled Partition in 1947. The question now extends beyond the political trajectory of India under the BJP—it is about the very survival of India’s secular ideal.

If the state continues on this path of exclusion, history will not just be rewritten—it will be erased. In a nation that once prided itself on its pluralism, we must ask: Can India still be the land of diversity it once aspired to be, or will it become a place where one identity dominates all others?

As history has shown, the forces of division are powerful. But so too are the forces of resistance. India’s minorities—whether Muslim, Sikh, Christian, or others—are not passive participants in this struggle. They have fought before, and they will again.

The anti-CAA protests, led largely by Muslim women in Shaheen Bagh, proved that voices from the margins can still shake the system. The farmers’ protests, driven by Punjab’s Sikhs, forced the government to repeal controversial farm laws. These movements demonstrate that India’s minorities are not mere spectators in their own erasure.

But the question remains: Will India continue down this path of exclusion and hyper-nationalism, or will its people rise up against it?

One thing is certain—the forces that led to 1947 are back. And if history is any guide, India is once again at a breaking point.