Chennai: Pushing for an amendment in the Waqf Act in Parliament, the BJP has found its case strengthened in Kerala after a 400-acre land became a centre of dispute between the Waqf Board and over 600 families.
The opposition party, which is yet to find electoral space in the Left-ruled Kerala, is organising a state-wide campaign pushing for the amendment of the Act with the Munambam protest at its fulcrum.
What initially began as a protest by the fishing community in 2022 was grabbed by the BJP state and national leaders, including former Union minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Bangalore South MP Tejasvi Surya and BJP’s lone MP in Kerala, Suresh Gopi, to reiterate the ‘land jihad’ claim.
The protest has also got support from the influential Syro-Malabar church, a section the BJP has been trying to woo for a long time in the southern state.
“It is really a type of land jihad practised by the Islamic forces,” BJP’s state vice-president K.S. Radhakrishnan told ThePrint. He alleged that the Waqf Act was forced upon people of other faiths and that the BJP would continue its demand until it is repealed, echoing a similar sentiment expressed by Tejasvi Surya in Kerala’s poll-bound Palakkad this week.
In September, the land dispute gathered a storm after the BJP state unit sought action against the Waqf Board. A month after the party’s central leadership pushed for the amendment in the act in Parliament, BJP leader Shaun George stated on 25 September that his party would support the residents against the Board’s “illegal claims”. This was reiterated by a BJP local functionary in Ernakulam district and another party spokesperson.
On 9 October, the BJP’s minority morcha took out a solidarity march to the Waqf Board’s office in Kochi. Thrissur MP Suresh Gopi visited the protest site on 30 October, and assured the local residents that the Modi government would resolve the issue. This was followed by the visit of party’s Palakkad by-poll candidate C Krishnakumar on Monday.
Seeking an amendment to the Act, the protesters, mostly fishermen, are caught in a legal dispute with the Kerala Waqf Board for the past two years over the ownership of the locality. The families haven’t been able to pay property tax or exercise any revenue rights after the Waqf Board claimed the land in the coastal village.
The Left Democratic Front (LDF) government has convened an all-party meeting on 22 November to discuss the festering dispute.
After addressing a campaign Tuesday in Palakkad district where the bypolls are due on 20 November, Tejasvi claimed that the Waqf Board had claimed land in Munambam (Ernakulam), Mananthavadi (Wayanadu), Thaliparambu (Kannur)—including the renowned Rajarajeshwara Temple land—and Palakkad (Kalpathi & Noorani).
“In total, their claims are spread over more than 1,009.7 acre, impacting countless families. People of Kerala, affected by Waqf atrocities like in Karnataka, are in overwhelming support of the proposed amendments to the Waqf act by Modi 3.0,” Tejasvi said.
Refuting the claims of the BJP MP, a Waqf official told ThePrint that a notice was sent to 33 families in Chavakkad in 2022 on the high court directives after it was found that the property belonged to the Board.
“We found it was Waqf property and published the report in January 2024. But so far, no coercive steps have been taken. We never evicted anybody as is claimed by one political party (BJP),” the official said, adding that notices were sent to five families, including four Muslim families in Wayanad, seeking their explanation with supporting documents to claim the land.
The official asserted that the Board also never sent any eviction notice to the residents in Munambam, a point conceded by one of the residents there.
Encroachment was found in 187 of the total 400 acre of land, the official said.
“Nobody in Munambam or the church approached the Board or the government for a solution or clarification yet,” the official said, adding that the issue would have been solved if a tripartite meeting with the government, the church and the board had been held.
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The Munambam row
Located nearly 40 km away from Kochi on the northern end of Vypin island, Munambam’s tussle with the Waqf Board started in 2022, when the 610-odd families living there were not allowed to pay property tax.
“We were told that the area was a Waqf asset,” says 51-year-old Joseph Benny, a resident coordinating the protest since October. He, however, confirmed that none of the residents have gotten an eviction notice from the Board to date.
Like Benny, the region has over 600 families, mostly fishermen who are Latin Catholics. The land, originally with the Travancore royal family, was leased to a person identified as Abdul Sathar Moosa Sait in 1902. Occupied by the fishing community since 1870, a successor of Sait handed over the land to Kozhikode-based Farook College, a government-aided college established to empower the socially backward class, following which a Waqf deed was registered in 1950.
After not being allowed to pay property tax in 2022, the Munambam residents immediately approached a local CPI(M) politician and made several visits to Thiruvananthapuram. They were allowed to pay the tax for a brief period following intervention from the LDF government .
Simultaneously, the residents moved the Kerala High Court alleging that the Waqf Board was in the process of evicting families who claimed the land ownership. Section 14 of the Waqf Act, which gives power to the Waqf Board to declare properties belonging to any trust or society as its own, was ‘unconstitutional’, they contended.
On 2 November, the Kerala High Court asked the state and central governments to file a counter affidavit on the petition.
Amid the ongoing legal battle, the residents carried out a demonstration in Ernakulam on 27 September, followed by another on 11 October in Kochi’s Cherayi, along with Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam (SNDP), an organisation of the Ezhava community in Kerala.
After both demonstrations failed to get enough attention, the Munambam residents are now on a relay hunger strike from 12 October. “Our demand is that there should be an amendment in the Waqf Act. No one else should face this issue ever again,” Benny said, adding that the residents resorted to this form of protest as there is more awareness following the demand for an amendment in the Act in Parliament.
Started as a local issue, the Munambam protest gathered national attention after the influential Syro-Malabar church extended solidarity to the local residents.
“The residents have been living in fear for a long time. There is a Velankanni matha church (in Munambam) there. They are not able to pay tax from 2022,” Father Antony Vadakkekara, the public relations officer with the church, told ThePrint.
As a result, he said, the residents are not able to exercise any revenue right in their land including availing loans for their financial needs. The church, he added, is demanding an amendment in the Act as it’s not transparent. “There’s no political motive to it.”
On Sunday, 1,000 churches across Kerala extended solidarity to the Munambam protest and demanded an amendment to the Act. “Apart from the BJP leaders visiting the protest site in Munambam and extending their solidarity, we never approached any political parties for their support,” Father Antony said.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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