India approves bill overhauling Muslim land boards

India’s parliament passed a bill on Thursday to reform hugely wealthy Muslim land-owning organisations, with the Hindu nationalist government saying it will boost accountability while the opposition called it an “attack” on a minority.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government argues the bill will boost transparency to more than a dozen powerful Waqf boards, which control properties gifted by Muslim charitable endowments.

There are around two dozen Waqf boards across India, owning some 900,000 acres (365,00 hectares), a multi-billion-dollar property empire that makes them one of the biggest landholders alongside the railways and the defence forces.

Minister of Parliamentary Affairs Kiren Rijiju, who tabled the bill on Wednesday, said it would check corruption and mismanagement and reduce the hold of a few entrenched groups.

The bill was passed by the lower house of parliament after a marathon debate that stretched into the early hours of Thursday.

It is expected to be passed by the upper house of parliament later on Thursday, handing far larger powers to civil servants in the supervision of Waqf boards.

Amit Shah, the interior minister and a close Modi aide, said the changes would help “catch the people who lease out properties” for individual gains.

“That money, which could be used to aid the development of minorities, is being stolen,” he said.

Non-Muslims, who will be included in the boards as part of the new bill, will only be involved in “administrative” matters, Shah said.

However, opposition parties accuse the government of pushing “polarising politics” at the expense of India’s Muslim minority of 200 million.

“The Waqf (Amendment) Bill is a weapon aimed at marginalising Muslims and usurping their personal laws and property rights,” opposition Congress Party chief Rahul Gandhi said.

Gandhi called it an “attack” by Hindu nationalists which he charged was “aimed at Muslims today but sets a precedent to target other communities in the future”.

Opposition parties see the bill as part of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) efforts to win favour with its right-wing Hindu base.

Modi’s BJP has backed right-wing claims of mosques built over ancient Hindu temples and led efforts to construct a grand Hindu temple at the site of a demolished Mughal-era mosque in Ayodhya.