Hyderabad: Muslim women say the requirement to appoint two women members in the Waqf Board under the newly-legislated Waqf Amendment Act, 2025 is not new, and would not empower them. They asked the Centre to focus on providing Muslim women education and healthcare.“There has to be a social change and empowerment of women in our community,” said Maria Arifuddin, educationist and social activist. “If the Centre wants to be gender-inclusive, then it must implement a women reservation bill. It is unfortunate that the government is not focusing on the root cause of the problems,” she added. Dr Lubna Sarwath, advocate and social activist, said that the Waqf Act 1995, amended in 2013, had a provision for nomination of minimum two women in the Waqf Board as well as in the Waqf Council. “I applied for the women category for the Waqf Board in 2016 and 2022, but I did not get a place. Sheer lies are being peddled regarding the provision of women in the Waqf Board, the bill undermines fundamental rights.” “While the inclusion of women is always a welcome move, it is being unnecessarily sensationalised that women have already been part of Waqf institutions. This move appears more symbolic than substantive,” she said. They said that the inclusion of women was not a new rule but it was in existence in the 2013 Waqf amendment Act. The Muslim community is also miffed with the Centre over creating new membership for category on Waqf Boards. “There was absolutely no necessity to create separate Waqf categories for Bohras and Aga Khanis, as they are already subsumed under the broader Shia Waqf framework,” said Dr Sofia Begum, a senior advocate and a former member of the Telangana State Waqf Board. They opposed giving extensive powers to district collectors over identifying Waqf properties, saying it was deeply problematic. “It is akin to allowing a litigant in a title dispute to adjudicate the matter themselves, thereby undermining the due process of law.” According to her, nearly 40 per cent of the proposed rules under the Waqf Amendment Bill, 2025, were arbitrary and legally undefendable. “Several provisions are discriminatory and violate the constitutional values of equality, secularism, and the autonomy of religious institutions,” she added.
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