Imagine: a 100-year-old bungalow built by your great-grandfather – a quiet, peaceful place dedicated to decades to achieve a single aristocratic purpose: charity work. Its doors are always open to those in need, and it is a paradise of compassion and service. It’s not just a building; it’s the legacy of your family, the responsibility from your grandfather to your father, and ultimately passed on to you.

Then, overnight, everything will change.

New law. Delete clause. A lonely government official stood on a distant mountain, stretched his hand to his forehead, investigated the land and pointed it casually. “That,” he said. “I don’t think that land or property is entrusted to you, or the purpose you dedicate to it.” With bureaucratic calm, he declared that the land was government property. You are an invader now. From that moment on, the land was no longer under custody. The state intervenes and assumes control. In this way, the bungalows that your family cared for and used for goodwill are no longer under custody.

There is no due process. They said an investigation will be conducted. final. They didn’t give you a date, there was no deadline. Until you hear from them, all you can do is wait. external. Because you now need permission from the state to step into buildings built by your ancestors and ask for your protection.

Sounds dystopian? Not for Indian Muslims, this is for them WAQF Amendment – A legislation that puts the basic principles of ownership, due process and religious neutrality on their heads.

By its definition, WAQF is a permanent gift to God, aiming to benefit the community by providing services such as education and health care. It is not “owned” by individuals. It is protected by Mutawalli (custodian) on the grounds of trust and protected by the state.

However, the WAQF Amendment, in 2025, it flips that assumption.

Gone are the troublesome clauses that users can declare land as “WAQF” – traditional understanding that land held for charitable purposes should be protected from arbitrary claims based on historical usage. Instead, we now have unilateral executive control. As a result, a government official can now use his hands to decide whether the property is WAQF or government-owned. To assist him in this task, he will be ruled by evidence, unfettered by due process, and free from the need for reason. A kind of opinion. A notice. A perfect legal requisition. and appeal proceedings? Pleasant round shape. You can attract machines that blame you.

The revised law is now demanding the inclusion of non-Muslims on the WAQF Board of Directors in a dazzling display of secular theaters. No other religious trust is required to face it. The Temple Trust is not required to recruit Imams. Church committees do not need agnosticism. But under this confusing law, the Muslim WAQF must be open to those without theology, traditions or scholarships. When does inclusion go beyond dilution? One person might ask. In this version, equality seems to be nothing more than selective invasion.

Then there is the review. Now the central government has the right to order WAQF property audits through its own appointed auditors. Transparency, they call it. Check corruption in the WAQF Board of Directors. But if you squint, you will find it looks suspicious, like there is no need for checks and balance. After all, it is rarely fair when the watchdog reports to the kennel.

This is not a frontal attack. This is a soft erase.

No bulldozer. No headlines. Just noticed, footnotes and transfer definitions. All of this is completely “legal”.

Yes, the bungalow still exists. Its wall is complete. Its doors are still swaying. But what they mean behind them – a sacred concept that once was the gift of God, now it is determined by the sentiment of the nation.

What we witness is not the robbery in the dark – it is more elegant. The reconfiguration of ownership is not carried out by the dark middleman but by the machinery of the state itself. There is no land mafia here, only legislation. There is no down-to-ground transaction, only policy. So, under the quiet certainty of officials, the system once designed to protect charitable trusts can now absorb it well – a signature, a “determination”, a glance at the top of the mountain at a time.

This is not reform. This is asset appropriation – slow, quiet and absolutely. Designed by paperwork rather than pistols. Because in the end, it’s not a Hindu Muslim issue, so it’s a real estate.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own views and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.