Waqf bill: BJP trying to snatch rights of Muslims, says Brinda Karat

CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Brinda Karat addresses the media at the venue of 24th party congress in Madurai on April 3, 2025.
| Photo Credit: G. Moorthy

The Waqf (Amendment) Bill showed that the Bharatiya Janata Party was “using a bulldozer against the believers of Islam and snatching away their constitutional rights”, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Brinda Karat said.

Describing the proposed legislation, which was adopted by the Lok Sabha on Wednesday, as an assault on the Constitution of India and the rights of minorities, Ms. Karat said on Thursday (April 3, 2025) that her party would use every forum available to fight the Bill. “If there are any issues in the functioning of an institution, there are always avenues of reform, but these should be decided in consultation with those involved. But in this case, they [the Centre] are using their slim majority in Parliament to push the Bill,” she said, on the sidelines of the 24th party congress.  

She said while the Centre had been planning the Bill for some time, the timing of its introduction and the haste to push it through demonstrated that it was a planned attack by the BJP-Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh combine.  

She said the draft political resolution introduced at the ongoing party congress did speak about the atrocities against religious minorities, including Christians, and lamented that the BJP-led government had “criminalised” voluntary conversion even by the most marginalised communities. All minority communities, and not just Muslims, were under attack in India, she said. The CPI(M) had taken note of the Bill being welcomed by a section of the Catholic church, said Ms. Karat, adding that issues such as the land dispute in Ernakulam (Munambam) could be resolved using other means and not by a Bill that assaulted the Constitution.

Asked about the ASHA workers’ ongoing protest in Kerala, Ms. Karat said ASHA workers in every Indian State were extremely exploited because in rural India, they formed the backbone of the health system. As early as 2005, when the concept evolved, she was opposed to making them “voluntary health workers”. The guidelines brought out by the Centre made it mandatory, holding the entire community of ASHAs hostage to that guideline. The main force responsible for their plight was the Central government, and therefore, unitedly, there should be a struggle by ASHA workers against the Centre to force them to change the unjust guideline, she said.

Ms. Karat also slammed the Centre for its perceived craven attitude towards reciprocal tariffs on Indian imports announced by the U.S. President Donald Trump.  

On the INDIA bloc, she said the Congress perhaps was not playing the role it should, but the fact remained that it was the largest anti-BJP secular party. The CPI(M)’s political line was to aim and work for the defeat and isolation of the BJP and the Congress did have a role to play in that. But that did not mean that the CPI(M) would be uncritical of the Congress.  

On the party relying heavily on the Kerala model as it looked to recover its ground in West Bengal and Tripura, she said Kerala always had a pride of place alongside these States and the Left Front government in the State had carved out a niche model withstanding the attacks by the Centre.