In the landscape of India’s legislative reforms, few measures have stirred as profound—and quietly seismic—a reckoning as the Waqf Amendment Bill 2025. While the Bill claims to address inefficiencies and encroachments within the waqf system across the country, its impact is poised to be deeply disruptive in Telangana, a State where the waqf structure is both historically rich and socially embedded. Telangana’s Muslims, who make up roughly 13 per cent of the State’s population, have long relied on waqf institutions not only for religious worship but also for education, housing, social welfare, and livelihood. The Telangana State Waqf Board controls one of the largest waqf estates in India, with property values estimated to exceed five lakh crore rupees. Yet, a staggering 75 per cent of these lands are encroached upon. This dual reality—vast wealth and deep vulnerability—places Telangana at the heart of the amendment’s claims, consequences, and contradictions.
Waqf Battle In Telangana: Takeover Isn’t Improvement
Telangana, with its syncretic past and complex present, deserves a more participatory model of reform
The history of waqf in Telangana stretches back centuries, with institutions such as Jamia Nizamia, Dargah Hazrat Jahangeer Peeran, and the Anees-ul-Ghurba Orphanage standing as enduring symbols of a functioning community trust system. These properties, endowed for perpetual religious or social welfare, were meant to be inalienable and sacrosanct. However, over the decades, encroachments by private builders, political actors, and even government departments have hollowed out the waqf system’s actual footprint. A 2023 internal review by the Board revealed that out of 77,538 acres under its control, only 20,110 acres remain intact, while thousands of cases languish in courts, and crucial documents have been lost, sealed, or destroyed. This situation underscores the vulnerability of waqf assets and raises pressing questions about the implications of the 2025 amendment in safeguarding or further jeopardising these historical resources.
The Amendment And Its Implications
The Waqf Amendment Bill 2025 introduces sweeping changes that fundamentally alter the administration of waqf properties in India. Among its most significant provisions is the mandatory digital registration of all waqf assets on a centralised portal, effectively bringing these historically community-managed trusts under greater government oversight. More controversially, the Bill abolishes elected representation on waqf boards, replacing it with a nomination system that includes non-Muslim members—a move critics argue dilutes the Islamic character of these religious endowments. The legislation also grants unprecedented authority to district collectors, empowering them to determine whether disputed properties qualify as waqf land. Until such determinations are made, these properties will not receive legal recognition as waqf assets—a provision that could leave countless religious and charitable properties in administrative limbo. Additionally, the Bill invalidates oral waqf declarations, recognising only written endowments made by “practicing Muslims of at least five years”, thereby disregarding longstanding local traditions of waqf creation.
The history of waqf in Telangana goes back centuries, with institutions such as Jamia Nizamia standing as enduring symbols of a functioning community trust system.
Further weakening the autonomy of waqf institutions, the amendment strips tribunals of their final decision-making authority by expanding appeal avenues, potentially prolonging disputes over waqf properties indefinitely. Perhaps most critically, the Bill imposes uniform rules across all waqf institutions nationwide, ignoring the rich diversity of regional practices and cultural contexts that have shaped these community trusts for generations. While framed as measures to improve efficiency and transparency, these changes collectively represent a significant erosion of community control over Islamic endowments. The implications extend beyond administrative restructuring, touching upon fundamental questions of religious freedom, federalism, and minority rights. Nowhere are these concerns more acute than in Telangana, where the waqf system’s historical significance and contemporary socio-political context make these changes particularly contentious. The amendment risks not only altering the management of waqf properties but also reshaping the relationship between Muslim communities and the State in matters of religious endowment and charitable trust administration.
Telangana’s Alternative Vision
In sharp contrast to the top-down approach of the Waqf Amendment Bill 2025, the Telangana State Waqf Board has recently proposed a comprehensive reform roadmap that balances administrative efficiency with community empowerment, offering a compelling alternative to the Centre’s heavy-handed model. Rather than stripping away community control, they seek to modernise waqf administration while preserving its essential character. The State’s recommendations focus on practical solutions to long-standing issues: granting the CEO magistrate powers for faster land recovery, enabling direct First Information Report (FIR) registration against encroachers, and creating time-bound processes for cancelling illegal transactions. Perhaps the most innovative is Telangana’s pragmatic approach to residential encroachments, proposing regularisation with compensation that would allow waqf properties to retain their value while acknowledging ground realities. The contrast between these two approaches reveals fundamentally different conceptions of reform. The Centre’s model views inefficiency as justification for takeover, while Telangana’s approach sees it as an opportunity for meaningful improvement. Where the Bill imposes external control, Telangana proposes enhanced accountability mechanisms. Where the legislation creates bureaucratic hurdles, the State’s plan removes them.
This divergence raises critical questions about the future of waqf institutions in India—will they remain community assets managed according to Islamic principles, or become yet another government-administered programme? Telangana’s experience offers valuable lessons in balanced reform, demonstrating that efficiency and community control need not be mutually exclusive.
The Sociological Fallout
The first casualty of the Waqf Amendment Bill 2025 in Telangana is not legal—it is psychological. Community trust, painstakingly built over decades of cultural resilience, is rapidly eroding as the Muslim population perceives the legislation as an existential threat to their religious and socioeconomic lifelines. For the Muslim community in Telangana, waqf is far more than land or property titles—it is a repository of collective memory, a symbol of belonging, and a tool of self-reliance. Whether it is a centuries-old dargah in Nizamabad, a small madrasa in Warangal, or an orphanage tucked away in the lanes of Hyderabad’s Old City, waqf properties have long served as social equalisers in an economic ecosystem that often marginalises minorities.
The proposed changes under the 2025 amendment appear to many as an institutional breach of this sacred space. The move to allow district collectors—government officers, often with little understanding of the community’s religious or historical context—to unilaterally decide whether a property qualifies as waqf marks a dramatic shift from custodianship to command. This provision effectively delegitimises community knowledge and overrides the jurisprudence of centuries-old Islamic trust law. The psychological impact of this cannot be overstated; it signals to the community that its historical claims and religious traditions are subordinate to State discretion. Perhaps even more jarring is the replacement of elected representatives on waqf boards with government-nominated members, including non-Muslims. While framed as a secular or administrative reform, this measure is widely interpreted by the community as a symbolic intrusion—a State-mediated reshaping of religious governance.
What deepens this sense of injustice is the glaring asymmetry in treatment. While Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments in many States enjoy considerable autonomy, Muslim endowments are increasingly being pulled under bureaucratic structures. This inconsistency reinforces a perception of systemic bias, wherein minority institutions are subjected to greater State control while majority institutions retain self-determination.
There’s a visible emotional exhaustion among community elders, scholars, and activists in Telangana—many of whom have spent decades fighting legal battles to protect waqf lands from encroachment, often by powerful real-estate lobbies and government departments themselves. Now, instead of being strengthened in their efforts, their autonomy is being diminished. The irony is bitter: those who have struggled to preserve waqf properties against external threats now find the State itself becoming the primary agent of dispossession. The anxiety felt by ordinary Muslims is not rooted in an opposition to reform, digitisation, or transparency. In fact, Telangana’s own Waqf Board had proposed robust reforms, including land surveys, digitisation, and legal empowerment of the CEO to curb encroachments. Rather, the anxiety comes from being excluded from reform conversations about their own institutions. It is the sense of being ruled rather than represented—a sentiment that cuts deeper than any policy intent. When reforms are imposed without consultation, they cease to be reforms and instead become impositions.
Telangana, with its rich syncretic past and complex present, deserves a more participatory and empathetic model of reform—not one that disempowers the very people it claims to uplift.
The Need For Healing Legislation
The Waqf Amendment Bill 2025, as it stands, is legislation that creates more conflict than solutions. At a time when Indian democracy should be fostering unity between communities and institutions, this law risks deepening divisions. Instead of encouraging cooperation, it sows distrust; rather than empowering communities, it centralises control. The damage goes beyond policy—it wounds the very sense of security, belonging, and trust that binds minorities to the idea of a pluralistic India. This is not merely a dispute over land—it is a struggle over identity, self-determination, and the survival of mutual respect in a diverse democracy.
In Telangana—where land holds generations of memory and property is woven into cultural heritage—such unilateral reforms risk being seen not as progress, but as appropriation. India’s democracy thrives when laws mend rather than divide, when they uphold federal balance rather than impose uniformity, and when they protect—rather than undermine—the rights of minorities. Real reform demands dialogue: between lawmakers and the guardians of Hyderabad’s dargahs, between legal systems and Nizamabad’s madrasas, between governance and Mahbubnagar’s grassroots institutions.
Waqf is more than deeds and boundaries—it is a sacred pact across time, a promise of stewardship that no law should break. India’s strength has always been in balancing change with tradition; efficiency with equity. In reshaping waqf governance, we must ensure that the pursuit of order does not erase the very institutions that give dignity and hope to millions.
(Views expressed are personal)
Dr. Afroz Alam is Professor & Head, Department of Political Science, Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU), Hyderabad
This article is part of Outlook’s May 01, 2025 issue 'Username Waqf' which looks at the Waqf Amendment Act of 2025, its implications, and how it is perceived by the Muslim community. It appeared in print as 'Takeover Isn’t Improvement'.