In Kashmir’s delicate ecosystem, power is exercised not by the use of brute stick but through meticulous administrative manipulations of daily life. This is best illustrated by the transformation of the region’s Muslim endowments, which begins with a local political feud and culminates in a high-stakes legal battle to determine who controls the collective physique and soul.
The story centres around the Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Auqaf Trust (MAT); which was formed in the early 1930s by the Muslim Conference, then evolving from an initial committee under the supervision of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah to manage and utilise income from religious endowments for the socio-economic welfare of the Muslim community, once a powerful, community-anchored institution.
The MAT was established on August 31, 1973, following the transformation of the Idara Auqaf-i-Islamia, with its Trust Deed finalised on September 23, 1973. Notably, its rival, the Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI), had already registered the Falah-e-Aam Trust earlier, on July 31, 1972, under registration number 169/5/72.
Conversely, in 2003, during the PDP-Congress coalition government, the MAT was dismantled by an ordinance on September 8, 2003, and reborn as the Jammu and Kashmir Waqf Board. Subsequently, a Bill was placed before J&K Legislature for enactment and the same was passed on January 15, 2004 as an Act entitled "The Jammu and Kashmir Specified Waqfs and Specified Waqf Properties (Management and Regulation) Act, 2004" as an administrative reform to combat corruption and mismanagement.
But for many observers, it was the opening gambit in a long-term strategy to hit the socio-religious sphere.
The Existential Shift: From Community to State
The change was more than semantic. The Auqaf Trust was a product of Kashmiri society, deeply intertwined with the region’s distinct political identity. Its replacement, the Waqf Board, was a statutory body, its authority derived from the state legislature. This ontological shift moved the centre of gravity for Muslim religious life from the community to the government.
The move, engineered by the late Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, was fueled by local politics and with some support from other politico-religious groups to satisfy their own interests—a bid to break the enduring legacy of their rivals and opponents, the Abdullah family. Sayeed was instrumental in forming the PDP on July 28, 1999.
Although some of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah's somersaults from 1947 to 1953 are viewed as controversial, he remained a leader with overwhelming mass support in Jammu and Kashmir.
The latter part of Sheikh Abdullah's career, particularly post-1973, was marked by a pronounced shift towards self-interest, confining his once-massive influence to his domestic limb. The public, which had seen in him a leader for the ages, found itself disillusioned.
The death of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah on September 8, 1982 marked a critical turning point for the National Conference. His son, Dr Farooq Abdullah, who inherited the leadership, fundamentally failed to steward the party his father built. Under his direction, the National Conference began a precipitous institutional decay, degenerating from a broad-based political movement into a stagnant and dynastic organisation.
This decline accelerated under the leadership of Sheikh Abdullah's grandson, Omar Abdullah. His tenure was marked by a profound lack of seriousness in addressing the region's core political challenges, offering only tokenistic "lollipops" of development that fell short of the people's aspirations.
Together, the son and grandson of the Sheikh are directly responsible for the party's descent from a formidable political force into an ineffectual and parochial band.
Establishment of Waqf in Jammu and Kashmir in 2003 seamlessly served as a larger project. By taking control of the trusts’ substantial revenue and property, the state gained a powerful lever to influence religious discourse, fund compliant leaders, and engineer a social structure aligned with its integrationist goals.
The Symbolic Conquest and Ashoka’s Lions
The theoretical became violently real in April 2022. Dr Darakshan Andrabi, the BJP-appointed chairperson of the Waqf Board, held an official meeting at the revered Dargah Sharief in Hazratbal. The desk before her was draped with a cloth bearing the Indian State Emblem with Ashoka’s three lions.
In any other context, it might have been a routine piece of office furniture. In the sanctum of one of Kashmir’s holiest sites, it was a profound, and to many, provocative, statement. It visually declared state authority over sacred space. The symbolism was later made permanent, etched in stone following the shrine’s renovation.
The act ignited controversy and legal complaints about the misuse of a national emblem. The tension escalated further recently when police registered a case (FIR No: 76/2025) under the new Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, investigating the alleged defacement of a plaque bearing the same emblem inside the shrine. The emblem’s iconography was the new site of conflict.
Both the National Conference and Peoples' Democratic Party have demanded the filing of an FIR against Dr Darakshan Andrabi, the chairperson of the Jammu and Kashmir Waqf Board, for allegedly hurting Muslim sentiments concerning the plaque bearing a national emblem at the Hazratbal shrine. They will approach the court, if denied.
Flashback: A History of Turbulence
The Hazratbal Shrine, a revered Muslim site in Kashmir, has been central to several significant historical events. On January 4, 1964, Indian authorities successfully recovered the Moi-e-Muqqadas (Holy Relic of Prophet Muhammad 'pbuh'), which disappeared on December 27, 1963, and was verified by contemporary theological scholars.
Decades later, the shrine was again a focal point of tension. In October 1993, the Indian Army surrounded the complex following reports that armed militants had laid a siege around it. A 34-day standoff ensued, causing widespread public unrest. The situation was resolved when the militants were granted safe passage.
Again, on March 31, 1996, a major confrontation occurred near the shrine. Security forces claimed that militants planned to reoccupy the site, and laid a siege, leading to a heavy gun-fight. Officials reported that 22 militants were killed in the operation, which involved machine guns and explosives, adjacent to the holy shrine.
These series of events highlight the complex intersection of faith, politics, and conflict in the region's history, with government actions aimed at security often clashing with deep public religious sentiment.
The Administrative Culmination: From Srinagar to New Delhi
The 2019 abrogation of Article 370 was the constitutional earthquake that formally ended Jammu and Kashmir’s special status. But the administrative groundwork for integrating its institutions was laid years earlier. The Waqf Board was a prime example.
Post-2019, the final piece fell into place. The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act extended the central government’s Waqf Act, 1995, to Jammu and Kashmir. The board was no longer just a state-controlled body. It was now answerable to the Central Waqf Council in New Delhi, an arm of the Union Ministry of Minority Affairs.
The original justification of curbing local corruption now rings hollow to many critics. Several leaders of the ruling National Conference argue that through this centralization of the Waqf, misappropriation has merely been centralised, with funds allegedly diverted to serve political rather than community needs. They demand investigation and constitution of House Committee in Jammu and Kashmir Assembly.
A Legal Battle for Autonomy
This local history is to be tested in the backdrop of Supreme Court verdict on the Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025 which was reserved in May 2025.
The amendment expands the Union’s control over all Waqf properties in the country. Its most contentious provisions include mandating non-Muslim members on Waqf Boards, eliminating the concept of “Waqf by user” (where long-standing use of land for religious purpose grants it Waqf status), and requiring those who create a Waqf to have “demonstrably practiced Islam for at least five years.”
The government argues this is about “efficiency” and “transparency.” Opponents, including a slew of petitioners from MP Asaduddin Owaisi to civil rights groups with 65 petitions, call it an unconstitutional assault on religious freedom, a move to reduce Muslims to “second-class citizens” and strip them of autonomy over their charitable assets.
However, the Supreme Court, while reserving the verdict, on May 22, 2025, said a requirement to mandatorily register Waqfs dated back to 1923 and did not start with the Waqf (Amendment) Act of 2025.
Can a version of the Kashmir model be applied to rest of the country?
The Psychological Impact: A Loss of Sovereign Space
In Kashmir, the journey from the MAT to a board controlled from New Delhi is seen as a metaphor. It is the story of a community’s progressive loss of agency, where administrative manoeuvers achieve what other forces cannot.
The management of faith, funds, and future is now overseen by officials whose ultimate loyalties lie with the central government. The psychological impact is profound. The sense that no sphere of life, not even the most sacred, remains a sovereign space.
Thus, the great Waqf gamble that commenced in Kashmir twenty years ago approaches its climax. This will determine far more than the custodianship of properties, shaping the very identity of a people, as it unravels a measure of State’s power to exert control over the religious conscience of a minority community.
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