PWN National
Desk 06 april
The English magazine ‘Organizer’ associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has lifted an article recently published on comparison of the Catholic Church and Waqf Board -owned land.
According to the news of The Hindu, this article has been removed after the Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi was alleged that after Muslims, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is now going to target Christians its next target .It is to be known that this development has come up at a time when the Narendra Modi government of the Center has recently passed the Waqf (Amendment) Bill 2025 successfully from Parliament, which proposes significant changes in the regulation of Waqf properties.
The new bill has given states the right to take decisions on Waqf land and provided that tribal and archaeological land will no longer be subject to Waqf .During the debate on Waqf (Amendment) Bill-2025 in both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, opposition MPs argued that through this law, the government is targeting Waqf properties and soon they will focus on other communities including Christians .It is to be known that the Waqf Bill was also supported by the Kerala Catholic Bishop Council. The article of the Organizer which is at the center of controversy, its title, ‘Who has more land in India? The Catholic Church vs. Waqf Board Debate ‘claimed that India’s Catholic churches have more than 7 crore hectares of land and make them the’ largest non-government land owner ‘.
Drawing the attention of the BJP -led Central Government on the issue, the articles claimed that the total estimated value of the properties of the Catholic Church is around Rs 20,000 crore, which is more than the Waqf Board.
In the article, the data taken from the government land information website was told that for many years it has been the perception that the Waqf Board is the second largest land owner in India after the government, but the figures do not support this claim.
Questioning the ‘intention’ of this article, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said that this is another step towards the BJP to target other minorities.
He wrote on the Social Media Forum X (East Twitter), ‘I had already said that the Waqf Bill now targets Muslims, but later it will affect other communities as well. And now the attention of the RSS has been diverted to Christians. Our constitution is the only armor of our security and it is the responsibility of all of us to save it. Describing this article as condemnable, senior Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala said that the next step of the BJP will have to capture the assets owned by the Catholic community.
He said that at the time of the passage of the Waqf Bill, Congress and Rahul Gandhi had said that the next step would be against Christians and this article of ‘Organizer’ clearly mentions it .Ramesh Chennithala further said, “The writer clearly mentions that the Catholic community in India has seven crore acres of land, which costs Rs 20,000 crore. Through the Waqf Bill, they want to control Waqf properties and the next step must control the assets owned by the Catholic community in India .At the same time, amid the increasing controversy, the editor of the magazine Prafulla Ketkar said that this article is ‘Old’, which was re -published after the Waqf Bill .He said, the Congress is unable to handle the resentment of the Muslim community due to its position on the Waqf Bill and the stance of the Christian community separating from the Congress, so it is playing a political game by creating an atmosphere of fear through the media .Ketkar asked Rahul Gandhi to focus on the issue of Munamban instead of discussing the old article, where the villagers have been agitating for a long time against the Kerala Waqf Board. Significantly, an article published in the organizer states that the Waqf Board is claiming more than 400 acres of land, on which the villagers have been living and farming for generations. The villagers have protested for 175 days and have accused them of grabbing their land under the Waqf Act.
