Kerala Reconstitutes Waqf Board, Names IUML Leader M.C. Mayin Haji Chairman Amid Legal Challenge
Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala government has reconstituted the State Waqf Board, appointing Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) state vice-president M.C. Mayin Haji as its chairman in a politically significant move that could reshape equations among the state's Muslim organisations.
The nine-member board replaces the committee headed by K.S. Hamsa, which was formed by the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government in March this year — even though the outgoing board had more than four-and-a-half years left in its tenure and a petition filed by Hamsa challenging its dissolution is pending before the Kerala High Court.
The other members of the reconstituted board are MLA Kurukkoli Moideen, Musthafal Faizy, Thodiyoor Mohammed Kunju Maulavi, Siraz D. Kapasi, Sajna Firoz, Jaseem Sabah, Abdul Majeed Swalahi and Madeena Beegum. Kurukkoli Moideen has been nominated as the representative of legislators.
Two appointments stand out as politically significant. Jaseem Sabah, a leader of the Welfare Party of India (WPI) and a member of the Melattur Grama Panchayat in Malappuram district, is associated with the party linked to Jamaat-e-Islami — marking what is described as the first time a Jamaat-e-Islami-linked representative has been appointed to the state Waqf Board.
His inclusion signals a notable shift in the composition of the body that administers waqf properties across the state.
The other is Musthafal Faizy, recently expelled from the Mushawara of the Samastha E.K. faction. His appointment is expected to trigger debate within Samastha over the representation of dissenting voices on a statutory body with wide-ranging powers over religious endowments.
The board also brings in representatives of different Muslim organisations: Thodiyoor Mohammed Kunju Maulavi represents the Dakshina Kerala Jamiyyathul Ulama, while Abdul Majeed Swalahi represents Kerala Nadvathul Mujahideen (KNM). Notably, the A.P. Sunni faction led by Kanthapuram A.P. Aboobacker Musliyar has not secured a place in the new committee — an omission that is likely to be read as a political statement given the faction's influence in Kerala's Sunni landscape.
The government has not included non-Muslim members in the current list of appointments. Their nomination has been deferred until the Supreme Court rules on their representation, in line with the apex court's directions on the composition of waqf bodies.
Mayin Haji, who has previously served on the Waqf Board, is seen as a choice acceptable to the IUML leadership, and his appointment is expected to bring the new committee closer to the League's orbit.
The IUML is the second-largest partner in the opposition United Democratic Front (UDF), and the LDF government's choice of its state vice-president to head a statutory body with deep resonance in Muslim politics is being parsed closely by political observers — some reading it as an attempt to ease tensions with sections of the Muslim political establishment over the board's functioning.
The government had earlier informed the Kerala High Court that the reconstitution was necessary. It argued that several members of the previous board lacked the prescribed qualifications, and pointed to restrictions imposed by the court on the existing board taking policy decisions — restrictions that had affected its functioning.
The sudden dissolution, however, has raised questions, given that the Hamsa-led board was itself constituted only in March and had years left in its term.
The reconstitution could face further legal hurdles depending on the High Court's decision on Hamsa's petition, leaving uncertainty over the new board's future and its ability to take policy decisions on waqf administration. If the court rules in Hamsa's favour, the new board's actions could be thrown into doubt — a legal cloud that will hang over every significant decision it takes in the coming months.
Waqf boards occupy a sensitive position in India's administrative and religious landscape. Constituted under the Waqf Act, 1995, they are statutory bodies charged with the general superintendence of waqf properties — a sprawling category that includes mosques, madrasas, dargahs, graveyards, educational institutions and commercial properties endowed for religious and charitable purposes.
The boards survey, register and manage these properties, handle disputes and oversee the income they generate, making their composition a matter of intense interest for every major Muslim organisation in a state.
In Kerala, where the Muslim community forms a little over a quarter of the population, waqf politics are woven into the fabric of the state's coalition politics. The Samastha Kerala Jem-iyyathul Ulama — the body of Sunni scholars — has historically been split into factions, most prominently the E.K. and A.P. groups, and the rivalry between them has played out across educational institutions, mosque committees and now the Waqf Board.
Musthafal Faizy's inclusion is significant precisely because he was recently expelled from the Mushawara — the top consultative body — of the Samastha E.K. faction, a move that had marked him as a dissenting voice. His elevation to the Waqf Board will be watched as a test of how far the government is willing to go in giving dissenters institutional space.
The Jamaat-e-Islami dimension adds another layer. The organisation and its political arm, the Welfare Party of India, have long operated at the margins of Kerala's mainstream Muslim politics, dominated by the IUML and the Samastha factions.
Jaseem Sabah's appointment — a grassroots politician who serves on a village panchayat in Malappuram — marks the first formal entry of the Jamaat-e-Islami stream into the board that administers the community's religious endowments, a development that could embolden its claim to a larger share of institutional representation in the years ahead.
For now, the new board's immediate test will be whether it can begin functioning effectively while the previous chairman's petition is still pending.
Between the qualification dispute that triggered the rejig, the first-time inclusion of a Jamaat-e-Islami-linked member, the exclusion of the Kanthapuram faction and the deferred non-Muslim appointments, the reconstituted board begins its tenure with more political questions than answers — and every one of them likely to be tested in court.
(Reporting based on Onmanorama, Madhyamam and IANS.)