Kerala: 'Now they ask whose land you are on'

The court verdict was meant to settle a long-simmering dispute. Instead, it seems to have reopened old wounds. At stake is a 365-acre coastal tract in Munambam near Kochi in Kerala’s Ernakulum district, and the disputants are the Latin Catholic fisherfolk who live here and the Kerala Waqf Board.

“This is our home,” says Mary Joseph, a fisherwoman from Munambam, balancing a basket of sardines on her hip. “We built our houses, we pay taxes, we raised our children here. Then one day they said it is waqf land. What did we do to deserve this?” Her question, simple yet searing, goes to the heart of a conflict that has turned this quiet fishing village into a cauldron of legal uncertainty and communal tension.

On 10 October, a division bench of the Kerala High Court declared that the disputed land in Munambam was not waqf property as claimed by the Kerala Waqf Board, that the 1950 endowment deed for the disputed land was a gift to the Farook College management, not a valid waqf under the Waqf Acts of 1954, 1984 or 1995.

The sharply worded verdict panned the Waqf Board’s 2019 decision to unilaterally designate this land as waqf property, calling it a “land-grabbing tactic”. If this kind of arbitrariness is tolerated, “even the High Court or the state legislature can be declared waqf property,” the court said.

Yet the same ruling stopped short of striking down the waqf registration, saying that only the Waqf Tribunal had the jurisdiction to do so. The fisher community is relieved that the court ruling has, in effect, validated their claim on the land, but this is relief without resolution. Also, given Kerala’s political landscape, chances are the communal undertone of this dispute will be exploited to telling effect in days to come.

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In reaffirming the authority of the Waqf Tribunal, even while castigating the Waqf Board for “misuse of statutory authority”, the high court judgement has created fresh complications. Its 10 October ruling came just a day after the Waqf Tribunal had reserved orders on petitions from Munambam residents, seeking its pardon for delay in challenging the waqf registration. Now, both institutions are handling overlapping issues, leaving residents and officials trapped in a procedural labyrinth.

“This is a strange situation,” says John Vipin, a senior lawyer familiar with the case. “The high court has declared the Waqf Board’s action illegal but has not undone it. The tribunal will have to proceed, but it cannot ignore the high court’s strong language. The whole system is caught in a loop.”

The Waqf Board, mandated to protect properties endowed for religious or charitable use, finds itself under unprecedented scrutiny. Chairperson M.K. Sakkeer, a nominee of Kerala’s ruling LDF (Left Democratic Front), described the high court verdict as “deeply injurious to the credibility of the institution”, adding that it would approach the Supreme Court for an order to expunge the “unwarranted and prejudicial remarks”.

A village in limbo

In the lanes adjoining Munambam church, the anxiety is palpable. Small, concrete houses stand close to one another, their walls plastered with old election posters and tax receipts. Every family here has a story about land, loss and disbelief.

“We thought it was a clerical mistake,” recalls Antony Fernandez, a retired fisherman and convener of the Munambam Action Council, which represents local residents. “Then the village office showed us papers saying our plots had been registered as waqf. We couldn’t believe it.”

The 2019 notification by the Waqf Board changed the lives of hundreds of families. Acting on what it called ‘archival evidence’ of an old Muslim endowment, the Board unilaterally declared the land as waqf property. Overnight, the villagers’ pattayams and tax receipts became disputed documents.

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“These are people who have lived here for generations,” says P. Augustine, a local parish priest. Suddenly, they were told their land was dedicated to a religious trust they had never heard of.”

The Latin Church soon stepped in, framing the issue as one of natural justice rather than a religious conflict. Church groups, along with the Kerala Latin Catholic Association, organised protests and petitioned the government to restore the villagers’ rights.

The Kerala Waqf Board maintains that it acted within its legal authority. Officials argue that thousands of acres of waqf land across Kerala have been illegally alienated or encroached upon over decades. The Munambam case, they insist, is part of a larger effort to identify and reclaim such properties.

To understand the Munambam dispute, one must revisit the complex history of land tenure along Kerala’s coast. The area around Munambam was once under the Cheranalloor devaswom, later managed through local intermediaries during the colonial period. In the 19th century, when the British formalised land records, Latin Catholic fisher families who had settled here were given occupancy rights over coastal tracts.

After Independence, these holdings were regularised through pattayams and revenue documents. For decades, no one questioned their ownership. The Waqf Board’s 2019 claim relied on the discovery of old deeds and survey overlaps suggesting that part of the land once belonged to a Muslim charitable endowment.

Residents reject this interpretation. They point out that no mosque or waqf institution ever functioned on the land, and that all known religious and social activities in the area have been centred around the Latin Church.

The dispute snowballed into legal warfare. The state government, responding to public pressure, appointed a commission led by retired high court judge C.N. Ramachandran Nair to study the issue. When a single judge quashed the commission, the government appealed, leading to the constitution of a division bench that gave the present verdict.

Even as the case hangs uncertainly between the high court and the tribunal, the BJP has seen an opportunity. The party, long marginal in Kerala, has thrown its weight behind the high court verdict, posing incongruously as the defender of Christian property rights, and portraying the Waqf Board’s notification as a ‘Muslim land grab’. Political commentators, though, see the gambit for what it is — the BJP wants to sow division and discomfit adversaries.

The Left government finds itself in a tricky situation, loath to risk the support of Muslims and equally the backing of the Church, which is influential among coastal voters. Chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan has called a meeting to review the findings of the Ramachandran Nair Commission before deciding on the government’s next steps. Insiders say the Left will not take a definitive stand till after the local body elections.

The Congress, historically the bridge between Kerala’s Muslim and Catholic minorities, is also paralysed. Its ally IUML (Indian Union Muslim League) has close links with the Waqf Board, while church leaders are demanding that the party defend Munambam’s residents. The middle ground satisfies no one.

Far from the intrigue of courtrooms and manoeuvres of politicians, the social fabric of Munambam is fraying. The village has long been an example of coexistence, where churches and mosques can be seen in the same frame and fishers of different faiths work side by side. That easy familiarity has given way to whispers and mistrust.

“People talk differently now,” says Abdul Rahman, a fish trader. “Earlier we argued over the price of fish. Now they ask whose land you are on.”