Thiruvananthapuram: BJP state president Rajeev Chandrasekhar claimed on Sunday that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has resolved the long-pending issues faced by 610 families in Munambam, where residents had been struggling for the past six years to protect their properties from claims by the Waqf Board.
Speaking at a party meeting held in connection with the BJP’s 45th foundation day celebrations here, Chandrasekhar alleged that no political leader or party in Kerala had made any sincere effort to address the plight of the residents of Munambam, a coastal village in the Ernakulam district.
“For six years, these families have been fighting to safeguard their land and homes, but no one stepped in to help,” he said.
“The entire nation is being taken over by them (Waqf). They will make it a Pakistan. We have to protect our rights,” said Antony.
Last Wednesday, during the Waqf Amendment Bill discussion, Home Minister Amit Shah brought up the Kerala protests and the Christian bodies backing them.
“The Catholic Bishops’ Council of Kerala, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India, the Catholic Congress Kerala, the All-India Catholic Clergy Council, and the United Council of Kerala Churches — all of them have come out in support of this bill,” he said. “They have clearly said that the 2013 law was unjust. So it’s not just us saying this — even they have called it unjust.”
Well after midnight, when Parliament passed the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, cries of “Jai Modi” and “Jai Amit Shah” broke out in Munambam. The residents seemed to have found a new political haven.
In Kerala, the protesting Munambam villagers found no support from the ruling CPI(M) or the opposition Congress. It was a complex issue that involved upsetting a hallowed Muslim institution. But the BJP instantly grabbed it and made it their own. The residents are now on a collision path with their own state government. Their support for the Centre’s Waqf Amendment Act runs counter to the Kerala Assembly’s resolution in October last year opposing the new law. The protest has become a new symbol of the state’s changing political landscape.
The wall outside the church is now decorated with flags of the BJP and the Christian Association & Alliance For Social Action (CASA), a pro-BJP organisation. A poster hangs outside the protest tent with a picture of BJP MP and union minister Suresh Gopi. It says, “Thank you, sir.”
The seeds of the controversy were reportedly sown in 1902 when the Travancore royal family leased 404 acres of land in Munambam to Abdul Sathar Moosa Sait, a spice trader from Mattancherry. This land then went into the hands of his son-in-law, Siddique Sait, who in 1950 decided to gift it to Kozhikode’s Farook College—an institution set up to promote education among Muslims. The transfer was formalised through a Waqf donation.
About two decades later, the college started selling the land to local fisher families. That arrangement stayed uncontested for decades—until the Waqf Board re-entered the picture. In 2019, it declared the sale null and void.
Waqf properties are donations meant to be used for the Muslim public good.
Now, residents who bought land from Farook College are hoping to challenge the Board’s claim using the newly inserted Section 2A of the amended Act, which protects statutorily regulated trusts such as Farook College from Waqf orders.
In the 2020 local body polls, the ward where the protest is unfolding— Munambam Kadappuram in Pallippuram Panchayat— had no BJP candidate competing, according to residents.
Vypin Assembly constituency, which includes Munambam, has elected only CPI(M) candidates since 2011. In the 2021 election, CPI(M)’s KN Unnikrishnan won with 41.24 percent of the vote. The BJP’s K.A. Shaiju came fourth with 10.37 percent behind the Congress (37.49 percent) and the Twenty20 party (12.79 percent). At the national level, Congress has held the Ernakulam Lok Sabha seat since 2009. In 2024, party candidate Hibi Eden won it with 52.97 percent votes, while the BJP’s KS Radhakrishnan finished third with 15.87 percent, behind the LDF’s 25.47 percent.
Cut to 2025, and 50 of the villagers joined the BJP hours after Parliament cleared the Waqf Bill in the early hours of April 4.
“We have asked the party for a membership campaign here, as many more are interested in joining the party. We are planning to field one BJP candidate for the local body polls,” said Siji Jinson, a resident of Munambam. Her property isn’t part of the 404-acre dispute, but she has been at the forefront of the protest since it began.
Jinson said the BJP was the only political party that extended full support to the residents, while the state’s two major fronts—the CPI(M)-led LDF and Congress-led UDF—chose to be silent spectators.
“Days before we launched the protest, we had warned the LDF and UDF that there will be a major political shift in the state if they ignore our demand. Now it has happened,” she said.
Munambam is now preparing to host Union minister and BJP leader Kiren Rijiju, who’ll be visiting the protest site on 15 April. The grand event is expected to be attended by 5,000 people, including residents and BJP supporters. The Ernakulam BJP leadership confirmed to ThePrint that around 15 residents will also be meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi at his official residence next week to thank him for solving their problem.
“We never went there for political gains. We just wanted to help them when the state’s major parties didn’t do it,” said advocate KA Shaiju, BJP Ernakulam district president. He added that the party had assured protestors the Bill would be passed.
“We have removed the law that was prohibiting them from accessing their rights. Now it’s the revenue department that should help them,” Shaiju said.
The CPI(M) and Congress, however, are crying foul. Both parties say the BJP is using the issue for political gain and stoking communal tensions with its “land jihad” claims. They also note that the amendment has no retrospective effect.
“Munambam issue is genuine but complex at the same time. The state is responsible for protecting the rights of the residents there. That is why we have formed a commission to study the matter,” said Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Wednesday. He pointed out that the BJP has yet to clarify how the amendment will help the residents of Munambam.
CPI(M) Vypin MLA KL Unnikrishnan did not respond to multiple requests via call and text for comment.
Ernakulam Congress general secretary MJ Tommy, who lives near Munambam, said the government’s laxity regarding the issue allowed the BJP to capitalise on it.
“This is not a political issue. The people there migrated decades ago. All parties, including Muslim organisations, support their demand. But the CPM didn’t take it seriously. So the BJP utilised the emotion of the residents,” he said.
Long before protest tents and BJP flags appeared, Munambam was already a contested land.
At the northern end of Vypin island, 37 kilometres from Kochi, the coastal village is tucked between the Arabian Sea and the Periyar river. It’s a sleepy and scenic corner of Kerala, with a smattering of cafés and tourist homes catering to beach-goers headed to nearby Cherai.
The 404.76 acres of disputed land lie in Wards 1 and 23 of the Pallippuram Panchayat. Of the 610 affected families, 400 are Christian, the rest Hindu. None are Muslim.
Trouble began soon after trader Siddique Sait donated the land to Farook College as a waqf in 1950—under registration number 2115/1950, according to the deed accessed by ThePrint through the Waqf Board.
By the late 1950s, local fishers and the college were at odds. The villagers accused the college of trying to infringe on their fishing rights; the college, in turn, filed complaints that residents were destroying bund construction materials and stealing coconuts from the property. The dispute landed in Paravoor court. In 1961, Lissie Antony, then only 12 years old, was one of several residents jailed for destroying the bund construction.
“We kids would jump on the bunds and ruin it when they tried to build it. We didn’t even let their boats enter the shore at times,” she recalled.
In 1971, the Paravoor court ruled that the land did belong to Farook College under a Waqf deed. However, it also ordered the college to sell the property to long-term tenants to settle the dispute. By the 1990s, the land was legally bought by the tenants and subsequent deeds were registered, residents said. The Waqf Board confirmed that these transactions took place.
For years, the matter appeared settled. Then, in 2019, the Board declared the land waqf once again and directed the revenue department to stop accepting land tax. Amid a legal dispute between the state and the Board, tax collection was formally suspended in 2022. Many residents say they were caught off guard.
“I was told that there was a notice from the Waqf Board,” said Pradeep Gopalan, a resident, adding that he had not been served any notice in this regard before.
Since then, residents say they’ve not been able to do any transactions on their land and exercise their revenue rights.
“We can’t take any loans for our children’s education or marriage. It’s as bad as being evicted,” Gopalan said.
The Waqf Board argues that its actions were necessitated after Sait’s children filed a complaint with it in 2008, claiming the land was no longer “fulfilling its purpose” as a charitable property.
“We formed an enquiry commission, which found out that the deed was Waqf and can’t be sold. So, the sale by Farook College stands void,” said an official with the legal team at the Waqf Board.
According to the official, the Waqf Board first sent notices to 12 resort owners on the disputed land, asking them to prove ownership. When no one responded with documentation, the Board froze the entire parcel. No eviction notices were issued—something both the Board and residents agree on.
“We are willing to give the rightful owners their properties. But the residents are not even willing to cooperate for a survey,” the Waqf official said.
To resolve the standoff, the state government proposed a land swap—transfer the disputed land to the residents, and compensate the Board with land elsewhere. However, the suggestion was not accepted by the protestors.
“If we agree to this solution, this means that we agree that it’s Waqf property. We can’t do that,” said Jinson.
After the failure to arrive at a solution, the state government announced the formation of a judicial commission on 22 November 2024 to study and resolve the issue.
Finally, on 8 April, the new law came into effect. Introduced in the Lok Sabha on 8 August 2024, the Waqf Amendment Act, 2025, aims to overhaul the “efficiency, governance, and transparency” of waqf boards. Among other things, it eliminates waqf by user—where properties could be deemed as waqf based solely on prolonged use for religious purposes—and gives district collectors the authority to survey such properties. It also mandates that at least two non-Muslim members sit on every state and central waqf council.
The protest at Munambam’s Velankanni Matha Church had entered its 178th day when Parliament passed the Waqf Amendment Bill. But the agitators are not packing up just yet.
They say they wont stop until their revenue rights are restored and they have faith the BJP will make it happen.
“When we launched the protest in October, not even the media paid attention to us. But Suresh Gopi came here within 30 days and promised us he would resolve the issue. We got public attention after that,” said Siji Jinson.
She added that the residents had made multiple requests to the ruling LDF and the Congress before the BJP came into the picture.
“Both of them advised us not to protest. But at the same time, there was no solution,” she said.
But the BJP was involved in the protest well before Gopi arrived and upped the ante.
Protesters told ThePrint that the BJP’s Minority Morcha had been in touch with them since August 2024, the same month the Waqf Amendment Bill was introduced in Parliament. Father Antony Xavier— the vicar of Velankanni Matha church and patron of the Land Protection Council— also corroborated that local BJP leaders had been regularly visiting both the residents and the church before the protest formally launched in October.
On 27 September, the protestors, backed by the Kerala Latin Catholic Association, gathered at Vanchi Square in Kochi. Ernakulam MP Hibi Eden also attended and expressed solidarity, but warned the residents not to fall for forces trying to take advantage of the issue. But to them, it seemed like merely a call to inaction. They told Congress and CPI(M) that if nothing changed in six months, they would align with the BJP.
“They (BJP) said that the issue will be resolved once the amendment is done. Till then, we thought, this was just our issue. Now we know all India is affected by this law,” Jinson said.
The residents’ ‘education’ about waqf began some months ago. Jinson claimed that priest Joshy Mayyattil was approached by the pro-BJP Christian outfit CASA to teach the residents about the Waqf Act and its implications. He also started a WhatsApp group called Waqf Munambam, which has since grown into four groups with more than 4,000 members, all Malayalees from across the globe. The feed is mostly video explainers and forwards on topics ranging from justifying the Waqf amendment to warnings about Indian secularism being threatened by Islamic forces.
On the ground, the protest site saw a stream of BJP leaders after Gopi, including Shobha Karandlaje and Tejasvi Surya. Support has also come from the SNDP, the organisation representing the Ezhava community. Its political wing, BDJS, is a BJP ally. On 17 November, SNDP held a human chain stretching from Cherai beach to the church, ending with a speech by BDJS leader Thushar Vellappally.
“Both of them advised us not to protest. But at the same time, there was no solution,” she said.
But the BJP was involved in the protest well before Gopi arrived and upped the ante.
Protesters told ThePrint that the BJP’s Minority Morcha had been in touch with them since August 2024, the same month the Waqf Amendment Bill was introduced in Parliament. Father Antony Xavier— the vicar of Velankanni Matha church and patron of the Land Protection Council— also corroborated that local BJP leaders had been regularly visiting both the residents and the church before the protest formally launched in October.
“Both of them advised us not to protest. But at the same time, there was no solution,” she said.
But the BJP was involved in the protest well before Gopi arrived and upped the ante.
Protesters told ThePrint that the BJP’s Minority Morcha had been in touch with them since August 2024, the same month the Waqf Amendment Bill was introduced in Parliament. Father Antony Xavier— the vicar of Velankanni Matha church and patron of the Land Protection Council— also corroborated that local BJP leaders had been regularly visiting both the residents and the church before the protest was formally launched in October.
“Unlike other states, the BJP has a different face in Kerala. It promotes the Christian faces to leadership. They can’t survive in the state with just Hindutva,” said Father Antony.
For the BJP, Christian support is crucial. With the party struggling to penetrate the state’s electoral landscape, the minority vote has become a long-term target. The party has been wooing the community for some years now, including by appointing Christian functionaries. Christians and Muslims make up 18.38 and 26.56 per cent of the state’s population respectively, while Hindus account for 54.73 percent.
On 4 April, as Parliament debated the Bill, protesters gathered at the church to watch the proceedings. When the amendment passed, the site erupted in praise of Modi, Shah, and Gopi. That same day, the BJP’s newly appointed state president Rajeev Chandrasekhar visited the church and participated in the celebration.
But expectations of the BJP are still running high.
“We wanted the Bill to be amended in a retrospective manner, which didn’t happen,” said Father Antony. He added that residents plan to raise the matter directly with Union minister Kiren Rijiju during his upcoming visit.
“The BJP’s legal cell is also working to figure out the next step,” he said, adding that the party has promised to solve the issue.
Among residents, there’s a growing sense of being part of something bigger that is only getting started. Their slogan—‘If Munambam fails, nation fails’—lingers in the church premises.
“We talk about secularism in India, but the Waqf law just supports one religion,” Jinson said. “It should be repealed to have secularism in India.
