United Nations, March 20 -- India has dismissed a report by the expert on minority issues as "factually incorrect" and displaying "hostility" to the country. Gaurav Kumar Thakur, a counsellor at India's UN Mission in Geneva, said India rejects the assertions of Nicolas Levrat, the special rapporteur on minority issues, about the Waqf Amendment Act 2025. His assertions are "factually incorrect and based on a poor grasp of its background and history", Thakur said on Tuesday at a session of the Human Rights Council on Tuesday in Geneva. "The tone and content of his comments reflect a clear perceived hostility towards India", Thakur added. The Council's special rapporteurs are so-called independent experts who report on issues assigned to them in their personal capacities, even though they carry the appearance of having the Council's imprimatur and don't necessarily reflect its view. "The tone and content" of comments by Levrat, a University of Geneva professor of European and International Law, "reflect a clear perceived hostility towards India", Thakur said.
Levrat asserted in a report that the Waqf Amendment Act "infringes the capacity of Muslim communities to own and operate places of worship". Thakur said the aim of the law was "progressive" to "promote transparency, gender equality and more effective work administration". He said it empowers minority Muslim sects like Bohras and Agakhanis by enshrining their "right to preserve the interests of their own community by establishing their own worship places". Levrat's "comments appear to rely on interaction with certain organisations whose only agenda is to peddle fake narratives and tarnish India's pluralistic ethos for their own political ends", Thakur alleged. In a report on his activities, Levrat said that he had consulted the Indian American Muslim Council in New York. Thakur declared, "India is firmly committed to empowering ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities and to nurturing our nation's pluralistic character". "Our democratic ethos and Constitution guarantee fundamental rights to all its citizens", he said. "The constitution grants specific protections to all types of minorities and safeguards their identities" and "all minorities, whether defined by religion or language, can establish an administrative authority to administer educational institutions of their choice and choose the medium of instruction", he added. Women's rights and ensuring the representation of all Muslim sects in the Waqf bodies that administer Muslim charitable endowments are significant elements of the act. It requires that at least two Muslim women serve on the Central Waqf Council and State Waqf Boards, and it ensures female inheritance rights. Representation from various Muslim sects on State Waqf Boards is another mandate of the amendment.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.