Clip of Indian Home Minister speaking about Muslim land boards falsely linked to campus equity protests
- Published on February 3, 2026 at 10:37
- 2 min read
- By Devesh MISHRA, AFP India
Protests broke out in parts of India over new equity rules for universities that were criticised for excluding certain groups from protection against discrimination, but a video of Home Minister Amit Shah saying laws passed by parliament must be accepted circulating online is old. Shah was in fact speaking about a bill overhauling Muslim land boards in India during a debate in parliament in April 2025.
"Parliament law must be accepted by everyone, said Home Minister Amit Shah about the UGC bill," reads a Hindi-language Facebook post shared on January 29, 2026.
The accompanying clip shows Shah saying in Hindi: "It's a law passed by parliament, and everyone must accept it. What does it mean that you won't accept it? How can that be? This law is from the Indian government and will apply to everyone. It must be accepted."
Authorities in India proposed changes to the University Grants Commission (UGC) rules governing caste discrimination in higher education on January 13, requiring institutions to set up "equity committees" to handle discrimination cases and promote fairness on campuses (archived link).
The new regulations focuses on protections for minority groups such as persons from certain castes or tribes, but protesters -- mainly students from unprotected groups -- argued they may be unfairly targeted and the rules did not offer equal protections to all.
India's Supreme Court on January 29 ordered a stay on the changes, calling them "too sweeping" and saying it needed to re-examine the matter (archived link).
The same video was shared with similar claims on Facebook and Instagram.
But Shah was not talking about the university equity regulations changes.
Reverse image searches on Google using keyframes from the video found it was originally shared on Amit Shah's official Instagram page on April 2, 2025, months before the UGC regulations were announced (archived link).
The Hindi-language post reads, "The law being enacted in parliament regarding Waqf is a law of the Government of India, and everyone will have to accept it".
Superimposed Hindi-language text over the video states, "Everyone will have to accept the law that Parliament is making on Waqf".
In April 2025, India's parliament passed a bill to reform hugely wealthy Muslim land-owning Waqf boards, with the Hindu nationalist government saying it will boost accountability while the opposition called it an "attack" on minorities.
A longer video of Shah talking about the Waqf bill was also shared by Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on his official Facebook page on April 3, 2025 (archived link).
As of February 3, Shah has not spoken about the protests.
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