On September 5, a mob in Srinagar vandalised a newly installed plaque carrying the Ashoka emblem at the Hazratbal shrine during Eid-e-Milad celebrations. Slogans of “Nara-e-Takbeer, Allahu Akbar” echoed as the national emblem of India was defaced. The plaque had been inaugurated earlier in the week after government-funded renovations at the shrine, a site that holds the revered Moi-e-Muqqadas (believed to be a hair of the Prophet).
Instead of unequivocally condemning the vandalism, Kashmir’s mainstream political leaders rushed to defend the act.
Politicians Justify Vandalism
Chief Minister Omar Abdullah questioned the decision to install the emblem in the first place. “There was no need to put up a plaque,” he said, calling it a mistake by the Waqf Board.
PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti went further, terming the vandalism an “emotional” act rather than a crime. She even claimed that for Kashmiri Muslims, the emblem at the shrine was “blasphemy.” Shifting the blame entirely, she demanded action not against the vandals but against the Waqf Board chairperson, Darakhshan Andrabi of the BJP, for allegedly hurting religious sentiments.
Andrabi, however, stood firm, condemning the incident as a “terrorist attack” and demanding strict action under the Public Safety Act.
A Question of Secularism
The controversy raises a larger point. India spent crores on renovating Hazratbal. Yet, the gratitude shown was to vandalise the emblem of the state, the very symbol of sovereignty that enables such restoration projects. It is telling that when national emblems are displayed at government-funded temples, there is little protest. But here, violence was the immediate response.
This also highlights the asymmetry in reactions: if Hindus were to vandalise any religious site under the pretext of hurt sentiments, the criticism would be swift, relentless, and national in scale. Yet in Kashmir, leaders justify the mob.
As one observer put it, “Bharat is secular because Hindus are secular.” Other communities have refused to evolve, clinging to the same patterns of intolerance that once disfigured idols and sculptures of ancient temples.
Violence as First Instinct
What is most alarming is the instinctive resort to violence. If people objected to the emblem, peaceful protest was an option. But vandalism, accompanied by religious slogans, was the first thought. And rather than calling for accountability, political leaders lent legitimacy to the act.
This reveals the entrenched radicalism in Kashmir’s political discourse, where even national symbols can be defaced with impunity if cloaked in the language of faith.
Final Thoughts
The Hazratbal emblem controversy is more than a dispute over a plaque. It is a window into a mindset where national symbols are expendable, where violence is normalised, and where leaders choose appeasement over principle.
If India’s emblem can be vandalised at a state-funded shrine and defended as “blasphemy,” what message does that send about coexistence? How are Hindus, or indeed any Indians, expected to live peacefully when the first response of Peacefuls to disagreement is violence and vandalism, not dialogue?
