Why Desecration of National Symbols and Politicisation of Sacred Spaces Betray Both Faith and Nation
By Ibn-e-Khursheed
The marble plaque at Srinagar’s Hazratbal shrine was meant to mark a moment of civic pride. Instead, it has become the centre of a controversy that reveals how fragile public discourse has grown in Kashmir, where the sacred and the symbolic so often collide. On Friday afternoon, the plaque—bearing India’s National Emblem—was vandalised within hours of its installation. The act was swiftly condemned across official channels, yet no less swiftly co-opted into the churn of political rivalry.
That a national emblem could be defaced near one of the Valley’s holiest shrines has evoked outrage. But in equal measure, the subsequent spectacle of politicisation—where each camp casts the incident as vindication of its own rhetoric—has left the community grappling with questions larger than one plaque or one emblem. It is here that context matters: national symbols and sacred spaces are not adversaries. Across the world, they coexist, often seamlessly, in ways that uphold both reverence for faith and loyalty to the civic order.
Vandalism is not piety
The first truth is the simplest: vandalism is not an act of devotion. To deface a national emblem—an emblem legally protected and symbolically representing the sovereignty of the Republic—cannot be clothed in the garb of faith. Law is clear on this point: misuse or desecration of the emblem invites penal consequences under the State Emblem of India (Prohibition of Improper Use) Act. The very purpose of law is to ensure that such matters are settled through institutions, not mobs.
To vandalise is to bypass both law and reason, to exchange debate for destruction. It erodes not only the dignity of the national symbol but also the sanctity of the shrine in whose name the act was allegedly committed.
The global norm of harmony
The controversy in Kashmir is all the more puzzling when viewed against global practices. In Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, mosques do not recoil from national symbolism. Every Independence Day, Jakarta’s Istiqlal Mosque hosts flag-raising ceremonies within its complex, and across the archipelago mosque towers proudly fly the Merah-Putih. Far from being seen as a dilution of faith, such gestures reinforce the unity of religion and civic identity.
Malaysia too offers a telling example. Each year during its National Month, mosques participate in campaigns to raise the Jalur Gemilang, integrating religious spaces into national celebrations. The Astana Grand Mosque in Kazakhstan, a country where Islam is the majority faith, incorporates the blue-and-gold hues of the national flag into its architecture. In Saudi Arabia—the custodian of Islam’s holiest sites—the flag itself carries the Shahada, yet the Kingdom mandates its respectful display across public spaces during National Day, under strict regulation. And in the United States, churches regularly display the national flag indoors, observing etiquette laid down by the flag code.
What unites these examples is not the dilution of religion but its coexistence with civic symbolism, under the principle of order and respect. Faith is not diminished when it shares space with the nation; it is dignified when both are treated with reverence.
The ethic of civic order in Islam
The idea that respecting civic authority and its symbols is antithetical to Islam also finds little ground in the tradition itself. The Qur’an instructs believers to “obey Allah, obey the Messenger and those in authority among you” (4:59). This ethic of civic obedience has historically underpinned Muslim societies’ approach to governance and public life. Social order is a moral duty, and respect for shared symbols of statehood forms part of that duty.
Seen in this light, the vandalism at Hazratbal was not an act of religious guardianship but of disorder—a rupture of the very ethic that Islam upholds.
India’s legal and democratic path
India provides a clear framework for reconciling such debates. The use of the National Emblem is strictly regulated, and any grievance about its placement near a religious site can and should be pursued through administrative channels or judicial recourse. To treat these matters as a license for vigilante action undermines both law and democracy. Worse, it normalises the idea that political disagreements can be waged upon the body of national symbols.
The emblem at Hazratbal was not an ideological intrusion but a state marker of inauguration. Its defacement should have been met with a legal challenge, not mob intervention.
The dangers of politicisation
What has followed the vandalism, however, is no less troubling. Political actors across the spectrum have seized upon the incident to score points—some presenting it as an affront to faith, others casting it as proof of disloyalty. This rush to politicise erodes the opportunity for thoughtful discussion. It pits identity against identity, shrine against state, faith against flag—all of which is false opposition.
The sanctity of Hazratbal cannot be strengthened by desecrating a national emblem. Nor can the dignity of the emblem be safeguarded by reducing it to a political prop. What is needed instead is calm, clarity, and confidence: calm to prevent mobs from dictating outcomes, clarity to recognise that the coexistence of faith and nation is a global norm, and confidence to resist those who profit from performative outrage.
A choice for Kashmir
At its core, the Hazratbal emblem controversy forces a choice. Kashmir can either allow vandalism and politicisation to define the conversation, or it can embrace the richer tradition—found both in its faith and in global practice—of harmonising religious devotion with civic order. The former breeds distrust and division; the latter fosters dignity and discipline.
Portraying the mere presence of a national emblem near a shrine as “anti-faith” is not truth but propaganda. Across the Muslim world, shrines, mosques and churches share space with flags and emblems under rules of respect. It is time Kashmir reclaims that balance. Desecration of national symbols demeans faith as much as it wounds the nation. Politicising such acts demeans politics itself.
The plaque at Hazratbal may have been defaced, but the real task is to prevent public reason from being vandalised any further.
