Explained: The furore at Kashmir’s Hazratbal shrine reflects a deeper anxiety

On Friday, worshippers at Srinagar’s Hazratbal shrine smashed a newly installed plaque. They were purportedly angry at the fact that the national emblem of India had been carved into a corner of the plaque.

The emblem is drawn from the Lion Capital of Ashoka, a 3rd century sculpture from Sarnath that features four lions and a frieze of other animals. Islam prohibits idol worship, and the presence of human or animal figures or sculptures at religious places is frowned upon.

The plaque was recently installed by the Jammu and Kashmir Waqf Board after a round of renovation work at Kashmir’s most revered shrine.

The board is headed by a senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader, Darakshan Andrabi, whose tenure has been controversial.

As videos of worshippers smashing the plaque went viral, Andrabi accused the ruling National Conference of instigating people. She sought police action against those who vandalised the plaque.

“We do not have militants coming in from across the border. They are terrorists,” Andrabi said at a press conference. “They should be booked under the Public Safety Act.”

The Srinagar police registered a first information report into the incident. Reports say that more than 50 people have been detained. But the Jammu and Kashmir police, which comes under the jurisdiction of Bharatiya-Janata Party-led Union government, has not made any official statement about the sections under which the case has been filed.

Kashmir’s traditional mainstream political parties as well as religious and social groups reacted sharply to the development. The ruling party, National Conference, and its rival Peoples Democratic Party sought action against Andrabi for “hurting sentiments of Muslims.”

“National emblems belong in offices and official functions and not in the places of worship,” Chief Minister Omar Abdullah told reporters on September 6. “If a mistake was made, it should be admitted and apologised for. There was no need to have a plaque at the shrine.”

However, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Shiv Sena in Jammu and Kashmir held protests against those who damaged the plaque.

Altaf Thakur, the BJP’s spokesman in Kashmir, said those who had issues with the emblem should have reached out to the Waqf board rather than restoring to vandalism. “This is an Osama bin Laden-style ideology of those who don’t want India’s national emblem to be installed here,” he said.

Political observers in the Valley, however, see the burst of anger in Hazratbal as an expression of growing fears in Kashmir over the state encroachment on religious freedoms.

An Eid holiday that wasn’t

An example of that anxiety was on display hours before the plaque was damaged.

On September 5, Kashmiri political leaders and religious clergy had publicly criticised the Lieutenant Governor administration for choosing not to shift the official holiday of Eid Milad-un-Nabi.

Since Islamic events are “subject to the appearance of the moon” owing to the lunar calendar, this year, the Eid Milad-un-Nabi fell on September 6. However, the government’s official holiday calendar announced at the beginning of the year had listed the holiday on September 5. While it’s customary for the governments to shift holidays as per the lunar calendar, the administration did not do so.

Chief Minister Abdullah described it as a deliberate move “designed to hurt the sentiments of the people”. Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti said this was a denial of basic freedom. Kashmir’s chief cleric Mirwaiz Umar Farooq also criticised the intransigence of the LG administration.

“The events at the dargah and the refusal by LG to change a holiday on Eid Milad cannot be seen in isolation,” said a scholar of political science in Kashmir, asking to remain anonymous. “They are part of a steady encroachment into the cultural and religious lifeworld of Kashmiri Muslims.”

The scholar added: “When a state symbol is placed on a centuries-old shrine, it is not mere symbolism but an attempt to overwrite memory – a gesture uncannily reminiscent of colonial regimes that planted their flags on sacred spaces.”

Politics and Hazratbal

Traditionally, politics has always cast a long shadow on Srinagar’s Hazratbal shrine.

The shrine, which has the distinction of hosting a relic – believed to be a strand from the beard of the Prophet Muhammad – was rebuilt by National Conference founder and Kashmir’s most popular leader Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah in the 1970s.

Abdullah had rebuilt the 17th century shrine in marble “when his popularity was at a low ebb in the 1970s, rendering it into an indestructible symbol of Kashmiri identity and sovereignty”, writes historian Chitralekha Zutshi in her biography on Sheikh Abdullah, The Caged Lion of Kashmir.

The shrine has been a theatre of many landmark moments in Kashmir’s contemporary history.

In December 1963, widespread protests broke out across Jammu and Kashmir following the reports that the relic in the shrine had been stolen. The agitation caused massive panic in New Delhi. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru assigned the task of finding the relic to the Central Bureau of Investigation. Within a week, the relic was reported to have been recovered. Until this day, mystery remains around the theft and recovery of the holy relic at Hazratbal.

“The holy relic agitation shocked Nehru and it was one of the reasons that he had to order the release of Sheikh Abdullah in April 1964,” a political science scholar in Srinagar said. Abdullah had been dismissed as the Prime Minister of Jammu and Kashmir in 1953 and jailed at the behest of New Delhi. “Nehru released Abdullah in order to allow him to find a solution to the problem of Kashmir by engaging with Pakistan.”

During the early years of militancy, the shrine also became a site of a long siege by security forces after militants hid inside the shrine in October 1993. As a result of the siege, Kashmir shut down for weeks with no prayers held in the shrine. Eventually, the militants came out of the shrine on their own a month later.

The change of guard at Waqf board

Owing to shrine’s stature, governments have been keen to claim legitimacy from the control of Hazratbal.

Since the National Conference has remained in power for the most part of its history, the shrine has been largely seen as a seat of power for Kashmir’s grand old party. Even today, it’s not unusual for National Conference leaders like Farooq Abdullah and Omar Abdullah to pray at the shrine amidst the public.

But after August 5, 2019, when Jammu and Kashmir’s special status and statehood were cancelled, the control of Waqf properties, including the Hazratbal shrine, passed into the hands of the BJP-led central government.

As a state, Jammu and Kashmir had its own law governing Waqf properties. But when it became a downsized union territory, the Jammu and Kashmir Waqf Board post-2019 was constituted under the central Waqf Act, 1995.

In March, 2022, BJP leader Darakhshan Andrabi was formally appointed as the chairperson of the Waqf board for a period of five years.

Within months, Andrabi’s decisions caused uproar.

For instance, the Jammu and Kashmir Waqf Board banned the “unethical practices” of soliciting donations “forcibly” and through “exploitative means” at the Muslim shrines in Jammu and Kashmir. The action targeted mujavirs, caretaker-priests who mostly claim to trace their lineages to various Sufi saints who brought Islam to Kashmir some eight centuries ago.

While mujavirs are not appointed by any authority, it is common for them to occupy particular spots at shrines and pray on behalf of devotees. In exchange, a mujavir usually expects a sum of money from the devotee.

The ban on donating money to them appeared to challenge the traditional hierarchy in Kashmir’s shrines.

Throughout Kashmir’s contemporary history, top leaders of political parties, including separatists, have used shrines to mobilise support for their cause. Mujavirs are crucial for mainstream political parties to reach out to Kashmiris.

It is widely believed that the BJP wanted to trim their wings and political influence.

In November 2022, Andrabi declared she would investigate “irregularities in the Waqf board” and promised to come out with reports on “corruption and mismanagement” of its properties. She also promised to present a white paper on encroachments of Waqf properties by April 2023. However, no such paper has been made public until now.

Months earlier, the Andrabi-led Waqf Board had banned the practice of Dastaar Bandi at all shrines under the control of the board.

The ceremony involved tying a turban on a prominent person, including political leaders, as a mark of respect. In Kashmir, many saw the decision as a message to the caretakers of the shrines to not give red-carpet treatment to Kashmir’s traditional political class.

In contrast, days before the national emblem incident, Andrabi was honoured with a glittering crown by the caretakers of Hazratbal shrine for her role in renovating the shrine. The act had evoked a sharp rebuke from the National Conference.

The Waqf is “not the personal estate of any individual. Yet, we now witness an unelected individual, with no mandate from the people of Jammu and Kashmir, crowning herself inside holy shrines – the very places where Dastaar Bandi, a long held religious cultural practice, was banned”, the ruling party said in a statement.