Hijab Beyond a Cultural Symbol: Faith, Freedom and Institutional Silence

– Mohammad Kafeel Qasmi

Public debates around the hijab in India often begin with a misleading assumption, that it is primarily a cultural or social marker, open to reinterpretation, regulation, or casual interference. This framing is not merely inadequate; it deliberately narrows a far more serious question. At stake is not fashion, tradition, or cultural preference, but religious freedom, personal dignity, and the constitutional limits of state power. When the hijab is reduced to a lifestyle choice or a regional custom, the constitutional implications of its violation are conveniently obscured.

To understand why the hijab cannot be reduced to a cultural symbol, one must begin with its religious grounding. Islamic sources are unambiguous on the nature of the hijab. The Qur’an instructs:

This command situates the hijab within an ethical and religious framework rather than a cultural one. Its immediate and conscious adoption by the early Muslim community is recorded in the Prophetic tradition. As Hazrat Aisha رضی الله عنا narrated:

The historical Islamic record is unambiguous: hijab emerged as a conscious act of faith and obedience, not as a social habit that evolved over time.

This distinction matters deeply in a constitutional democracy. A religious practice grounded in conscience and belief cannot be treated as a negotiable cultural accessory. When it is trivialised, the erosion does not remain confined to theology; it spills directly into constitutional space.

The recent controversy involving Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar illustrates this danger. During an official appointment ceremony, a Muslim woman doctor, Dr Nusrat Parveen, was seen in a viral video having her veil touched by the chief minister. The act was quickly defended by some as inadvertent or well-intentioned. Yet intent, in such cases, is beside the point. When a person occupying the highest constitutional office in a state intrudes, even symbolically, into a citizen’s religious and personal space, the act assumes institutional meaning. The Chief Minister’s subsequent conduct only deepened this concern. When a woman journalist later asked Nitish Kumar whether an apology was warranted, he chose not to respond and walked away in silence. In public life, silence is not neutral; it signals indifference. For a constitutional functionary, such avoidance conveys not regret, but a troubling absence of accountability.

Power alters context. In a democracy, constitutional authority demands restraint precisely because of the imbalance it creates. What might be dismissed as casual behaviour between equals becomes coercive when it flows from the state toward the citizen. The intrusion into a woman’s religious boundary during a state function cannot be separated from questions of dignity, consent, and constitutional propriety.

India’s Constitution is clear on these principles. Article 25 guarantees freedom of conscience and the right to freely profess and practise religion. Article 21 protects personal liberty, privacy, and dignity. Together, they form a protective barrier around the individual, particularly in interactions with state power. When that barrier is breached, even symbolically, the violation is not merely personal; it is constitutional.

What followed the incident made matters worse. Rather than a moment of collective reflection, it triggered a familiar pattern of political commentary that exposed the deeper problem. Uttar Pradesh minister Sanjay Nishad made remarks that trivialised women’s dignity, reducing a serious question of autonomy to the level of crude humour. Though he later withdrew his words after public backlash, the episode revealed how casually such language now enters political discourse.

The controversy did not end there. Union minister Giriraj Singh’s irresponsible comment added to the atmosphere of insinuation, while BJP MLA C.P. Singh went a step further by attempting to associate Dr Nusrat Parveen with a terror incident in Delhi. This escalation was telling. A professional Muslim woman, present at her appointment ceremony, was suddenly pulled into the orbit of national security suspicion, not because of evidence, but because of identity.

These incidents cannot be viewed in isolation. Together, they reveal a recurring political reflex: Muslim women are repeatedly scrutinised, their attire questioned, their loyalty doubted, and their presence framed as problematic. Sometimes the trigger is hijab, sometimes patriotism, sometimes the spectre of terrorism. The underlying message, however, remains constant, that Muslim identity must perpetually justify itself.

Equally troubling is what did not happen. Institutions meant to safeguard constitutional values remained largely silent. Civil society, which often claims the mantle of defending rights and freedoms, failed to offer a sustained and unified response. The National Commission for Minorities, entrusted with protecting religious freedom and cultural rights under Articles 25 and 29, showed little urgency. Women’s commissions, whose very mandate revolves around bodily autonomy, consent, and dignity, remained conspicuously restrained.

Institutional silence is not neutral. In moments like these, silence functions as permission. It signals to those in power that boundaries can be tested without consequence, that constitutional norms can be bent without accountability. Over time, such silences accumulate, steadily hollowing out the guarantees that citizens are promised.

Democracy is sustained not merely by constitutional text, but by what political theorists describe as civic morality, a shared ethical commitment to restrain power and protect the vulnerable. When violations of dignity are normalised for certain communities, discrimination ceases to shock. It becomes routine. That is how constitutional erosion begins: not through dramatic suspension of rights, but through repeated, unchallenged intrusions that gradually redefine what is acceptable.

The hijab, in this context, becomes more than a piece of cloth. It becomes a test case for how seriously the republic takes its own commitments. If a religious symbol so clearly protected by conscience and law can be touched, mocked, politicised, or weaponised without consequence, then the promise of equality before law begins to ring hollow.

This is not merely a Muslim issue. Today it is the hijab; tomorrow it may be another religious symbol, another form of personal expression, another minority practice deemed inconvenient. Constitutional rights do not erode selectively for long. Once the principle of restraint is weakened, it affects all citizens.

The experience of Dr Nusrat Parveen is therefore emblematic. A woman selected to serve society through her profession found herself exposed, scrutinised, and politically instrumentalised at the very moment of her professional recognition. That inversion, where dignity gives way to suspicion, should trouble anyone who values constitutional democracy.

The danger does not announce itself loudly. It builds up slowly over time, so that the Constitution’s promises look fine on paper but lose their real meaning in practice. This is the risk we face now, and it is one the country cannot afford to ignore.

The issue before us is not whether one agrees with the hijab as a religious practice. In a constitutional democracy, personal agreement is irrelevant. What matters is whether the state, its representatives, and its institutions respect the boundaries laid down by law, dignity, and conscience.

This moment demands more than clarifications or symbolic apologies. It calls for accountability, institutional courage, and a reaffirmation of constitutional restraint. To treat the hijab merely as a cultural symbol is to misunderstand both religion and the Constitution. To remain silent in the face of its violation is to allow that misunderstanding to harden into precedent.

The republic’s strength lies not in uniformity, but in its capacity to protect difference without suspicion and faith without fear. That principle, once diluted, is difficult to restore. And that is why this moment matters not just for one woman, one community, or one controversy, but for the constitutional future we claim to uphold.

[The writer is an Islamic Scholar, Writer and Academic Strategist based in Paintepur, UP]