Dr. Rakesh Kishore feels that the courts in India mistake Hindu tolerance for timidity and trample on the community’s rights selectively. – Rahul Shivshankar
A lawyer attempted to hurl his shoe at Chief Justice of India B.R. Gavai. The elderly lawyer was thwarted mid-act. The act was unprecedented, a shocking recourse to violence that has no place in a democracy. The CJI has decided not to take action, even though the lawyer remains unapologetic.
The lawyer, who goes by the name of Dr. Rakesh Kishore, says he was triggered by the CJI’s oral observations during a hearing a few weeks ago. The CJI chided a petitioner, asking him to “go and ask the deity itself to do something,” adding, “You say you are a staunch devotee of Lord Vishnu.” The CJI was clearly upset that the petitioner had the temerity to approach the top court, hoping that it would intervene and order the Archaeological Survey of India to restore a mutilated statue of Lord Vishnu. The petitioner had claimed that his religious rights were violated, as he was forced to pray to the defaced statue placed in a temple that was part of the Khajuraho cluster in Madhya Pradesh. Historical records show that the statue bore the brunt of Islamist anti-Hindu iconoclasm during Mughal invasions.
Dr. Kishore says he was one among many observers who felt the CJI had crossed the line, not least because the reason cited by him was deficient in judicial reasoning. In fact, it is plain to see that the ground for dismissing the petitioner’s prayer is founded in prejudice and not in law. Many hurt Hindus asked, if the Supreme Court is urging petitioners to appeal straight to a God for justice, why does anyone need the courts?
It was a valid critique, but one that worked up one lawyer to such a degree that he decided to take matters into his own hands. Understandably, the act has been condemned, with Prime Minister Modi himself calling it “reprehensible”. Unfortunately, opposition parties and a section of so-called rights activists have politicised the shoe-throwing incident. They have said that Dr. Kishore is a “Sanghi terrorist” with a “Brahminical” mindset who was trying to show the “Dalit” CJI his place.
The attempt to yoke the Hindu faith to a random act is mischievous. The authors of this sleight of hand are the first to claim that “terror” has no religion. For this lot, slain Hizbul commander Burhan Wani was the “son of a school principal and a social media icon”. Lashkar-e-Taiba operative Ishrat Jahan was “a 19-year-old college student”. And another Hizbul insurgent, Riyaz Naikoo, was a “maths teacher turned militant after persecution”.
Dr. Kishore himself has said that his actions were not borne out of disregard for the CJI’s caste. Neither, he claims, is he given to violence. Dr. Kishore has pointed out that he is an educated MSc and a gold medallist, a lawyer who merely feels that the courts in India mistake Hindu tolerance for timidity and trample on the community’s rights selectively.
While not justifying Dr. Kishore’s decision, as violence cannot and must not be a substitute for reasoned dissent, his act does raise uncomfortable questions about how, even while the Constitution promotes secular equality, the state in India has tested Hindu restraint.
The courts are particularly guilty. For instance, the five-judge bench that decided the Ram Janmabhoomi title suit wove into the Ayodhya judgement a needless reference to what they believed was the sanctity of the Places of Worship Act, 1991, when they were not even called upon to decide on the law’s legality. Readers may recall that the law, brought in by a Congress government, among other things, shockingly denies non-Muslims the ability to exercise their constitutional right to legal redress. There are many other selective interventions, like exclusively codifying Hindu religious practices and customs or facilitating the exclusive state capture of Hindu places of worship.
It is striking that the Hindu community in India has shown remarkable patience in the face of these slights from the Indian state. The shoe-throwing incident may be the first indication that prolonged patience is being severely tested. The question then is whether the state will continue to rely on Hindu patience or begin to see that even tolerance, when tested too long, can fray. – News18, 7 October 2025
› Rahul Shivshankar is Consulting Editor at Network18.
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