PM says attack on CJI ‘angered every Indian’, Hindutva brigade hails attacker as a hero

by Ankita Mahalanobish

Even though Prime Minister Narendra Modi has gone on record condemning the attack on Chief Justice of India (CJI) B R Gavai, the Right-wing social media brigade, which amplifies pro-BJP propaganda round the year, has found a new hero in Rakesh Kishore, the 71-year-old advocate who hurled a shoe at Gavai in his court on October 6.

Kishore, who has now been suspended by the Bar Council of India, has given several interviews in the 72 hours or so since the incident, where he has made it clear that he does not repent his act. On Monday, while being escorted out of the court room by security personnel, he had been heard saying, “sanatan dharma ka apmaan, nahi sahega Hindustan”. (India won’t tolerate insult to Sanatan Dharma). This was also reportedly found written in a chit in his possession.

Kishore has also made it clear to the media that his attempted assault on the CJI was in response to the latter’s “Go and ask the deity” remark while dismissing a plea seeking directions to restore a damaged 7-foot idol of Hindu deity Vishnu in a temple in the Khajuraho complex on September 16. 

PM Condemns, Right Wing Celebrates

In an X-post shared around 10 hours after the incident, PM Modi condemned the act and said it had angered every Indian. The Right-wing social media influencers, the BJP’s unofficial IT cell one might call them, were certainly not among them. 

Long before the Prime Minister shared his thoughts on the attack on the CJI on X, the Hindutva brigade started celebrating the ‘bravado’ of Rakesh Kishore in upholding ‘Sanatan Dharma’. In the process, they also mounted a concerted attack on CJI Gavai. Many of the posts alluded to his caste identity, that of a Dalit.

Leading the charge for the Right wing was YouTuber Ajeet Bharti, who peddles communal propaganda and disinformation on a regular basis. 

In an X post, Bharti said this was just the beginning. “The same fate will befall such degenerate, anti-Hindu, and cowardly judges on the streets if they express their venomous desires, demeaning Hindus, beyond what is written in their orders,” he wrote in Hindi.  

The post has now been deleted. A screenshot of the same can be seen below, and an archive of the post can be found here.

Ajeet Bharti also shared a video clip from his podcast on X, which has garnered over 1.2 million viewership and 13,000 reshares. The video is filled with casteist slurs and innuendos reflecting deep prejudice and offensive stereotyping of Dalits. In the video, Bharti repeatedly mocks CJI Gavai’s Dalit identity by referring to the colour blue and undermining it, using it as a slur. He goes even further to deride Gavai’s lived experiences, ridiculing his background with references to ‘life in the slums’. In the caption, he calls the CJI a “lousy, undeserving judge”. (Archive)

In a telling display of caste prejudice, an X user named Kikki Singh shared an AI-generated video where CJI Gavai is depicted as having blue skin colour with an earthen pot slung around his shoulder. In the clip, he is being slapped in the face with a shoe. In the X bio, this user identifies herself as a ‘Sanatani Lover’.

In the caption, the user justified Rakesh Kishore’s act as a befitting answer to the Supreme Court for “toying with the sentiments of Hindus”. (Archive)

This video is a straightforward depiction of caste-based humiliation endured by Dalits in the past. The earthen pot hung around the neck refers to the practice prevalent in Pune (then Poona) among other places where the people belonging to lower castes were required to carry such a pot whenever they went for holding their spit, lest it defile the ground on which the upper-caste would tread. The blue colour, too, is infused with symbolism — representing Ambedkarite identity and Dalit resistance. For Dalits, blue represented the vastness and inclusivity of the sky, and stands as a powerful emblem of pride and resistance. 

Appearing on NDTV, Smita Prakash, the editor-in-chief of news agency ANI, called the shoe-hurling an act of ‘Vigilante justice’. The editor of propaganda outlet OpIndia, Nupur J Sharma, put out a video calling CJI B R Gavai “a man with a loose tongue”. The thumbnail of the video has CJI B R Gavai depicted in green, with the word ‘CJI’ displayed on his forehead. The letter J is replaced with a Joker emoticon.  

Several Hindutva influencers, who share pro-BJP propaganda on social media on a regular basis celebrated the attempted assault on the CJI. The user ‘The Jaipur Dialogues‘ called Rakesh Kishore a legend; ‘@JIX5A‘ said they were proud of the man who had thrown the shoe; ‘Hindutva Knight (HPhobiaWatch)’ wondered why Kishore could not have removed his shoes faster; Anubhav Gupta hailed Kishore, saying he had done what even Lawrence Bishnoi could not. X user ‘BefittingFacts‘, who identifies themselves as a journalist, claimed the arguments put forward by Kishore defending his own act reflected the voice of the common Hindus. Another X user named Parihar Himanshu Singh wrote that the incident showed “Hindus were awakening”. Journalist Rahul Shivshankar said in an X post that the attack was “a reminder that even Hindu tolerance has limits”. 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 

Attack Comes after Prolonged Hate Campaign against CJI

It is important to note that the attack on the CJI came after a prolonged hate campaign against him on social media. In a podcast hosted by Ajeet Bharti and uploaded on his YouTube channel on September 29, Kaushlesh Rai said that had he supported violence, he would have wanted “at least one Hindu lawyer (to) grab Gavaiji’s head and hit him hard against the wall, so that it breaks into two pieces”. Rai, who claims to be the founder of an organization named Hindu Cafe Foundation, further said, “What is the max punishment for spitting in Gavai’s face under the IPC? Not more than Six months? It’s nothing more than that. Hindus can’t even do this?”

The open call for violence against a person occupying a constitutional position, the celebration of the attempted assault on the CJI, and the vile casteist attacks on him on social media make PM Modi’s response — that the act was reprehensible and had angered every Indian — sound hollow and perfunctory. They also indicate the total impunity which the far-Right Hindutva brigade enjoys in the present regime, which emboldens them to target anyone they are ideologically opposed to, even if he is the Chief Justice of India.

This sense of impunity was brazenly displayed by YouTuber Ajeet Bharti when he posted a picture of himself on X a day after the shoe-hurling incident, stating, “The government is ours, and the system is ours, too”.

Bharti was questioned by Noida Police on October 8 in connection with his social media posts. He was not arrested, a police officer later clarified.

Donate to Alt News!
Independent journalism that speaks truth to power and is free of corporate and political control is possible only when people start contributing towards the same. Please consider donating towards this endeavour to fight fake news and misinformation.

Donate Now