THE ASIAN INDEPENDENT UK
Bal Ram Sampla
Geopolitics
On October 6, 2025, a lawyer threw a shoe at Chief Justice of India BR Gavai in the Supreme Court. The attacker shouted about protecting “Sanatan” and claimed the Chief Justice had insulted Hindu religion. But look closer at this incident, and a darker truth emerges: this was not just an attack on the judiciary. It was caste prejudice wearing the mask of religious devotion.
Justice Gavai is India’s first Buddhist Chief Justice and only the second Dalit to hold this position. When a 71-year-old lawyer cannot accept a judicial decision from a Dalit Chief Justice and resorts to physical assault, we must ask uncomfortable questions about what really motivated this violence.
The pattern is revealing. Justice Gavai made remarks in a case about temple worship that some found objectionable. But thousands of judicial observations are made every year. How many result in shoe-throwing? The attacker’s rage was not simply about a legal comment – it was about who had the audacity to make that comment. A Buddhist. Someone who had risen to the highest judicial office despite belonging to a community that caste hierarchy says should remain subordinate.
This is how caste prejudice works in modern India. It does not always announce itself openly. It hides behind other justifications – religious sentiment, cultural protection, traditional values. But the underlying message is clear: certain people should know their place. A Dalit in the Chief Justice’s chair becomes intolerable not because of what he rules, but because of who he is.
The violence of caste is not always physical, but when it becomes physical, it targets those who dare to claim equal dignity. Every Dalit student who excels academically, every Dalit leader who speaks with authority, every Dalit judge who interprets the Constitution – they all threaten a worldview that cannot tolerate equality. The shoe thrown at Justice Gavai was thrown at the very idea that a Dalit deserves to sit in judgment.
What makes this incident particularly disturbing is the perpetrator’s background. A lawyer – someone trained in constitutional values, someone who should understand that our Constitution explicitly forbids caste discrimination. Yet decades of legal education could not overcome the deep-seated prejudice that a Dalit Chief Justice making decisions about Hindu religious matters was somehow an insult that justified assault.
India has made legal progress on caste. We have reservations, protections, and anti-discrimination laws. But laws ‘cannot erase mindsets formed over millennia’. The attack on Justice Gavai shows that for some, no amount of achievement, no constitutional office, no judicial authority can erase the stain they believe caste identity carries.
The Supreme Court is meant to be India’s temple of justice, where the Constitution reigns supreme and all citizens stand equal. When caste prejudice enters that sacred space, when it physically attacks the Chief Justice himself, it reveals how far we still have to go. The violence was brief – security intervened quickly. But the prejudice it exposed runs deep.
Justice Gavai, to his credit, maintained his composure and dignity. He continued with the day’s proceedings. But he should never have had to face such an attack in the first place. And we should not fool ourselves about what motivated it. This was caste prejudice, pure and simple – the rage of someone who could not accept that a Dalit now sits where only certain castes once sat.
Until we name caste prejudice clearly when we see it, until we stop accepting religious or cultural justifications for what is fundamentally bigotry, incidents like this will continue. The shoe thrown at Justice Gavai was not thrown at a judge. It was thrown at equality itself.
References
1.https://www.prokerala.com/news/articles/a1682841.html
2.https://www.ummid.com/news/2025/october/06-10-2025/shoe-attack-on-cji-gavai-what-we-know-so-far.html
3.https://thenewsmill.com/2025/10/outrage-across-political-parties-over-attack-on-cji-gavai-leaders-condemn-assault-on-judiciary/
4.https://m.thewire.in/article/caste/shoe-throwing-cji-br-gavai-sanatan-dharma-indias-deepest-faultline
5.https://www.rozanaspokesman.com/news/nation/061025/cji-br-gavai-belongs-to-dalit-stark-reminder-of-persistence-of-cast.html
