When a lawyer stood up in the Supreme Court of India on 6 October 2025 and hurled a shoe at Chief Justice B.R. Gavai, the act was shocking not because of its physical danger but because of its symbolism. It happened in Court No. 1 — the nerve centre of constitutional authority — in full public gaze.
Sanatan Dharma, Defiance and a Shifting Street Mood
The attacker shouted slogans about Sanatan Dharma and anger over the CJI’s remarks in a religious dispute. In today’s India, saffron/orange has become an omnipresent political and cultural signifier. What was once a colour of asceticism and sacrifice now also carries a muscular majoritarian tone. When that colour appears in a Supreme Court courtroom — not as a robe but as a banner of protest — it sends a deliberate message: sentiment can challenge law; identity can outweigh institution.
India’s democracy has long absorbed religious assertion and political protest, but the willingness to carry that assertion inside the temple of law is new and unsettling. It risks normalising the idea that the Constitution is not above the passions of the street — that it can be mocked, bullied, or literally targeted when it offends the majority’s feeling. The Bar Council’s suspension of the lawyer and the wide political condemnation were correct and necessary responses; but the very act reflects a bolder confidence among hardline groups that no space is out of reach.
A Brief but Crucial Caste Shadow
Though the attacker’s own slogans were religious, the target’s identity cannot be invisible. Chief Justice B.R. Gavai is a Dalit, only the second ever to hold India’s highest judicial office. In a society with centuries of hierarchical conditioning, disrespect toward a Dalit authority figure too easily slips into accepted behaviour for some. The quickness to dramatise defiance, the casual physical gesture — even if not openly caste-coded — touches a deep historical nerve: that power held by someone from a historically oppressed group is still seen as less sacrosanct.
Dalit representation in higher judiciary is a concern, and society has to accept them in these roles naturally. ————-Justice K.G. Balakrishnan(The Hindu, Interview: May 10, 2009)
That is not proof of caste motive; it is a social echo. The outrage must not ignore it, but neither should it reduce the whole event to caste alone. The primary visible force here was religious assertion pushing back at constitutional restraint.
Contempt of Court: The Legal Guardrail
India’s judiciary is armed with the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, which defines contempt as any act that scandalises or tends to lower the authority of the court, prejudices or interferes with judicial proceedings, or obstructs the administration of justice. Contempt can be civil (willful disobedience of court orders) or criminal (acts or words that attack the dignity of the court).
Throwing a shoe inside a courtroom is a textbook example of criminal contempt — it’s a physical attempt to intimidate or insult the institution. Ordinarily, such conduct could invite immediate arrest, show-cause notice, and sentencing up to six months’ imprisonment or fine. The Supreme Court has historically taken an especially strict stance to preserve public confidence in justice — for example, in Re: Arundhati Roy (2002) and Prashant Bhushan Contempt (2020), where strong language and symbolic acts triggered contempt proceedings.
Yet, the Supreme Court also enjoys discretion: the Chief Justice, as master of the roster and guardian of the court’s dignity, may choose restraint, as CJI Gavai did here, signaling maturity and calm strength instead of punitive impulse.
Law Must Stay Firmer Than Sentiment
India’s democracy gives wide space for belief and protest, but when faith expression mutates into institutional intimidation, lines blur dangerously. The judiciary’s calm handling of the incident, combined with professional sanctions by the Bar, is a first line of defence. But courts must also signal that violence or symbolic humiliation will not be excused by sentiment.
At the same time, the episode invites a harder public conversation: India cannot afford a political culture where majority passion routinely tests the limits of constitutional respect — and where the social standing of those in authority silently influences how defiance is measured.
It is worth remembering Dr. B.R. Ambedkar’s caution on the eve of the Republic:
Constitutional morality is not a natural sentiment. It has to be cultivated… Democracy in India is only a top dressing on an Indian soil which is essentially undemocratic.
If constitutional morality must be cultivated, then each time the highest court is disrespected — whether in the name of religion or the quiet shadow of caste — the Republic is tested. The answer cannot be silence or vengeance but a renewed, visible insistence that law outranks passion and equality outranks prejudice.