When a Shoe Becomes a Caste Slur: The Attack on Justice Gavai and India’s Unraveling Social Contract*

In the hushed corridors of India’s Supreme Court, where the Constitution is meant to reign supreme and justice blind to all distinctions, a shoe arced through the air last week. Its target: Chief Justice of India B.R. Gavai. Its trajectory: a brutal reminder that in contemporary India, no amount of constitutional authority, no pinnacle of professional achievement, can shield a Dalit from the poison of caste hatred.

The assailant was a lawyer—someone sworn to uphold the law. His weapon was a shoe—in Indian culture, among the most degrading symbols of disrespect. His justification was “Sanatan Dharma”—an invocation of eternal Hindu religious order. His remorse was non-existent. In this single act of violence, we find distilled the most dangerous currents flowing through India today: the weaponization of religious sentiment, the emboldening of caste prejudice, and the collapse of consequences for those who cloak bigotry in piety.

The Symbolism Cannot Be Ignored

Let us not mince words about what happened. This was not merely an attack on a judge over a controversial verdict. This was an attack steeped in the language of caste humiliation. In Indian society, the shoe carries centuries of meaning—it is what upper-caste oppressors historically used to assert dominance over Dalits, forcing them to carry footwear, to work with leather, to exist in a state of ritual pollution. When directed at a Dalit judge who has risen to the highest judicial office in the land, the symbolism is unmistakable.

Chief Justice Gavai’s journey to the Supreme Court is itself a testament to constitutional promise. Born into a community that faced systematic exclusion and violence for millennia, his ascent represents what Dr. B.R. Ambedkar envisioned when he crafted the Constitution—a India where merit and justice could triumph over birth and prejudice. Yet that shoe, hurled with impunity in the very temple of constitutional governance, suggests that for many, this vision remains intolerable.

The attacker’s invocation of Sanatan Dharma is particularly revealing. This term, meaning “eternal religion,” has become increasingly weaponized in political discourse, often deployed as a euphemism for upper-caste Hindu orthodoxy that resists any challenge to traditional hierarchies. By claiming to act in its defense, the assailant positioned himself not as a lawbreaker but as a righteous defender of religious tradition—a tradition that, not incidentally, enshrines caste hierarchy at its core.

The Impunity of Manufactured Outrage

What makes this incident even more chilling is the attacker’s utter lack of remorse. In interviews following his arrest, he doubled down on his justification, framing his violence as a necessary response to judicial decisions that allegedly hurt religious sentiments. This brazenness speaks to a broader culture of impunity that has taken root in India, where invoking “hurt religious feelings” has become an all-purpose shield for actions that would otherwise be universally condemned.

We have seen this pattern repeat with numbing regularity. Mob lynchings justified by rumors of cow slaughter. Violence against interfaith couples sanctified as protection of Hindu women. Attacks on intellectuals, artists, and writers legitimized as defense against blasphemy. In each case, the perpetrators increasingly operate with the confidence that their religious justifications will either spare them legal consequences or transform them into martyrs celebrated by a sympathetic constituency.

This phenomenon represents a dangerous inversion of the constitutional order. The law is meant to protect the vulnerable from the powerful. Instead, we now see a regime where claims of religious injury—almost always made by majority community members—trump basic rights to life, dignity, and freedom of expression. The shoe thrown at Justice Gavai is simply the latest, most audacious example of this inversion playing out in the very institution meant to guard against it.

Religious Conservatism Above the Law

The attack on the CJI reveals an uncomfortable truth: religious conservatism in India today increasingly positions itself not merely alongside the law, but above it. This represents a fundamental challenge to the constitutional framework that has governed India since independence.

The Constitution that Ambedkar and his colleagues drafted was deliberately designed to subordinate religious and customary law to constitutional principles. It abolished untouchability, guaranteed equality regardless of caste, and established a secular framework where no religious doctrine could override fundamental rights. This was a revolutionary reimagining of Indian society, one that placed human dignity and equality above traditional hierarchies.

Yet today, we witness a systematic erosion of this vision. Political rhetoric increasingly valorizes a Hindu rashtra where religious majoritarianism defines citizenship and belonging. Social media amplifies the most extreme voices claiming that traditional religious practices are under siege and must be defended at any cost. And critically, political leadership often remains conspicuously silent when such violence occurs, sending an unmistakable message about which transgressions merit condemnation and which will be quietly tolerated.

The lawyer who attacked Justice Gavai clearly felt emboldened by this climate. He believed that his invocation of Sanatan Dharma would resonate, that his action would be understood if not celebrated by a significant constituency. Most disturbingly, he may well be proven right.

The Institutional Crisis

Beyond the immediate violence, this incident exposes a deeper institutional crisis. The Supreme Court is meant to be the ultimate guardian of constitutional values, the place where the law speaks with greatest authority. Yet if judges themselves can be physically attacked within its precincts based on their caste identity, what does this say about the institution’s ability to protect constitutional principles more broadly?

The security failure is obvious and must be addressed. But the deeper failure is one of moral authority and social consensus. A healthy democracy requires not just laws on paper but a shared commitment among citizens to respect constitutional institutions even when they disagree with particular decisions. When that commitment dissolves—when losing parties feel entitled to violence rather than appeal—the entire edifice of constitutional governance becomes precarious.

What Must Be Done

India stands at a crossroads. One path leads toward a future where religious and caste identities increasingly determine whose dignity matters and whose safety is negotiable. The other leads back toward the constitutional promise of equality, where every citizen regardless of birth or belief stands equal before the law.

Choosing the latter path requires more than prosecuting one violent lawyer. It demands a fundamental recommitment to constitutional values at every level of society. Political leaders must stop treating “hurt religious sentiment” as a legitimate justification for violence. Media must stop amplifying extremist voices in pursuit of engagement. Civil society must actively resist the normalization of caste and religious hatred.

Most importantly, the judiciary itself must respond forcefully to this attack on its own. Justice Gavai’s dignity was assaulted, but so was the Constitution he serves. The institutional response will signal whether India’s courts still possess the strength to defend constitutional principles against majoritarian pressure.

That shoe traveled only a few feet through the air. But its implications reach into every corner of the republic, asking whether we remain committed to the arduous, essential work of building a society where the law—not the mob, not the majority, not the piously proclaimed sentiment—reigns supreme.How we answer will define what India becomes.