Casteist" attacks against CJI Gavai persist online following the shoe-hit bid, and calls for action against attorney Kishore are becoming louder

Rakesh Kishore, a 71-year-old lawyer, attempted to throw a shoe at Chief Justice BR Gavai at the Supreme Court on Wednesday. Despite calls for action against the attacker, caste-coded social media attacks against the nation's judiciary continued. By the late evening of October 8, Punjabi police had filed several formal complaints (FIRs) against certain social media messages, and activists and political leaders were still calling on the central government and Rakesh Kishore to take action.

One of the best examples of the ongoing harassment was an AI-generated movie that showed the CJI with a blue face and an earthen pot around his neck, symbolizing a long-standing casteist custom that forbade Dalits from spitting on the ground. Only the second CJI to be Dalit and the first to be Buddhist is BR Gavai. He is descended from Ambedkrite activists and intellectuals.

The allegedly offensive video was uploaded approximately four hours after the lawyer's shoe-throwing attempt was made public on October 6. As of 8 p.m. on October 8, it was still accessible online from the X account under the handle Kikki Singh (@singh_kikki). By then, it had received over 2,300 re-shares, over 5,000 likes, and close to 800,000 views.