The Desecration, the Irony, and the Ominous Call to silence

 

One must seriously doubt the very existence of an adult consciousness untouched by the sordid news: the pathetic, shocking display enacted within the hallowed, yet now seemingly fragile, confines of Supreme Court Courtroom Number One. It is not merely an "incident"; it is a searing indictment. The focus, predictably, falls upon Rajesh Kishore, a seventy-one-year-old supposed officer of the court, whose decades of professional existence culminated not in gravitas, but in a desperate, deeply vulgar gesture.

The precise trajectory of the vile missile is rendered meaningless by the utter depravity of the act itself. Whether the footwear—that base implement meant for common streets, now stained with this indignity—was merely attempted, or actually hurled to fall near the Chief Justice or an accompanying Justice, is a detail for historians of the grotesque.

What remains is the profound, sick realization: that the highest sanctuary of national justice has been reduced to an arena for a senile, theatrical outburst. The sound was not the gavel's decisive thud, but the pathetic slip of a shoe, and in that sound, the entire edifice of solemn judicial respect was profoundly cheapened. It provokes not just outrage, but a deep, weary disgust at the failure of decorum and the collapse of the professional spirit.

The Imperative of Cause and the Irony of Context

It is fundamentally true: nothing truly transpires in isolation. The spontaneous event is a historical myth. To a student of history, the essence of the discipline lies in recognizing the causal chain—the complex, often hidden, tapestry of actions and reactions. This perspective demands a relentless focus on the complex history preceding the event.

It is, perhaps, the most exquisitely ironic dimension of the "incident" that the septuagenarian lawyer acted precisely as he did. To suggest this spectacle was merely the product of a singular, isolated offense would be intellectual escapism; it would be to misunderstand the accumulation of historical pressures. We are asked to believe that the man's crude, hurled finality was the culminating effect of a long, distinguished litany of acts and statements seen and heard from the highest judicial echelons over the years. We are to accept that the shoe, in its brief arc, carried the weight of countless perceived systemic slights.

Yet, here is the piercing irony: in a nation teeming with communities and faiths, all of whom have presented the judiciary with ample opportunity to issue similar acts or statements, the resulting physical protest was triggered by this particular context. The very fact that such an extreme, physically demonstrative form of disapproval was saved for this specific line of commentary or action—while others endured their tribulations without resorting to similar, desperate outbursts—highlights a grotesque double standard. It compels one to reflect on the nature of judicial perceived impartiality: a quality so sacred that its mere appearance of failure, especially regarding specific demographics, can transform a seventy-one-year-old pillar of the bar into an agitated performance artist. The system, seemingly surprised, watches as a party, weary of perceived imbalances, throws a shoe instead of a legal brief.

The Funeral Pyre of Fact: When Emotion Consumes Truth.

We stand at the precipice of a terrifying cultural phenomenon—a process so insidious, so dramatically irreversible, it should chill us to the bone:

The alchemical transmutation of cold, verifiable fact into potent, self-serving fiction. We cannot, we must not, deny this contemporary sorcery. It begins, innocently enough, with an emotive issue—a flashpoint of genuine anger, fear, or tribal loyalty. The raw emotion, vast and untamed, immediately eclipses the hard edges of what truly occurred. This is the moment the facts become fluid. The transition is brutal and swift:

Phase I: The Erosion of Fact. The initial factual account is not debated; it is simply overwhelmed. Selective indignation, half-truths, and convenient omissions are amplified by the megaphone of collective feeling. The context is discarded, the nuances are ground into dust.

Phase II: The Forging of Fiction. The emotional narrative, now stripped of inconvenient reality, is polished, sensationalized, and weaponized. It takes on a life of its own, becoming more compelling, more satisfying, and infinitely more easily shared than the dull, complex truth ever could be. Fiction is born, dressed in the garments of righteous outrage.

Phase III: The Triumphant Myth. The generated fiction hardens into an impenetrable, unquestionable myth. It is repeated until it becomes an article of faith for a community, a dogma woven into their identity.

The Ominous Reckoning and the Call to Restraint

The gravity of the moment extends far beyond the vulgarity of a hurled shoe; it demands a solemn and ominous reckoning with the conduct of those who hold the highest offices. The fundamental proposition we must now consider is the primary responsibility for maintaining the dignity of the Supreme Seat. Those elevated to such august positions are granted immense authority, and with it, the commensurate burden of extreme discretion. Their actions and statements are not private musings; they are pronouncements that reverberate through the nation's fragile social architecture. To engage in rhetoric or judicial action perceived as explicitly partisan, especially toward the majority community, is to gamble with national equilibrium. A failure in this fundamental duty is a failure of statesmanship that invites catastrophic social friction.

The incident in Court Number One is merely the spark; the serious outcomes now loom large. We must recognize the immediate and profound danger: the usual suspects—elements perpetually seeking to exploit national fault lines—are already out in full force. Their singular objective is to weaponize this single, isolated act of desperation, converting it into a broader indictment against the majority community and the government of this country.

This is not a time for righteous indignation; it is a moment for absolute, disciplined vigilance.

Every nation-loving individual now bears the solemn duty to maintain an extremely strict watch over the insidious narratives that will be peddled over the coming days, weeks, and months. What is about to be consumed by the public—the distorted, inflamed rhetoric—will be profoundly difficult to digest.

To survive and defeat this manufactured challenge, the response must be an act of profound self-control:

Maintain your absolute equanimity.

Embrace silence.

Display tolerance of the highest order.

Even a single injudicious act or statement from the majority community will be immediately seized upon and used as the definitive fuel for the fire. We owe it to ourselves, and far more critically, we owe it to the permanence of this nation, to frustrate the nefarious, divisive designs of these elements through disciplined, studied restraint. The integrity of the Republic may very well depend on the collective decision to remain silent.

To every member of the majority community: Hear this appeal not as a suggestion, but as an absolute, strategic command issued in our own supreme interest.

For this critical moment, we must deliberately become mute spectators.

Your voice, your indignation, your immediate reaction—however justified—is precisely the catalyst the opposition craves. There is a deeply defeated, despondent lot out there, furiously searching the ground for a single, desperate peg: a handhold, a foothold, anything that will provide the leverage from which they can begin their arduous, unwarranted ascent back to the apex of power they were decisively evicted from, and to which they have been consistently denied re-entry ever since.

We cannot give them that peg!

Every unmeasured statement, every rash reaction, every public display of uncontrolled emotion serves as the single glimmer of hope they are dying to find. It fuels their manufactured narrative, justifies their attempts at division, and hands them the moral high ground they have utterly failed to earn through legitimate means.

Our immediate, controlled withdrawal from the drama is not weakness; it is supreme tactical strength.

Your absolute silence is a shield. Your disciplined equanimity is a wall.

Keep them at bay. Deny them the reaction, deny them the fuel, deny them the narrative. By embracing deliberate muteness, we ensure their desperate search for a foothold ends in nothing but the hard, barren earth. Let your silence be the final, crushing answer to their designs.

From Past Glory to Future Prosperity: The Power of Development

     

 What a curious turn of events! One might even say it's a testament to the unpredictable nature of democracy, or perhaps, a finely honed sense of public relations.

On June 9th, 2024, Prime Minister Modi, much to the astonishment of... well, not everyone, but certainly a fair few, embarked on his third consecutive term. This, frankly, was a scenario few could have conjured in their wildest, or even mildly imaginative, dreams. It's an opportune moment to cast our minds back, not merely to the past eleven years, but to an era when the now-Prime Minister was simply "NaMo," the Chief Minister of Gujarat.

For many of us, active political participation was a quaint notion, something others did. I, for one, maintained a detached, almost academic interest, diligently consuming two newspapers daily and performing the sacred ritual of prime-time news in both Hindi and English. This latter habit, forged in the crucible of my school days, involved perching beside my parents as the state broadcaster’s remarkbly composed newscasters (a stark contrast to today’s decibel-defying screamers) delivered the day's events.

My political stance was a masterful exercise in ambivalence, subscribing to no particular ideology, despite the lingering childhood specters of Jan Sangh, which later morphed into the BJP. My engagement with the electoral process was, shall we say, sporadic. A single vote cast in 1989, and then, after the rather rude shock of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s unexpected defeat in 2004, a re-engagement in 2009. Since then, it seems I’ve become a veritable polling booth connoisseur, diligently exercising my franchise in every election, be it general or state assembly.

Then came the year 2002, and with it, the Gujarat riots. The subsequent, almost theatrical, vilification of the then-Chief Minister by the media, intellectuals, NGOs, and the venerable Congress party compelled many of us to pose the most impertinent of questions: Why this outrage? Was this India’s inaugural riot? We, after all, boast a rather notorious history of such unfortunate events. The 1984 Sikh massacre, which I witnessed firsthand in Delhi, remains vividly etched in my memory, as does the incumbent Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s rather astonishing apathy. Yet, curiously, he escaped such sustained vilification, even after his later, frankly indefensible, justification of the tragedy.

As the daily ritual of maligning the Gujarat CM commenced, every prime-time bulletin on every channel seemed to be exclusively dedicated to the Gujarat riots, as if the rest of the world had simply ceased to exist. This, for me, was the tipping point. "Where is the evidence?" I began to ask. "Who has it? Why is it never presented?" Only allegations, endlessly looped, as if a faulty tape recorder was stuck on repeat. The demonstrable development in Gujarat was, of course, conveniently ignored.

Driven to distraction by this incessant media drumbeat, I foolishly attempted to articulate my dissent by writing letters to newspaper editors – none of which, predictably, ever saw the light of day. Comments on news channel and newspaper websites were held in perpetual moderation limbo. Social media, a concept as alien as personal space for a Mumbai commuter, was still a distant dream. These were the only available soapboxes, and making my voice heard felt akin to shouting into a gale-force wind.

Then, 26/11 happened. While my attention had been almost morbidly fixated on the media’s peculiar gymnastics, this terror attack and its aftermath deepened my already considerable disgust for the incumbent government and its coalition leader. Corruption, it seemed, had reached an art form, and the media, well, their co-option was as subtle as a brass band at a funeral.

Around 2009, the nascent seeds of social media began to sprout in India, and gradually, we, the digitally disenfranchised, found our way onto these platforms. Twitter, despite its initially baffling 140-character straitjacket, emerged as the champion. We adapted, learning to express ourselves with surprising efficacy within these belittling limitations. By 2010, a burgeoning, albeit largely independent, mass of users, without a unified agenda, coalesced around a singular objective: to usher in a new government in the upcoming 2014 general elections. Our focus remained stubbornly fixed on the media and its purveyors. We were, in essence, tilting at windmills, unaware of the grander design unfolding. The sole aim was to dislodge the incumbents. We were, after all, not "active" in politics, merely individual contributors to a collective whisper that would soon become a roar.

Then came January 1st, 2012, a date that, in retrospect, seems almost divinely ordained. NaMo, with a stroke of what can only be described as strategic brilliance, descended upon Twitter, following a paltry 170-odd common users. A game-changer, indeed.

The following August, the government, with a timing that seemed almost too perfectly inconvenient, indulged in an act that irrevocably shifted our collective gaze. From that moment on, our focus narrowed to a singular, unwavering objective: ensuring the eviction of the current government and the installation of our chosen leader.

This ambition, once a mere murmur in the digital ether, crystallized into reality on May 16th, 2014, when the general election results were declared. Recounting the subsequent unfolding of events would be, frankly, monotonous, as most of us experienced and witnessed it firsthand.

This nation, it seems, has decided that wax heroes are best left to Madame Tussauds in London, preferring instead to adorn and worship our real heroes. The journey, it seems, is far from over, and we, the newly engaged, are quite unwilling to let it conclude before 2047.

Isn't it fascinating how a collective annoyance can inadvertently pave the way for a political phenomenon?