Hate, not heroism: Media glorification of Rakesh Kishore exposes moral decay

The shoe hurled at the Chief Justice of India was more than an act of defiance — it was a mirror to a nation losing its sense of right and wrong.

The spectacle that unfolded in the Supreme Court last week — a man named Rakesh Kishore hurling a shoe at the CJI — should have evoked universal outrage. Instead, a section of mainstream media and a well-coordinated online ecosystem have turned the accused into a folk hero.

From breathless prime-time debates portraying him as a “true Sanatani” to social media warriors hailing him as a “defender of dharma”, the incident reveals how far India’s public morality has sunk under the twin shadows of religious fanaticism and hyper-nationalism.

This was not a moment of dissent or symbolic protest. It was an assault — inside the highest court of the land, on the very institution that upholds the rule of law. Yet, in the eyes of his cheerleaders, Rakesh Kishore is not a criminal; he is a crusader. That inversion of morality — of turning aggression into glory — marks the dangerous new normal in India’s political culture since 2014.

Immediately after the incident, hashtags such as #RakeshKishoreZindabad, #DefenderOfSanatan, and #StandWithRakesh began trending across social media platforms. The speed and coordination of this online campaign suggest more than spontaneous outrage — it reflects a premeditated narrative war.

Prominent right-wing influencers like Ajit Bharati and others amplified these hashtags, weaving a story that portrayed Kishore as a victim of “judicial arrogance” and a “patriot punished for defending Sanatan values”. Television anchors, who should have been demanding accountability for the courtroom assault, instead platformed commentators who framed the incident as a “reaction of faith under siege".

This media spin — deliberate, systematic, and politically charged — is not accidental. It follows a familiar pattern in which acts of violence, intimidation, or hate speech are reframed as “courageous resistance” whenever the perpetrator claims to act in defense of Hindu identity. Kishore’s defiance, his refusal to apologise, and his remorseless justification for his act have only bolstered his status among these circles.

What should have been a criminal proceeding has been turned into a cultural war narrative — of a Sanatani confronting a judiciary allegedly biased against “Hindu causes.”

The more disturbing question is not why Kishore’s supporters are glorifying him — but why the State and the law have been slow to respond to those inciting hatred in his name. The social media posts defending Kishore have openly vilified the CJI, using language that borders on contempt of court and criminal intimidation. Yet, no visible action has been taken against these individuals or the platforms enabling them.

Contrast this with how swiftly the system acts when the accused belongs to a marginalised group. Imagine, for a moment, if the person who hurled the shoe had been a Dalit, a Muslim, or an Adivasi — and if the target had been an upper-caste Hindu judge. The entire state machinery would have descended upon the accused within hours. Prime-time anchors would have screamed for “law and order”, arrests would have been swift, and the act would have been denounced as an “attack on national institutions”.

But when the assailant belongs to the majority community and invokes Sanatan dharma, the silence is deafening. This selective application of outrage exposes the caste and communal fault lines that now define the moral compass of both the State and society.

Over the past decade, the line between journalism and propaganda has blurred beyond recognition. In a democracy, the media is meant to challenge power, question wrongdoing, and defend the Constitution. Instead, a large section of Indian media today has turned into an echo chamber for majoritarian sentiment.

By glorifying Kishore’s act as an expression of religious pride, it is not merely failing its ethical duty — it is actively contributing to the normalisation of violence and contempt for institutions. The same channels that once condemned dissenters as “anti-nationals” now celebrate a man who physically assaulted the symbol of India’s judiciary.

This perverse valorisation of lawlessness is a symptom of deeper moral decay. Media houses, desperate for ratings and political patronage, have found in hate a profitable currency. The higher the outrage, the greater the viewership. And in that economy of anger, a man like Rakesh Kishore becomes a convenient poster boy — loud, defiant, unrepentant, and easily packaged as a “Hindu warrior”.

The glorification of Kishore cannot be seen in isolation. It is part of a broader trajectory of moral decline that has taken root since 2014 — a period marked by the weaponisation of religion, caste, and nationalism to justify violence and bigotry.

Mob lynchings of Muslims on suspicion of cow slaughter, assaults on Dalits for riding horses or wearing new clothes, attacks on Christian pastors, the public harassment of women in the name of 'love jihad' — these are no longer aberrations. They have been normalised, celebrated, and even live-streamed.

The perpetrators of these crimes are often garlanded upon release, felicitated by political leaders, and glorified on television as defenders of Hindu honour. Rakesh Kishore’s hero-making fits seamlessly into this moral universe. It is the same logic that turned lynch mobs into gau rakshaks, treated rape convicts in Bilkis Bano’s case as 'sanskari men', and justifies hate speech as “freedom of religion”.

This is the ecosystem where cruelty becomes courage, fanaticism becomes faith, and justice itself is mocked in the name of patriotism.

The attack on the CJI — symbolic though it may seem — is a direct assault on judicial independence. It sends a chilling message: that even the highest court is not immune from intimidation by majoritarian zealots. When hate groups are emboldened enough to target the CJI in open court, it reflects a climate where constitutional authority is undermined, and mob sentiment dictates public morality.

The judiciary has, in recent years, faced criticism for perceived silences and inconsistencies. Yet, it remains the last institutional barrier against total majoritarian capture. The vilification of the CJI is not about one individual; it is about weakening that barrier. By turning the attacker into a hero, the propaganda machinery seeks to delegitimise the very idea of constitutional justice.

The case of Rakesh Kishore is not about one man’s rage; it is about a society’s loss of shame. When public morality begins to reward hate, when the media rewards provocation, and when the State rewards silence, the Constitution itself begins to tremble.

India stands today at a moral crossroads. To call a man who hurls a shoe at the CJI a “defender of dharma” is to desecrate both dharma and democracy. True dharma lies in self-restraint, compassion, and respect for justice — not in violent spectacle.

The real defenders of India’s spirit are not those who attack its institutions in the name of religion, but those who still dare to speak for equality, justice, and humanity in a time when truth itself has become an act of rebellion.

Hasnain Naqvi is a former member of the history faculty at St Xavier’s College, Mumbai. You will find more of his writing here