Even Gabbar Singh, the ruthless, trigger-happy bandit, cowered like a crybaby when a sulking Thakur started bringing down his spiked shoes with the intention of disfiguring his face to take revenge.

That happened in reel life, in Sholay – an iconic Bollywood potboiler of the ‘80s. Today, shoes are being used in real life as a weapon of humiliation, and in most cases, it is the politicians who are at the receiving end. What is disquieting is that shoe hurlers are now rubbing shoulders with those who are landing tight slaps on activists and politicians. Most recent victims, Team Anna activist Prashant Bhushan and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar can vouch for it.  

India’s boisterous democracy is witnessing strange paradoxes: while politicians are busy hurling choicest invectives at their opponents, people are raining footwear of all varieties at political leaders to vent their pent-up fury.

The Rain of Fury
In 2009, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, BJP veteran leader LK Advani, Union Home Minister P Chidambaram and Congress MP Naveen Jindal were made the targets of flying shoes, though the leather missile missed them. Taking a cue, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi addressed an election meeting in Dehgam in Ahmedabad East constituency by erecting a tall iron net in front of the dais, and the crowd was kept at a safe distance of 20 metres. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati also began maintaining distance with the crowd at election meetings.

All this because of an ‘Iraqi virus’ that has taken little time to travel to India and invade its power corridors. In the dying days of 2008, Iraqi television journalist Muntazer Al Zaidi flung his shoes at the then US President George Bush at a press conference in Baghdad, holding him responsible for thrusting a war on Iraq.

“This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq. It is a farewell kiss, you dog,” he screamed, as he targeted the outgoing President. The scribe had to cool his heels in jail, though his place in the pantheon of Arab heroes, who nurture open hostility against Bush is assured.

Jarnail Singh, an India journalist, decided to imitate al-Zaidi by hurling a shoe (size 9 Reebok, to be precise) at Chidambaram, who was holding a press conference at the Congress headquarters in New Delhi on 7 April, 2009. The scribe had become fidgety with Chidambaram’s reply to his persistent query on the CBI’s clean chit to Congress MP Jagdish Tytler in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.

To the discomfiture of world leaders, similar incidents have gone viral. On 2 February, 2009, a protestor hurled a shoe at Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao while he was addressing students at the Cambridge University. Ironically, China’s foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao, while reacting to the incident in Iraq, had said he would be watching out for journalists taking off their shoes in news conferences. “Maybe I need to watch out not just for who is raising their hands but who is taking off their shoes,” said Liu.

Barely a couple of days after the Iraqi incident, shoes were thrown at the US Consulate in Edinburgh, and at the gates of the then British Premier Gordon Brown’s Downing Street office, by anti-war protesters. On 6 March, 2009, a shoe was thrown at Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as he waved to the crowd from an open-top car.

Back home, on 19 March, members of the Boss School of Music hurled a slipper at the then Supreme Court Judge Arijit Pasayat. This was the second time it had happened to the judge in question.

At the Receiving End: Reactions
The bizarre incidents have spawned a massive debate, especially in the Indian context. Is Indian society fast slipping into a quicksand of intolerance? Don’t these acts betray a Don Quixotic underpinning – dramatic and impulsive but also impractical? Should shoes and slaps be allowed to make the ultimate statement? And the flip side of the issue is – whether India’s political class is becoming increasingly alienated from the common man who is seething with anger and frustration over venality and price rise.

“It shows there is anger in the media against political leaders. At the same time, media is only perpetuating an absurdity by writing volumes on or showing the footage of such incidents. There are better topics to write about. The controversy will die if the media starts ignoring these bizarre incidents,” says media expert N Bhaskara Rao.

“These are acts of insanity; there is no scope for such acts in India’s political system,” fulminates Rajiv Pratap Rudy, BJP leader.

CPI leader Atul Anajan says: “People are indulging in cheap gimmicks to draw the attention of the media, which, in turn, gets hilarious and spicy stories. In a democratic society, such type of action is atrocious and condemnable. There are other forms to show your anger such as dharna, leaflets and posters. I believe such incidents will lose their nuisance value. It is not worthwhile to report.”

It is somewhat disquieting that such acts are being condoned in the ‘enlightened’ sections of the society. “Ek Hi Maara?” – that is how Anna Hazare reacted when NCP leader Pawar was slapped. He later clarified that he condemned the assault on Pawar, but questioned why agitated activists of the NCP did not express the same anger when farmers were beaten.

There are even attempts to score political brownie points. “It is a wake-up call to UPA 2,” says BJP leader Balbir Punj. Another BJP leader, Ravi Shankar Prasad, sought to rationalise it by talking about people’s anger over price rise. 

Kejriwal and Bhushan did condemn the assault but with riders. “I am not condoning violence but we have to understand the anger at the enormous corruption,” said Kejriwal.

Pot calling the Kettle…
Ironically, politicians have also used shoes to berate their opponents. On 12 October, 1960, during the 92nd lenary meeting of the UN General Assembly in New York, late Soviet Union leader Nikita Khruschev lost his cool when a Filipino delegate criticised the Soviet system. Khruschev came on to the rostrum, pounded his fists on the table, picked up his shoe and banged the desk with it in protest.

Saddam Hussein, while in power, had built a mosaic of Bush’s father, former US President George HW Bush, on the ground at the entrance of Al Rashid, Baghdad’s main foreign hotel. Anyone visiting the hotel had no option than stepping on that mosaic of Bush’s face. Ironically, Saddam got the same treatment after being ejected from power by the allied army.

Latin American leaders at a meeting in Brazil poked fun at the Bush incident in Iraq. “Please, nobody take off your shoes,” Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva joked to reporters. In this heat, if anybody takes off their shoes, we’ll know right away because of the smell,” quipped Lula.

India has had its own share of controversies involving footwear and political meetings. Shoes were hurled at the Congress session in Surat in December 1907 when the friction between the moderates and extremists reached a flash point. A shoe thrown from the gathering struck moderate leader Surendranath Banerjee on the cheek and then deflected to hit Sir Pherozeshah Mehta. After the incident, the Congress split and the hardliners decided to follow their own agenda.

Late Indian Ambassador to the US, Nani A Palkhivala, had offered to get a pair of Kolhapuri chappals to the then President Jimmy Carter’s mother, Lilian, at an event in New York. Lilian showed an interest in acquiring a pair of Kolhapuri chappals and Palkhivala bent down to check her shoe size. It was snapped by a lensman of a journal known to be sympathetic to Indira Gandhi. The photograph created a furore in Parliament with critics alleging that the envoy had touched Lilian’s feet in reverence. Palkhivala, a paragon of humility, felt aggrieved and even cut short his tenure, but maintained that he had done nothing wrong.

The fact is when people watch rowdy behaviour stalling Parliament; microphones being wrenched and chairs being hurled in state assemblies, they will scoff at their politicians’ right to preach to the public. Dramatic shoe-throwing and slapping incidents are taking place frequently enough to move beyond the realm of symbolism, and perhaps there is a subtle lesson for all the players involved – be it a politician or a common man.

Political commentator Yashwant Deshmukh says such acts of violence are surely incompatible with tenets of democracy, but it would be naïve to gloss over the exasperation and frustration of the people borne out of leadership vacuum, political apathy and corruption. 

“The Anna Hazare phenomenon is the result of the failure of the BJP to provide a credible opposition in the political spectrum. For 60 years, people have been using their ballots to indulge in a dialogue with their political bosses, but things have not changed. If violence is becoming a rule rather than aberration, the political class is greatly responsible for being unresponsive to the masses.”

Acts of Protest

• 24 Nov, 2011: An angry youth identified as Harwinder Singh slaps Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar at a public function, claiming he was angry with corruption and price rise. He now has a Facebook page hailing him as ‘The Slap King’.
• 18 Oct, 2011: A youth throws a slipper at RTI activist and Team Anna member Arvind Kejriwal at a public meeting in Lucknow.
• 12 Oct, 2011: Supreme Court lawyer and Team Anna member Prashant Bhushan is showered with blows by three youths in his court chamber for his remarks that a referendum is possible in J&K.
• 26 Apr, 2011: A slipper is hurled at former Commonwealth Games Organising Committee chairman Suresh Kalmadi in the Patiala House Court complex in New Delhi.
• 15 Aug, 2010: Head constable Abdul Ahad Jan hurls a shoe at J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah at the Independence Day parade in Srinagar.
• 21 Apr, 2009: A man hurls his footwear at Bollywood actor Jitendra who was campaigning for a Congress candidate in north Maharashtra.
• 17 Apr, 2009: BJP worker Pawas Agarwal lobs a slipper at LK Advani at a public meeting at Katni in Bhopal.
• 10 Apr, 2009: A retired school principal hurls a shoe at Congress MP Navin Jindal during an election rally in Kurukshetra.
• 26 Apr, 2009: Hitesh Chauhan, a student of computer engineering, hurls a shoe at Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at an election rally in Ahmedabad, but it fails to reach the dais.