Mohammad Ataur Rahman on the Weapon of Democracy aimed at prime ministerial aspirant of BJP.

The tradition of shoe protest begun by Iraqi journalist al-Zaidi has gained acceptance in India. On April 16 the BJP prime ministerial candidate LK Advani became the third Indian public figure at whom a “shoe” (in this case, a lowly wooden chappal) was hurled in protest.

Advanji, who was already reeling under a counter attack from the Congress Party, was unnerved to see a chappal coming his way. For a while he was struck dumb and sat looking glum, holding his head in dismay.

As usual a BJP leader accused Congress of masterminding the act. However, it later turned out that it was an internal job, the handiwork of a frustrated BJP worker. It was not immediately clear what had led to this man’s frustration, or what he was protesting against.

The shoe-thrower, being a BJP man, was not certainly protesting against BJP’s hate-mongering. On the contrary, he might be feeling bad about insufficient intensity in the hate speeches of party leaders, or fewer cases of anti-Muslim violence.

Maybe within the next few days we will know more about what drove this man to take such a desperate measure. To most of us it looks like an extreme measure, but to a “normal” BJP person the extreme is the norm.

That leaves us even more perplexed. A party and a leader fostering lawlessness and extremism for years have got some taste of the fruit they have cultivated so diligently. That is our comment, till we get more input on that.