New Delhi: The Bombay high court on Friday (July 25) dismissed a petition filed by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) challenging the Mumbai Police’s refusal to grant permission for a protest in solidarity with Palestinians, Bar and Bench reported. The protest was supposed to be held at Azad Maidan, an open ground in Mumbai known for its role in the freedom struggle.A bench of Justices Ravindra Ghuge and Gautam Ankhad, rejected the CPI(M)’s petition, observing that the party should look at its own country instead of focusing on issues thousands of miles away.“Our country has enough issues. We don’t want anything like this. I an sorry to say, you are all short-sighted. You are looking at issues in Gaza and Palestine. Look at your own country. Be patriots. This is not patriotism. People say they are patriots,” the court observed, as quoted in the report.The bench further observed that the party should take up civic issues in India. “You are an organisation registered in India. If you could take up issues like garbage dumping, pollution, sewerage, flooding. We are just giving examples. You are not protesting on those but on something happening thousands of miles outside the country,” it said.According to the report, the bench also stated that the foreign policy of the country differs from the stance the party has taken and warned it of potential diplomatic consequences of such protests.“You don’t know the dust it could kick up… getting on to the Palestine side or the Israel side. Why do you want to do this? It’s obvious, going by the party you represent that you don’t understand what this could do to the foreign affairs of the country,” the bench noted.However, a similar protest took place in December last year where hundreds of protesters, including far-right groups like the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), had gathered outside the Bangladesh deputy high commission in Mumbai demanding the release of ISKCON priest Chinmoy Krishna Das, who was detained in the neighbouring country.“Over 500 people, including sadhus, saints, and members of the public, participated in the demonstration,” VHP national spokesperson had told The Hindu at the time, adding, “The situation of Hindus in Bangladesh is alarming.”Subsequently, a memorandum was submitted to the deputy high commissioner, highlighting the group’s concerns. The memorandum condemned the arrest of the ISKCON priest, citing violation of democratic and religious freedoms.Many similar protests against the genocide in Gaza and in solidarity with Palestinians have been curtailed recently, several of which were met with police action and detention.On July 19, a peaceful demonstration at the computer market in Nehru Place, Delhi, in solidarity with Palestinians, when a huge group of right-wing people arrived at Nehru Place to oppose it and started threatening, harassing the participants and raising Hindutva slogans. The police, which was present throughout, asked the pro-Palestine people protesting peacefully to leave, saying, “You do not have permission to protest here.”Israel’s ongoing military offensive in Gaza since October 2023 has left close to 60,000 persons dead, as per health ministry numbers cited by Associated Press. Tel Aviv has also enforced a blockade on humanitarian aid, pushing Palestinians to starvation. The remaining population is now on the verge of famine.UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called out the international community for neglecting the suffering in Gaza, calling it a “moral crisis that challenges the global conscience”.