Arun Jaitley targets Congress with Hitler reference

Leader of the House in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley on Friday took a dig at the Congress during a special discussion on the Constitution and compared the 1975 Emergency imposed by the Indira Gandhi government to Hitler’s Germany.

“Those who talk about intolerance snatched the right to life and liberty,” he said. Speaking in the Rajya Sabha, the finance minister rebutted point by point comments by the Congress and other Opposition parties in the Lok Sabha, where the discussion began on Thursday to mark the birth anniversary of Dr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, the architect of India’s Constitution.

However, responding to the attack, Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad said: “When you read the Preamble of the Constitution, it conveys the objectives of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, but you don’t mention him. This is intolerance.”

Initiating a discussion on the “Commitment to Ind-ia’s Constitution”, Mr Jait-ley said measures should be taken to strengthen the Constitution and ensure that democracy is not subverted again. He narrated the sequence of events that took place in Hitler’s regime, suggesting that these were replicated by Indira Gandhi who imposed Emergency in 1975. “There are worse illustrations in history when constitutional systems are used to subvert the Constitution. You have the most glaring example in the world when in 1933 in Germany emergency was declared,” he said.

He said Hitler, using the pretext of a threat to “set ablaze the German Parliament”, imposed Emergency, detained Opposition members to gain a majority to amend the Constitution, censored the press and came out with a 25-point economic programme. “You impose Emergency, detain Opposition, amend the Constitution, impose censorship on newspapers and announce a 25-point economic programme. Thereafter, you brought a law that no action taken by the government was justiciable in court and then Hitler’s immediate adviser, Rudolf Hess, in his speech ended with the sentence that ‘Adolf Hitler is Germany, Germany is Adolf Hitler’,” he said.

Though he said he was only referring to the events of 1933 in Germany, Mr Jaitley was apparently citing similarities to actions during Indira Gandhi’s regime when it was said “Indira is India, India is Indira”. “What happened in other parts of the world later, Germany never claimed a copyright,” he added amid laughter from the Treasury benches. “The biggest challenge we faced (during Emergency) was that Article 21 was suspended and citizens lost even the right to life and liberty. This was dictatorship at its worst,” Mr Jaitley said.

He noted that after the Emergency period was over, the Constitution was amended to make Article 21 “permanently non-suspendable... So, today we are far more safe.”

“We should block all systems by which the Constitution or constitutional systems could be used to subvert democracy... We must all be prepared to strengthen each of the institutions of democracy,” he said.

He asked how the House would react if Ambedkar had made his 1949 speech today for implementing Article 44 (that calls for a Uniform Civil Code) and Article 48 (that calls for prohibiting cow slaughter).

In present times, he said, the “biggest challenge” to any constitutional system in the world is terrorism and there should be a united fight against it instead of some adopting a “soft” approach for vote-bank politics. Jaitley said the entire country should speak in one voice and nobody should be “seen soft” on terrorism. He also made a veiled reference to the 1993 Mumbai blasts convict Yakub Memon, who was hanged a few months ago, saying, “The manner in which he was passed off as a martyr. Somebody who virtually massacred Mumbai. How would Dr Ambedkar have reacted to this ” Quoting Ambedkar’s famous speech of November 25, 1949, while proposing the Constitution document, Mr Jaitley said the Constitution-maker had raised apprehensions about whether India would be able to maintain its independence.

“When countries are challenged, the country should speak in one voice. Therefore, those who seek to destroy sovereignties, countries cannot be seen to be ever supporting them...,” he said, his citing of historical events relating to Jai Chand and Gulab Singh creating a furore among Congress members. Responding, Mr Jaitley said he was only referring to acts of terrorism. “I have no hesitation in saying that nobody in this country should ever be seen as soft on that kind of terrorism,” he said.

On the judiciary, he noted that the independence of the judiciary is absolutely essential and that the appointment of judges to the higher judiciary should be done through a consultative process. “Today we have reached a position where the CJI will appoint and everyone else is irrelevant. No position of law can ever justify it,” he said. He said activism by courts should not cross the “Lakshman rekha” and that the “delicate” balance between different organs prescribed in the Constitution should not be affected.

Speaking on federalism, he said that after “misuse” of Article 356 several times during one-party rule, “it is being phased out now” due to the emergence of regional parties and coalition governments at the Centre.

Meanwhile, the Congress said the BJP was not acknowledging the contributions of leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru to the making of the Constitution and alleged that this attitude reflected the ruling party’s intolerance which flows from the top to the streets.

The Congress also accused the BJP of trying to appropriate the icons of India’s freedom struggle without having such a leader of its own and trying to “manufacture a clash” between these famous personalities. “You can talk about the German Constitution, its dictator. But you feel ashamed to talk about Jawaharlal Nehru. You are not able to recognise the contribution of the first Prime Minister . This is called intolerance. It flows from the top and percolates down to the streets,” Mr Ghulam Nabi Azad said. In a hard-hitting speech in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Mr Azad accused the ruling dispensation of attempting to “manufacture a clash” between personas of the freedom struggle, like Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, Sardar Patel and Nehru, on the lines of the “divide and rule” policy.

He said Mr Jaitley had referred to Hitler and not acknowledged Nehru, which made it clear that “Nazar kahin thi, nishana kahin tha (He was looking somewhere and aiming elsewhere)”.

As Mr Azad questioned the procedures adhered to by the government in celebrating Constitution Day, Mr Jaitley stood up and asked why there was a “grudging feeling” in acknowledging Dr Ambedkar’s contribution.

He said a tree laden with fruit bends. “If it does not bend, then there is something wrong with its DNA,” Mr Azad said and congratulated intellectuals who had “stood up against intolerance and injustice”. He asserted that every terrorist, be it a Hindu, Muslim, Sikh or Christian, should face the gallows and warned the government against being “selective”, seeking action in the Samjhauta and Malegaon blasts cases. He said the government should refrain from going “slow” in some cases and going fast in others.