Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday sought to turn the tables on the Congress by pointing out the irony of the very party that took away all fundamental rights of the citizens in one swoop in 1975 leading the charge on his government over rising intolerance based on a few ‘ irresponsible comments on television”.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday sought to turn the tables on the Congress by pointing out the irony of the very party that took away all fundamental rights of the citizens in one swoop in 1975 leading the charge on his government over rising intolerance based on a few ‘ irresponsible comments on television”.

Not just that, he increased the stakes for the Congress party by drawing a direct parallel between Adolf Hitler and Indira Gandhi. And he did that with aplomb. Without naming Indira Gandhi or India even once, he narrated how, step by insidious step, Adolf Hitler used the institutions of the constitution to overturn the constitution itself. “What happened subsequently in other parts of the world…. the Germans never claimed a copyright over that,” he said in a clear but unarticulated reference to how Indira Gandhi traced the very same steps on way to her dictatorial rule between 1975 and 1977, the only time Indians lost their fundamental rights.

Here’s how Jaitley sketched the similarities between Hitler and Indira without in any way seeming to do so:

"What happened in Germany? You had a coalition government; The government did not have a majority. The government said that there is an attempt to set fire to the Reichstag, the German Parliament, and they said it is a Communist conspiracy...to set buildings on fire. Sir, using that pretext of a fire, there was a provision for the imposition of an emergency.

"The emergency was proclaimed; that was step one. Step two was that you needed a vast majority to amend the Constitution to give all powers to the Fuhrer, Hitler. But you didn't have that majority, so you detained all the opposition members. That was the second step. The third step you took was that you imposed censorship on the newspapers. The fourth step you took was that you said all this was in the interest of Germany, so you announced a 25-point economic programme...and thereafter, you brought in a law to say that no action of the government is justiciable in court."

"So the Constitution was also amended, and then you had an important part of the Third Reich called who was the immediate advisor to Adolf Hitler. His name was Rudolph Hess. He delivered a great speech on 25th February 1934. It was titled 'The oath to Adolf Hitler.' The speech ended with a sentence 'Adolf Hitler is Germany and Germany is Adolf Hitler. He who takes an oath to Hitler takes an oath to Germany.”

By now, Jaitley had driven the knife deep, but he was not content. With a wry smile he now sought to twist the knife as well, emphasising that he was only talking about Germany: "Now, you have probably the most glaring example in the world in the Third Reich, and I must say I am only referring to what happened in 1933. Then, you had a democratic constitution being used in order to subvert the constitution. What happened subsequently in other parts of the world…the Germans never claimed a copyright over that."

From the imposition of emergency, to the detention of all political rivals to censorship of the media to announcement of a 20-point economic programme, right down to the coining of the capitulating slogan of ‘Indira is India and India is Indira’ (by D K Barua, the then president of the Congress party), the dictatorial rule of Indira Gandhi charted exactly the same course as Hitler's, if not the same order as well.

What Jaitley was doing, with the Prime Minister sitting on his side, was to firmly stamp out stray suggestions that Narendra Modi is like Hitler in his style. He thanked Morarji Desai for making Article 21 (which gives citizens their rights and freedoms) a permanent part of the constitution and said that the country is now perfectly safe. The suggestion was clear: If there was ever any chance of a politician showing the dictatorial tendencies of Hitler, that was already happened and it is impossible that it can happen again.

Right through his opening remarks, Jaitley was clinical in his demolition of the rising chorus about intolerance. He referred to the 1970s when because of the transient economic philosophy of an incumbent government, the right to property was deleted from the fundamental rights. It is the only fundamental right to have been downgraded to a constitutional right from a fundamental right. Those very people who did that and those people who supported it then, have now lined up to stand against the NDA’s Land Acquisition Act under the pretext that it would be against the rights of poor farmers, he pointed out.

He then countered the intolerance debate through the abuse of Article 356 to dismiss unfriendly state governments (mostly by the Congress). He spoke of his government’s belief in cooperative federalism while also crediting the judiciary and the emergence of regional parties and coalition governments played in making Article 356 virtually redundant.

Speaking about freedom of religion, Jaitley put forward his point in such a manner that his political rivals couldn't take him on. "Ambedkar provided that everyone has the right to propagate religion. The State will have no religion but everyone will have the right to propagate their religion. What has changed in the last 65 years? What if the Constitution were to be made today and Article 44 on uniform civil code were to be introduced by Ambedkar? How would this house have reacted? What if he proposed article 48 today dealing with animal, animal husbandry and cow slaughter? How many of you would have accepted that even as a directive principle?"

The debate on the constitution was initiated in the Lok Sabha yesterday by Home Minister Rajnath Singh as part of the year-long celebrations to of B R Ambedkar’s 125th birth anniversary. November 26 (1949) was also the day that the Constituent Assembly led by Dr Ambedkar commended the constitution of the country, which was accepted and given effect to from January 26, 1950.