JOIN USTraining guns at the Congress and Indira Gandhi once again, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday compared the former prime minister with Adolf Hitler.
Jaitley said Indira did a few things which even the Germans "did not do" and went ahead to "transform" India into a "dynastic democracy", unlike Hitler.
Jaitley's remarks came in the second article of a three-part series on Emergency, which was imposed 43 years ago on the same day, in which he sought to turn the tables on the Congress and its Opposition allies that accuses the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi of being followers of Hitler's fascistic ideas.
In another article posted on Facebook, Minorities Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said a chapter on Emergency need to be included in textbooks so that the younger generation can learn that it was imposed by the Congress to protect their "power and throne" and it would be an "effective message of power of democratic values against dictatorial mindset".
Likening Hitler and Indira, Jaitley recalled that the German, too, cried conspiracy to impose Emergency in his country in 1933 and continued to claim that his actions were within the Constitutional framework.
Indira imposed Emergency and suspended fundamental rights claiming that disorder was planned in the country by the Opposition.
"Both Hitler and Mrs Gandhi never abrogated the Constitution. They used a republican Constitution to transform democracy into a dictatorship," he said.
Jaitley said Hitler arrested Opposition MPs, converted his minority government into a government that had a two-third majority and amended the Constitution vesting all power to one person. Seeking to find a parallel between Hitler and Indira, Jaitley said Indira, too, arrested most Opposition MPs and managed to pass "several obnoxious provisions" through Constitutional amendments.
However, he said there were a few things that Hitler did not do which Indira did and cited the prohibition of publication of parliamentary proceedings in the media, which her late husband Feroze Gandhi had fought for. He also said Indira amended both the Constitution and the Representation of People (RP) Act to make the election of prime minister non-justiciable before a court.
The RP Act was retrospectively amended to insert those provisions so that the invalid election of Indira could be validated by changes in law, he said, adding, "unlike Hitler, Mrs Gandhi went ahead to transform India into a dynastic democracy."
For Jaitley, the "most objectionable change" was to extend the life of Parliament by two years. "The most startling similarity in the script was that orders were issued to the effect that the Gestapo’s action could not be made subject to judicial review," he said.
Jaitley also did not have good words for Youth Congress under Indira's son Sanjay Gandhi, the late husband of BJP's Union minister Maneka Gandhi and father of BJP MP Varun Gandhi, saying it became a "law into its own-self" and its functioning "terrorised the society".
"Dissent became a sin and sycophancy the rule. Film actors and singers and playback singers were asked to join Youth Congress and its allies. If they refused, the then I&B Minister, Vidya Charan Shukla, would threaten them. Kishore Kumar, the noted playback singer, was blacklisted by the All India Radio and his songs were never played on All India Radio for refusing to sing at the Youth Congress rallies," he said.
"Devanand records in his autobiography that when he and Dilip Kumar refused to join the Youth Congress rally, Vidya Charan Shukla threatened both of them. But they them stood firm. Gulzar’s celebrated film 'Aandhi' was banned. Since absolute power corrupts absolutely, a tyranny regime thinks they can get away with every atrocity," Jaitley added.