Congress socialism was flawed; its constitutional amendments had bad intent: Nirmala Sitharaman

“Bringing socialism into the Preamble was not warranted as there is enough and more in the Directive Principles of State Policy for social and economic justice,” Sitharaman said.

“The Soviet model that Nehru and Indira Gandhi copied did not do anything good for this country,” she said, recalling that C Rajagopalachari wrote that he wanted an India clear of the atmosphere of fear where honest men doing trade are free from fear of officials and party bosses. He said he wanted the corruption of the licence-permit raj to go, she added.

Questioning the Congress’ role in India’s economic freedom, Sitharaman said the party had dumped the licence-permit raj and then claimed that they had reformed it. “What was the need for the reform if it was so good?” she sought to know.

Sitharaman said that economist Arvind Panagariya’s latest book shows how the licence-permit raj ruined the economy of the country, as the base income remained low. “The much-promised garibi hatao was not delivered by them,” she added.

Sitharaman contrasted that with 54 crore citizens being given “extraordinary connection to banking” under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the disbursal of Rs 50-crore Mudra loans, and the opening of 54 crore Jan Dhan accounts.

‘Nehru curbed free speech’

Hitting out at India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, for having moved the first amendment to the Constitution in 1951, Sitharaman said that an interim rather than an elected government curbed the freedom of speech and expression by adding public order, friendly relations with foreign states and incitement to an offence as restrictions on Article 19 (1) (a) under Article 19 (2) because the Supreme Court had in 1950 ruled in favour of the freedom of expression of communist magazine Crossroads and RSS-linked Organiser.

“An interim government came up with an amendment to curb the freedom of speech,” Sitharaman said, adding that Nehru deplored the press scrutiny of his government even as he praised the freedom of expression.

Sitharaman added that Syama Prasad Mookerji said during the debate on the first amendment that the government was treating the Constitution as a “scrap of paper” and working for the Congress’s ends. She also cited Constituent Assembly member Kameshwar Singh as saying the provisional Parliament did not represent the popular will. “Kameshwar Singh said that this was executive despotism and playing with the supremacy of the constitution for party advantage,” she added.

Training her guns on the Nehru government, Sitharaman said the lyricist Majrooh Sultanpuri was jailed in 1949 for reciting a poem against Nehru. She recalled that actor Balraj Sahni was also jailed the same year, and added that the Opposition was claiming that there is an atmosphere of fear today.

Sitharaman also referred to bans on Michael Edwards’ book on Nehru, the film Kissa Kursi Ka, Himalayan Blunder, John Dalvi’s book on the 1962 Sino-Indian war, and on Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses when the Congress was in power.

“The 9th schedule was brought in through the first Constitutional amendment Act for bypassing judicial review,” Sitharaman said, adding that it has retrospective effect.

Sitharaman also recalled that a constitutional amendment was made to nullify the court judgment against Indira Gandhi on the election petition of Raj Narain. This amendment, she added, was to ensure that elections of the President, vice-president and prime minister could be questioned only by a parliamentary committee.

Recalling the Shah Bano judgment, Sitharaman said that it was reversed via Parliament by the Rajiv Gandhi government to deny Muslim women the right to alimony. She sought to contrast it with the Naari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam that the Narendra Modi government brought for the benefit of women.

Sitharaman recalled that the 42nd Constitutional Amendment Act during the Emergency was passed with the Opposition in jail, and there were just five MPs in the Lok Sabha and none in the Rajya Sabha to oppose it. Referring to the insertion of the word socialism in the Preamble via the amendment, Sitharaman said that Dr Ambedkar had said when its inclusion in the Constitution was being talked about that people should not be tied to a system by inserting it but be allowed to choose their preferences themselves. Obliquely referring to RJD leader Lalu Prasad, she said that she knew of leaders who named their children Misa to remember the Emergency.

Jairam Ramesh vs Nirmala Sitharaman

A brief exchange between Sitharaman and Congress MP Jairam Ramesh took place when the minister said that while he loved to quote from Grenville Austin’s book on the Constitution, he did not mention that the book says that the 42nd amendment was only to defend Indira Gandhi’s Prime Ministership.

Ramesh got up and said she had missed that Austin’s book said that Indira Gandhi voted in favour of the 44th Constitutional Amendment Act, 1978, which reversed the 42nd amendment. To this, J P Nadda said that Morarji Desai was prime minister at that time and that the Janata government repealed the 42nd amendment. Ramesh said that what he meant was that Indira Gandhi had also supported its repeal through her vote.

“I am glad that she changed her mind because it was such an improper thing she did,” Sitharaman quipped, adding that the massive defeat in 1977 did teach a lesson and Indira Gandhi learnt her lesson.

Sitharaman said that a Congress MP, C M Stephen, “said during the debate on the 42nd amendment that the power of this Parliament is declared to be out of bounds for any court”. She completed the quote, saying, “It is left to the courts whether they should defy it. I don’t know whether they will have the temerity to do it. If they do it, we have… our machinery.”

Sitharaman then took a dig at the Opposition for saying that institutions are in danger, calling their attitude ‘ghamand’ (arrogance).

She also cited M Kumaramangalam of the Congress as saying that the Government would appoint judges “taking into consideration the philosophy and outlook of the judge”.

Sitharaman said that a day after the 1973 Kesavananda Bharati judgment of the Supreme Court, three judges were accorded swift punishment and that Justice A N Ray, who did not subscribe to the judgment, was elevated. Justice Hans Raj Khanna (the one who gave the dissenting judgment that right to life could not be suspended even during an Emergency) was also superseded, she added.

Sitharaman said that while the Congress shelved the Kaka Kalelkar Commission report—this was the first Backward Classes Commission—the Modi government gave constitutional status to the OBC commission.

Sitharaman asserted that Dr Ambedkar had said Nehru had in his 2,000 speeches never said anything about welfare of the Scheduled Castes, adding whether Dalits could expect any sympathy from his party. She said the Congress neither allowed Ambedkar’s photo to be installed in the Central Hall of Parliament nor gave him the Bharat Ratna. She added that the Mandal Commission report was also put on the back burner by the then Congress government.

Claiming credit for the passage of the constitutional amendment for transition to the GST regime, Sitharaman said that former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the first to talk about GST. She added that the Congress in power could not do much to implement it and that even Congress-ruled states opposed it. When Opposition members said that Gujarat had also opposed it, Sitharaman said, “Three BJP-ruled states also opposed, including Gujarat. Three non-BJP states including Congress-ruled Maharashtra also opposed it.”

Underlining that all Congress MPs voted for GST in Parliament, she recalled that Jairam Ramesh wanted to move some amendments but then prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh asked him not to because a fine consensus had been achieved. “One leader was going around calling it Gabbar Singh Tax,” she said, taking an oblique dig at Rahul Gandhi.

Sitharaman recalled that when a time capsule was put in the Red Fort after 25 years of Independence for it to be seen 5,000 years later, the Indira Gandhi government refused to share with Parliament what was written in it. Later, she added, it was found that Vajpayee’s Jana Sangh was labelled “a militant orthodox Hindu party that opposes a secular state”, and that there was no reference to C Rajagopalachari, Rajendra Prasad, Dr Radhakrishnan, Zakir Hussain and Lal Bahadur Shastri.

Praising the Modi government for the passage of the Naari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, Sitharaman said that while the women’s reservation Bill was passed in the Rajya Sabha during the UPA days— when Arun Jaitley had supported it—it was never taken up in the Lok Sabha because the Congress was perhaps scared that its allies would desert it. “They wanted to save their kursi,” she said, adding that the Shah Bano case also proved the Congress was “anti-women”.