New Delhi, (The Telegraph): Narendra Modi compared Parkash Singh Badal to Nelson Mandela. L.K. Advani spoke about fundamental freedoms and the values of tolerance.

The birth anniversary of Jayaprakash Narayan, the crusader against the Emergency of 1975, was celebrated by the government with gusto today. But it was Advani, not Modi, who made a statement freighted with contemporary significance at a time some writers have equated the prevailing situation to an undeclared emergency.

"It is our collective duty to ensure that democracy and fundamental freedoms of citizens in India will never again be infringed. We need to promote the values of tolerance, consensus-building and cooperation, transcending political, ideological and social differences in all walks of life, including politics and governance," Advani said.

Minutes ago, Advani had journeyed back in time to recall his association with JP during the Emergency. Thereafter, he fast-forwarded his musings to the here and now and invoked President Pranab Mukherjee's reminder on how "tolerance and diversity" were at the core of India's civilisation. "These values must be safeguarded," Advani said.

What Advani said in the presence of the Prime Minister was far more subtle than what the patriarch, who has been trying hard to live down his past association with the Babri Masjid demolition, had declared in June during the anniversary of the Emergency.

In June, Advani had told The Indian Express newspaper that "at the present point of time, the forces that can crush democracy... are stronger" and there was no guarantee that civil liberties would not be "destroyed" again. Advani later said his remarks were targeted at the Congress.

Today, Advani can claim to have been prescient. Several writers and commentators have decried the atmosphere of intolerance and announced their intention to return government-sponsored awards, citing the murders of Mohammed Akhlaque, who was killed on unsubstantiated claims of cow slaughter and beef consumption, and rationalists.

The statement by Advani, for whom few tears were shed when the octogenarian was upstaged by Modi during the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls, also stood out because the Prime Minister has studiously steered clear of an unequivocal condemnation of the murders.

The sole concession Modi has made so far has been to echo the President and ask the people to ignore intemperate statements, issuing the call a few hours after he had himself kept the beef pot boiling on the Bihar campaign trail.

In between, Modi has found time to tweet about many things, including the illness of former cricketer Navjot Sidhu and the Ankara blasts.

Today, the Prime Minister tweeted: "Spent time with Atal ji & George Sahab (Fernandes, the Janata parivar firebrand) earlier today. Who can forget their pivotal role in safeguarding democracy, inspired by JP's call!"

However, unlike Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who had publicly reminded Modi of raj dharma soon after the Gujarat riots and who used to have a way of making evocative statements without drawing blood, the Prime Minister left that space for Advani.

Instead of Atal's stiletto, Modi picked up a sledgehammer of a parallel to lionise Badal, the Punjab chief minister and a BJP ally.

He lauded Badal as the "Nelson Mandela of India" while referring to those who were imprisoned for fighting the Emergency. "Badal Sahab is sitting here... he is the Nelson Mandela of India. He has spent so many years in prison and that too for political reasons." The Prime Minister's Office later tweeted the comment, just in case anyone missed it.

The statement drew scorn from Amarinder Singh of the Congress, who said it was an "insult" to the late South African leader who had fought apartheid.

"Who says our Prime Minister does not have a sense of humour? Either it is a tongue-in-cheek comment by the Prime Minister and he really did not mean what he said, or he actually does not know what he is saying," Amarinder said in a statement.

This was the second reference in 24 hours to the Prime Minister's perceived ignorance. On Saturday, in an opinion piece in The New York Times on the events that are being debated in India now, author Aatish Taseer had referred to the "startling" ignorance of Modi.

Taseer wrote: "... his instincts are superb; but his ignorance is startling. Speaking to the journalist Fareed Zakaria last year, before his United States visit, Mr. Modi chose to answer a question, through a translator, on Russia's annexation of Crimea this way: 'There's a saying in India that the person who should throw a stone first is the person who has not committed any sins.'

"There is of course no such saying in India. The prime minister was unknowingly quoting the Bible - John 8:7 - to international audiences.... It was hard to watch, hard not to ask the inevitable question: What else did a man who knew so little not know? And were his limitations not responsible for the most serious of the charges his government now stood accused of: the tinkering reforms, the ham-handed responses to dissent, the inability to control the fringe, the interference with education and, perhaps most damningly, of overlaying a still unchanged Indian reality with a lot of well-intentioned but empty talk?"

Badal is known to have spent 18 months in jail during the Emergency. Sources close to him said that through his political career, he might have spent around five years behind bars, including detentions at state guesthouses.

Mandela became the voice against oppression after he was imprisoned for an unbroken 27 years.

"Most of the jail terms of Badal were voluntary as he would always hide behind the safety and the hospitality of government guesthouses after sparking trouble in Punjab," said Amarinder, the chief minister's political rival.

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