People tend to unite in the face of criticism.

"Indian democracy can do with a weak state, the Indian Republic cannot," writes Kunal Singh. "The fundamental rights of a citizen, or the republican values in our Constitution, curb the powers of the democratically elected government. But the real effect of these rights has been gradually eroded due to various exceptions introduced to the fundamental rights both by the legislature as well as the judiciary,.." As a democracy India elects its government so politicians pander to certain communities at the expense of the individual, so that minorities, that is Muslims, suffer. A strong state would protect minority rights, suggests Singh. Not so writes Sagarika Ghosh. "The liberalisation of 1991 showed that achieving high growth in the Indian context is not about asserting state power but rather about rolling back the powers of the state," she writes. She thinks that Modi will fail because,"Hindutva with its rigid social hierarchies implies an assault on individual freedoms at different levels..." What is a 'state'? A state is a defined geographical area within which only the government has the legitimate right to use power. According to that definition, it seems that Ghosh is right. The Indian state exercises its power brutally on anyone protesting its actions, as the Congress did in 2011, when it sent the police to beat up supporters of Baba Ramdev who were sleeping in the early hours of the morning. One woman died later. The Supreme Court censured the government for this brutality but by then it was too late. The writers are angry because the BJP won an absolute majority in the recent assembly elections in UP without fielding even one Muslim candidate, but the more they curse Hindutva the more it unties Hindu voters, who feel that their interests have been neglected in an effort to promote secularism. Valerian Rodrigues writes that Modi has very cleverly entwined Hindutva with development which has brought disparate groups together. There is no doubt that Modi is concentrating as much power in his hands as possible, adopting the ways of the Congress in increasing handouts, appointing obedient governors and forming governments in Goa and Manipur, where the BJP had fewer seats than the Congress, by enticing smaller parties with posts of ministers, wrote Ronojoy Sen. Digitization is a sinister move to increase the power of the government by collecting information on citizens, wrote Anantha Nageswaran. The new rules on funding political parties will increase corruption, wrote Milan Vaishnav. Demonetization was actually a confiscation of cash by the state, wrote Prof Errol D'Souza. Hindus were divided into different groups with different traditions. It was democracy and the Constitution that brought uniformity by enacting laws, such as the Hindu Marriage Act, wrote Prof Dipankar Gupta. Condemning Hindutva only unites Modi's supporters. The only way to stop him is to point out his bluffs.