A feel-good article from Thomas Friedman titled ‘India’s secular success’
“..50 years of Indian democracy and secular education, and 15 years of economic liberalization, produced all this positive energy.
Just across the border in Pakistan — where the people have the same basic blood, brains and civilizational heritage as here — 50 years of failed democracy, military coups and imposed religiosity have produced 30,000 madrassahs — Islamic schools, which have replaced a collapsed public school system and churn out Pakistani youth who know only the Quran and hostility toward non-Muslims.
No, India is not paradise. Just last February the Hindu nationalist BJP government in the state of Gujarat stirred up a pogrom by Hindus against Muslims that left 600 Muslims, and dozens of Hindus, dead. It was a shameful incident, and in a country with 150 million Muslims — India has the largest Muslim minority in the world — it was explosive. And do you know what happened?
Nothing happened.
The rioting didn’t spread anywhere. One reason is the long history of Indian Muslims and Hindus living together in villages and towns, sharing communal institutions and mixing their cultures and faiths. But the larger reason is democracy. “

Question: What if in a democratic country the majority votes a fascist government into power? If Gujaratis vote back Modi as Chief Minister (chances are they will) does it mean that he has a right to restart the shameful pogrom?
The answer is that democracy is not sufficient. Other institutions are needed – a free press, judiciary, etc. Which also means that a democracy should not be able to overturn by a majority vote the constitutional protections that make democracy possible. Which is why Hindus cannot vote a theocracy into existence in India even if all Hindus vote for it.
Which is why a plebiscite cannot be held in Kashmir.