In India’s Order of Precedence, or the republic’s official hierarchy of government functionaries, the vice president is ranked above the prime minister but below the president. So going by the current protocol list, Vice President Hamid Ansari is a notch above the country’s controversial Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

And no less a person than Ansari bluntly spoke his mind on Jan. 10; his words right at the beginning of 2016 are, in fact, a reiteration of the sentiments expressed by uncompromising intellectuals throughout 2015.

According to Ansari, there is “intolerance of criticism and questioning in (Indian) society with dissenters getting killed or ostracized.” He called a spade a spade during a panel discussion on “Scientific Temper: A pre-requisite for knowledge-based Society” in New Delhi. The Hindutva-driven ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, whose intolerance of criticism and targeting of critics is giving the world’s biggest democracy such a bad name internationally, is smarting under Ansari’s remarks but has mysteriously chosen not to attack him.

2015 will go down in India as the year writers, poets, film personalities, painters, historians and scientists stood like a rock against the sectarian agenda of Modi’s party and government. They spoke up against attacks on Muslims and demanded action against the killers of rationalists and scholars like M. M. Kalburgi and Govind Pansar whose views are anathema to the Hindu right. The revolt by the intelligentsia was a celebration of free speech and expression guaranteed by the Constitution and painstakingly preserved in the country against rising odds.

Ansari’s observation is a wake-up call: A reminder that in 2016 too, the BJP will have to contend with stiff opposition from intellectuals and patriots if it tries to ride roughshod over democratic principles and implement a Hindutva agenda, which runs contrary to the spirit of a secular and liberal India envisioned by the nation’s founding fathers.

Last year, to express their disgust and horror, dissenter-celebrities returned awards the Indian state had bestowed on them for their achievements in various fields. The award-wapsi strategy played havoc with the Modi government’s authority and dented its legitimacy. Their protest jolted the common man rekindling memories of Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore who had given up their knighthood and Kaiser-e-Hind medal to express outrage over the 1919 Amritsar’s Jallianwala Bagh massacre during British rule.

Over 50 eminent writers like Arundhati Roy and Nayantara Sahgal, scientists like P. M. Bhargava — founder of the prestigious Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology in Hyderabad — besides Dibakar Banerjee, Kundan Shah and Anand Patwardhan from the world of cinema returned their awards to register their protest against the climate of fear and irrationality stoked by Modi’s government. Several Bollywood celebrities, who didn’t have awards to return, nonetheless spoke up even at the cost of alienating their pro-Hindutva fans.

The ideological divide in Bollywood became evident in the run-up to the 2014 general elections, which swept the BJP to power after 10 years of Congress Party rule. Ahead of the landmark polls, 60 film industry personalities issued an appeal to voters not to be swayed by Modi’s election campaign but to usher in a secular government at any cost. Among the signatories were Imitiaz Ali, Vishal Bhardwaj, Govind Nihalani, Zoya Akhtar, Mahesh Bhatt and Kabir Khan.

The trigger for Bollywood’s rebellion last year was the shocking appointment of BJP crony Gajendra Chauhan as the chairman of the elite Film and Television Institute of India by in the Information and Broadcasting Ministry. The anti-BJP stir intensified due to the cold-blooded murder of rationalists Kalburgi and Pansar, the killing of Akhlaque Ahmed by a mob, which accused him of keeping beef in his fridge, and the cancellation of Pakistani singer Ghulam Ali’s concert in Mumbai.

As writers, poets, scientists and academics joined the protest, it became clear what a big blow the principled rejection by a group of respected individuals could deal to any government despite the overwhelming majority it enjoyed in parliament. Modi deployed his trusted lieutenant, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, to counter the intelligentsia. But Jaitley’s description of their criticism as “manufactured rebellion” backfired. Similarly, advice by Jitendra Singh, another minister known to enjoy Modi’s confidence, to intellectuals to be “agents of unity rather than division” didn’t cut any ice.

President Pranab Mukherjee too has spoken five times against intolerance and divisive politics since October. If 2015 is anything to go by, the intelligentsia is not going to mince its words in 2016 too. Ansari’s remarks show that BJP can’t hope to ever get away unchallenged in India.