Ramaswami: At another level, this situation is being used to strengthen the authoritarian control of the central government. This over centralisation is robbing the democratically elected legitimate state governments of the basic rights, in the federal system as contained in our Constitution. The states are being forced to take up the responsibility for meeting the people’s needs while combatting this pandemic. The central government refuses to even pay back the legitimate dues to the states leave aside financially assisting them.