I've heard it from my elders as a point of pride for Indians that our ancestors formed the first democracies, hundreds of years before even Athens, in the ancient janapadas. I'd like to also revel in this as an Indian, but the skeptic in me doubts this a little.

Just from some browsing on the Wikipedia articles on the janapada and the gaṇa sangha, it seems that they were at most republics which represented certain groups within the state through councils and congresses, and at least monarchies or oligarchies with some advisors representing the different interests of the state.

The source given in the Wikipedia article, Janapada State In Ancient India by Sudama Misra, says on page 287 that janapadas which experimented with democracy tended towards a republican form because of large populations, compared with Greek city-states of the era, but cites Dialogues of the Buddha by T. W. Rhys Davids and Hindu Polity by K. P. Jayaswal that the Śākyas, Mallas, and Koliyas practiced direct democracy. At this point, I felt a little out of my league with the history and literature, so I'm reaching out to someone hopefully more knowledgeable.

Does this sound right? Misra seems to say that the Indian japanada and Greek polis were very similar in nature and had very similar histories, including the same experiments with democracy. However, the exact timeline of experimentation isn't clear to me, so I still don't have confirmation of Indian democracy predating Western democracy.