During a speech at the recently held Summit for Democracy, the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi said that democracy in India is more than 2500 years old. However from my understanding of Indian history, kingdoms in India have primarily been monarchies and I hadn't heard of democracy being such a long revered practice of the country. Could someone help shed more light on this please.
The answer is, not really. There were certain political units in North India around 600 BCE which have been described as "republics" by some historians, but they cannot be compared to modern republics in any way.
The kingdoms of the time were referred to as Rajyas, while this second variety of state was called Gana or Sangha
Ancient Indian history contains information about 16 Mahajanapadas or city states in India at this time, and of these, two - Vajji and Malla were called Sanghas. Ancient Buddhist sources mention more, like the Sakyas of Kapilavastu. Geographically speaking it has been observed that the Ganas were situated in the foothills of the Himalayas whereas the Rajyas were situated in the Ganga valley area.
Historians have argued that the Gana was merely a development of an older tribal organization, though the argument also exists it was the result of a subversion of monarchical rule. The Videhas for example went from being a monarchy to a gana. Among the Ganas there existed those made of a single clan and others formed as a confederacy of clans.
Power was held by an aristocracy comprising the heads of the leading Kshatriya (warrior caste) families who were called Rajas. There was a chief, sometimes called a Ganapati (not a hereditary post) and an aristocratic council who met in a special hall. Matters were discussed and voted on. Effective day to day administration was in the hands of a small group of officials like treasurer, commander in chief etc. However we also have evidence of Ganas like the Licchavis who had a general assembly of at least 7000 members. There are certain mentions of separate judicial procedures.
So to return to the basic question - were they democratic? Absolutely not. While older nationalist historians have greatly exaggerated their democratic nature and even compared them to Greece, it is simply not fair or accurate to saddle them with such loaded terminology. To cite Romila Thapar, the pre-eminent historian of ancient India, "The larger numbers of people who lived in the territory had no rights and were denied access to resources" They have been referred to as republics, oligarchies and chiefdoms by various historians.
More can definitely be said about this, I recommend Romila Thapar's excellent essay on this in her book The Penguin History of Early India
Hello, a similar question was asked and comprehensively answered by u/MaharajadhirajaSawai