Pulling India’s democracy back from the brink Updated: Updated: Suggestions that its democratic credentials have been tarnished merit a serious, thoughtful and respectful response Share Article Suggestions that its democratic credentials have been tarnished merit a serious, thoughtful and respectful response Governments, like the citizens that live under their influence, come in a dizzying array of types, challenging simplistic efforts of classification. In spite of all this variation, what remains constant is this: throughout history, governments wield considerably more power over the governed than the other way around. Actually that is a gross understatement. The vast majority of governments that have ever existed have enjoyed essentially unfettered power over their subjects. Of course, some rulers have been more enlightened and benign than others and grasped the insight that ruling is easier when one’s right to do so is viewed as legitimate than simply through coercion; but even such philosopher-kings were not above the exercise of arbitrary power when necessary. And these were the exceptions: most elsewhere, power was maintained and known by its iron fist.