State and Government in Ancient India c11.7

c11.7

The constitutional writers of ancient India have not made any differentiation among the residents of the country based upon the possession of franchise. We are quite in the dark about the details of the political life in the Vedic period. At that time popular assemblies (*samitis*) existed and controlled the king's activity and powers to a great extent. It is quite possible that not all the inhabitants had the right to become the members of the *samiti*; only a small section of the population may have had this right, and it may have constituted a privileged class corresponding to the aristocratic order in the modern times or to that of the privileged class in ancient Greece. In the republican states, there existed a privileged aristocracy which appears to have been the custodian of the political rights.