I have heard it said: movie stars hug each other in public and stab each other in private, while politicians fight in public while hugging each other in private.

However, this is very far from Tocquevillian democracy at work - a party that had unscripted conversations with Rahul Gandhi and whose local friends can casually invite MPs isn’t exactly the ‘public’ - the social distance between the two parties is close to zero already. Might have more to do with the levels of access Western elites have to their Indian counterparts.

Would it have been similar in China if you had access to a few princelings?