Before 1947, India had been ruled by kings and monarchs, emperors and their empires for thousands of years. A nation can’t kick off such a habit overnight. In fact our (unofficial) Father of the Nation was a bit of a dictator himself.
Mahatma Gandhi was the originator of the “My way or highway” policy in modern India. He may have dressed simply and led a simple life, but there was nothing simple about his politics. No matter what happened he had to get his way.
He would beg and plead and get everyone on his side. If Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose shared a divergent philosophy he had to leave the Congress: That despite there being the little matter of Bose being elected Congress President twice.
If all else failed, there was the simple matter of fasting unto death! Now who could fight that? So Gandhi got his way. Every time! (Note: Only a dictator gets his or her way every time)
The only person who totally subscribed to him became the first among equals. Jawaharlal Nehru was our first Prime Minister and he was a virtual communist dictator. He ruled till death and would not tolerate any other party ruling any other State in India.
He didn’t tolerate criticism and masterminded the First Amendment which ensured that freedom of expression would be curbed even well into 2015. His daughter Indira Gandhi was an extremely popular but dictatorial Prime Minister.
She even officially imposed Emergency and India was officially a dictatorship from 1975-77.
She may have lost at the end of that, but she stormed back to power in 1980. Her son carried forward the dictatorial streak expelling the now India President Pranab Mukherjee.
VP Singh was forced to quit and Rajiv also tried legislation muzzling the press without much success. The first Congress democrat Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri died unfortunately early and the second was PV Narasimha Rao.