Parliament and Assemblies should be politicians’ playgrounds for vigorous debate; bureaucracy must speak through committed, qualitative executive action; and the judiciary must deliver honest judgments within the confines of courts. Governance ultimately exists to solve citizens’ everyday problems. Those in power, whether ruling or opposing, should not turn the streets into a theatre for political sentiment. But when institutions fail through incompetence, corruption, ideological rigidity or indifference, democracy cannot demand silence. Citizens have the right and sometimes the moral duty to take to the streets, question power and demand accountability
It is easy to agitate. It is even easier to become a folk hero by positioning oneself against the establishment. Across the world, particularly in India, taking to the streets has often been portrayed as the ultimate expression of courage and public service. But opposing power and exercising power responsibly are fundamentally different. Raising slogans against a government may require courage; governing a country requires competence, patience, integrity, institutional discipline and accountability.
Hitting the streets may be the easiest route to political visibility. Winning an election is considerably harder. Qualifying a competitive examination to become a civil servant requires years of preparation. Becoming a judge requires legal knowledge, professional experience, and a willingness to make decisions that affect millions. Yet the real test begins after one acquires authority. Power becomes meaningful only when exercised in the public interest.
The question, therefore, is not whether people have the right to protest. They unquestionably do. The question is what happens when legitimate grievances become instruments of political mobilisation and agitation becomes a substitute for governance. Genuine protest can strengthen democracy, but prolonged mobilisation, when driven primarily by political objectives, can also weaken institutions while claiming to defend them.
India has witnessed major movements, from the anti-corruption campaign associated with Anna Hazare to farmers’ protests, student movements, reservation agitations and demonstrations around citizenship, caste, minority rights and electoral issues. Many contained genuine grievances and attracted sincere citizens. It would be unfair to portray every participant as politically motivated, but equally naïve to assume that every movement remains insulated from political interests, ideological networks or organised mobilisation.
The career of RTI activist Arvind Kejriwal is a notable example. He emerged as a prominent face of the anti-corruption movement led by Anna Hazare, alongside figures such as Kiran Bedi and Prashant Bhushan. The movement challenged the then Congress-led government and demanded a stronger Lokpal mechanism. Kejriwal eventually concluded that changing the system required entering electoral politics. The Aam Aadmi Party was formed, contested elections and eventually formed governments. There was nothing inherently wrong with that transition; democracy requires citizens and activists to enter politics.
But once an activist acquires power, the standard of accountability changes. It is one thing to accuse a government of corruption from a protest platform and quite another to run a government, control an administration and deliver public services. Once an activist becomes a Chief Minister, citizens are entitled to ask whether schools function, hospitals deliver, roads are maintained, municipalities work, and bureaucracy responds.
The same principle applies to every political leader, including Narendra Modi. His bureaucratically driven government cannot indefinitely blame previous governments for every institutional failure. After more than a decade in national office, responsibility for reform increasingly rests with the present government. Electoral success must ultimately translate into institutional transformation. Citizens care less about who created a problem than about who can solve it. Unfortunately, Narendra Modi, despite running two successive majority governments, has done almost nil big bang reforms to offer relief to the common man. There are no visible police, judicial, municipal services, education, or healthcare reforms that have offered substantive comfort to the 1.5 billion people on the ground.
This is particularly visible in policing. India has discussed police reform for decades. The Supreme Court’s Prakash Singh judgment sought structural changes to reduce political interference and improve professional policing, yet implementation has remained uneven. Successive governments at the Centre and in the states have had opportunities to strengthen policing, while political control over administration remains an enduring issue. Police institutions have also faced persistent concerns over corruption, caste influences and political interference. Practically, nothing has changed over the period of several decades; in fact, except for seminars, conferences and discussions, policing has become a nightmare in the country. Icons like Prakash Singh, Ajit Doval, Kiran Bedi, Nageswara Rao, KPS Gill have graced the Indian police force for a long time, but the outcome from the perspective of the common man remains a big zero.
The judiciary presents a similar paradox. Eminent figures such as liberal leftist Justice Rohinton F. Nariman, Justice Deepak Gupta and Justice Madan B. Lokur have contributed substantially to public debates on constitutional governance, judicial independence and institutional accountability. Senior lawyers such as Kapil Sibal and P. Chidambaram have also been vocal participants in debates concerning the judiciary and constitutional institutions. Their interventions are part of a healthy democratic conversation. But the larger question remains: how much impact has this discourse made on a system in which many of them were integral participants? When will the ordinary citizen experience justice that is faster, simpler, corruption-free, and less expensive?
India has discussed judicial reform for generations while millions of cases remain pending. The citizen does not experience the judiciary through constitutional seminars or television debates. He experiences it through adjournments, legal costs, procedural complexity, rampant corruption and uncertainty.
The same contradiction exists in bureaucracy. Former civil servants such as G. K. Pillai and Vappala Balachandran have contributed to public discussions on governance, administration and national security. Public intellectuals such as Yogendra Yadav and Harsh Mander have remained influential voices on democracy and social policy. Their criticism deserves engagement rather than dismissal, but intellectual criticism becomes most valuable when accompanied by practical institutional alternatives. One must explore and seek the reforms they brought into the system that have benefitted the common man; the plain answer is a big zero.
In all of the above cases, the individuals became heroes, and the system continues to bleed, offering an extremely pessimistic outlook for the common man. Do we need heroes or an efficient system to govern the mammoth, most populous country in the world?
Political leaders such as Rahul Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge, Mamata Banerjee, Arvind Kejriwal and Sanjay Raut have repeatedly challenged the Modi government. That is their democratic right. But criticism must be replaced by an alternative governing model. Those who aspire to exercise power must explain not merely what is wrong, but what they would change and how. All these critics were in power for a long period of time, there is nothing tangible on the table that they can showcase to make a case for themselves to be in power again.
India therefore does not need protests; it needs more responsible protests. It does not need less dissent; it needs more constructive dissent. The citizen ultimately wants a police station that registers a complaint, a municipality that works, a road that is repaired, a bureaucrat who responds and a court that delivers justice without corruption and within a reasonable period.
The opposition cannot permanently remain in the politics of protest. The government cannot permanently remain in the politics of defence. Bureaucrats cannot hide behind procedure, judges cannot ignore systemic delay, and intellectuals cannot substitute commentary for institutional solutions.
Governments will change through elections. Institutions must survive those changes. The objective must therefore be institutional reform, not institutional destruction. In the age of social media, Gen Z can play a decisive role by peacefully channelling its energy toward municipal services, police stations, schools, colleges, hospitals, and courts. With smartphones, citizens can document failures in governance and bring them into public view without bias or vested interests. Such citizen-led pressure groups have the potential to demand seamless, quality governance while remaining constructive and democratic.
Repeatedly hitting the streets, however, can disrupt governance, inconvenience ordinary citizens and create a negative perception of the country. The challenge is therefore to transform public anger into informed civic pressure, evidence-based accountability and practical solutions rather than endless confrontation.
It is easy to become a hero by opposing power. The difficult art is to acquire power and then use it responsibly in the service of the citizen. “A society does not collapse overnight. It decays when professionals abandon their duties, institutions abandon their responsibilities, and political leaders abandon accountability. The ultimate measure of leadership is not the ability to mobilise people against the system, but the ability to make the system work for the people.”
The writer is a public policy expert and columnist; Views presented are personal.