Vikash had never been to Delhi. For most of his life, the national capital existed on the small screens through which millions of young Indians now encounter their country through television, YouTube, Instagram and the endless flow of social media.

He comes from Dumri in Jharkhand's Giridih district, a region once associated with Maoist insurgency, underdevelopment and a troubled relationship between peripheral communities and the State. His father is a farmer-cum-carpenter, moving between agriculture and carpentry to sustain the family.

Vikash once dreamed of becoming a doctor. He prepared for the NEET, but ambition carries a different price for the poor. Competitive examinations are not fought with merit alone; they are also shaped by access to coaching, study material, time and financial security. Economic circumstances eventually forced Vikash to abandon his pursuit of medical education. Today, he helps his father and contributes to the household.

Yet he did not stop believing in a better future, or in the State's promise of one.

His generation had watched roads, communication networks and welfare programmes gradually bring regions like his closer to India's democratic mainstream. On television and mobile screens, he repeatedly heard the promise:"Sabka Saath. Sabka Vikas. Sabka Vishwas".

For a young man whose own life had been shaped by the distance between aspiration and opportunity, those words represented hope.

Then his phone began showing him another India.

In Search of the Truth

For days, Vikash watched competing narratives about protests in Delhi. One video portrayed young protesters as citizens fighting for democratic change. Another called them politically motivated troublemakers. Television anchors, political spokespersons, influencers and social-media accounts presented contradictory versions of the same events.

Everyone seemed certain.

Vikash was not.

Who was right? Who was wrong? Were young people genuinely fighting for their future, or were they being politically manipulated?

The more he watched, the less he understood.

His confusion reflects a defining paradox of India's Gen-Z: it has greater access to information than any previous generation, yet finding truth amid algorithms, misinformation and political polarization has become increasingly difficult.

Vikash finally decided that he would no longer watch democracy through a six-inch screen. He would travel to Jantar Mantar and see for himself.

For a young man from a modest rural family, travelling more than a thousand kilometres to Delhi was not an ordinary excursion. Every rupee mattered. Every day away from home mattered.

Yet he went. The significance of his journey was larger than the distance between Dumri and Delhi.

A young citizen from a region once affected by political alienation and insurgency had chosen participation over withdrawal. He chose Jantar Mantar over alienation and democratic curiosity over cynicism.

For the Republic, that should itself have been a victory.

When the Screen Became Human

At Jantar Mantar, the people Vikash encountered looked remarkably like him. Students. Job aspirants. Young people worry about examinations, accountability, employment and their futures.

Suddenly, the algorithm had faces.

The hashtags had voices.

The “crowd” contained human beings.

Then the atmosphere changed.

As protesters attempted to move towards Parliament, confrontation followed. Journalists reported the use of tear gas and cane charges, while Delhi Police disputed allegations regarding its use of force and maintained that the situation had been handled professionally. The precise responsibility for individual acts must be established through evidence rather than political assumption.

But for Vikash, the debate was no longer taking place on a screen.

There was confusion. People ran. Voices that had been raised in slogans now carried fear.

The young man who had travelled to Delhi to discover which political narrative was true encountered a much deeper question:

What happens when an ordinary citizen stands directly before the coercive power of the State?

Vikash could not easily reconcile what he witnessed with what he had been taught to believe.

This was his country.

This was his government too.

The same democratic system had asked people in historically neglected regions to reject alienation and place their trust in constitutional politics.

And now one word returned to him:

Vishwas. Trust.

Vikash had not travelled to Delhi to overthrow the State. He travelled because he believed the State belonged to him. Why, then, should a democratic citizen ever feel that the State sees him primarily as someone to be controlled?

A Democratic Republic with a Colonial Police?

Vikash's experience leads to a question India has postponed for decades: can a twenty-first-century democracy continue to operate with a policing culture substantially inherited from colonial rule?

The institutional foundations of modern Indian policing were laid through the Police Act of 1861, enacted after the Revolt of 1857. Its underlying purpose was maintaining colonial order, not serving democratic citizens.

The colonial relationship was straightforward:

The ruler commanded.

The subject obeyed.

Independent India transformed the subject into a sovereign citizen. The Constitution guaranteed fundamental rights and created sovereignty in “We, the People.”

But policing never underwent an equally profound democratic transformation.

The consequences remain visible whenever protesters are viewed first as law-and-order problems and only afterwards as rights-bearing citizens.

Colonial policing asks: How do we control the population?

Constitutional policing asks: How do we maintain public order while protecting citizens' rights?

That difference lies at the heart of police reform.

A Protester Is Still a Citizen

Protest is not a breakdown of democracy. It is one of democracy's languages. Elections allow citizens to periodically choose governments. Protest allows them to communicate with governments between elections.

This does not place protesters above the law. Violence and destruction must be dealt with according to law, and police personnel themselves frequently operate under extraordinarily difficult circumstances.

But democratic policing demands necessity, differentiation and proportionality.

A police officer must distinguish between a violent individual and a peaceful protester, between genuine danger and inconvenience, and between dissent and disorder.

The person standing behind a barricade may be Vikash, a farmer's son who travelled more than a thousand kilometres because he still believed his voice mattered.

A democratic police officer's task cannot simply be to ask, “How do I control this crowd?”

The constitutional question must be:

“How do I protect public order without extinguishing their democratic rights?”

From a Police Force to a Citizens’ Police

India does not lack proposals for reform. The National Police Commission raised concerns about political interference and accountability decades ago. In its landmark 2006 judgment in Prakash Singh v. Union of India, the Supreme Court prescribed structural reforms, including State Security Commissions, fixed tenure for key police officials, Police Establishment Boards and independent Police Complaints Authorities.

Yet implementation remains incomplete.

The reason is partly political. Governments frequently find control over policing convenient; opposition parties rediscover the urgency of police reform when they find themselves on the other side of the barricade.

That cycle must end.

Police reform in India is not an anti-police project. Police personnel themselves suffer from excessive working hours, staff shortages, difficult working conditions and political pressure.

A genuinely democratic reform agenda must therefore protect both sides of the barricade: the citizen from arbitrary coercion and the police officer from illegitimate political interference. India needs a citizens' police—not weak police, but a professional and accountable one.

Independent Police Complaints Authorities must become genuinely functional. Protest policing should prioritize communication and de-escalation, with force used only when necessary and proportionate. Serious public-order operations should be transparently documented. Police training must place constitutional rights, mediation, human rights and democratic ethics alongside conventional law-enforcement skills.

Other democracies have also struggled with police legitimacy. The post-conflict reforms in Northern Ireland, for instance, sought to rebuild policing around human rights, accountability and community confidence. India need not import another country's model, but the democratic lesson is universal:

A State cannot sustainably command citizens' trust if they fear the institution that exercises coercive power in its name.

The police officer standing before Vikash must therefore represent more than the government of the day.

The institution must also be the farmer's police, the student's police, the minority citizen's police and even the protester's police. That is what a citizens' police means.

The Erosion of Trust

Eventually, Vikash returns to Dumri. Delhi disappears behind him.

His father is still there. The fields are still there. The carpentry tools are still there. The economic circumstances that interrupted his dream of becoming a doctor have not disappeared.

He opens his phone.

The same event he witnessed is already divided into competing realities.

One video blames the protesters.

Another blames the police.

Television debates continue shouting.

The algorithms continue choosing sides.

But something has changed.

Vikash is no longer merely watching.

He was there.

His journey began because he wanted to discover who was right and who was wrong.

It ends with a deeper question about democracy.

Perhaps when he reaches home, his father asks him:

“How was Delhi?”

The answer is not simple.

How does a young man explain that the democracy he travelled so far to understand can be simultaneously inspiring and unsettling?

How does he explain that the Constitution invites him to participate while institutions can sometimes make participation feel dangerous?

Perhaps Vikash says very little.

But three words remain with him:

Sabka Saath.

Sabka Vikas.

Sabka Vishwas.

One matters more now.

Vishwas.

Trust cannot be demanded through slogans. It must be earned through institutions.

And the real test of Sabka Vishwas is not whether citizens trust their government when they agree with it.

The real test is whether the State protects their dignity and rights when they stand before it and disagree.

Vikash's question should therefore travel much further than the train carrying him back to Jharkhand: “If the government asks for my trust as a citizen, why should its police ever treat me as a subject?”

India has spent decades persuading young people in historically neglected and conflict-affected regions to believe that democratic participation is more powerful than alienation and violence.

When a young man like Vikash chooses democracy, democracy must also choose him.

The Republic does not need a police force that teaches citizens to fear the State. It needs a citizens' police that gives them reason to trust the Constitution. Because the young person standing behind the barricade is not an enemy of the Republic. Sometimes, he has travelled more than a thousand kilometres simply because he still believes enough in Indian democracy to show up.

The greatest responsibility of a democratic State is to ensure that he never regrets having believed in it.

(The author is an Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU), Hyderabad, India. The views expressed are personal. He can be contacted at  afrozjamia@gmail.com dafroz@manuu.edu.in  X Follow-@khwajaAfrozSidd   )