Rarely do we pause to consider vigilance in a democracy with the seriousness it warrants. Let us be clear: vigilance is not a casual pastime. It is not an optional indulgence for opinionated citizens with spare time. It is a duty. It is a right. It is a responsibility, one that cannot be outsourced.
We comfort ourselves with the notion that democracies welcome scrutiny. The reality is harsher. Governments submit to oversight not out of virtue, but because they have to. Power prefers the shadows. Power prefers the ease of operating unseen. Scrutiny disrupts that comfort. But scrutiny is what keeps democracy alive.
Laws, constitutions, speeches—these matter. But the refusal to let power drift unchecked is what truly sustains the system. And when vigilance fades, decay seeps in quietly. Democracies rarely die in a single day; they wither in the spaces where we stop looking. Bureaucracies learn to conceal malpractice behind procedure. Ministers discover the convenience of decisions made in dim corners. And citizens begin to see politics as something that happens to them, not something they shape. Each unchallenged minister, each law accepted without scrutiny, lays another brick in a wall that ultimately begins to box us in.
And still comes the weary, familiar question: What can we do? It sounds like modesty but often masks resignation, that quiet surrender mistaken for realism. And resignation, not dissent, is democracy’s true nemesis. As soon as we view power as immutable, corruption as inevitable and accountability as pointless, the democratic project ceases to function.
But vigilance is not a simple, unqualified good. It can falter. It can misfire. Alarm at every whisper, suspicion cast at every shadow, and soon the signal is lost in a storm of noise. Healthy scepticism degenerates into corrosive distrust. Oversight mutates into obsession. Institutions built like pillars begin to buckle under endless accusations. People disengage, exhausted by the cacophony surrounding them. Oversight requires credibility. Credibility is fragile. Once lost, even real warnings fall like pebbles in a void.
The remedy is not less vigilance. The remedy is informed vigilance. We must watch the powerful. We must demand answers. But our scrutiny must be grounded in facts, in context and in principle
This is a cruel irony of the modern age. Today, the challenge grows harder. Polarisation eats through communities. Conspiracy theories devour context. We remain alert, but discernment frays. Lies travel faster than the truth. Outrage outruns reason. Each headline becomes a crisis. Even false alarms show something heartening: the civic instinct is alive. Citizens refuse to let power operate unchecked. They refuse to be blind.
But in the digital storm we inhabit, vigilance becomes distortion. In today’s information ecosystem, a single rumour originating from an anonymous account can rapidly propagate through partisan influencers and disseminate across countless social media feeds long before a credible journalist has the opportunity to verify it. The result is a distorted vigilance. If we cannot separate signal from noise, trust erodes.
The remedy is not less vigilance. The remedy is informed vigilance. We must watch the powerful. We must demand answers. But our scrutiny must be grounded in facts, in context and in principle. It must not be reflexive suspicion or partisan instinct.
Informed vigilance requires something we usually undervalue: an educated public. Not simply schooled, but civically literate. People must understand how government works, how power flows, and how policies translate into lived realities. Critical thinking is not a luxury; it is a survival skill in a democratic society. It requires strengthened journalism. It requires government transparency that is more than rhetorical. It requires communities that debate, reason, question, and listen. Anger unchecked can spark chaos. Vigilance without direction dissolves into noise.
For a democracy to thrive, its citizens must be able to resist two equally dangerous extremes: numbing apathy and ceaseless panic. A healthy democracy depends on the ability to distinguish between genuine warnings and the static that masquerades as one. Neglect public institutions, and they decay; drown them with frantic oversight, and the very fabric of society begins to fray. Silence is no refuge. But neither is shouting endlessly in the wrong direction.
The task is balanced: vigilance rooted not in suspicion alone, but in knowledge, discipline, and the hard-won understanding that democracy is fragile, fallible, and must be defended daily. Only then does vigilance fulfil its promise. Only then does democracy not merely endure—it strengthens.
