In politics, it is not issues, but trust and credibility that are central. If politicians have credibility, they can survive horrendous mistakes; if they don’t have credibility, there is a cloud even over their good deeds. An allegiance to strengthening institutions adds to trust and credibility. Second, weak institutions disable you from being effective mediators in social conflict. Part of what institutions do is providing authoritative mediation of facts. The state faces a crisis of credibility when it is easy to impugn the facts it produces as partisan. Under those conditions, every group feels more entitled to continue believing what they were predisposed to believing, because there is no authority they can trust. The crisis can deepen when there is no authoritative mediator in civil society either. By treating institutions as mere instruments for short-term goals, by using them selectively, governments undermine their own authority. In those circumstances, even when they do the right thing they are not trusted. In part, the Congress’s capacity to mediate social conflicts declined precisely because it was not trusted on institutions.

Institution-building is difficult. But the CBI saga suggests that the Congress violated the simplest rule: stay out of the way. There are still enough professionals in the system who can deliver. The reason Nitish Kumar got so much credit early on, was not because he transformed institutional capacity in Bihar. It is simply that he sent out the message that we will not stand in the way of professionals doing their job — and the result was a phenomenal increase in the conviction rate, and a palpable dent in the power of organisations like the Ranvir Sena that had flourished precisely because Lalu made such a mess of institutions.

... contd.