Institutional Memory Is India's Underrated Asset

Civil services, central banks, and election commissions outlast governments. We undervalue them at our peril.

Every incoming minister arrives with a slide deck and a mandate to disrupt. Most leave without reading the last minister’s cabinet note. Institutions absorb that churn so citizens do not — until they are politicized past the breaking point.

Defending institutional memory is not defending the status quo. It is insisting that reformers know what was tried, what failed, and why before they announce the next big bang.