I Do What I Do

by Raghuram G. Rajan

Strong government does not mean one that is only militarily powerful or uses its intelligence apparatus to sniff out enemies of the state. Instead, a strong government is also one that provides an effective and fair administration through clean, motivated, and competent administrators who can deliver good governance. Rule of law means that government’s actions are constrained by what we Indians would term dharma – by a historical and widely understood code of moral and righteous behaviour, enforced by religious, cultural, or judicial authority. And democratic accountability means that the government has to be popularly accepted, with the people having the right to throw unpopular, corrupt, or incompetent rulers out.