By ArunabhaBagchi:
When I left India in the late Sixties, the IAS was the most coveted career option for the brightest middle class students in Calcutta. None of us knew how to get “boxwallah” jobs. We all knew that if IFS or IAS did not work out, we might be lucky to be selected for the IPS or some other less glamorous senior central service. It was common knowledge that the UPSC examination was nerve-wrecking, followed by an even more frightening interview. It was, therefore, a big relief when the Engineering School at UCLA offered me a research position to do Ph.D. there. Once in Los Angeles, I thought that there must be an even more prestigious “steel frame” ~ an administrative Service in the United States running the mightiest and richest country on the globe. When I enquired about this from my American friends, they all admitted their ignorance, with a few adding that there might be something similar in the State Department. I forgot all this, as I had neither knowledge, nor interest, in public administration.
It all came back to me as I read in the newspapers that our PM planned to celebrate 31 October, the birth anniversary of SardarVallabbhai Patel, as National Unity Day throughout India. It is, of course, universally acknowledged that it was Sardar Patel who coerced princely states to merge with India, and even sent our armed forces to take over the Nizam’s fiefdom of Telangana. I then remembered that Sardar Patel was also instrumental in continuing the Indian Civil Service (ICS) in the new garb of the Indian Administrative Service after our Independence. The much-detested ICS was the overt face of colonial exploitation and of torture against our freedom-fighters. This proposal of Sardar Patel, therefore, was strongly challenged by many members of the Constituent Assembly. State Chief Ministers rightly construed this as a surreptitious means of controlling them from Delhi, instead of London, and argued that it was a gross violation of the basic tenets of federalism. Sardar Patel, however, prevailed in the end and the Indian Administrative Service was born. The decisive argument in his favour was the crucial role he envisioned for IAS officers in enhancing our national unity.
Although IAS officers are centrally selected, they are dispatched to the states to form the highest administrative cadre there. To achieve the goal of national unity, the cadres are deliberately mixed with one half selected from residents of the state and the other half from those outside the state. With 33 per cent IAS officers promoted from the State Civil Service members, “outsiders” actually dominate between the direct IAS recruits in each state. In reality, an overwhelming majority of new recruits prefer to be posted in their home states. Forcing them to be posted against their will to achieve national unity by just dangling the carrot of their office is weird indeed. How could the governance of a state be improved by bringing recalcitrant recruits from another state?
Another argument advanced in favour of this unusual practice was that it would reduce nepotism and local political pressure on the administration. If we extend this kind of reasoning one level higher, we should have continued to recruit a large part of our senior civil servants in Delhi from England. In fact, if an administrator does not have emotional connection or instinctive knowledge of a state, he would most likely go with the prevalent political wind there. It is also common knowledge that there is hardly any interest for the fresh recruits to join the cadre of states in the North-east or Jammu and Kashmir. These are the only challenging states in terms of national unity. If these young “idealistic” recruits shy away from this mission, it does not speak very highly in favour of maintaining a colonial system to further the cause of national unity.
Civil service in a country is broadly classified as a “career based” system, or a “position based” system. In the “career based” system, prospective candidates are picked up right from the university, or shortly thereafter, by means of a nationwide competitive examination and groomed for the career path leading to top civil service functions. India, France, Italy and Spain, among others, share this system. In the “position based” system, initial appointments of bright candidates are done through departments. At the level of senior civil service appointments recruitment is done by advertisement where potential candidates from all departments, and sometimes from outside the civil service, are allowed to apply. The United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Belgium are some examples of countries in this category.
Both systems have their benefits and drawbacks. In the “career based” system, senior civil servants develop the esprit de corps and have a total view of the whole administration. The disadvantage is the development of cliques and lack of specialisation in an increasingly knowledge-based environment. In the “position based” system, senior civil servants are drawn from a wider pool of candidates who might have grown in their jobs. The disadvantage is their lack of holistic picture of the administration because of limited mobility earlier. The administrative reform attempted by all OECD (Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development) countries during the last decade consisted largely in modifying their existing system by incorporating positive aspects of the other system.
In India we may be able to do much better. Barring the outlying regions, national unity has become an irrelevant issue in India today. On the other hand, our PM championed the cause of decentralisation in his election campaign. To achieve this, all IAS officers recruited for a state must know the state thoroughly and instinctively. This may be achieved easily by adding in the main examination conducted by the UPSC two state-specific papers, one on the principal language of the state and the other on general knowledge related to all aspects of the state. Based on the ranking, and leaving aside those opting for IFS, every state would recruit IAS officers it needs only from the list of candidates that chose state-specific papers of that particular state.
Many IAS officers want to move to ministries in Delhi later in their career because of abundant power and patronage there. Here is a quote from S.R. Maheshwari’s book Public Administration in India ~ The Higher Civil Service ~ “It is only a small number of 300 officers who keep hovering around Delhi out of the total membership of 5000 and who act as gate-keepers preventing their other colleagues from getting central postings.” This resulted in Delhi becoming the worst businessman-politician-bureaucrat nexus in India generating the lion’s share of black money in our country. It also deprives our crucial central administration from the services of the most competent IAS officers available in the country. Switching over to the “position based” system for senior appointments in Delhi at the deputy secretary level or higher would solve both these problems at the same time. All suitable IAS officers would be eligible to apply for such positions, with the best candidate selected by a high-powered selection committee just as is done for hiring senior executives in big corporations.
Reforming the IAS is not easy. Attempts to make fundamental changes have turned out to be futile so far. Only Narendra Modi, with his commitment to decentralisation, is in a position to effect real changes in this archaic system.
When I left India in the late Sixties, the IAS was the most coveted career option for the brightest middle class students in Calcutta. None of us knew how to get “boxwallah” jobs. We all knew that if IFS or IAS did not work out, we might be lucky to be selected for the IPS or some other less glamorous senior central service. It was common knowledge that the UPSC examination was nerve-wrecking, followed by an even more frightening interview. It was, therefore, a big relief when the Engineering School at UCLA offered me a research position to do Ph.D. there. Once in Los Angeles, I thought that there must be an even more prestigious “steel frame” ~ an administrative Service in the United States running the mightiest and richest country on the globe. When I enquired about this from my American friends, they all admitted their ignorance, with a few adding that there might be something similar in the State Department. I forgot all this, as I had neither knowledge, nor interest, in public administration.
It all came back to me as I read in the newspapers that our PM planned to celebrate 31 October, the birth anniversary of SardarVallabbhai Patel, as National Unity Day throughout India. It is, of course, universally acknowledged that it was Sardar Patel who coerced princely states to merge with India, and even sent our armed forces to take over the Nizam’s fiefdom of Telangana. I then remembered that Sardar Patel was also instrumental in continuing the Indian Civil Service (ICS) in the new garb of the Indian Administrative Service after our Independence. The much-detested ICS was the overt face of colonial exploitation and of torture against our freedom-fighters. This proposal of Sardar Patel, therefore, was strongly challenged by many members of the Constituent Assembly. State Chief Ministers rightly construed this as a surreptitious means of controlling them from Delhi, instead of London, and argued that it was a gross violation of the basic tenets of federalism. Sardar Patel, however, prevailed in the end and the Indian Administrative Service was born. The decisive argument in his favour was the crucial role he envisioned for IAS officers in enhancing our national unity.
Although IAS officers are centrally selected, they are dispatched to the states to form the highest administrative cadre there. To achieve the goal of national unity, the cadres are deliberately mixed with one half selected from residents of the state and the other half from those outside the state. With 33 per cent IAS officers promoted from the State Civil Service members, “outsiders” actually dominate between the direct IAS recruits in each state. In reality, an overwhelming majority of new recruits prefer to be posted in their home states. Forcing them to be posted against their will to achieve national unity by just dangling the carrot of their office is weird indeed. How could the governance of a state be improved by bringing recalcitrant recruits from another state?
Another argument advanced in favour of this unusual practice was that it would reduce nepotism and local political pressure on the administration. If we extend this kind of reasoning one level higher, we should have continued to recruit a large part of our senior civil servants in Delhi from England. In fact, if an administrator does not have emotional connection or instinctive knowledge of a state, he would most likely go with the prevalent political wind there. It is also common knowledge that there is hardly any interest for the fresh recruits to join the cadre of states in the North-east or Jammu and Kashmir. These are the only challenging states in terms of national unity. If these young “idealistic” recruits shy away from this mission, it does not speak very highly in favour of maintaining a colonial system to further the cause of national unity.
Civil service in a country is broadly classified as a “career based” system, or a “position based” system. In the “career based” system, prospective candidates are picked up right from the university, or shortly thereafter, by means of a nationwide competitive examination and groomed for the career path leading to top civil service functions. India, France, Italy and Spain, among others, share this system. In the “position based” system, initial appointments of bright candidates are done through departments. At the level of senior civil service appointments recruitment is done by advertisement where potential candidates from all departments, and sometimes from outside the civil service, are allowed to apply. The United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Belgium are some examples of countries in this category.
Both systems have their benefits and drawbacks. In the “career based” system, senior civil servants develop the esprit de corps and have a total view of the whole administration. The disadvantage is the development of cliques and lack of specialisation in an increasingly knowledge-based environment. In the “position based” system, senior civil servants are drawn from a wider pool of candidates who might have grown in their jobs. The disadvantage is their lack of holistic picture of the administration because of limited mobility earlier. The administrative reform attempted by all OECD (Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development) countries during the last decade consisted largely in modifying their existing system by incorporating positive aspects of the other system.
In India we may be able to do much better. Barring the outlying regions, national unity has become an irrelevant issue in India today. On the other hand, our PM championed the cause of decentralisation in his election campaign. To achieve this, all IAS officers recruited for a state must know the state thoroughly and instinctively. This may be achieved easily by adding in the main examination conducted by the UPSC two state-specific papers, one on the principal language of the state and the other on general knowledge related to all aspects of the state. Based on the ranking, and leaving aside those opting for IFS, every state would recruit IAS officers it needs only from the list of candidates that chose state-specific papers of that particular state.
Many IAS officers want to move to ministries in Delhi later in their career because of abundant power and patronage there. Here is a quote from S.R. Maheshwari’s book Public Administration in India ~ The Higher Civil Service ~ “It is only a small number of 300 officers who keep hovering around Delhi out of the total membership of 5000 and who act as gate-keepers preventing their other colleagues from getting central postings.” This resulted in Delhi becoming the worst businessman-politician-bureaucrat nexus in India generating the lion’s share of black money in our country. It also deprives our crucial central administration from the services of the most competent IAS officers available in the country. Switching over to the “position based” system for senior appointments in Delhi at the deputy secretary level or higher would solve both these problems at the same time. All suitable IAS officers would be eligible to apply for such positions, with the best candidate selected by a high-powered selection committee just as is done for hiring senior executives in big corporations.
Reforming the IAS is not easy. Attempts to make fundamental changes have turned out to be futile so far. Only Narendra Modi, with his commitment to decentralisation, is in a position to effect real changes in this archaic system.
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