“Yatha Raja, Tatha Prashasan” – Guest post by Sh Krishen Kak

Dear All: It is my pleasure to publish this guest post by Sh Krishen Kak titled, “Yatha Raja, Tatha Prashasan”. The article was originally published in VijayVaani earlier this week. Following a suggestion by Sh Krishen-ji, I am also reproducing below some of the comments on this post from VijayVaani. Read on (emphasis mine).

*** Yatha Raja, Tatha Prashasan  by Krishen Kak ***

Each year, for about a month, I volunteer with an NGO that coaches candidates for the UPSC’s civil services interviews (officially, “personality tests”).

Each candidate, for interaction with subject specialists, two mock interviews, individual counselling, and lunch daily, pays a total fee of just Rs 501/-.  That’s right, five hundred and one only, plus a hundred-odd rupees for some textual material at cost.  The “faculty” are volunteers, and the candidates come from all backgrounds, and many, as the late Dharampal noted of the students in our village school system before the British missionary-colonial nexus destroyed it, “those termed Soodras, and the castes considered below them”.(1)

Given the number of the NGO’s aspirants who are selected each year, obviously the NGO feels the effort is worth it.  And so do these young people – the NGO doesn’t advertise, it’s all by candidate-word-of-mouth, the number of applicants continues to rise, and they come from as afar as Kashmir, Sikkim, Assam, the deep South, and Gujarat (that is, from all over the country).  For the 2010 personality tests, about 1000 aspirants passed through the NGO’s doors.

It’s a very educative, uplifting, saddening experience all-in-one. Every year there are candidates who’ve made it in their very first attempt to the personality test stage; there are candidates for whom it is their second attempt; and it goes on to candidates trying for the eighth or ninth time (there was one who tried 14 times).  For the unreserved, four attempts upto the age of 30; for OBCs, seven attempts upto age 33; and for SCs/STs, no limit upto age 40.  The maximum marks of the main written examination total 2000, and of the personality test 300.  There is no cut-off mark.  The result is merely a matter of totalling marks secured and assigning ranks accordingly.  Obviously, a person can get in primarily or solely on the result of the written exam, and there has been at least one case of the latter, from Bihar.  His written exam marks were high enough to qualify him for the IAS itself, he declined to appear for the personality test, and he chose not to join.  Instead, he runs his own coaching institute!

You could be outstanding, but if there are 700-odd more outstanding than you are, you don’t get in.  You could be hopeless, but if there are 700-odd more hopeless than you are, you’re the topper and you will get in.  It is all about how well you have done in a written exam that has little specific connection to IAS capability and then it adds a so-called personality test worth less than one-sixth that.  All complicated by quotas.

And, as it happens, a noticeable number of candidates, especially from the OBC and ST categories, appear to come from backgrounds educationally, socially and materially quite comparable to the general category.

Take, for example, the Rajasthan Meenas.  They are STs.  They cheerfully admit they dominate the Rajasthan administration; most are emphatically “creamy layer” and readily admit so; they equally readily admit the Sawai Madhopur Meenas have cornered most of the quota in Rajasthan, with much heartburning amongst other Meenas; but, so what? – they are “quota” and entitled to be selected.  Himachal and north-eastern STs are a comparable story – well-educated, well-off, from professional and materially successful backgrounds, they are “quota”, and entitled to be selected.(2)  And then there are general candidates who come from very humble backgrounds (for example, the father of one labours in a cycle-repair shop) – but no quota for them.

It is revealing why most of the repeaters are trying – they want job security.  They have very little idea of what the job entails and whether they can do it.  It is enough that it is government and it is considered prestigious, powerful, pays very well, and they’ll have permanent tenure. They swot to do as well as they can in the written exam so as to offset any lack of personality.

In the last few years, a new characteristic is displayed in “quota” candidates – a strong sense of entitlement.  There is little or no sense of application, of ability, of job requirement, of leadership, of what in military parlance is called OLQ – officer-like qualities.  They do not even do homework about service realities.  It is enough that all these are sarkari jobs.  By the very fact that they are “quota”, they deserve the job.

And it is the same examination and personality test that selects, for example, to the Railway Board Secretariat Service (Section Officer’s Grade) and to the Posts of Assistant Security Officer in Railway Protection Force as it does to the Indian Administrative Service and the Indian Foreign Service.

Obviously, the selection criteria must then cater to the lowest common denominators.

If the all-India services selection system does pick up genuinely meritorious candidates, it is clearly not because it is designed to do so.

Is it surprising that our bureaucracy is considered the worst in Asia?

Aspirants fill in a UPSC application form.  Of the lakhs who initially appear, those in theory the brightest and most suitable make it to the 2000 or so called for the personality test.  They are the “cream” of those who appear.  Ask them about their professional service choices apart from the IFS and the all-India IAS/IPS and most go blank.  For example, all those whom I met had applied for the Indian Corporate Law Service but not one knew what it is about.  Ask them for the reasons of their preferences, and almost all say “power” or “authority” or “status”.   Ask them whether this is what their UPSC personality-testers will want to hear.  And they go blank.  Then they say, you tell us what to say.

Ask them about their hobbies, their general knowledge……an MA in English (and he can’t speak English) – what books outside your syllabus have you read?  Silence.  Okay, name a book from your syllabus that you read.  Shakespeare.  No, name the book.  “Hamlet”.  Who was Hamlet?  “Prince of Denmark”.  Where is Denmark?  Long silence, then, “Europe”.  Where in Europe?  Longer silence.  “Eastern Europe”.

And this is just one example.

Why are there so many doctors wanting to switch to the civil services?  Why is an MD prepared to give up his medical career to start out as an assistant security officer or a section officer in a Group B service?

In one State, three sayings at one time were used jokingly to describe the “successful” IAS officer –

1. you start out with 33 vertebrae, and every year you lose one;
2. in the beginning (of your career) you resist (“the system”), then you accept, finally you join;
3. the “successful” officer is the “practical” one (who learns to adjust to the demands of “the system”).(3)

Photo of the Karmashila and Dhruvashila buildings at Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration at Mussoorie, where new officers of the IAS and many other Indian civil service bodies undergo training. Courtesy: Priyatu Mandal and Tanmay Chakrabarty

There is now talk of introducing psychometric testing, itself still controversial.  Whether this will be used to identify backboned aspirants who will retain their spine and how it will accommodate quotas remains to be seen.

The IAS is an all-India service.  Its rationale is negated if home State preferences are given weightage, as they have been so far. Those who do not opt for their home States and are prepared to serve anywhere in the country are really the all-India `capables’.  Now, this year the application form asks candidates to list their State preferences – 24 of them!  Most clump at the top their home State and its contiguous States.  And, most commonly, which are the States towards the bottom of their lists? – J&K, WB, Kerala, and the northeastern ones which are “disturbed”.

So why don’t they appear for their State civil services?  Why have an all-India service at all?

The biases of the individual UPSC members become part of our database.  And, yes, they do have their biases.  They do not appear to be there because of any special skill or training or ability they have as personality-testers.  Rather, many appear to be there as a reward for affiliation and/or professional services rendered. Favourable feedback reports are few.  One UPSC member, whose official biodata was the only one that stated her religion (and she highlighted that twice in it), was notorious for bringing it into her personality-testing – Arab/Jew, the Middle East, Indo-Pak, Hindu/Muslim, secularism…..and woe betide the candidate who said anything even remotely critical of her religious ideology.  Another UPSC member is known to be soft towards those who belong to his home town (a bonus if you studied in the school he did) and can answer well questions relating to the town (and the school).  Reports of arrogance and downright rudeness are frequent, of candidates being snubbed or of a personality test being summarily concluded because the candidate (politely) disagreed on a point of fact with the Chair – even though the candidate was factually correct.  One Chair was known to smoke a cigar during the personality test.  Personality-testers are known to gossip amongst themselves while the candidate sits in front of them – as one coaching website tactfully puts it: “They usually like to talk more…” (http://www.thisismyindia.com/education/civil-services-interview.html).  Chairs are known to leave the room during the personality test, yet they assess the candidate. Is this fair to the candidate?  Candidates can opt for being tested in English or in any of the Indian languages.  There are instances when the translator provided proves inadequate to the task so that a personality-tester takes over the translation or, worse, when candidates in Indian languages muddle along in English else personality-testers don’t know what is being said.  And this is fair to the candidate?

So, part of the coaching involves warning candidates what to watch out for should they be listed to appear before Chairs with pronounced biases!

There was a time when I suggested to candidates that the element of “luck” towards a scoring personality-test was 20%.  Now I say it is 50%.

A personality-test question is why is there so much poverty or corruption in, say, this State or that.  Candidates blame the politicians, till I ask them what prevents administrators from doing their duty conscientiously.  They suggest it is because of political pressure.  I ask them why, when they have a permanent job, should they succumb to political pressure?  They have the grace to look sheepish.

They go on to say that a question sometimes asked is “What will you do if you are the district magistrate and……..”, variously, the chief minister orders you to do something illegal, a politician/your superior officer puts pressure on you, you go outside and are surrounded by women with rolling-pins and they begin to beat you?

So, ask these youngsters, what answer should we give? And, taking the last variation, I ask them, you tell me, what would you do?  And they say, we’ll run away.

I say, imagine the scene – the district magistrate, scared, being chased by belan-wielding women. How fast he runs!  And watched over TV by the entire country.

They expect the police to protect them.  It doesn’t matter that the police constable may get beaten for them, but the district magistrate sahib must be protected.

They want positions of leadership, and expect their subordinates to display the courage they clearly lack.

What are the educational qualifications of my questioners? All are graduates, many are postgraduates, some are PhDs.  And what is the educational qualification of a jawan or, for that matter, a constable?  I tell them, a jawan is braver than you are. He is expected to direct his chest, not his back, towards the bullets. And you won’t face even a belan?

Are you still surprised at reports of legislators punching or slapping (or even beating with a chappal) the district magistrate; of a Bihar district magistrate whose public duties included the intimacy of her preparing for chief minister Lalu Yadav and serving to him his paan; of a UP IAS officer kneeling before chief minister Mayawati to remove her footwear; of State civil service and police bosses queuing up with gifts to felicitate their chief ministers, of income tax investigators raiding IAS houses for black money; of a State IAS association polling the names of their most corrupt members – and IAS higher-ups taking no action against those named (http://www.rediff.com/news/jan/15up.htm ; http://www.tehelka.com/story_main11.asp?filename=ts042305Taint_at_the.asp)?

Three points:

(i)  why are such questions needing to be asked in personality tests?

(ii)  the total lack of leadership quality in most of our civil-service hopefuls; and

(iii)  our country’s civil services increasingly being perceived and treated, both by government and by candidates, as entitled employment and not as public service opportunities.

What are we looking for in our administrators?  Going by this admittedly limited experience, it seems to be the ability to pass a written exam giving answers that conform to model answers.  The key word is “conform”, of which a corollary is “obedience”. Therefore, the ability to follow orders.

Indeed, a chief minister, known for his no-nonsense administrative dynamism, commented to the NGO’s managing trustee that all the UPSC seemed good at was recruiting babus.

Clearly there is a moral in this somewhere.

We have a prime minister who is the quintessential babu – suave, humble, polite, discreet, pliant, politically correct, a committee-wala, blinded to the corruption of his colleagues, and skilful at dodging the buck.  His ability to follow orders is well-storied.  He is described as the world’s most academically-distinguished prime minister – and obediently he takes orders from a high-school dropout foreigner.

Therefore, have we evolved an administrative system that increasingly is recruiting Indian followers, not Indian leaders?

And, so, as the 21st century progresses, who then will lead us Indians?

Well, for an answer, reflect on Santayana’s Dictum: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”.

Krishen Kak opted for early retirement from the IAS.

References:

1.  Dharampal, “The Beautiful Tree: Indigenous Indian Education in the Eighteenth Century”, New Delhi: Biblia Impex, 1983:15.  Dharampal’s Introduction to the book should be compulsory reading for all administrators and educationists. An edition has been brought out by The Other Press, Mapusa (Goa).

2.  Recall the background of Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar. She is a graduate of Delhi University’s prestigious IP College and Miranda House and studied abroad too, was in the IFS and had been a Central Minister. Her husband is a Supreme Court lawyer. Her father Babu Jagjivan Ram was an MP for decades, a very senior Central minister, a deputy prime minister and – I recall from a photograph once published in “India Today” – had in his native place a huge house abutting the boundary wall of which were the jhonpris of his poor neighbours.  He became notorious for “forgetting” to pay his taxes but, Gujarat Governor Sharda Mukherjee herself told me, was generous in regularly distributing in envelopes largesse to fellow-MPs.   Ms Meira Kumar, who in no way can be considered deprived, has categorically asserted that “reservation would end the day the caste system was eliminated”.  So, she ensures her children and their children will be entitled to quotas too..

3.  One of many direct experiences of “the system” – as Executive Director (Vigilance) in a PSU nicknamed “Corruption Corporation of India”, I sent to the Central Vigilance Commission over a dozen reports that prima facie indicted the CMD for corruption.  Persecuted by the CMD, I sought the advice of the Joint Secretary (Vigilance) in the Department of Personnel (an MP IAS officer) who responded that those who have “unscrupulous CMDs must learn to live with them”.  The Central Vigilance Commissioner (Orissa IAS) advised me to leave the IAS because I did not “fit in”.  My Ministry boss (UP IAS) whom I met when he was Secretary (Heavy Industries) and later when he was Cabinet Secretary nodded me out on both occasions.  MoS (Personnel) Margaret Alva said the CMD’s backer (Raj IAS) was “too powerful”. The sarkari “system” and its protection of that corrupt CMD notwithstanding, it was courts that eventually put paid to his hugely lucrative career.

*** Selected (and partially edited) Comments from VijayVaani ***

S.K.Malhotra: A very interesting, informative and analytiacal article on Indian bureucracy and corruption. While the NGO “Sankalp” is doing a good job but helping the candidates in finally coming in civil service through interview guidance alone will not make them honest. NGO must focus its energy on a maximum of 100 financially weak but brilliant candidates, starting from preliminary exam to final interview,instead of 1000 candidates, as is being done at present. Even if 50 candiates out of them can finally enter civil service, we can hope that these candidates will remain honest and can make significant contribution in fighting rampant corruption in bureaucracy. Wasting energy and money on 1000 candidates for a month cannot achieve the desired result for which this NGO was established.

Krishen Kak: Thank you all for your most encouraging comments. The steel frame began rusting after 1947. Pre-1947, from what I learn, it was “steel” because it was the Raj and answerable primarily to itself. Certainly there was corruption, often on the grand scale that rulers can be corrupt along with their notions of noblesse oblige, mission to civilize, White Man’s Burden, etc. Yes, Pareto’s does apply! Change is possible, but the initiative has to come from the top. Frankly, I don’t think anyone really high-up within the system (from the Pres of India to the PM and the Cabinet to the GOI Secretaries as a category, not to forget the UPA Chair) is interested in re-forming the system. It may be different in some States. The no-nonsense chief minister I mentioned does not, according to reports, interfere or allow others (incl politicians) to interfere in the administration, and he expects the bureaucracy to deliver. A very senior government servant described to me thus three leading politicians of our country – the current UP chief minister, the current Gujarat chief minister, and the UPA chair. That all three are dictators, but that one dictates for her personal advancement, one dictates for the advancement of her family, and one dictates for the advancement of his State. Take your pick!

Kamal: The reasoning is impeccable and the conclusion is flawless. Yes, we are producing lackadasical ‘followers’ in every field of endeavor. This begins early at CBSE level when teachers warn everyone to conform and write the exact repeated points and not show any originality / creativity. IAS merely reinforces the trend of slavish genuflecting initiated early on by centralisation and uniformity of syllabus and curriculum. ## In the CAT exam, the students learn how to ‘crack’ the MCQ’s (multiple choice questions) by intelligence / luck / choice not by thinking thru. I have to interview thousands of hopefuls for admission to our MBA in Patna, Kolkata, Dehra Doon, Gwalior, Kanpur , Lucknow. The aspirations of lower middle class girls is very high but the sense of entitlement of all the boys is far higher. Students are disgusted by the idea of studies, they are in it for the money, power, prestige. Their is no excitement at the idea of knowledge leading to enhanced understanding or enabling contentment and happiness. Knowledge / Education is a burdensome chore which must be dispensed with somehow by nuskas. kushtas, cheating, bribery. ## The few average students one finds are grabbed by foreign univs thru scholarships. The School system MUST improve and stree creativity , originality and lifeskills thru education.

Lord Mc Caulay:  The IAS is the successor of the ICS, which was created by East India Company. ICS==Indian Civil Service, which after 1947 became IAS==Indian Administrative Service. People who know, usually say ICS==IGNORANT of COMMON SENSE and IAS==IGNORANT of ALL SENSE. ## IAS is NOT about Leadership. An administrator is NOT a leader. He is not supposed to be a leader. He is supposed to be a follower (of orders). Leaders (of whatever type – good or bad) are people like Sikandar, Chandragupt Maurya, Changez Khan, Sardar Patel, Attila the Hun, Oliver Cromwell, Hitler, Gandhi, Narendra Modi, Subhas, Tilak, Babur, Lalu, Mayawati, NTR, MGR, Jayalalitha, Mamata, Sonia etc. etc. ## You cannot become leader by passing a written UPSC exam. The three universities of Calcutta, Bombay & Madras were created in 1857 to train CLERKs (==BABUs) for East India Kompani. Today’s Bharat Sarkar is the same East India Kompani. The name is different, but both need IAS clerks, NOT leaders. It is still controlled by a gora (like Robert Clive or Warren Hastings) who needs kaala Indians to carry out orders. Our ancient university Taxila (now in pakistan) was founded in 752 BC. Guru Chanakya was professor there and came to Nalanda @ 337 BC. There he found Chandragupt Maurya, and TRAINED him to be a LEADER. Thus Chandragupt was able to resist Sikandar in 326 BC, and Sikandar was never able to conquer Hindustan. The ONLY true EFFECTIVE leader in this country today is Narendra Modi. He did not write IAS exam. Think about it.

Radha Rajan: I am surprised that there is no reaction from at least one member of this tribe of hot-air balloons known to both Krishenji and yours truly.

21 Apr 2010

Krishen Kak: “An administrator is NOT a leader. He is not supposed to be a leader.” Sorry, I do not agree. A good administrator is most certainly a leader – and they respond even more effectively to a good leader at the top. Think of the defence services. There is, for example, the army chief, but at levels below him – such as regimental/battalion command – effective leaders are needed. Within the regiment, there are troop leaders at different levels. Likewise, a district magistrate to be effective needs to be not just a leader but a good team leader. So too of the district police chief. PS “Macaulay”

Robert Clive: Defence Services are different. A unit commander in the army has to lead from the front. So in Army, leadership in combat is essential. But I am not talking about Army. I am talking about BABUs. District Magistrate has to implement Indian Penal Code written by Lord McCaulay. So where is leadership needed? Implementation means=follow orders / procedures which are already written by someone else. 0beying orders does not need leadership.

Krishen Kak: The “district magistrate” is the convenient catch-all term that includes district collector/deputy commissioner who in some States is also the chief executive officer of the district panchayat and in other States another IAS officer called the “district development officer” or the like performs this function. Certainly at the district level, the IAS in one guise or another is responsible for a good deal more than the implementation of the IPC for, which, incidentally, their responsibility is minimal. Many States have divisional commissioners . In all States, IAS officers head PSUs and development boards and planning boards. As for not leading from the front, an effective district magistrate leads by example. In my career, I myself stood/faced/handled riotous or potentially riotous situations from right in front. I never considered it appropriate to shelter myself behind police constables. “Robert Clive” needs to bring himself into the 21st century!

Robert Clive: I am aware of that. In fakt my own late father was one of your tribe. I am aware of the “district development officer” tag, but what & how to develop is diktated by the politico, who is (good or bad) the leader. The politico issues instructions which have to be followed by the IAS. A leader has to have followers, a mass base. A leader does not become a LEADER by virtue of a designation. In that sense, even Manmohan Singh (however well educated or honest) is not a leader. He is an appointee, not an electee. Sonia is a leader even without any designation.

Krishen Kak: I defer to your understanding of your late father’s experience. My own is to the contrary, but as he would have been very much senior to me I must, as a babu, sign on his dotted line!

Robert Clive: The paper was laid down at Plassey by Robert Clive on 23 June 1757. The dotted line was laid down by Lord McCaulay @ 1837. Robert Clive is now replaced by the leader of whichever party is in power. The dotted line is now laid down by the lokal politico. All babus MUST sign on the dotted line. That is what they are paid for. Period.

***

Please share your thoughts and comments below. In particular, I would request those who have served in any part of the government to share their insights. And if you have close relatives, siblings, parents in the civils services, please request them to share their views on this too.

I will add my own thoughts at some point during the weekend. Thanks.

Somewhat Related: Wish I was 18 once again. Also read: The sad story of an upright IPS officer who decided it was better to quit than continue in the system; and a post by Vivek (an IFS officer) on why IAS officers quit.