The IAS toppers not only embody the plurality of India but show how they can work and excel within the system
This was a piece of feel-good news amid the political slugfest of the general election, that of the results of the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) examinations. For it embodied not only excellence but a plural idea of India at a time of toxic segmentation. The topper Kanishk Kataria, a Dalit and a graduate from IIT Bombay, coming as he does after Tina Dabi attained the feat in 2015, settled the angst that meritorious effort and perseverance were undoable without quotas. Ten women broke into the top 25 club, closing the gender gap in what is seen as one of the country’s most intensely fought examinations. Most of the top picks came from middle India in an assertion of aspiration. The third topper Junaid Ahmad from Bijnore, an alumni of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), added to the diverse mix of a young India that is looking to shape the administrative matrix and respond to common people. This batch is truly inclusive as there are 36 selectees with benchmark incapacity (11 orthopedically handicapped; 12 visually challenged, 11 hearing impaired and two with multiple incapacity).
But underlying their individual feats is their dream of staking their abilities at home. And doing so realistically. Kataria, who has cracked the number one position in his maiden attempt, has had an enviable professional graph in the private sector, having worked in Bengaluru and with Samsung in South Korea. But he resigned in 2017 and started his preparations because he simply wanted to apply the depth of his experience with digitisation within the executive of his home country. He chose challenge over easy comfort. And in a rare candid admission, he not only credited his family but girlfriend, too, for providing moral support during his 15-hour study cycles. That made him almost a social media hero overnight for normalising an issue previously considered taboo, that of acknowledging the worth of girlfriends with core family on an open forum. In that one stroke, he also shattered the myth of the austere life of a UPSC topper and showed he could be a normal person with normal pursuits and relationships and still aim for the top slot. At a time when career graphs are ridden with performance anxieties, this sent out a right message for students and more so to their parents, who usually proscribe romantic relationships in their child’s formative years as something distractive, not to be considered before marriage and a waste of time that could be better spent studying. In fact, Tina Dabi, the topper of 2015, broke some rules, too, by marrying second rank holder the same year, Athar Aamir Khan, normalising marriage, an inter-faith one at that, as a part and parcel of a career woman’s life. Both Junaid and fifth rank holder Srushti Jayant Deshmukh embodied the success of a digital India as they relied on the information available on the internet for their success. Srushti could have moved to Delhi for coaching but stayed put in Bhopal, mostly depending on online lessons. Junaid, the boy from Nagina town in Bijnore district of Uttar Pradesh, made “productive” use of the internet and was an IRS trainee but wanted to be an IAS officer so that he could solve people’s problems directly. This youthful brigade is not only fired by idealism and a can-do spirit but has the unique ability to innovate with existing resources. Let’s hope that they can depoliticise the system enough and do not get disillusioned along the way that another topper Shah Faesal did. They have broken the rules, here’s hoping they can make their own ones.
