A fresh round of the hallowed Union Public Service Commission Civil Services examination is round the corner. It decides who will be the cream of the bureaucracy that for all practical purposes runs India. Uttar Pradesh and Bihar youths have a special aspiration for this exam. This is due partly to the feudal hangover of the past that still rules the mindset in these two states and partly because there are almost no other worthwhile career options there.
There are many anecdotes that show the primacy of the bureaucrat in UP and Bihar and his ordinary status in many other parts of India. I know a gentleman of Patna, a product of IIT Kanpur, who got through the exam and became an IPS (Indian Police Service) officer of the Gujarat cadre. He was posted in Jamnagar and became friends with a local businessman. The businessman called him over to his home and the two were chatting about IPS as a career. The IPS officer told him that it is after a gruelling exam that he got into the IPS. “How much do you earnIJ” the businessman asked, thinking that it must a good amount given the tough exam. When the IPS officer told him the amount, the businessman’s jaw dropped. “Just this muchIJ” he said. “I spend this much every month on the feed of my buffaloes.”
There’s another. A group of Bihari youths had graduated from a Mumbai college and were staying as paying guests in a city in the State, preparing for the Imtehan-e-Hind or the Exam of Hind as the civil services exam is called in Bihar. The landlady was an old widow. She saw the youths studying very hard and asked them which exam they were preparing for. The youths told her about the exam but she could not understand what they were referring to. This could never have happened in Bihar, where even children know that the highest levels they can aspire to is the IFS (Indian Foreign Service), the IAS (Indian Administrative Service) and the IPS along with many other exalted all India services. The youths told the lady about these services but she still could not understand what they were saying. In exasperation, she asked, “What will you become if you get throughIJ” The youths replied, “DM, SP.” “In which companyIJ” she asked, thinking these abbreviations referred to private sector job positions like Deputy Manager and not District Magistrate and Superintendent of Police which the youths meant.
These anecdotes go back a few years and now even Bihar and UP youth are not as enamoured of this exam as earlier. But quite a bit of the aura is still there. Society in these two states still accords a very esteem to the civil services. One way this is evident is the dowry an IAS or an IPS officer gets in the two states. The amount can go up to Rs1 crore, apart from the dowry in kind.
There is no doubt that the Civil Services exam is very important and provides officers for some of India’s crucial and esteemed services. Given the eminent status of this exam, it suffers in my opinion from severe drawbacks. Before telling you about its shortcomings, I will state in brief the constituents of this exam. The minimum academic requirement for the exam is graduation. The exam takes about a year and begins with the preliminary test. This objective type test of general knowledge (GK) and a subject chosen by the examinee is the elimination round which selects about 10,000 students from lakhs of examinees for the main exam a few months later. The marks obtained in the prelims (as the prelim test is popularly called) are not considered in the final evaluation.
The mains, as the main exam is called, has an essay, two papers of GK, and two papers each of two subjects chosen by the examinee from an exhaustive list. GK and the two subjects carry equal weight in terms of the total marks the papers have. The essay has a lower weight than these papers. The academic level of the main examination is graduation.
From the mains examinees, about thrice the total number of vacancies in all the civil services for a given year are called for an interview. The marks obtained in the mains and interview are then added to declare the merit list. While filling up the application for the mains exam, the examinee is asked to list his priority of the services he wants to join if selected. It is my estimate that there are perhaps no exceptions to the top three services candidates opt for: IAS, IFS (Indian Foreign Service) and IPS. These are followed by the Indian Revenue Service (IRS), the Indian Customs and Excise Service and others.
When the final result is declared, which successful candidate will get which service depends on his rank in the merit list and his priority list of Civil Services. After the service of a candidate is decided he gets specialised training for it. I find a great problem with this method of allotment to different services and the training successful aspirants receive thereafter. Take the top four services. The training, temperament and areas of expertise needed for the IFS, IAS, IPS and IRS are worlds apart. With these services bunched together in one civil services exam, a difference of a few marks decides which candidate with a certain temperament, personality, knowledge and overall nature gets to spend his entire working life in which service. This is injustice both for the candidate and the services. Put simply, the qualities needed to be a good officer in the different services available cannot be decided by the same exam.
The services candidates can opt for in the same Civil Services exam are very different from one another in most cases. The examinations for the different services need to be different and should aim at selecting candidates suited for a particular service. The second thing that should change is that the selection for all India Civil Services should not take place after graduation but after the intermediate or 10+2 exam. The things a person preparing for a certain service must know should be taught in a three-, four- or five-year curriculum once he is selected in an all India exam after the intermediate level. Engineering and medical students are selected in exams that test their prowess in relevant subjects after the intermediate exam. Similarly, civil services that have key areas of commonality should have one exam that tests their command over the relevant areas. Any standalone civil service that has nothing much in common with any other service should have its own exam and subsequent training.
The civil services are very crucial for the nation. They have an elite status. Civil servants are considered to be the crème de la crème of the officialdom that runs India. It is time the civil services exam woke up to its responsibility and became a gateway through which only the best can get in to serve the country.
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