Civil Services Myths and Realities.

After a long time interval I met my dear friend and my first year wingy Sunny who was looking flummoxed by the proceedings of F 127. As asked by him to unravel the mysteries of Civil Services I am writing this article for Scholars Avenue. The article is more oriented towards ideological aspect of this profession than information about examination process. While talking to many people in our prestigious institute, I have deduced that the profession of civil service is often misconstrued as an alternative of inept species, the people for whom GRE and CAT are not made, who are having no attributes in them which can fetch them package of any Schlumberger and so they have no other option left than to rely on India Incorporation for raking on moolah with greasing their palms. Civils is enshrouded with myths of stagnancy, sense of undue complacency, interference of blockhead politicians etc. This biased view of people about civil services are due to their self framed obsessions and hearsay information.

Generally nature of this profession propagates functional image of civil servant in the system. An image of a person who is complacent with his place in hierarchy and guided by some upper force. But this vox populi reveals that ulterior motives of aspirants are very different. Vivek and Dilip who are superfinal year students of Maths & Computing and Biotechnology respectively envision civils as an option for trying their luck in this political mess of India while Rituraj sees it as a rostrum from where he can put forth his ethical socialism ideas with full vigour and large mass appeal. Rajat who is bagging an under ten rank in institute and recently undergone training in a prestigious UK company was disillusioned with his nature of job there without innovation and challenges. According to him if diagnosing an error of semicolon at line no. 234 of thousand line code is job of a top company then I would prefer to become apostate and embrace India Incorporation whose jobs are much more challenging and diversified than any other MNC. Satish who opted electrical engineering after JEE felt after sometime that with each insertion of wires and chips in breadboard he is burying his freedom of thought and will in this deterministic graveyard and he found CSE as job which is much more possibilistic than observation of waveforms.

I think the job of civils is somewhat like a management in an undefined systems instead of job in companies where you are a part of hierarchy or you are a manager with well defined ranges and spans. Management in undefined systems helps in evolution of theories those are applied in well defined systems. It is evident that CSE qualifiers are holding some of the coveted posts throughout the country. Apart from having a post of collectors and District heads, which is job requiring tremendous management skill and diplomacy, a person may acquire the post of ambassador, diplomat, secretary or advisor to the Prime Minister and Cabinet Ministers. A person can himself become cabinet minister with prestigious membership of parliament. These are the forces who work behind the scenes, form policies, 5 year plans, Industrial Policy, International relations, Oil Import etc. They can decide whether Schlumberger’s should be allowed to do business in India or not. Needless to say, the perks of the job are tremendous - in terms of housing, servants and allowances. Corruption does exist, but so do clean bureaucrats.

So far as examination part is concerned the test is rigorous and hard nut to crack in real sense. With two optionals and three phases of examinations, it is also a test of perseverance and patience besides dedication. Phenomenal growth of knowledge, unprecedented levels of value addition and holistic viewpoints are gifts of this exercise. The prerequisite is that you should develop a different view about global and local happenings. So the preparation for CSE is an academic activity with fare share of extra academics in it. Now I think that my elucidation will surely help in developing different opinion about civil services. One can easily visualize that how far all these accusations and prejudices are true and is civil service not competent enough to be opted by an IITian.