UPSC – A history

Official UPSC website has a brief history and it is clearly seen that genesis of civil servants in India has colonial hangover like many other government systems. Initially, the board of directors of East India Company nominated the candidates and they were trained in Haileybury College in London. Later after Lord Macaulay’s report merit based modern Civil Service in India was introduced in 1854. For a long time exams were conducted only in London and eligible age group was 18-23 years meant officers came in very young. The syllabus was heavily biased to European Classics and hence Indians normally did not qualify. The first Indian who qualified in 1864 was Satyendranath Tagore, elder brother of Rabindranath Tagore. After petitioning for more than 50 years, civil service examination started to held in India as well as London. With the inauguration of the Constitution of India in January 26, 1950, the Federal Public Service Commission came to be known as the Union Public Service
Commission

Civil Services – What it means to common people?

Governments come and governments go but the bureaucracy that runs the government remains. The power that UPSC officer derive from the chair is immense and nobody can deny that they can lead to lot of social impact. All administration, judicial and police are led by these officers. Many other government systems are led by these chosen ones. So for common people these officers are someone to be looked with respect as they clear one of the hugely competitive examinations. These examinations requires person to have huge depth on knowledge.

Civil Services Examination Structure today

UPSC conducts the examination every year and there are two different phases called Preliminary, Mains and Interview. Normally about 12-13 times of vacant posts are chosen for the mains phase.

The preliminary examination consists of two compulsory paper (200 marks each) and General Studies Paper -II is a qualifying paper with a fixed minimum qualifying marks of 33%. Both these papers are objective and somewhat similar to question papers on CAT and other management exams plus current affairs.

The mains consists of following

Paper A – Any Indian Language under Eighth Schedule to the Constitution (300 Marks)

Paper B – English (300 Marks)

These paper are qualifying in nature and not counted for merit.

Paper- I It is an essay (250 marks)

Paper – II to V are four papers (1000 marks) that are part of General Studies covering Indian Heritage and Culture, History and Geography of the World and Society, Governance, Constitution, Polity, Social Justice and International relations, Technology, Economic Development,Bio-diversity, Environment, Security and Disaster Management, Ethics, Integrity and Aptitude

Paper – VI & VII (500 marks) are two optional papers that are for specialist subjects ranging from language, history, sociology, engineering, biology etc

Personality Test – 275 Marks

A total of 2025 marks is considered for the merit.

UPSC and Sudarshan TV Saga

I tried to listen to Sudharsan TV program and whole idea is lot of politicians and folks who are muslim have been asking people to get into bureaucracy in order increase the representation and the percentage increase in number for people has increased over the base year of 2011 and the increase is over upto 2.5 times from 2015-2019. How is the data collected is by manually going through the results. A person who struggles and clears the examination in whatever framework is provided to them is commendable.

Since bureaucracy is such a important pillar of the our country and has immense power over the people, there is definitely a lot of folks looking to get into. Looking at the syllabus and structure and marks distribution if a fair game is played it will be very difficult for anyone to rig the system without having the required depth in the knowledge.

Narrative needs a change

Countering the claims and proving them wrong or vice versa will not lead us anywhere and hence the narrative needs to change.

I think getting into this issue of biases and favoritism during the process which is possible, but can happen for a few and will be an exception and not the norm. We should see how bureaucracy can be made more accountable and encouraged for performing better. Probably recruiting few specialists rather than generalists that would normally perform well in these examinations. It is important to find ways to reduce overall corruption and also reduce influence of politicians who are looking to help their own people and make money for fighting elections. Probably make the bureaucracy more reachable to the public through technology. Also help the bureaucracy to come out colonial hangover by modernising the offices and bungalows that are many times still built by the British Raj.

In the rising polarization across the world there are times when middle path needs to taken. Bystanders needs to raise voice rather than being mute spectator.