The Exchanges

Q I agree with you, sir. So, so, before we dive into some parts, right, of, of your book, I would like to understand for our audience, what, what is the term, and where do these terms originate, like bureaucrat, collector, and district magistrate? Because these are used in various parts of the books.

A Yeah, bureaucracy, I, I can't really describe or indicate where the word came from. Bureaucracy, as we understand, is the delivery arm of a government, and it used, sometimes it's used preservatively, like the communist countries, bureaucracy, etc. But bureaucracy is, as much as it is a delivery arm, it is also used in a non-complementary way, that bureaucratic hurdles, bureaucratic resistance, etc. Collector, of course, came from the colonial era because the district level officer, the head of the district, his major responsibilities were just to collect taxes and maintain law and order. So because the primary responsibility was collecting taxes, the head of the district came to be called collector, and that has continued even after collecting taxes has become one of the least significant. Items on the job chart of the so-called collector. District magistrate, of course, comes from the law and order, ah, dimension of a district officer. In fact, in North Indian states, the head of the district is usually called a district magistrate, whereas in the South, we call the head of the district as the collector. But they perform roughly similar functions. In the South, collectors are also DMs. In the North, DMs are also collectors.

AI assessment note: “Collector, of course, came from the colonial era because the district level officer”

Q Do you think this, the, we have, ah, unnecessarily bogged down the IES machinery? Was it better earlier, the way the mechanism, it worked?

A Yeah, from my, you know, I, limited Understanding of the current situation, current recruitment pattern, I believe that there is a need for rethinking on the recruitment examination, the structure of the exam, certainly, but also in the number of chances given to a candidate to appear, and the age span. You know, 30, 22 to 32 is too long a span, and six attempts is too many. What happens when you give so many attempts is that the people who typically qualify, I'm making a, you know, ballpark judgment, which is that those people who qualify are more likely people who master the technique of the examination rather than people who have the inherent competence, capability. So I think you must give more than one chance, certainly, because there's an element of luck, but two chances, at the most three chances. But giving three, six opportunities under a long lifespan of 20 to 32 years is pushing youngsters into this sunk cost fallacy that they keep attempting, then they don't succeed, but having invested so much time and effort, they must, they think that they must continue to Try, and most people will not make it even after six attempts because there's so many people are repairing and so few who get in. So their entire time when they should be looking at other opportunities is lost. So there is a strong case for reconsidering the eligibility criteria and the number of chances offere…

AI assessment note: “there is a need for rethinking on the recruitment examination, the structure of the exam”

Q We would love to know your thought process behind it. Why, why do you say that, and your historical points that you have regarding it?

A Yeah, because litigation and judicial inquiries take a long time in our system, in part because I believe the judiciary is overloaded, partly because there is too much of adjournments, etc. There are no time limit, or there are time limits set, but time limits go on. Occasionally we see that, you know, a seventy-year-old case has just been decided. Sometimes people have died after they've started litigation. So, and there's a lot of infructuous litigation as well. But I'm, when I say process is the punishment, I'm talking more about Criminal prosecution, especially of, uh, civil servants and politicians who are, uh, who come into uh, a legal, uh, uh, process because of some decisions taken by them, and they have to fight them much after they've left the scene, and that takes a long time. Meanwhile, they go through the process of being punished in the very process of this inquiry.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, because litigation and judicial inquiries take a long time in our system”

Q And what do you think has been the primary cause for it?

A See, several things. Difficult to put, you know, identify one single cause. Lots of committees and commissions have gone into this. There is many things we have to reform in terms of recruitment, um, in terms of IAs, which is recruitment, career management, induction training, in-service training, opportunities for specialization. All of those have to be reformed, need to be reformed. But even after all that, If you ask IAS officers what is holding you up, the most common response you get is that we want to do good things, but local politics, politicians are stopping us from doing good things. I don't think that explanation will wash because the stereotype view is that the politician is all bad and the administrator is all good. I think that stereotype view is wrong. There are good and bad among politicians. There are good and bad among IAS officers. If in fact the IAS officers collectively stand united and say that we will not do anything irregular, illegal, or we will not compromise our integrity for short-term political benefits, if all of them perform to that code of conduct, the IAS Will stand. But that does not happen. Individual IIS officers fall prey to that temptation. And, you know, as some officers fall prey, others follow suit, and the entire system got eroded. I, in my view, the biggest problem in the IIS is, A wrong system of, ah, rewards and penalties. There is n…

AI assessment note: “the biggest problem in the IIS is, A wrong system of, ah, rewards and penalties.”