India is complex and so are the expectations from its civil service. To assess its performance on Civil Service Day (April 21 , the challenges that India faced as a nation on August 15, 1947 must be borne in mind.
With abysmal human development indicators, large scale poverty, destitution, communal strife, fissiparous tendencies, and a nascent democratic experiment in a hierarchical society, it was a tough task.
Stalwarts of the civil service provided support in the drafting of the Indian Constitution, handled the transfer of power and integration of the Princely States, worked to create the first electoral roll for universal adult suffrage, set up the Community Development Block experiment, re-established social harmony after the partition phase violence, and resettled refugees on an unprecedented scale.
Their dedication and hard work created expectations from the civil service.
Constitutional provisions
Chapter – I, Part IV of the Indian Constitution is about Services under the Union and the States. It spells out recruitment and conditions of service, tenure, dismissal, removal or reduction in rank of persons, All India Services, and the constitutional protection accorded to them.
Very few Constitutions in the world provide protection to civil servants for independent functioning.
Sardar Patel envisioned the civil service as the ‘steel frame’ of India, emphasising its critical role in governance and national unity, and stressed the importance of integrity, impartiality and a spirit of service. He called upon young civil servants to ‘render your service without fear or favour and without any expectation of extraneous rewards’.
In 2022, an Observer Research Foundation paper examined the contribution of the civil service. While listing many positive contributions, it recognized that the civil service seems to be ‘faltering in satisfying the aspirations of a resurgent India. There is widespread criticism that the civil service is elitist, self-serving, slow and painful. It operates under a flawed system of incentives and penalties and officers work without pressure to perform’.
Assessing the civil service
A fair assessment needs to bear the following points:
First, the civil service continues to be the aspirational dream of a very large number of good students and the merit-based selection process has stood the test of time. Bright students, though of course at a higher average age, from a diverse social background, are joining the civil services. To that extent, we have a more representative civil service on account of positive discrimination in education and employment.
Second, the outcomes, though modest compared to many developed countries like China, South Korea, Singapore, and the emerging Vietnam, there has been faster progress over the last three decades.
The neglect of primary education and primary health in the first four decades of India’s independence compromised our ability to grow like many Asian peers. While some make up in social participation for schooling, skills, and health has happened, we are still a long way on quality outcomes, compromising our ability to grow in double digits.
Frequent transfers of civil servants in social sectors where outcomes take time, also appears to contribute to unsatisfactory outcomes. Attention to crafting credible public systems for outcomes in public goods sectors has not received adequate attention in reforms.
1991 reforms
Third, the 1991 civil service led economic liberalisation has been a high point in a democratic nation’s journey to scale up rates of economic progress. Private sector participation across sectors, the dismantling of the licence-quota raj, have all led to faster progress.
There are challenges even now in improving the ease of doing business as dismantling cumbersome roadblocks to faster economic progress continues to need greater attention.
If human development and opening of the economy for the private sector had happened a few decades ago as in China, perhaps our current scenario would have been very different. If government schools were as well-endowed as South Korea’s in the formative years, we would have been much higher on per capita income.
Primordial loyalties
Fourth, the deepening of democracy in India has been compromised by persistent primordial loyalties of caste and religion. While the civil service has been instrumental in maintaining the unity of India, it has not succeeded in making human well-being triumph over factors that compromise the quest for well-being. The limited efforts towards decentralised community action through accountable local governments has compromised governance at the last mile.
In a democratic nation, it is difficult to assign all failures to the bureaucracy as it often must contend with ascendant political formations brooking no deviation from adopting freebies for votes. The tendency at times, in States and at the Centre to make civil servants agree, conflicts with their Constitutional role of standing up for values enshrined in the Constitution of India. We need an enabling environment where civil servants can truly play the role envisaged by the Constitution and Sardar Patel.
Fifth, there is an increase in corruption levels across the society and the civil services also has its black sheep. The deterrence must be stronger as no developing nation can afford a compromised civil service.
As a jury member selecting young District Magistrates for Governance Awards over the last three years and training young civil servants over the last three decades, I have come across exceptionally committed young civil servants making a difference. It is humbling to see their work in the field.
The Constitutional Civil Servant needs an enabling environment that gives her/him confidence to advise the political executive based on evidence. Senior civil servants must give confidence to their subordinates that the right path is the Constitutional path, the right action is what Sardar Patel expected civil servants to do.
The writer is Senior Fellow, Centre for Social and Economic Progress. The views expressed are personal
Published on April 17, 2025
