I came across an article on Bureaucratic reforms written by Ex-CAG and present Bank Bureau head, Vinod Rai. He made some forceful argument in favor of Civil services reform. He advocated strongly in favor of establishing a civil services board, permitting fixity of tenure, setting up a quick penalty and reward system, more steep promotions or career trajectory for the holy class of IAS officers. This suggestion looks fine. Nobody ever denied their importance but as rightly understood by him, somewhere the system has become so complacent and rigid that such changes require deep shake-up. However, he also made a suggestion of restricting the upper age limit for civil services examination. This sounds like a narrow-minded, closeted anachronistic tunnel vision approach to civil services reform. This blog post intends to conduct a biopsy of this particular age limit issue which keeps coming to surface from time to time.
His observation is that a candidate who clears the exam at the age of 30 or 32 is more concerned about his cadre and job facilities instead of focusing on the job. For him, a kid selected at an age of 21 is more mouldable and motivated to perform than a veteran of the exam. Further, the early bird will last longer and devote more years to service than other elderly fellows. A younger fellow can specialise in a particular field in the middle of his career thus giving a perfect combination of generalist approach with a specialized domain. On the face of it, arguments are cogent and logical however they suffer severely with a fungal infection disease of bureaucratic mindset. It smells of the British-era mindset characterized by lord Lytton policies.
In my view, the minimum age for taking civil services examination should be 26 years. Upper age could be fixed at 30 years. A person who is joining at an age of 26 will definitely have some work experience. We finish our college at 22. Thus, nobody will sit idle for four years. The aspirant will naturally explore the market before jumping into civil services arena. This will impart essentials of the corporate culture. He will know the corporate best practices. In this way, when he will be in civil services, he can utilise his positive energy, creativity, innovation and corporate experience in much more productive fashion. He can execute the ideas and get the projects done. Compare this with a 22-year-old who may not be even knowing how to draft a letter or how to work in Microsoft office.
Further such work experience would enable the person to understand how to get the work done by his subordinates. In the job settings, the person learns various behavioral aspect and come across various traits of human personalities. This experience would enable him to get a common man's perspective of difficulties in getting the work done and dealing with subordinates, colleagues, and customers. One may argue that all these things can be learned during the on-job training of IAS. But the answer is no. As an IAS, you won't get the common man's perspective. You are no more common man. Your humble attitude may allow you to see yourself as a common man and push you to interact with others as friend and grass root person. But the other person won't behave in a similar manner. So your vision would be narrow, limited and tunneled due to the halo effect of IAS tag circling around your head. You won't be able to see the world with same eyes. Your attitude, class, and behaviour changes because your environment changes. You will be living in India. You will find it difficult to understand Bharat.
People often argue that what is training for then? Aren't they supposed to learn these attitudinal things on the training? Things like sitting in India but making policies for Bharat. Again the sad answer is no. Unfortunately, IAS has become so glorified today that the moment a person get selected in the exam, he become a public figure on facebook. He will have anywhere between 10000 to 15000 likes. With such a social recognition which puts him on cloud nine, the relevant tit bits of training leave very little influence. Definitely, it is inadequate to change the attitudinal orientation of the person. In fact, people are more influenced with the prevalent training subculture, a parallel set of rules which people learn about the conduct of civil servants. The hearsay stories tell that training subculture teaches if a councilor is visiting then make him wait for 10-15 mins. If MLA is visiting the office then make him wait for 5 mins. If MP is visiting then attend immediately and ask for a tea. If Minister is waiting then receive him at the gate of your office.
A person who has worked in the market knows the pain points of the system. He must have faced some ups and downs of the life by that age. Thus, he is certainly more experienced, mature, empathic and most of all he knows what he wants from his life? On the other hand, we have examples of people like Romain Saini who clears the exam, attend the training and then realise that civil services is not their cup of tea. And if you consider Romain Saini as an exception and please count those others who run to the USA on a study leave because they are not able to bear the pressure from the system or feel inferior to their friends who earn good amount of money without indulging in corruption. A common theme among such candidates is that they have not seen the world enough. The argument here is why do you waste the government resources at a later date. Instead, first see the world then make a conscious choice of whether you want to be part of the system or not.
Vinod Rai also argues that early bird is more likely to specialise in a particular field. However, this argument is also fallacious. A person who had some early experience in the life is considered much more specialized. Someone who had pulled Rickshaw before entering the system will understand the problem of unorganized labourers much better and thus may specialize in that domain. Someone who has worked in the banking sector may specialise in that field. Someone from computer science may develop expertise into their cyber security and similarly many others. What happens in the current scenario is a person who has studied mechanical engineering but not worked in his domain, ends up specialising in the banking sector for which he has to devote time again in the middle-of-the-career. So what is the point of catching the early bird when the bird does not even know how to fly?
The upside of selecting a candidate after the age of twenty-six years of age is that even if the person is not selected after certain numbers of attempts, he can always go back to his primary field of working. He must have developed enough network or skills on the job that he can be absorbed in the market without any hiccups. On the other hand, when a candidate starts preparing for the exam from his under graduation then he first spoils his under graduation. Then he does not take up job and spoils any prospects of a future opportunity of getting a job if in case luck does not side him enough in the preparation.
The new age economy does not want kings who act as bosses and decide their future. Instead, it only wants facilitators. To become a facilitator, one needs to understand the other person's perspective. One needs to be a commoner. One needs to know how to deal with people at all the levels. An early bird may not be able to deliver on these aspects because in high probability they may not have seen the world they are going to serve. I doubt if Tina Dabi would have ever talked to a truck driver or a daily wage labourer. If she would have ever stood in the queue to get a reservation ticket or if Romain Saini would have travelled in the roadways buses. How can they efficiently execute the policies on the ground. Just the aura of IAS or authority of your seat is not sufficient to execute things on the ground. One needs to have an experience from the book of life itself.
I am at a loss to understand the argument of respected Vinod Rai that candidates who are selected at an age of 30 or 32 are more concerned about their families and cadre than performing on the job. Firstly, I have seen all the younger candidates also equally worried about their cadre and repenting their luck and choices of a cadre. So it is not related to the age. Secondly, Family is a reality. One has to accept it and work accordingly. Whoever becomes IAS or IPS, generally gets married within 18 to 24 months of selection. Society won't leave you single. At the least one will find girlfriend or a boyfriend. So all the decisions should factor in family. What is wrong with that? It is not like that a person selected at the age of 24 will remain single for entire life. Here the argument of an age limit of 26 to 30 makes sense because, by the age of 25 onward, A person is emotionally more balanced and settled. Further, he would know his priorities thus would have learned to maintain his work life balance in a better manner. And given the nature of Indian society, only a serious candidate would appear for the exam at that stage. Rest will get married so grooved in their job more deeply. Those who will get married before appearing for this exam would take the decision only after familial discussions thus they are more likely to have everybody onboard.
An IAS generally progresses to the post of district magistrate in five to six years of time. Therefore, he provides leadership, vision, and mission to nearly 3 to 4 million people within five to six years of college. Now a moot question is if a person at the age of twenty-seven or twenty-eight would be mature enough to take that responsibility. He may be and he may be not. Same is the situation with a thirty-five or thirty-six year old guy. But at the least, a person in his mid-thirties would know the world better. However, a big question is how about the number of years in the service?
Those who agree with Vinod Rai may argue that a person who becomes a district magistrate at the age of 35 or 36 would have hardly 18 to 20 years in service for secretariat or babudom level job as opposed to an early bird who may devote 25 years at that level. This argument sounds hilarious and infected with typical bureaucratic mentality. In the age of corporate culture, where performance on the job is the only parameter of some one's competence and promotion, should we even argue on these lines? Let the merit prevail. Whoever is able to execute projects on the ground better should be promoted and sit on those high tables of ministry.And the rest should be given VRS.
The moral of the story is, age bracket of twenty-six to thirty seems a win-win for both, the candidate and the system. It allows a candidate to get some experience of India he is going to serve, develop his skills or network, make the conscious decision of why he wants to be in the services, become emotionally more balanced and matured. He can leverage his initial work experience to develop his later day specialisation. The merit-based promotion would ensure that right talent is picked for the job thus dusting the argument of giving steep promotions just because person cleared one exam in this early days. And a person in this age group would know the soft spots, pain points, and nerve centers in much better manner.
As far as the argument of moulding a higher age guy is concerned, I think training has become ineffective for both the early age group and also later age group. A guy in later age group must have at least faced some vagaries of life thus he is bound to be more pragmatic and balanced in his approach. A person is the lower age group is more vulnerable to the attention and hype he gets in the media. Thus, revise the training module as a whole. There is no logic in connecting this with the age factor.
Mr. Rai is highly experienced and learned person thus refuting his thoughts require some solid thinking. More so when I have not even entered the system. However, I have seen enough young and old candidates. And I do not see any correlation between Rai argument and behaviour of the people. They are all the same. I found the younger lads more anxious, restless, and worried. For most of them, the factor of equanimity is just missing. Rai's thought emanated from his experience of his own selection at the early age. Later, Civil services preparation gained craze and people started devoting their whole decade to service preparation, not for the sake of duty but for the sake of batti. So he must have witnessed some of those traits in his later day subordinates. However, times are changing. The society is changing. Examination procedure is changing. Thus, he also ought to change his views.
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