The way the steel frame functions and thinks: a critical view from deep within it, from one among the fraternity

A recent advertisement inviting applications for lateral entry into the bureaucracy at the level of Joint Secretary caused quite a ripple amongst the Indian Administrative Service fraternity. Social media groups on Facebook, WhatsApp and so on were awash with opinions and counter-opinions. Some were critical, very few were pro, and some were angry.

But mostly, guarded. Because that’s what most IAS officers are — guarded.

They weigh their words very carefully before they speak. Most choose to not speak at all — on critical matters. On anything else, they can hold forth forever, to those below them. To those above, well, they are the silent yea-sayers.

And that is what is possibly causing their temporary setback, too.

The biggest “quality” attributed to an IAS officer is that he or she will anticipate political will and run to obey/ comply before words are even out of his political masters’ mouth. The best IAS officer is one that has no opinion of his own, or even if he does, keeps it to himself. As the years go by and the lines between bureaucracy and politics, between right and wrong, between truth and lies become fainter and fainter, an IAS officer will have lost all original thought. In matters of governance. And since by then he has almost stopped listening to anybody except his pompous self, his opinion or knowledge becomes all but redundant — it is neither real nor current. His figures are all fudged to show what the ones in power want to see and project. His opinions are only a confused muddle of what “appears correct” or “conveys the right message.”

Far from reality. But he doesn’t care. He’s got his salary, perks, club membership, car, driver, domestic help, spruced-up home, dinner parties, discounted vacations, foreign trips, and the silly, mean-minded “power” to dole out small favours to friends and relatives.

And now probably the politician, always answerable to the people, has a nagging suspicion of being taken for a ride. Fed with the belief that the real experts are those that come from years of working in the “field” — a euphemism used by IAS officers as an indication of their superior experience over their counterparts in other central services — he may have realised he is not getting his money’s worth. So why not get in some real experts who actually know something and are not scared to voice it.

The IAS officer feels cheated. He who let his spine to rot and said only what the masters wanted to hear, being moved out because the masters no longer want a rebound of their thoughts but something else? What a sheer waste! All those years of realisation that his “expertise” was a prerequisite only till he got in — later it was to hang at the window till it ran dry. Nobody asked for it, nobody wanted it. What was required to nab those coveted postings was a whole different set of skills — and he spent valuable years cultivating them.

What now? Is he irrelevant? Well, one thing the IAS has cultivated in good measure is resilience. He will wait quietly in the wings. He knows that truths are much more inconvenient than post-truths. He will wait till the masters get uncomfortable with the opinions and the barefacedness of the experts. They’ll look around for someone comfortable to work with. Someone who can tell them the sun shines brightly and all’s right with the world. They’ll wait for the masters’ discomfort to set in.

And then they’ll move in again quietly. I told you so, they’ll say. And this time they’ll fortify their citadel better.

Never is it easy to dislodge the steel frame in half measure.

The author is a serving IAS officer in the Madhya Pradesh cadre. Email: rastogi.dipali@gmail.com