Category Archives: Civil Services

Civil Services

Choice posting

The Personnel departments in most states, and the Centre, are a dreadful lot. Much like Finance, a posting there ruffles more features than it soothes. However, the aura of power of these departments draw the sturdy lot to them. The Personnel department controls much of the professional lives of the IAS officers. And most important, in the context of the states, is that they control the postings – or so they say. In reality, it may be that the Personnel just approves what others, including the political higher ups, decide. Be that as it may, the saying goes that what a man proposes, Personnel disposes. Wiser heads say that never tell Personnel what you want – you may get anything, but what you tell them you want! Those wiser heads advice one to ask what one does not desire, and chances are you might get what you want instead. Postings have been coming fast lately. When I was posted out last, I had changed places four times in fourteen months. Much like the red badge of honour, frequent change in postings can be claimed to be the award for courage and fortitude in the face of a declining decorum in public life. It gives me real pleasure to tell all strangers about the frequent postings, with a puffed up chest. Much like the examples in the books, I have never asked for a choice posting. Don’t praise me – I was never asked, and I never thought it fit enough to go on and ask myself. Recently, however, there has been some changes in the stars. Senior officers asked me if I wanted to get a certain department – the post was getting vacant, albeit temporarily, as the incumbent was going on a three month leave. One very influential officer asked me if I wanted another big department or the one above – I did not even bat my eye, and muttered – give me that one. And that one I got, a couple of days later. It’s still early days. But working here has been tremendously satisfying – something that I can seldom say about most other postings I have had.

UPDATE

On 6th January, 2013, just three months onwards, the charge for this post was taken away. Learning of the day: postings, choice or otherwise, are uncertain like the local weather or the girlfriend’s love.

Civil Services, Computers, IAS, India, Writing

eGovernance in District Administration

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Somehow the idea that you are not out of school never leaves you. So many attachments to cover. So many assignments to send in time. So many things to do….so this…so that. This present essay, titled ‘eGovernance in District Administration’ is a miserable fallout of one such endeavour, where I have tried to analyse some aspects of our District Administration. I shall quote from the ending paragraph of this essay, which shall also function as an introduction:

eGovernance proper starts with a proper understanding of its need. It shall be found in many places that computerization is being mistaken for eGovernance. There is no difference between MS Word and Godrej Prima unless you add an email engine. MS Word is the digitisation part; email engine is the System process reengineering part – the first is just cosmetic without the latter.

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This is also the right place to give a definition of eGovernance so that one can appreciate what I am writing on:

eGovernance is the use of electronic and computing media connected through a networked architecture to, primarily, better perform traditional government functions, and secondarily, to perform those functions of modern governance that could not have been achieved otherwise in the tradition format.

Just in case you are wondering, this is my definition, and you won’t find it anywhere else. Hope it helps. You can read this full essay here.

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Civil Services, IAS, Literary Criticism, Poetry, Writing

Vibhishan’s Burden

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The White Man’s Burden

Vibhishan’s Burden :

A poem in the making
Take up the White Man’s burden–
Send forth the best ye breed–
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives’ need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild–
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.Take up the White Man’s burden–
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain
To seek another’s profit,
And work another’s gain.Take up the White Man’s burden–
The savage wars of peace–
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to naught.Take up the White Man’s burden–
No tawdry rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper–
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go mark them with your living,
And mark them with your dead.

Take up the White Man’s burden–
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard–
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light
“Why brought he us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?”

Take up the White Man’s burden–
Ye dare not stoop to less–
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloak your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen feebles
Shall weigh your gods and you.

Take up the White Man’s burden–
Have done with childish days–
The lightly proferred laurel,
The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers.
-By Rudyard Kipling -By Babu

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Civil Services, Society, Writing

Macaulay’s ‘Minute on Education’

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In this article I have tried to explain in a historical context what Macaulay’s Minute on Education has come to mean to modern India. While it is much larger than the Preamble to the Constitution of India, this is arguably the shortest written document that has had so far reaching effects on the future. If today India has the largest English speaking population and is riding on the wave of IT and ITES, a large part of the fortunate credit goes to this document about which not many might be aware. Today, Indian English is more rampant than American English or the Queen’s English. Today India is ahead of China in the service sector much due to this early linguistic advantage. It would seem that through a quirk of fate the British gave the opium to the Chinese, and English and modern science to the Indians. Despite this springboard, it required the humongous incompetence of our culture to consign us to the dumpyard of many a world’s endeavours.

Macaulay was a master of English, and much like Machiavelli with whom he shares much in reputation, Macaulay is read both in English and Political Science classes. A simple read of what he wanted to bring about, and what we have in its place (take up any newspaper to gauge the pedestrian nature of its prose) brings the stark irony to the forefront. But then it is never too late to make a virtue of an incompetence. Since we could not master Queen’s, we created our very own demesne – Indian English.

For those who might not have come across this document elsewhere, I present Macaulay’s Minute on Education here:
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Arth ki khoj mein, Bakch--di, Civil Services, IAS, India, Media, Philosophy, Society, The Times of India, Wikipedia, Writing

What’s the matter, Babu?

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There are many words in and out of the dictionary that are used with a certain passion, while their exact meaning remain confined to the pages of the dictionary. There are various categories of such words. Some sound sophisticated – raunchy, intrepid, serendipity. Some are just fashionable – fag, dude, anti-Semitism, imperialism. Some, with the passage of time, attain layers of grime and ignorance, and through a process of Semantical acrobatics (that’s a new word that I am trying to ‘coin’; once it has attained fringe parlance, it shall be called a ‘neologism’; once it is accepted as everyday parlance, not necessarily respectable as some books would tell you, it shall be inducted into the dictionary. For most words, mind you, that is ceremonial cremation. Once a word enters the portals of a tome, it remains forgotten and surfaces only when researched. A word in the dictionary is like a comatose on life support. Just joking) acquire absolutely new passion, absolutely new colours, absolutely new meaning. I can think of no better word to introduce this development than ‘babu’.

And while we are at it we shall beckon a ‘thought of the day’ and try to understand what someone said about lies.

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”
–Joseph Goebbels

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Goebbels was the Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda during the Nazi regime, and one of the closest advisors of the little genius. Do keep in mind that Goebbels started his life as a journalist. So, how was it that he proceeded to propagate the lie and garner enlightenment for his Chosen People. I would presume he recalled an incident from Medieval history on the shores of Mediterranean.

Everyone loves Alexander. At a young age he did what people thrice his age could only dream of. Across the world people spent the next 23 centuries trying to match his exploits. While not a match, there were quite a few common things between Hitler and Alexander – they were both short, they were both brave, they were both mad, they were both stubborn, they were both ravishers and thrived on rape and rapine and pillage, both came close to conquering the world, and both died rather ingloriously (Alexander died of mosquito bite or whatever, we still don’t quite know; Hitler reportedly took cyanide and simultaneously shot himself – one does not know what hit him first, the poison or the bullet). History, however, looks quite differently at the two. There is a city called Alexandria. There is no city called Adlofia or Hitleria. Hitleristan, anyone? Now for some strange reason we shall overlook, Alexandria had the world’s greatest library. Well, at that time, Alexandria was the greatest city for that matter. Any city that goes either too much towards the sky, or too much towards any other direction, incurs the wrath of gods or people. Sometime back those foolish people in the Middle East (can anyone tell me why is it called Middle East? I mean, there can be a west, there can be a east. If it is in the middle, it is called centre. But Middle East! Don’t much blame Tolkien for that matter. He must have got his Middle Earth designation from present geography only) tried to build a little tower in a city then called Babilu, now called Babylon. What happened? Well, something happened that we are not quite sure of, but the remains looked like the aftermath of some cosmic erectile dysfunction. In another city of a continent that is an accident of history (well, there was this fool who wanted to find India and sailed West when everyone went the other way. He met a few Neanderthals with bananas – he DID NOT find the plains of Punjab) people became vain again. And time and again like in the Biblical times, plagues rain down on New York. Sometimes it is a rather large dinosaur that stampedes across the town. Then come some gorillas. Then some icecaps melt up in the north, and it is flood. Sometimes huge rocks rain down from the sky. See, bible again and again. Then they built a tall tower. Wait, not one, but TWO. Whoever heard of such sacrilege. And see what happened.

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So, on the shores of the Mediterranean, the largest city of the ancient world was built. It was also the site of an ancient wonder, a wonder that withstood the wrath of man and god for more than a thousand years. Close to the Lighthouse of Alexandria, scholars from around the world came and studied everything under the sun and the moon. Every book that passed by the city was taken to the library – a copy was returned back. Of course, it was not the time of copyright yet. Outside of the library the city flourished, enticing traders. With trade comes prosperity. With prosperity come the people looking for a shortcut – marauders and conquerors. Like most cities, Alexandria was conquered not once but many times. But finally it fell to the Muslim army led by Amr ibn al ‘Aas (okay, that is not the origin of IBN!). Message was sent to the Caliph as to what is to be done with the library and its books. Amr received the famous reply:

“If what is written there is in the Koran, they are superfluous. If what is written is not in the Koran, it is blasphemous.”

Amr used the books to heat bathwater for his soldiers. Viru in Sholay got his idea of the coin from this monologue – heads I win, tails you lose. Goebbels got his inspiration to burn books from this example.

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