Gateway to power

👉On the stakes involved in cracking the civil services examination👈

Every year nearly a million Indians prepare for the civil services examination. The enormous appetite for this examination has refused to fade, even since colonial times. A probable reason could be that it is not an ordinary exam and it throws the common man directly into the country’s power structure. Few other exams bestow such power and opportunities to successful aspirants. Government data for last year’s exam reflect this reality.

In 2017, 9,57,590 candidates applied, out of whom 4,56,625 actually “appeared”. Also 13,366 candidates qualified for appearance in the written (main) examination held; 2,568 qualified for the personality test. Finally, only 990 candidates were selected.

The story doesn’t end here because only a minute percentage of those selected get into services such as the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and the Indian Foreign Service (IFS). For instance, for the 2017 exam, only 180 and 42 candidates were recommended for the IAS and IFS, respectively, by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC). It has been a general, long-term trend that those candidates who get selected into one out of the 24 services offered by UPSC (but not the all-India services, IAS, IPS, IFS), keep re-appearing until they get their desired service or reach the maximum number of attempts permitted. This implies that nearly a million youngsters prepare for 200-250 odd seats, because of their perception that the real “power” lies there.

A potential alternative motivation for taking the exam is that many young Indians feel that joining the IAS, IPS or IFS provides them the best opportunity to serve the country. But given today’s young, ambitious, tech-savvy and occupationally mobile Indians, one wonders whether such reasoning holds any value. There is also a discourse partly rooted in a patriotic ethos where young Indians argue that no matter what profession they work in, they are contributing to national development, which includes paying taxes, and being civic-minded and morally upstanding citizens.

Government service jobs do provide opportunities to directly serve the country’s developmental needs, but it is possible that “serving” per se is not the prime or only reason motivating a million people to attempt this difficult examination. The appeal and attraction to become a district collector/district magistrate also lies partly in the large power gaps that people witness between themselves and the authorities regulating their day-to-day lives, especially in towns and districts. This power gap allows administrative officers to gain dignity, fame, power and respect, and quite likely lucrative opportunities and a range of perks.


If this reasoning is valid, then it follows that the larger the power gaps in a society, the more likely it is that people will seek to gain access to power positions. As India’s formal and informal balance of power between and within society and government constantly evolve, the stakes involved in cracking the civil services examination will change accordingly.

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