The Lyttons have left our shores forever but the seeds of elitism that they had sown keeps on growing as weeds on independent India’s steel frame
Dhananjai Rana
Indian democracy has travelled a long distance from 1947 when a Western educated, English-speaking elite became the Prime Minister of the country, to 2014 when a Hindi-speaking son of a chai wallah took over as the PM of the nation. Throughout that journey, a silent process of decolonisation had accompanied at the political level. However, when we look at the Indian bureaucracy which is supposed to be the steel pillars of the nation, it seems to have not travelled much from the banks of Thames. It is still far away from the banks of Sabarmati where once lived a man who believed that India lives in her villages. The colonial thoughts of Macaulays and Lyttons seem to have triumphed over the Gandhian thought in Indian bureaucracy.
A good look at the 65th annual report of Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) and Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA) Report on 90th foundation course of IAS strikes a chord with the actions of Lord Lytton exactly 140 years ago. As per the 65th annual report of UPSC, the percentage of candidates who qualified for Civil Services Mains Examination in Hindi and regional languages was a meagre 15.32 per cent. The LBSNAA report shows that only 10.48 per cent of the IAS recruits has Indian languages as the medium of instruction in pre-university. Contrast it to the fact that only 17 per cent students study in English medium schools in India. This means the students from this elite 17 per cent constitute 84.68 per cent of the candidates qualified for the civil services main exam and 91.52 per cent of IAS recruits. The Macaulays are delighted.
Coming to the inevitable India-Bharat debate, the LBSNAA report says that 13.59 per cent of the IAS trainees at the academy were rural candidates. It further shows that only 10 per cent of IAS recruits are children of farmers, while 57 per cent are children of government employees. The children of businessmen and corporate employees make up the rest. According to Census 2011, almost 70 per cent of the Indian population lives in rural areas while this 70 per cent is represented by a meagre 13.51 per cent in IAS recruits. The rural India always takes a backseat.
When Lord Lytton reduced the maximum age to ICS in 1877, it has intended to put Indians at a disadvantage so as to create a loyal bureaucracy which would help in perpetuating British Colonialism in India. Only the elite of the elites among Indians could make it to the ICS. While there was a national outrage against the visible discrimination by Lytton, an invisible discrimination is happening in the civil services recruitment today. The Lyttons have left our shores forever but the seeds of elitism that they had sown keeps on growing as weeds on independent India’s steel frame.
Multidimensional deprivation
Why does this elitism still thrive in Indian bureaucracy? The multi-dimensional deprivations suffered by the rural candidates and the insensitiveness of the recruitment system towards their deprivations are the basic reasons. A typical rural candidate belongs to a poor family, studies in vernacular schools, graduates in humanities instead of expensive professional courses and is far away from the Meccas of IAS coaching; financially as well as geographically. All the rural candidates have at least one of these deprivations. The majority of the rural candidates suffer from all of these deprivations. He is always at a disadvantage when he competes with the elites and his only investments are time and hard work. The LBSNAA report shows that more and more urban English medium students with professional background take up the lion’s share of IAS seats. It is a testimony to the multi-dimensional deprivations suffered by the rural candidates and the elitist nature of recent reforms introduced in civil services examination.
The last nail in the coffin – “sudden reforms”
A closer look reveals that there has been a sharp decline in the number of rural-Indian language medium recruits in the recent years. This can be traced back to the “sudden reforms” introduced during the tenure of UPA government in 2011&2013, in the form of discriminatory CSAT in 2011 and new syllabus for the main examination in 2013. The colonial thoughts of Macaulays and Lyttons in the garb of reforms put the rural-Indian language medium students at a great disadvantage. The elitist CSAT paper on the lines of management and engineering exams was skewed in the favour of urban-English medium students. Interestingly, UPSC which is known for its meticulous actions translated “steel plant” as “Ispat ka paudha” and “North Pole” as “Uttari Khamba” for the Hindi medium students in one of the CSAT question papers. The rural candidate had to answer based on many more such translation blunders. Beyond these mistakes, it is the insensitiveness towards the ‘expendable’ rural candidates which is reflected in these mistakes that reeks elitism sowed by Macaulays and Lyttons. It seems that rural candidates have become the guinea pigs of elitism over the years.
In a positive move, the discriminatory paper which continued to undermine the chances of lakhs of rural candidates for 4 years (2011 to 2014) was made qualifying in nature in 2015. However, no compensatory attempts were given to the lakhs of the rural students who endured the burden of CSAT for four years and this is evident from the sharp decline in the number of rural-Indian language students who make it to the IAS since the introduction of CSAT. The LBSNAA report reveals that the representation of rural students in 90th Foundation Course OF LBSNAA was a dismal 13.51 per cent. This was the epitome of ‘invisible recolonisation’ of the steel frame of the country.
Why invisible?
When recolonisation masquerades as ‘reform’, everything seems fair at the peripheral level. But at the core, rural India suffers. Just like a flood which destroys a poor man’s hut while leaving the rich man’s concrete house unscathed, these “sudden reforms” have destroyed the chances of lakhs of aspirants from rural India to become IAS. The urban students could easily adapt to the “sudden changes” in syllabus due to the financial ability and proximity to enrol in costly IAS coaching institutes. With all his multi-dimensional deprivations, the rural student had to rebuild his hut from the scratch. A sharp decline in the percentage of rural students who clear the IAS exam can be attributed to the “invisible recolonisation” which masqueraded as “reforms” in civil services recruitment in recent years.
Need for real reforms
The Socio-economic census 2011 shows that rural India is far behind urban India in every indicator of progress including employment, poverty, literacy and health. To bridge this rural-urban divide in various sectors, our bureaucracy has to be ‘inclusive’ and grounded at the grass-root level. The real issues concerning the “daily roti” of the rural poor would be better managed by the IAS officers coming up from the dusty roads of rural India than his “KFC loving” urban counterparts.
Considering the meagre representation of rural candidates due to the elitist ‘Lytton reforms’ in recent years, thoughtful ‘real reforms’ which remove the disadvantages forced upon rural candidates by earlier ‘reforms’ should be immediately implemented so that sons & daughters of more and more kisaans and chai wallahs become part of Indian bureaucracy. When a son of chai wallah became the Prime Minister of India, Indian democracy crushed elitism. When Gandhian thought prevails over the colonial elitism of Macaulays and Lyttons in Indian Administrative Service, sons of more and more chai wallahs would become part of the steel frame of the nation too.
(The writer is an advocate practising at Supreme Court of India)
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