By DV PRASAD
As a retired IAS officer with over 36 years of service, I often felt that my career was consumed by daily firefighting, protocol duties, and handling existential issues, amidst routine administrative tasks.
While these responsibilities are crucial, I believe that meaningful contributions to nation-building/policy are largely confined to the top echelons of bureaucracy.
This sentiment was echoed by the new Energy Secretary of Rajasthan, an IAS officer himself, who highlighted the challenges of navigating from one crisis to another, interspersed with protocol and administrative routines. Given India’s vast demography and the need to maintain order, law, and regulatory compliance, it’s possible that the role of IAS officers to be redefined to focus on managing existential crises that impact economic stability.
I’m not diminishing the critical work done by numerous IAS officers; rather, I’m suggesting that the landscape has shifted. The era of IAS officers being primarily nation-builders might be behind us. Instead, their role may need to adapt to prioritise crisis management, ensuring a stable environment for economic growth and development.
This reflection isn’t meant to undermine the importance of the IAS cadre but rather to acknowledge the evolving nature of governance and the need for bureaucrats to adjust their roles accordingly.
As a young IAS officer, I was thrust into a reality that starkly contrasted with my upbringing in the secular environments of Hyderabad Public School and St. Stephen’s College. The communal divide that engulfed Kolar District during the 1989-90 Rath Yatra was a jarring experience. The tensions were palpable, and the situation demanded immediate attention to prevent further escalation.
As the District Collector, I had to make difficult decisions to restore order. Imposing a curfew for over two months in Kolar Town was a measure of last resort, but it was necessary to bring people to their senses and allow life-sustaining economic activities to resume. It was a challenging period, but it taught me valuable lessons about crisis management, leadership, and the importance of restoring peace in a community.
The experience was a defining moment in my career, and it underscored the complexities of governance in a diverse country like India. It also highlighted the need for empathy, understanding, and decisive action in times of crisis.
Firefighting, most of the time
When it comes to incidents, there are plenty, but I don’t know whether I would like to reveal. I was Secretary to CM in the coalition government, when Mr Kumaraswamy were the CM and Mr Yeddyurappa was DCM. I don’t know about the power-sharing formula, that’s political.
But as an officer, you are managing day-to-day affairs etc. Then there is a lot of firefighting going on, say for example, being secretary to the CM is not the same thing as being Secretary to the PM. Here in the States, it becomes more of a management office. The MLAs are unlike MPs, who don’t go to the PMO regularly. Here they are constantly with CM or CMO. In Karnataka, no CM, at least in my career span, had overpowering charisma or power, and they had to be accessible, and the officers are also having to be accessible.
If I were not an IAS officer, I would have been a lawyer, and that’s for sure to be a lawyer, if I could.
Of course, now I have no regrets because of the variety the IAS has given me, the exposure, which I have gotten no other job in the world would have given me.
I mean, you handle from land revenue, to food corporation, to industries, to medical education, to CM’s Office, to infrastructure, to animal husbandry.
I mean, there’s no sector I have not dealt with. I’ve been home secretary for a while, and in urban development, there’s no job you would not have done. I mean, every sector of the economy, at least In my entire career, the best job and the most enjoyable office was as Joint Secretary government of India, where I was Chief Negotiator for Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), for the country, and handling negotiations across the world, including WIPO in Geneva and some treaties to be signed, like the Madrid treaty and the like. The trick is one was not to succumb to the pressures of the developed countries. I mean, you need to be very subtle, very diplomatic, which is not necessarily a part of an IAS officer’s training. It involved diplomacy as well as domain knowledge.
A job that took me across the globe
It is a job that gave me a chance to travel around the world. And yes, during those foreign visits and short stints, packaged heat-and-eat Bisi Bela Bath saved me. I always used to carry those packets. That is because I travelled all across the world. We travelled to Brazil, to US, to Geneva, London, across the world. Geneva 15 to 20 times, for negotiations.
All in all, that stint in GoI was my most enjoyable, as unlike in the state government, it was completely policy, and there was no man management or any immediate crisis situation. Was there for four years
Also, since the work was too technical and knowledge-based, mostly the files would come back without much of change.
And even in even now, right now, also, if negotiations are going on with the US on trade, it is the Joint Secretary who knows everything, not even the secretary.
My travel stars took me to countries, many times to Geneva, US, Russia, and Latin. America, Europe
Now in hindsight, I am happy that I did not become a lawyer, and am happy that I joined IAS, which gives so much variety of things to do.
Perhaps there is only one regret, that is if you have been an honest man, although your security of tenure is there till 60 and you get a reasonable pension. Now, in the 1980s, when we joined, salaries were okay, but now if people want to join, they will perhaps compare themselves with their peers in the private sector.
In fact, I also feel that most of my contemporaries who were from school/college who joined the private sector, they’re much more financially secure, you know. Not that one is uncomfortable, but it could have been better. Probably the 8th Pay Commission improves pension and other benefits.
But it is something they cannot do it easily. Because if they increase the salary/retirement benefits of senior civil servants, they have to increase the salary at all levels. Also, that’s the structure of the government.
So, assignments were varied, and there was a wide variety of assignments. I mean, in fact, now after retiring, you realise that the greatest thing about this job is the variety and exposure, a job in the IAS gives you.
We become a jack of all and master of some-as you will master some of them, which are more non-technical and but you will have a perspective on each subject, a clear perspective.
Also, the journey in the IAS was very enriching, and intellectually, very stimulating
A comfortable ride!
The only thing is you’re firefighting all the time. In the states. But in the government of India, it does not happen every time.
But for me, and many others, the COVID-19 pandemic was different, and it was firefighting at its best. During the pandemic, it was the Railways, Health, Police, and Food Corporation of India that were working round the clock. And at the state level, the Public Distribution system was working well.
But even then, in an office that had 300 employees at FCI Headquarters in Delhi, we were working with just ten or 12 people at FCI Headquarters at Barakhamba Road, and managing the biggest food grain movement across the country.
I mean, the way it was managed, and not only during the lockdown, found its way into a training manual for civil servants at Mussoorie.
Belonging to a privileged background perhaps gave me confidence, but the job as an IAS officer gave me something much, much more valuable, in terms of knowledge and perspectives, and intellectually stimulating opportunities.
Yes, I cannot help the privileged background I come from, having been born in Delhi when my grandfather was the AICC President. And when I was studying History (Hons) in St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, my grandfather was the President of India. The weekend visits to meet my grandfather & grandmother in Rashtrapati Bhavan, which any child staying away from parents would do, gave me a unique, privileged perspective on life.
But, for me, the excitement of being in the Indian Railways that I joined as my first job after my first attempt at the Civil Services exam was memorable, and very nostalgic, really. It was after a short stint there, I managed to crack the exam again and got into the IAS, became an officer in the Karnataka cadre.
And it has been a fairly comfortable ride … and in tune with my existential world view.
(As told to Lakshmana Venkat Kuchi)
