Today the IAS seems to exist only to deliver the patronage of the Indian state in an organised and legitimate manner to whichever coalition of vested interests comes to power through elections and ensure its own cut in cash and kind, whereas the IPS exists to ensure that the law is used as an instrument of power and the darkest deeds of the powerful are ignored or if they come to light are given a quiet burial.

When did the All India Services begin to fail India? Was it the Emergency in the 1970s? Was it the anti-Sikh riots of the ’80s? Perhaps the demolition of Babri Masjid in the ’90s is a better marker? Or the Gujarat riots? The creation of the Red Corridor around the same time?

Events in 2008 also point in the same direction. Sania Mirza feels compelled to eschew playing in her own country. M.F. Husain will not be given the right to live in the land of his birth without fear of death. Taslima Nasreen must gag herself or be bundled out. Mumbai has no need for Biharis. Jodhaa Akbar cannot be shown for hurting certain sensibilities. And I am not even touching upon the routine failures of the state across the spectrum of government services that are the right of ordinary citizens in a civilised society.

The All India Services were created by Nehru and Patel to prevent such situations from arising, and if they did arise, to deal with them with the full authority of the law, secure in the knowledge that the Constitutional protections accorded to them would insulate them from adverse fallout. And yet if you look at the collective response of the IAS and the IPS to the serious challenges faced by the Indian state in the last four decades, it is clear that the All India Services are now a pitiful caricature of the ideals that inspired Nehru and Patel to retain them in the first place.

... contd.